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you go to genueell dot com slash Cactus. It's spelled g e n u cel dot com slash cactus, genu cell dot com slash Tactus. Welcome back to Verdict with Ted Cruz. I'm Michael Knowles no longer able to sleep at night because the co host of this show is going to take away everybody's social security, so says the
leader of the formerly free World. Senator What say you? Well, you know, I will say the White House this week noted and designated it as Elder Abuse Day, and I guess I do have to apologize because apparently I'm interfering with Joe Biden's naptime. You know, it really is amazing that the kind of fearmongering that the White House does. You remember years ago the Democrats ran ads of Paul
Ryan literally pushing Granny off the cliff. So now he's standing at the aflcio saying Cruise wants to end the social security I mean, look, let's be honest. Who has hurt seniors more in the past twenty years than Joseph Robinette Biden Junior. You got nine percent inflation, food prices skyrocketing, healthcare skyrocketing, electricity skyrocketing, gas skyrocketing. Seniors are getting screwed. The only one who can compete with Joe Biden for
screwing seniors is Jimmy Carter. And so what does he do? He fearmongers, He suggests, Look, so security is a bedrock of our country. Ain't nobody messing with it? He knows that, but he can't run on his record, so he's got to scare people. And I'm sorry that that that that Joe Biden is finding it hard to sleep at night. Someone once told me in politics many years ago that the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about. And I assume that principle is in
play here. It's interesting that Biden, while he's making this desperate plea in what seems to be a very unfavorable year for Democrats, he's going after you. Yeah, I will say, I guess I'm kind of flattered that that. Apparently I'm not just maga, I am ultraumaga like and just to say that's a point of clarification, your Senator, you worked very well with Donald Trump. Obviously, you guys worked very well together during the administration. But I seem to recall
that you were the man's chief primary rival. If I've already going to describe someone as ultraumaga, doesn't that seem a little bit strange to describe the guy's primary rival that way. So look, Biden gets confused sometimes, and I'm not sure he knows what any of these words mean. I mean Biden literally he was elected to the Senate in nineteen seventy two. When Joe Biden was first elected
to the Senate, I was one and a half years old. Yeah, so I understand how he remembers back to the false campaigns Democrats of ron way back when you know what Biden said, Ronald Reagan was going to take away so Security. I mean, Biden has been saying that line for a long time, for literally the entirety of my life and for about double the entirety of years. That's a good, good point, actually, and Reagan had two terms didn't take away social Security. It did strike me when he said
that as just a kind of tired old line. Maybe it would have worked in twenty ten or twenty twelve. But you know, even his talking points they seemed to be a little dated at this point, but it wasn't just a Biden senator. You know I do not speak Spanish. You know this. You have spoken Spanish to me. I have responded by asking you where the library is. That
is the extent of my Spanish. But from what I could make out, it sounds as though the President of Mexico, mister Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, does not like you very much. It's a senior endo game insist la protejo qua nicaraguezuela restaurants amarco no lo covin us for Florida Republican and see peror no solos. His sister senior Roo view Albertido Republican, it ta Cruz Chamberti Republican t curus, while the Crusado solo protejo dictadas see Okay permidi an arcotrafico que Domina
territorial de Mexicogo senior the Cruz Marco MBI. Also, I could make out about one phrase their senator. The phrase was ted Cruz. Ted Cruz kept coming coming up, So if you wouldn't mind I know you're a little more fluent than I am. What did the president of Mexico say about you? And why is he so angry with you?
So I will say that that is one of the most bizarre press conferences I've ever seen, because you've got a Mexican reporter who asked him a question about Marco Rubio and and am Low says, I'm sorry, who is this Rubio guy? I don't know who he is and and and the reporter says, oh, he's the senator from Florida. And he goes, yeah, yeah, yeah, they're three of them,
three of the Cubans but ted Cruz. And it's the most bizarre thing because the reporter asked about Rubio, and am Low responds by attacking me, and I mean, going off on a screed, attacking me. And it's really bizarre. So the reason am Loo is is so worked up is that a a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, I pointed out that Mexico has had a horrific record under AMLO's presidency of allowing journalists to be murdered, and we're
seeing historic levels of the drug cartels murdering journalists. If a journalist darres Cover the drug cartels and cover their murdering and murder and extortion and crimes. They're killing them and AMLO's turning a blind eye. And what's fascinating about this exchange. So Rubio had tweeted about AMLO's support for Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela and dictators, and actually Amlo doesn't mind that.
