Welcome.
It is Verdict was centered Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you, and it is one am in the morning Eastern time, after the State of the Union. I want to be very clear that I am doing this show in protest right now because I was on a plane. No, no, let me let me rephrase that center true or foss. You and I hung out yesterday in your office.
We did, and you were in DC, and I can't help it that you fled Washington during the State of the Union. And listen, karmes A and so when you decided you were a little girl and you had to get out of town because the Democrats getting mad at the president were scary. Yeah, there was a consequence, which is for those who are watching on YouTube, a coup is a courage. The original co host of Verdict has
returned and seize the seat. To be clear, he has relegated mister Ferguson to appearing as a little box on anor.
He banished Ben. I saw it, not just the seat, but I saw this cigar, and I said, this is pretty good. And this has actually become something of a tradition. I've noticed it. I've only ever been to two stags.
By the way, if only TC would tell us that there is a tradition, then I wouldn't have gone on a plane at two o'clock this afternoon leave Washington, d C. Think about this, Hey, Ben, we should have cigars. I have to say the union and do the show here. Great idea, I'll change my flight. That is how normal people would have done this.
Michael a year in advance.
This happened late on the fly, and so this afternoon Michael texted me and said, hey, you want to grab cigars after everything tonight? And I was like, well, we have to do the pod, but aha, I have an idea. And I didn't really want to do the pod and finish at two in the morning and then have cigars, and so I'm like, we'll combine it. And by the way, Daily Wire does this great. What is it late night?
What is it called backstage?
Backstage? So I've done several times done backstage with them where they sit around and drink scotch and smoke cigars, and so I said, let's bring some backstage. This is like a This is like a Marvel Universe crossover, where like Daily Wire and iHeart are intersecting.
This also really, it's kind of a double verdict tradition in that two years ago, Yes, I came to my first State of the Union address. It was Biden State of the Union, the one where they injected him with whatever they injected him with, and he yelled for ninety two minutes.
Yeah.
And then afterward, actually before i'd set it up, I said, hey, Senator, I happen to be in town. Hate to pressure you for a cigar. Same thing. He said, well, okay, we can have a cigar, but you got to do the podcast first. I said, okay, well that that'll be a lot of fun. And so of course it's you know, midnight, one o'clock in the morning. And this really takes us back because when Verdicts started, it was always one o'clock in the morning, and it was actually not all that
far from here in Washington, DC. Though I noticed the digs have improved a little bit.
So we're in a high falutin cigar bar in DC. Because it turns out it's actually complicated to find a studio that will let you smoke a cigar.
I don't get to light my cigar. That's the part that I'm really chapped about. I did look at my wife and sender you know Anna well, And I was like, what are the chances, for the sake of the show in authenticity, I could smoke said cigar.
I literally did not get an answer. I got the look.
And when you're married, you guys both know the look. Each one of our wives all have a look that they give you.
And I was like, Okay, I got it. I know how this is so.
Ben you are thoroughly domesticated, yes, yes, and it doesn't pune your manhood, yes, but and I'm not going to tell a story on myself. So when Heidi and I were engaged, we had an apartment in DC, and I would host poker games, and at the poker games, we would smoke cigars and we do it at my dining room table, and my buddies that would come over and play, they'd be like, dude, how does Heidi let you smoke
cigars inside? And I was in my twenties and stupid, so I'm like, look, if you're the man of the house and you want to smoke a cigar, you smoke a cigar in your damn house. That right, And I said it with all the bravado of a young idiot.
Yeah. Meanwhile, he didn't own set house. It was an apartment, but keeps part like the story.
Yeah, So then we get married. We actually get married twenty five years ago May twenty seven, two thousand and one. That's our twenty fifth anniversary.
Wow.
And we come back from our honeymoon, and shortly thereafter I'm hosting a poker game and Heidi says, get the damn cigars out of the apartment. You will never smoke another one inside again, And in twenty five years I never have. And so when I say you a pariod, yeah, that's another way of saying you're actually married.
Aren't we all? Aren't we all? In a way?
There you go.
So so one of the stories for planning purposes for all the viewick listeners and watchers next year, Michael and I are in charge of programming.
Michael, I think we should do the show.
Together, all of us in DC, and smoke cigars together after say the union.
What do you think, Michael? Is that a good idea?
That's a great idea. Okay, listen, I'm I'm in.
All right, good, all right, Well, you you and I will have a group chat to set it all up in advance and we will all be one happy family with all of us.
Swing your cigar.
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So all right, so Ben, Ben, what do you think of the damn State of the Union.
I actually think it was the best speech Donald Trump has ever given. I actually thought it was one of the most real and authentic responses from him to the Democrats and how they were acting. I love that he was like, you can't even stand for that, you won't even see So.
You guys are crazy.
Yeah, you guys are crazy line and it.
Came like the third most incredible line. I mean there were a lot of them, yeah, but.
It came stood on TV in an amazing way, did it? Yeah?
Oh, I mean it was just his look, his demeanor, he was looking over at them. I mean, you were there obviously, so it's going to feel different to you. But like I'm watching, I'm going that line landed and I think the American people probably saw it and they're like, wow, this is going to be really good.
So I'm sitting there. It was very kind of Speaker Johnson to invite me, and I'm sitting over the Democrats, so I got a prime view of the Democrats. And the first line that really brought down the House was when President Trump looked over and it was beautifully written and beautifully executed. He looked over, he said, Okay, I want everyone to stand up if you agree with the statement that America should protect Americans or something to that
effect first and not and not over illegals. Yes, and they refuse to stand political malpractice the likes of which one has rarely seen. And it was a brutal moment. He totally took advantage then.