He's like, yeah, yeah, forget about the dictators. Cruz is saying I'm turning a blind eye to the drug cartels. And what he says there is show me the proof. And he actually goes on later in that press conference to say I have the proof. I have the proof that Cruise is on the take from the supporters of gun rights. And so he goes on this whole thing about, you know, Cruz refuses to ban guns. You know what,
am low damned straight, I refuse to ban guns. We have this thing in the United States called the Second Amendment, the right to keep in bear arms. You don't want your citizens to be able to defend themselves from the drug cartels that that are terrorizing innocent Mexican citizens. And instead of responding to the substance, instead of having a government that actually takes steps to protect freedom of the press,
to protect journalists, to stand up to the criminals. Instead, you know, Amlow seems very very dismayed it uh, you know, to quote Shakespeare mean thinks she doth protest too much. I just love that he has that nickname am Low. He's sort of like j Low with the Andreas Manuel Lopez overdo. That's very impressive. And when you've got two world leaders, both in North America attacking you. You've got Biden going after you and then the speckless guy down
in Mexico, I suppose that means you're probably doing something right. Look, I'm just waiting for Justin Trudeau. I want the trifecta. Come on, man, the Canadian truckers were right. Let's see if Trudeau rises to the occasion. Now, Justin Trudeau knows a thing or two about Cuba and Cubans, according to rumors, but who knows. Maybe we can discuss that on a future podcast. I do have to talk about one of Michael.
I'm not going to ask you who's your daddy. That's true, as Telemachus says, it's a wise man knows his own father, and certainly that's true. Up in America's hat as well. But closer to home, there is another group that's going after you. That would be, of course, the media and the Congressional Democrats. And really, I suppose I'm repeating myself in the January sixth committee because you have been such a target of this whole thing. What is your take
on the January sixth hearings? You know, Pelosi really gave up the game when the committee was being four And typically in a committee you have a roughly equal number of Democrats and Republicans. The majority party typically has one or two more, but it's about equal, and the majority party doesn't get to pick the other parties members that
are on it. And so Kevin McCarthy selected several people, including Jim Jordan and Nancy Pelosi said no, no, we don't want real Republicans, we don't want actually people who
will ask questions. Instead, she picked she picked Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger because they both decided they're not Republicans anymore and their agenda is the same, which is to attack all the Republicans just like Pelosi's is right, and you know, I gotta say so as you walk down the hall, this is the only question that reporters want to ask, and they're they're asking it constantly, and I just laughed. They're like, are you going to watch it? I'm like, why would I watch this? I don't watch
the Democratic National Conventions convention every four years. That is a multi day political campaign ad. It is designed to be propaganda, and I get it. They can have their campaign ads, but it's not actual factual inquiry. And if it were, look if you want to ascertain what's going on, if you look at congressional hearings that go somewhere, you have cross examination, you have scrutiny. You have if a particular witness comes in and makes a charge, there's all
these allegations that are made. You actually have someone challenge the credibility of the witness. Press on engage. Cross examination is a powerful tool for ferreting out truth. But for example, this kangaroo chord has zero interest in Nancy Pelosi's culpability on January sixth with stopping a sufficient law enforcement presence, stopping a sufficient effort to stop the riot that happened
because she said, in her words, was bad optics. They don't want to talk about that because that's inconsistent with their political narrative. I think it makes a lot of reporters really excited, but but I don't think it's going to change any voters mind anywhere in America. And by the way, the New York Times, there's an old line that a gaff is when someone in Washington accidentally tells