So that moment will be played in a million campaigns. Yes, and by the way, it was the longest sustained applause of Republicans. We stood and we applauded, and we applauded, and he just looked over. He stepped with amazement watching them, and and the ad rites itself. They're for illegals and not for you. And they were given that choice, do you stand with Americans or do you stand with illegals and the entire party. No, we're the party of illegal aliens and not the party of Americans.
It was shocking. So then he doubles down on I'm skipping around a little bit in time because it escalates.
Well, by the way, this a trend.
He noticed, this is going to be the trend of my speech. Like, I don't think he planned it this whole, Like, you guys aren't going to stand for that. It was the moment and then it hit and then it was like, I'm gonna keep doing this tonight to show Americans how crazy these guys are on the left.
That's how it came across on TV.
Well, he landed it on the transgender ideology. Kid who had been transd and had destroyed his family, and then the kid finally ended up in the right place, and the he said, isn't that wonderful? The family's reunited and everyone's flourishing, and the Dems wouldn't stand And that was when he dealt the blow. He said, these people are crazy, and that that too lit it up now where it got a little dark. But it was the same strategy.
It was the same tactic, I suppose is when he started bringing up violence, and he obviously turns to Erica Kirk, this national hero, this perhaps the most sympathetic figure in the entire country, certainly up there, and the Democrats didn't want to stand for Charlie. They didn't want to stand for Erica. Again, that itself is disgraceful. But he even gave them an out. He said, we're a country where we say in God we trust, and we reject political
violence of all kinds. And I was looking over some Democrats stood for that.
I'd said, more than half on the political violence. I looked and it was probably sixty seventy percent think that, but a third did not, A third did not.
Third would not stand for we reject political violence of all kinds. It was I felt a disaster of optics for democrats and a disaster of morals.
Well, and on the we don't stand for political violence. The reason two thirds stood is Schumer stood. By the way, have you ever noticed how much Chuck Schumer looks like the villain and the Smurfs? What's what's the name? I don't even remember the name of the villain? Like the curved over like like you know, he's hunched. He has kind of a hunchback.
Maybe a penguin from Batman was what I got.
Yeah, yeah, but he's sort of no.
I couldn't agree with you more.
By the way, you guys are in there so you may not know this, So I may break news to you. Did you, guys see what Rashid Talib was chanting while everyone was chanting USA, USA, At one of the points in the speech, she was chanting kkk kkk kkk.
Really, yes, person advertising credit credit for.
You, guys.
I don't know if you can see, but let's be our good friend. Steve Guess put it out there. Watch Democrat representative to leave. She's chanting KKK while everyone else is cheering USA.
Well, the KKK was founded by democrats. It was almost exclusively populated by Democrats. Nathan Bedford Forrest, the founder of the Klan, was a delegate, a delegate to the DNC national Convention in eighteen sixty. He was a national delegate. And you look at the Klan was founded by Democrats. Jim Crow laws were founded by Democrats. Segregation was enforced by Democrats. They have been the party of racial bigotry
the entire history. And by the way, our party, I mean, we often refer to our party as the Party of Lincoln, but we were literally founded to abolished slavery, right, That's why the Republican Party came together. And by the way we did. The first Republican president is who signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
Well, you know on racial animus and Rashida Talib, did you see. I don't know if you caught this, but when President Trump said, what a wonderful thing. We released all the hostages. We got the ostage released, both dead and alive. We returned even their remains, and most people stood up. I looked, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Talib were sitting down.
Yep.
Yeah.
And by the way, mean at one point they heckled when there was a reference to the end of the war in Gaza. They heckled and screamed genocide. I mean, that's that's who their party is.
Well, and you look at tonight there was four Democrat responses like that's not good for your party when you're.
That broken Moore.
Who were the four?
So you had one in Spanish, you had one that was a progressive radical, you had one that was like the next level monter, and then you had the Virginia governor. You had four official responses.
Sorry, I'm going to have to disagree with you. I don't even know who they were, but there are four who were progressive radicals.
Well, I agree with you.
Yes, I'm giving you their their official statement, but they literally had Hey, depending on how crazy you are, if you're a Marxist, socialist, communist, or a radical lefty or like the transgender or maybe just like a normal Democrat, here's your all of your responses for you, and we'll have all of those for you.
So right after the State of the Union, I did Hannity, and as I was sitting there waiting to go on, Fox wouldn't put Hannity on air until Spamberger finished her response. So I sit down and put my earpiece in and it's just her voice screeching and loud. And I turned to Handy and I said, Sean, I haven't led nearly a wicked enough life to deserve to listen to this. As I just turned the volume off, I'm like, I can't. There's just a limit to how much pain I can endure.
But you know what's very telling about span Berger is you had Andy Bisheer come out, who is a serious presidential candidate Kentucky governor, and he said span Berger is the model for Democrats in the midterms, which means translation will run. They will run as it means live, they'll lie, they'll run as moderates, and they will immediately enact the most radical leftist agenda you could maybe imagine.
I love by the way.
I know you're a man of the people and you do all of your own yard work. But if you lived in Virginia's crazy wearing French cuffs, that would be only that guy right there. I just want to be the one where the big cloud of smoke they just went up in the air, that would be that guy's cufflings.
Yeah, that's the one there, So they're there.
Look, it is impressive because at Yale he wore a cravat.
I'm going more populous as I age, and I.
Wish Michael had to sign it before we knew it.
Those work.
But I'm also impressed because Ben at old miss never wore pants, so so we're kind of reaching a kind of middle down.
Actually, a man of the people, a man of Prade and Gucci.
It just it is.
It is what it is.
No, But like in Virginia, they've gone so crazy. They're they're they literally have laws written right now that she's in favor of to ban gasoline powered weed eaters and blowers, and then they're putting a ten percent tax on electric blowers, so they're going to charge even more to be green.
That's Virginia.
I love that the President brought up that to shovel snow in New York under multiple IDs, you need two forms of ID, which I actually had been advising. I think humor is a really powerful way to drive this point. And I think that and also the fact that John ossoff to get to his rally against photo I d for voting, you had to show an idea, you.
Had voto, you had to show voter ID.
Yeah, this kick was the key, I mean, really the reason that the State of the Union succeeded. And I agree it was one of Trump's best speeches. The Warsaw speech in the first term was also an excellent speech, but this was up there, and I think the reason it succeeded was the President had to reassure voters who voted for him on mass you know, he won the
popular vote. He had to reassure them that we are still the party of normal, of safety, of flourishing, of sanity, of sanity where I think some voters you have this question after the Minneapolis immigration gocement. Why is it that voters still support mass deportations but oppose ice supporting people. You know, that's kind of a contradiction. Why is it that the fundamentals of the economy are looking pretty good?
You know, record ized stock market, pretty good, inflation, pretty good, job numbers, pretty good GDP could have been better if not for the government shutdown that the Dems gave us. Why is it that they're a little the voters are worried about the economy, but the economy seems to be doing well. It's it's this fear that we're in a precarious moment. And so I think both sides went into this saying we want to be the party of stability,
of security, of normal and flourishing. That's why Hakim Jefferies told the Democrats, hey, be cool and if you can't be cool, don't show up.
You know, I think it's so Green got thrown out.
Al Green couldn't resist.
At least at least he had a big sign that he got to walk around with, right he felt, he felt just.
So and as signs said, blacks aren't apes. Yeah, And I turned. I was sitting next to Todd Young and I said, wow, is out Green protesting? Gavin Newsom, Yeah, yeah.
Look like it.
By the way, Gavin K. Newsom, he's like the perfect Democrat made in the laboratory. An idiot.
He says racist, open racist. Yeah, he says racist.
Who goes in front of a crowd of African Americans and goes, I'm just like you, You're stupid, and I am too unbelievable and I can't when I got a nine to sixty on the sat which, by the way, Michael got a nine to sixty on the verbal portion of his set. Yeah, and yes, I know it's only eight hundred, but still.
Yes, I love that you just had to geek out and show the geeks that you know the max is an eight hundred.
There, to be clear, I can't remember I took.
The damn thing and I did anyone doubt I was a geek?
Yeah, that's I just we have to remind you though, every once in a while.
Let's be clear on things like that. I popped, Michael, mostly because my own vulnerabilities are so glaring on that.
No, listen the admission rate for Princeton, I think.
Hold on, Let's let's be clear. Both of you know your scores right by heart.
What you made?
What were you? Michael? Don't lie?
It was higher than Gavin Newsom's. I'll tell you that.
No, what was it?
I want to know. I want to know what it was.
Do you want to know the irony? I'll tell you the irony of my essay.
To oh, I can't this is this is him delaying the brilliance keep going.
I did. I did get on the math and the verbal. I got a perfect score. That's what I was. However, you don't want to know the irony. There was at that time the writing component. There was a writing thing that they added that was kind of optional or experimental. And the funny thing is I did not get a perfect score. I actually don't remember the exact it was less.
It was the six eighty or something. But the funny thing is that's the thing I went into and my most famous book has no words in it, so it ended up it ended up working out just fine. Uh see what was your newsome?
I am going to decline to answer on the advice accounts, oh wow, because I am in a politics and running around like squawking about your SAT score?
Did you have two in the three categories? Like Michael, I just want to know we can at least that.
I did not any of that.
I did not and I did well on the test, But I am I'm just telling you I may not know much about politics, but I am quite certain it is dumb as hell you say this was my SAT score?
Like to prove how much of a man of the people I am. I walked in and took the test. I forgot my calculator and I looked at the lady that does the test, and I said, what is the minimum for NCAA requirements? Can I do it without a calculator? And she goes, I'm intrigued to see if you can. And I was above the NCAA minimum without a calculator, and I took it once and the score came in and my mom was.
Furious when it came to mail. She's like, you're taking it again. She was so mad.
I forgot my remember the TI eighty three or whatever it was like, you know, like the calculator you took with you. And I was like, I forgot it to my Mom's an educator, she was like, you're taking it.
I was like, no, I'm not. I'm above the minimum for NCAA requirements. That's all I care about. That way. I took it once, all right.
So I'm gonna tell you sat L SATs story. So when I show up at college, my first job, I worked at Princeton Media Services videotaping things and like a run and operate a video camera and like videotape all sorts of different programs and things. And that paid either seven or eight bucks an hour. And then I got hired by the prince to review to teach the SAT which was a much better job because it paid fifteen
bucks an hour. And so I'm like hot diggity damn, I could do that math and fifteen is better than seven.
Yeah.