the truth. All right, The New York Times let the cat out of the bag when they ran as a headline January sixth Committee hearings present opportunity for Democrats to change the mid term narrative. Well, that's obviously what they want to do. I think it has failed badly so far, and I think it's going to continue to fail. Do you think Pelosi made a mistake kicking Jordan and Banks
and the real Republicans off the committee? That is, if you do think, because if they were on the committee, presumably the Republicans would be more engaged, you'd have the relling, there would be a reason to tune in. I think it was stupid to kick off the real Republicans. It look even from a perspective of of TV. Let's say you let's say you're a Nancy Pelosi and you're not interested in truth you are interested in nyeballs and frankly, the clash of seeing Jordan R. Banks go at it
with with with the witnesses makes good TV. That conflict would cause some people possibly to give a flip about what's going on. This is right now, a bunch of Democrats talking to a bunch of Democrats. It's it's MSNBC. This is like a panel of MSNBC talking heads sitting down and going Trump is terrible. Yes, Trump is terrible, though I agree, Oh definitely, uh huh, and like that's boring and not news, like we know you think that. It was not lost on us that you don't have
the Donald Trump swimsuit calendar up on your wall. We got that. I think it was a bad strategic and tactical mistake for Pelosi to throw the Republicans selected by the Republicans off the committee because, just like The New York Times, it said the quiet part out loud. It made it obvious we are telling a story complete with our Hollywood producer, and we don't want anyone telling any different stories than the story we want to tell. And just look at the coverage. I think the Times example
is a great, great point here. The New York Times is covering the coverage. The New York Times is covering the way they want to shift the narrative. But there's there's no actual news happening, and so it just doesn't seem politically urgent. Well, and Michael, an easy way to understand how ludicrous it is what the Democrats are doing is just to flip the premise. Imagine if Donald Trump held an inquiry onto what happened on January sixth, and it was just Trump. To be honest, would the press
give it any credibility? Of course not, But to be honest, if you wanted to have something, you would want to have both parties. You would want to have free speech, you would want to have conflict, you would want to have debate. That's the method for ascertaining truth. Nobody in the press would give any credibility to a purely republican assessment of January sixth or anything else. I mean, I mean, whatever you talk about. A purely republican assessment gets no credibility.
And that's not crazy because we have a partisan system. Both parties want to advance their narrative. And if you're an intelligent voter, look as a consumer of news. I don't just read right wing news right I read left wing news too, and I try to figure out the truth somewhere in the middle. When the Democrats and the corporate media are only spewing their propaganda. You know, it's
transparent to everyone. Now, speaking of Nancy Pelosi's missteps and transparency and other trans issues, Nancy Pelosi made a claim this past week on a television show that I will admit I don't regularly watch. She gave her theory on what America is all about. I'll give it to you in her own words. Please give a warm drag race. Welcome Nancy Pelosi, Welcome back, my honor to be here. Your freedom of expression of yourselves in drag is what America is all about. Senator, I'm not a graduate of
Harvard Law School. I've never clerked for the Supreme Court. I'm not a member of the United States Senate. In your estimation, is transvestiism what America is all about? You know, I kind of think Nancy may have missed some days in American history, Like, look, you you got a right to dress up anyway you want. That's great to knock yourself out, but the idea, yeah, the last pod we did, we talked about the drag show for kids in Dallas. Yeah,
this is another example of the Democratic Party going so extreme. Like, look, if people want to dress in drag, that's fine. I'm quite libertarian about do what you want to do. But to claim that's what America is all about. I look, I get it. The founding fathers did wear wigs, so she does have a point there they were wearing wigs. But but I'm not sure that's what Washington and Jefferson were doing. But but it's it is such the dominant the the left wing culture war is the Democrat Party.