So so for like a year or two I taught the SAT. I guess a year and then I'm like, wait, there's no margin in teaching the SAT. I've already taken it. And I knew I wanted to go to law school. So I went to the course and said, hey, can I teach the L SATs? And so they paid me to train me to teach the L SAT, which was useful because I had to, in fact teach the L set. So when I was a sophomore in college, I was teaching the L set and the students would say, well, what score did.
You day care right now?
Well, no, no, it was there were real classes. But the hysterical story is, so I taught the L set for a year and then so junior year, we're taking the L set. And you guys both know my college roommate. It was my law school roommate, and other than Heidi, my best friend of the world. David Panton, Jamaican, incredibly talented, became Barack Obama, was the first black president the Harvard
Law Review. David was the second black president the Harvard Larview. So, but when David and I are in college, we're both taking the l set. The night before the l set, David and I like complete morons. Did I mention that we were like nineteen or twenty? I guess twenty. We stayed up all night playing Intent. We literally did not sleep. We pulled an all nighter playing Mario Brothers on Nintendo. The still shout out by the way O. The l SAT was in Newark, so I had my first car
was a green seventy eight Ford Fairmont. So I drove us to Newark. We take the l set. It was at eight am, so we leave it like six six thirty go sit for the test. It's like four hours or so. So we're coming home, coming back to college at like one in the afternoon, and we're driving back and I said, so, David, how did it go? And he said, well, during one of the sections, I put my head down and fell asleep, And he said, I woke up with two minutes left, and I just filled
out B for every question. And he turns to me and says, do you think b' is the right answer? And so it turns out you can cancel your l SAT score on the spot if you want to see what up and just canceled a score? Oh that's the poor guy had to take it again, and then he did. He did well the second time he took it, but he literally I laughed so hard I almost crashed the car. But I ended up keeping him up all night and making him fall asleep during the elkm.
What if all the answers were be If they could have been, you might have missed out on the perfect score.
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The Newsome thing is really frustrating because right now he is the leading candidate for the Democrats, I think with that.
Question, and I'm so happy he is bettered at.
The Munich Security Conference, Newsome's still the leading candidate. And on the one hand, he has these social media posts where he's sitting there performatively reading Beloved by Tony Morrison, performatively reading all these books that.
Are so By the way, are you aware that Newsom let himself on fire in a social media exchange about verdicts.
No.
So, coming back from Munich, we we did a whole show on Munich, lighting up AOC and lighting up news and Newsom, and Munich said Donald Trump is the first president in history to federalize the National Guard and so on verdict, I said, Gavin Newsom is historically illiterate.
Yes, uh, actually you talked about it if your use of the English language properly and so I said that, and then he tweeted out he said, calling someone who's dyslexic illiterate is a new low, even for Cruise.
And mind you, who knew he was dyslexic. I didn't know that.
For a guy that then also claims in a white podcast so he can read a three hundred page book in two hours. Don't forget that came out as well. So so much for being majorly dyslexic.
Right, but but then so so we had we actually had twin responses. So my staff came up with a response with a gift from Zoolander, and I wrote a response and said something like I didn't say you couldn't read, you clown, I said you were historically illiterate because you apparently have no idea about the civil rights movement and the fact that Eisenhower federalized the National Guard. And this is actually a cool I think this is the first tweet I've ever said that was partially written by AI.
So I went to Google and I just typed in Eisenhower federalizing National Guard, and instantaneously several paragraphs pop up that are beautifully researched, and so I cut and paste one of them that said on date and I didn't know the date. You know, Eisenhower signed executive order number, and I didn't know the executive order number. But it was like this beautifully researched. So the second half of
the tw I actually wrote that tweet while playing hoops. So, as you guys know, I play hoops twice a week, so it was like, in between games on my phone, I'd like type the first half, put.
It the last way, wait, time out, time out? I got it.
You opened up something there you set in between games? Were you the odd man out?
Yeah?
Did you?
I lost? I just wanted to get that on the right.
Michael.
Did you hear what he said? Michael? Can you make sure it's Mike's working? He just did? He say he lost? It's going to be very clear, but I think that was recorded. Okay, got it?
Okay, Yeah, I'm glad that we got that. That was worth staying. I played for just that right there. Keep going with your story, sir, This is getting good.
So but when I sent my tweet, my social media team was all mad and they're like, wait, we like our Zoolander tweet, and I said no, no, no, put them both out. Yeah, and let's have an experiment let's see who wins. Who gets more like like you've got mine and you know you guys, and so it was close. I only beat them by two hundred and fifty percent. So they got I think four hundred thousand engagements and I got one point one million. But I will confess
making an admission on this. Although they didn't get nearly the reach. The comments on the Zoolander gift, the people that saw it way better loved you.
Yeah.
I mean they're just like the best tweet in the history of the Internet, like they were, so I think it was a smaller niche audience. Yeah, but the ones that hit it really hit.
That's good.
It's almost like as good as when you were the Zodiac Killer. Maybe you still are, but you know those those never make me not laugh.
What do you mean when I was the Zodiac Yeah, exactly when did I?
I haven't shaped the statute of limitations recently. Yeah, but I think you're safe now.
So do you know that? In twenty sixteen, an actual poll done in the state of Florida found thirty eight percent and of Floridians believed that I could be the Zodiac Killer. I to be clear, the Zodiac Killer killed at least five people in northern California in the late nineteen sixties. I was born in nineteen seventy.
Yeah, yeah, and yet maybe.
Nearly half of Floridians believed I could be the Zodiac Killer.
Yeah yeah, that's you could have lied about your age. You could have lied about your age. This is how conspiracies begin.
I did have one one rally where this kid had a sign. It's like twenty and he had a sign that said are you the Zodiac Killer? And I went up to him. I put my hand on his shoulder. I said, son, if I was the Zodiac Killer, would you really want to be here with that sign right now?
Yeah? You know. This actually was the point, which is how we got onto new him the sign. I don't know if you guys saw the memes that were going around. So I lost a bet on this. I bet that the Democrats would not have a member ejected from the speech. I thought they might have.
Did you actually believe that?
Though I didn't think that. I thought they would listen to HACKEM Jefferies and try to chill. But they can't know. Egreen has no chill, so he opens up.
By the way, there's a very real chance Al Green loses his Democrat primary a week from now. Really, yeah, really, he's actually in jeopardy. And so I think the antics were partially. Of course, he did his antics last year, like waving his cane, which like to embody a grumpy old man, like get off my lawn, you kids.
It's perfect, but he made it. He made a real optical error, which is he unfurled the sign, which from my angle in the gallery I could not see, and
so I said, wow, what's he saying? And I guess the sign said black people aren't apes, But the problem was the way he was holding it, the one, the one that I saw, and maybe one of those said that too, the one I also said black people rent apes, which was like an unfortunate any way you slice it, These are very unfortunate optics, And I thought, you know, the Democrat leader in the house asked one thing. He said, hey, guys,
please don't look crazy during the speech. And as the President is walking into the room, al Green unfurls this sign, and I thought, you have the discipline of a fruitfly, Like there is no chance they didn't make it five minutes.
They're insane all right.
I have to ask you guys being there, because one of the best lines of the whole speech, and that was just one of those little kind of tit for tatlines and it but it worked, was when he was talking about insider trading and then he said Nancy Pelosi's name, And it was amazing on TV because if you didn't know the story.
Free one, you immediately went to every one of us was there? Yeah?
Ever and I was too, But like if you didn't know, and then you saw the reaction and you heard the hissing bit whatever it was in the hall. I don't know exactly what they were saying. It was like they were like, you can't say her name like that. You know that everybody went and googled insider trading, Nancy Pelosi and then they learned about the story. Like they literally helped him sell the story. What was the reaction from the were Democrats mad or what was the reaction.
You were on the floor, Oh, look, they were mad constantly. So is there one I will say though, there's a difference from this year and last year. So last year they went through the entire state of the Union and they didn't applaud they didn't applaud when Trump walked in. They didn't applaud for anything. They just sat for the stone faced and heckled and waved their cane in it. This year, before the State of the Union, I actually
went to several Democrats and asked them. I said, okay, are you guys going to applaud for the US hockey team?
Like, come on?
And they all said yes. In fact, several of them had an expletive. They said fyes. And I said, look, to be clear, last year, you didn't applaud for a kid with cancer?
Yeah, and that a crazy question.
Okay.
One of the Democrats who I actually like, he's I'm not going to identify it, but he's got a good sense of humor. I said that to him and he said, yeah, we hate kids with cancer, which was like, all right, Like don't argue, you just kind of vote it and be I'm like, all right, well, well played.
Like they did it again. This year. By the way, there was a little girl who couldn't walk who now and it was the same thing. A good chunk of Democrats would I guess they were trying to play the stoic card. It did not read at least from my vantage. I thought it looked really callous because there was no unity within the party, so there was no clear messaging.
You know, look that it all seemed pretty disastrous. The question that I have as a as a proper conservative who is always looking for the downside of things just to temper my you know, jubilation. Do you think I think universally the speech was viewed as quite good, quite effective. Does it make a meaningful difference in the midterms?
Look, I think it does.
Do you all right, lay out why.
I'll tell you why.
This speech was the things that irritate Republican slash moderate voters about Trump, that it's all about him and he doesn't know when to you know, the mean tweets and the when to shut up, and the things that irritate those that can stay home watching his demeanor tonight. He came across in such a way of like, these guys don't want this, These guys don't put you first, these guys don't do this. He also was giving incredible accolades and awards and the US hockey team. There was momentum there.
It was one after another. It was one hundred year old man, a veteran, It was the guy who was flying the helicopter, the Chinook and telling a story. He was praising what makes America great and the people that make America great. I actually think that if you are a moderate voter, someone maybe a Republican that traditionally stays home during the mid terms, I actually think that this speech landed with you more than any other speech of
Trump the way it played on TV. I think it also is going to land on the economic issues of him reminding the no tax on tips, the no tax on overtime, I'm trying to make life more affordable, the gas prices. Those are things that I actually think, Well, you know, they've been hammering him on all the approval rings at forty this or thirty nine or thirty depending
on what poll. I think he gets a bump that actually stays because he landed it so well in the audience, and he looked really calm, He looked really just like I'm doing this because I want to fix the country, and other speeches haven't come across that way always.
Yeah, let me agree with you in that. I think the message tonight was the record of the last year. Yeah, the record of the last year, I believe is objectively phenomenal. And I've been in the Senate now fourteen years. We've never had a year where we've accomplished even a fraction of what we have been accomplished in the last year. I mean, it is staggering. And he did a good job.