You know, there was a It's just it is who they are and what they're driven by, and they keep going. It's not accurate to say that's what America is all about, but it is accurate to say that's what today's Democrat Party is all about. I at least understand that the Democrats are making this philosophical claim that this is at
least what the country should be all about. What I don't understand is how can Pelosi with a straight face make the historical claim that transvestiism, which was illegal, by the way, in lots of America throughout parts of the nineteenth century in San Francisco, of all places, which has not exactly been promoted. I don't think it was part of the Shining City on a Hill speech. I don't think Governor Bradford was writing about his you know, great
passion for cross dressing. How do you make the historic claim that actually, America, it's not about apple pie or freedom or going west young man. No, No, it's about dressing up like a lady. Well, and there's a richer irony. So she did. She has a tiny leg to stand on in that she starts off by saying freedom of expression. And you can make an argument that freedom of expression is what America is all about. But the irony is Nancy Pelosi doesn't believe in freedom of expression, like today's
Democrat Party has abandoned free speech. So she literally means only if you want to dress up as a woman, he's what America is all about. But if you want to make a movie asking what is a woman? That is not what America is all about. So so she it is quite amazing. You know, Nancy Pelosi leads a Democrat party that wants big tech to censor that that that wants views that they disagree with. Silence that's wants to ban conservative speakers from campus. So I'm glad she's
acknowledging freedom of expression is important. But you know, I wish there were Democrats in Congress that still believe that. Oh, of course, because when Pelosi uses the phrase freedom of expression, and really it's it's true of democrats broadly. All they really seem to mean is replacing our taboos with their taboos,
and replacing our standards with their standards. There's this major Supreme Court case of a high school football coach who just said a prayer on his knee by himself alone on the football field after the games, and the school fired him for it. They were they were so angry at this individual act of expression. So I don't think Pelosi is defending that. But but to your point, they're only defending this sort of thing. And actually it ties right in with the big story out of Hollywood, which
is that there's a new movie. It's a new toy story movie about Buzz light Year, and for some reason, Disney felt it was very very important to include lesbian toys kissing in the Buzz Lightyear movie. Meanwhile, they fire Tim Allen, who originated the role of buzz Lightyear. They replace him with Frankly, probably a more expensive actor. What is going on? Do our kids? Is it so important
that our kids see lesbian toys? Smooch? Well, I gotta say, Michael, I think it is remarkable that the Verdict podcast seems to be driving Hollywood's agenda. Um. You and I sat at the University of Alabama for our live campus tour and we were talking about woke Disney, and I observed, I said, look, these these lunatics. They want to see Mickey and Pluto going at it and and and the press lost their mind. And then what do they do? Boom the next movie they come out buzz Lightyear. What
do we need? We need lesbian toys? Now? Never mind that the last time I checked, most toys are kind of androgynous. They're usually without genitalia unless little shopping in the Yeah. Yeah, like it's just but it is the commitment to culture, it is. And you know, this movie has now been banned I think in fourteen countries. The UAE has banned it, their countries in the Middle East,
their countries in Asia. There's significant discussion that China is not going to allow the movie in because of this scene. And I got to say, it's it's it's a wild twist where Hollywood has been willing to grovel to China, to let China censor its movies, to embrace anti Americanism, to avoid any criticism of China because they want to
get access to the Chinese Chinese movie market. But when it comes to their culture agenda, apparently now suddenly they've discovered, all right, give up the money because lesbian toys are more important. And I must say it brings a whole new meaning to the phrase to infinity and beyond. Yeah, that's that's sort of like the slippery slope, Senator. You know, it seems that we never get to the bottom of the slippery slope. Maybe that's because the slippery slope goes
to infinity and beyond. Why do toys have to go at it like like like it just you could do without. We don't need to see. It's the sexualization of kids that Hollywood embraces, and it is a political agenda that that is all consuming. And look, they fired Tim Allen, they replace him with Chris Evans Captain America. So so I mean it is American icons driving an agenda that that, astonishingly enough for the first time, matters more to Hollywood than money. Oh. I think that this is why it's
important that Allen's getting dropped for Chris Evans. Is you might say, well, maybe Tim Allen was just asking for too much money, and so it's they're moving on to a cheaper actor. I suspect Chris Evans is demanding a higher contract right now than Tim Allen is. He's a major, major movie star, young and write in the prime of his career, and so the only explanation I can think