You know, we talked about on the last pod how how I spent thirty forty minutes on the phone with Trump last week, and one of the things we talked about was messaging for the midterms, and I said, listen, we need to focus on results, on the very real results securing the border, ninety nine percent drop in elou crossings. And then I encouraged him a message that's not getting the attention it should is the impact on crime. Yes, the murder rates have dropped twenty percent, drug overdose deaths
have dropped twenty percent. They're literally thousands of Americans who were alive today because Trump was elected and Republicans won Congress.
It's a great message.
And that's been lost. And I was really happy, like the first twenty minutes of the speech were laying out that message and going through murder rates and crime rates and d C rates and like how unhappy the Democrats were that crime rates had plummeted in d C. And New Orleans and your hometown.
Of Memphis, Memphis.
Yeah, the Democrats were furious that fewer people are being murdered.
They wouldn't stand up on mass for murder declining. You know this. I was looking at the polls and agriate of the polls from just January and February leading into.
This, and to be fair, the pro murder community in America is pretty small.
It is. Look, it's a constituency, but it's not the one you want. And so I was looking at as agriate of polls, Marist, PBS, a handful of others. And the hard fact I spoke to some members of Congress about this today. The hard fact is Republicans are underwater on the economy, on economic perception. I think you could could turn it around, but right now we're little b under water. On healthcare. Democrats always went on healthcare and on a defensive democracy or it's kind of a contrived category,
but anyway, they went on that. So the ones that we're winning on right now quite decisively are immigration and border enforcement, even more so now the border is shut down, and especially on crime. So the key it seems to me, is one that tells you people are concerned about safety.
And two, if you can tie all of that together, the crime relates obviously to illegal immigration, that's why it's called illegal and the housing prices even all the way to the you know, the fact that you have six months consecutive decline on housing prices coinciding with Mastery petition.
Too, million people being deported, and that's just less demand, right you know. By the way, like a couple of weeks ago, the Houston Chronicle had a front page story that said murder rates in Houston have declined eighteen percent. Yep, And Heidi showed me the article because she knew it me off because the article, Yes, the article the Chronicle says,
nobody can figure out why. It's completely inexplicable. The experts we talk about have no idea why the murder rate is dropping, and it doesn't occur to them that arresting and deporting murderers and gang bangers will reduce the murder rate. Like it's not. This is not rocket science. Fewer murderers means fewer murders. But yet to Democrats that makes no
sense to them. And so that message was good. I also liked on no tax on tips that he had the mom who is the waitress stand up and he said, between no tax on tips and no tax on overtime, she's going to take home five thousand more dollars this year than last year. That was real and it's not abstract. And by the way, the Democrats wouldn't applaud for like like the mom waiting tables. They're not rooting for her, and they want to take that five thousand dollars and that's real money.
You know, five thousand dollars is real money. It's not some abstraction.
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Answer the call.
So nuts and bolts. You know, if this was a speech obviously you'ed at the midterms. Do you think it moves the needle?
I did keep message discipline of focusing on it.
Yes.
By the way, yes, yesterday morning you and I am talking about this. I had breakfast a Speaker Johnson and you talk about the reason why I think this one sticks. There is a very real sense that Republican leadership have our act together for once that we haven't had in a long time. I also think that matters. Speaker Johnson understands he basically has a one person majority. He does not want to have and President Trump doesn't want to have the Democrats take over the House.
It is insanely slim. And I think there working.
So well together the same way Center that you work so well with the president. There does seem to be that we're actually on the same team for once. I've not experienced that many times in my life in the Republican Party. Like there's always the infighting. We always not to screwed up when we get power. There's different people jocking for positions. There does seem to be a little bit of momentum now that we're on the same team
going the midterms. That's the other reason I think this speech will continue in the momentum because you have Johnson others advocating.
Look, I hope so to play Devil's advocates. We're a very divided country and so the people who hate Trump still hate them after the speech, for sure, if they're not actually listening.
And so.
I do think Ben, you focused on the right area, which is the people who voted for him in twenty four but may be demoralized by the press narrative that has been driven and to the extent this focuses them on Wow, we're winning some big big victories. I also really liked Look, the no tax on tips emphasis. I liked because I wrote that bill. And I really liked his emphasis on the Trump accounts because, as you guys know, I wrote that too, and the Democrats wouldn't applaud for that.
I'm sorry, I actually have to pause here because I'm sitting in the upper part of the gallery to the right. If you're the president pointing and you didn't get everyone was standing up at certain moments. That was one where I bolted up, and other people were kind of slower. I think they didn't quite process what the Trump accounts meant. I'm really into the Trump accounts. Like the Trump accounts I think are such a white pill, you know, focusing
on changes, which is an existential issue. It's so practical, and I'm going to confess something. I should follow this, I'm like, professionally, I'm supposed to follow this closely. I did not know that you were pushing the Trump accounts. I wrote it unbelievable. Should have known, but I didn't know.
In fact, do you want to hear the story of the origin of the Trump accounts. It's a cool story I've told on the pod, but not in a while. So they originated from a poker game in Vegas. So, as you guys know, I like poker.
By the way, Michael, were you invited to this poker night? I just want to be clear about it.
I'm very offended, but I wasn't. I was not invited to the Okay, we're on the same team again. It was a poker game for political donors. If you guys will write me a check.
The okay. So now saying.
Podcasters, so you know you ought to.
Michael, if you and I ever have a poker game, I think we will will organize it next time. We'll invite the Center in advance. You agree with that. We're very generous people, Yes, are We're very kind podcasters.
Keep going with your stories, all right.
So I do a poker fundraiser typically in April in Vegas, and so not last April, but two aprils ago. I was there and and typically several poker pros will come. I'm but with a number of the poker pros. And so we're sitting at the Bellagio three in the morning and Phil Hellmuth, who's one of the greatest poker players to have ever lived. Phil would tell you he is the greatest poker player to ever live, and he's got a real argument to it. He's got I think fifteen bracelets, so's it's crazy.
That's a lot.
So we're sitting there playing poker and he asked me. He says, hey, do you know Brad Gerster And at the time I didn't. I'm like, yeah, who's he? And he's a very successful venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and he has this idea that was called in West America. And I'm like, what's that? And Phil describes it for a minute, and I said, Hey, that sounds like something
I'd be really interested in. And so Phil pulls out his phone and he puts together a text thread and connects me and Brad and says, you two should should talk. You would really like each other. The next week, Brad gets on a plane, lies to DC, comes to my office and pitches the Invested America accounts. I immediately called my policy team in and said, let's start drafting this.
So we drafted the legislation. Now, Brad has said for months he had talked to a bunch of other senators and none of them did a damn thing.
Huh.
He talked to them, and they'd all kind of nod and be like, yeah, yeah, that's a great idea, and then no one would do anything. We sat down and wrote the bill that is the bill that is Trump Accounts.
It was my bills great that we wrote. And it is literally the case that if Phil Hellmuth does not connect me with Brad Gersner April a year ago, there are no Trump accounts and the American the kids of America do not have trillions and investments, which is what they're going to have through Trump account You know, this is.
You know what I heard there by the way I heard that.
Could you imagine the bills that could have been written if you, Michael and I were there at that table.
I know, I mean the good we.
Could have come up with. We could have cured cancer. Maybe at this.
We could have ended the ninth and tenth wars. That could have added to the record.
We could state department, the ending of the Michael and Ben Warres. I like this.
You know. The thing that I love about the Trump Accounts, in particular from the Republican coalitional standpoint is, you know, the right always has all these different ideological factions because we're more independent thinkers and the left has progressives and very progressives and John Fetterman, I guess, and we you know,
we kind of have all these divisions. And so one of the divisions that's come about in recent years, last five or ten years, is people who are focused on more the common good, you know, kind of an Aristotelian view of politics, and people are more focused on the libertarian view that comes from classical liberalism up through Sayhayek. And what I love about the Trump accounts is it actually marries the two. It's this beautiful. It just hits this sweet spot. It's good that no flattery because I
actually didn't even know you were behind. That is really good.
By the way, we had Brad on Verdict. You know, he's come on Verdict and talked about the whole idea. And Brad came up with the idea with his two teenage sons and they spent years pushing it. And Brad was there and recognized by the President of the State of the Union. So Brad had put together a CEO's council behind the invest America accounts, and the chairman of it was Michael Dell. And Michael's a good friend of mine.
He's a Texan and we spent a lot of time together, and the CEOs had all committed that they would contributor match to Trump accounts. So they're two accelerators that are written into these Trump accounts that make them even more potent. Number one is that employers can contributor match. And listen, when Congress passed Section four oh one K of ARISA, nobody knew how fundamentally they were changing how Americans saved for retirement. Today, there's more than twelve trillion dollars in
four to one K accounts. Trump accounts are for to one case for kids. Yeah, so in very short order, you're gonna see trillions of dollars in there. The two accelerators one is that employers can contributor match, and so all the employers on the CEO Council had already committed we're going to contributor match. This is going to become a ubiquitous as standard employee benefit, just like a four to one K contribution is a pretty standard employee benefit.
You're gonna see employers, We're already seeing a bunch who will match or contribute to the Trump accounts of the kids of their employees. So that accelerates massively. The second thing, and we deliberately wrote this so that it can accept
philanthropy and it can accept charitable gifts. And as you know, Michael and Susan Dell have given six and a quarter billion dollars, and what they've given is two hundred and fifty dollars for America's two hundred and fiftyth birthday to every child in America under age ten who lives in a zip code where the median income is one hundred and fifty thousand or less. And so we wrote it so you can turn the dials. You can turn the dials geographically, you can turn the dials age wise, you
can turn the dials income wise. So Michael's done that. Brad Gerstner has given two hundred and fifty dollars to every kid in Indiana under age five in zip codes with median income of one hundred and fifty thousand or less. And Ray Dalio, the hedge fund billionaire, has sponsored the kids in Connecticut. And I actually have talked to a number of gazillionaires and Michael, Dell and Brad are getting on zooms and talking to people with great wealth.
That's awesome.
Encouraging them give your resources. And here my Michael and I have talked at length about that and one of the things that he got excited about. So, look, Michael and Susan have between a hundred billion and two hundred billion dollars, Like it's a massive amount of money, and they're smart and responsible, and so they've had serious conversations about how do you give away your fortune? And look, you look at people who have achieved great fortunes. They
create a foundation. The foundation gets taken over by a bunch of Marxists who spend all their money undermining everything the founders believe. Every time Henry Ford is rolling over in his grave, John D. Rockefeller is spitting in his grave. And one of the problems with that much money is it's hard to give it away. Most charities can't take a billion dollars like it's too much money and it
swamps them. So Michael and Susan have given six and a quarter billion dollars, but they've told me they are contemplating giving much much more than that.
That's so cool.
One of the things that's really powerful about these Trump accounts is they're infinitely scalable. They could literally absorb the entirety of Michael Dell's fortune and the fortune of every other gazillionaire. And what is really potent is the time value of investing. Look, if someone starts saving or investing when they're sixty, it's hard for it to grow and accumulate enough to be really significant by the time they
were retiring. What makes the Trump accounts so incredibly potent is we're starting at age zero, We're starting at baby. So you've got a time horizon where the kids of a single mom waiting table can accumulate hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars. And so for philanthropy, the math is powerful. If you put another thousand dollars in at the outset, it really really grows. And so that's something that is going to be really significant to speed
these up. And and the point Michael you made, which which got me really excited, is we're creating a new generation of capitalists that every kid will have skin in the game and be an owner of the biggest employers in America.
I thought this was a really important point. The President touched on well one that the Trump accounts just do that, so it gives people skin in the game, even when the President pointed out only half of Americans have access to for one case, Yeah, they said, we want to we want to bring that other half of them.
Let them opt in to the Drift savings plan. That's an idea I've talked with the President in the White House about. I think it's a brilliant idea. I strongly support it. I'm working on legislation to do that as well, to codify that right because it's Look, the more you can create investors, get people with equity. And one of the important things about how how the administration is designing the Trump Accounts app is that it is not gonna simply say you've got X dollars in the S and P.
Five hundred.
It's gonna break down every constituent stock they own within it.
That's awesome.
So a ten year old will be able to see I own one hundred bucks of Apple, Yea or Tesla or Ford or McDonald's, and they'll see so a kid won't be rooting. I hate evil corporations. I want them to fail. They're gonna be like, wait, I own that corporation. I want them to do better. That changes their whole worldview. It makes them capitalists.
You know it. Even during one of the big crises of capitalism in the early twentieth century, where you had real excesses of industrialization that created you know, like child labor and all this stuff, there was this movement among serious Christian thinkers to try to resolve these tensions between capitalism and the working poor. And there were all these chesters and had a version with Bell Law distributism. But
the whole point, and there's didn't really work. But the whole point was you need people to really have a steak in the society in following subsidiarity, and you know, all these principles that are so enshrined in the American system too, and this really does that where you think, oh, I have a steak in the corporations, I have a steak.
He either way, I miss geeky, cerebral academic stuff on the pod. I will say, the sort of tenor of verdict has shifted. I don't know why. I can't imagine the cause, but I'm just saying, you know, I'm having a loft of nostalgia.
There's a little more chester Kien. It comes it.
Yes, all the people that just wakes back up I got you back. Keep going wake up now. Our audience level just went like this, but we're back now they're all awake again.
Make your final point.
Go ahead, this this this key is really important because this is what really jazzed me about it. I don't like can win the right fractures into a million directions because you know, I feel for Speaker Johnson. He has the worst job in all of politics. Yes, he has to hurt a bunch of cats. They all have all sorts of views, they have all sorts of principles, some of which conflict with each other, and so it's hard to get the right to do anything together.
And he is a good and decent Man's amazing.
Yeah, he's a wonderful guy, and he's doing a great He happens to also be doing a great job. But I just think what the President was speaking on, especially these kinds of issues, these are the kind of things that can actually rally the way together with moderate voters, frankly even central right. So who don't want the crazy.
Final question for each of you?
Quickly, as we are hitting about an hour here in our say the union coverage over under on the midterms. Now, how much better do you feel going at leaving the end of the night compared to going into the beginning of the speech tonight, how much more optimistic are we can hold the house.
Hold the House. It's going to be very hard in my view, to hold the House. I would say, look, I feel I'll just pick a number. I feel twenty percent better. If the Republicans can stay on message, if the Republicans cannot devolve into petty in fighting, if the Republicans can be disciplined in the way they campaign, these are all you know. If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
I still think historic headwins best of circumstances. The party and power, especially with unified government, loses the House in the midterms. However, I think that the President did every single thing possible to put the party in an advantage heading into the center.
And look, my view right now, the political environment is rough. Yes, if the election were today, it.
Would not be a great outcome.
We are nationally in about a D plus six and environment. What that means is where polling is nationally is about six points more Democrat than it was an election day in twenty twenty four. If we're in a D plus six environment, we lose the House and the Senate.
Is potentially in jeopardy.
Crazy if the election were today, that would be a real possibility. The good news is we got eight months and the substantive record is phenomenally good. It's not just a little bit good, it is insanely good. And so tonight was encouraging because Trump focused most of his time on laying out methodically that substantive record and just how good it is and what we have to do. I mean,
I do like that we have eight months. Most Americans don't know all these victories we're winning exactly, and so our task is communicate the victories that are making a real difference in people's lives. But the good news is we have a monster amount of substance to talk about. We just need to talk about it. And and I think if we make that case, we could certainly keep the House and the Senate and grow our majorities in there.
You go, Michael, next year, say the Union, you and I will be hanging out. We'll make sure we invite Center Cruz and so we can.
Maybe maybe maybe you're gonna make me fly home.
It might make you fly somewhere exactly exactly we'll tell you while you're on the tarmac. Don't worry, there'll be plenty of time if you get off the plane. Don't forget. We do this show money Wednesday Friday. Always a pleasure to have you, Michael, hanging out on a really fun evening. Hit the download auto auto subscribe button. You can watch us on YouTube or Facebook as well. The Center and I will see you back here in a couple of days.