of is that Tim Allen is an outspoken conservative. Chris Evans is a huge lib from everything that I can tell, and so even more to your point that the studios are willing to lose money if it advances their cultural agenda. And speaking of people losing money, Senator, it's not just Hollywood losing money. You and I and all the rest of America is losing money right now because inflation is
through the roof and our president is blaming Republicans. You know, the White House has one talking point, I didn't do it, not my fault, it's Republicans fault. It's Putin's fault. It's anybody's fault, but Joe Biden. There's a reason Biden's approval rating is in the thirties because people recognize that that's just that's just not credible to watch this White House try to blame everything. You know, watching Biden's energy secretary go on TV and saying, you know, Biden's trying to
do everything he can to lower gas prices. Won't yeah, except allow people to drill for oil and gas like like Other than that, I mean, you'd literally have had for a year and a half an unrelenting war on oil and gas production in the United States. They keep doubling down, they keep Bizarrely, Biden is going to be flying to Saudi Arabia to kiss Saudi Arabia is behind, after he's been attacking Saudi Arabia for a year and a half and alienating them because he wants the Saudis
to produce more oil. He wants Venezuela to produce more oil, he wants it Ran to produce more oil. He wants everyone to produce more oil except Americans. Yeah, and it is. He believes that he can just convince the American people
it's everybody else's fault. It seems like they're deflecting a little bit, Senator, And it's actually a type of deflection that you first called my attention to right in the earliest days of this podcast when we were in the middle of the night and the bunker in the middle of Washington, DC, which is the Democrats line here is inflation is not entirely Joe Biden's fault, which, of course, inflation is not entirely Joe Biden's fault, but that doesn't mean that it's not at all his fault, or even
largely his fault. And you can point to the reasons that he's driving inflation the ones that you've named. One. He's not allowing us to produce energy too. He in many ways caused the war in Ukraine, at least according to President Zelenski's take on things three. He's continued to lock down the economy in many ways that I don't think is very conducive to economic growth. You know, the list goes, he keeps spending a crap ton of money, like in the end of the day, trillions and trillions
of dollars. You're right, it's not entirely Joe Biden's fault. It's also Nancy Pelosi's and Chuck Schumer's and every damn Democrat that votes for a trillion here and a trillion there and spends and spends and spends and spends. And actually, you know, so one form of inflation they call shrinkflation. You notice you go in and like packages are all smaller in the stores, so you know, you buy de Ritos and you have five fewer chips in the bag.
So maybe CNN was right because they might start selling gas by the court, but we're not far away from two dollars a court for gasoline, and so so you know, it just it's it's a smaller unit. Like a good question to ask if you're watching a CNN broadcast. I pick on CNN in particular because they actually used to be something of journalists. They were bad journalists, but they were trying to be journalists. Now they're just shameless shills.
But a question that's worth asking if you watch a news broadcast is would a word of this have been different if the Biden White House had written the script? And if the answer is no, it's not journalism, right. This is not a complicated concept, but CNN and MSNBC seemed very confused at the concept well, speaking of perhaps unethical ways to make money, like just having the government print to endless amounts of cash. There was a mail
bag question that came in. I mentioned it to you a little bit earlier because I didn't know anything about it, but I would love your take on it, if you have formed one. This is from Chris. I believe Chris is or I'm sorry that the question is from Jonathan, but it's about someone who is one of your constituents. Question is the twitch streamer Asmond Gold said, he reached out to Senator Cruz's office about regulating lootboxes in video games.
Where does the Senator stand on lootboxes? I know that those are all words, and I understand they have been strung together in an English sentence, but I don't really understand what it means semantically together. Look, I'm happy to engage in a conversation with him. I'm happy to see what he has to say on it, as I understand if the concern he's raising is a concern about gambling and kids. And I will say it is certainly true that that social media online environments, including video games, are
designed to be addictive. Now I'm I'm something of a gamer. I'm not a gamer like like hardcore twitch streamers, and and I don't don't do the massive multiplayer games, not yet, Senator. But I'll tell you, I bet you never thought that you were going to be a top podcaster. So who knows. We may have to launch the Verdict twitch stream and start playing pac Man or whatever the kids are playing
these days. That that that that could well be. And you remember when you and I did Dave Rubens podcast, We did a twitch stream on playing I think it was a Nintendo that he had, and we did that and if I remember right, I beat his ass. I'm pretty sure that's right, And if not, that's the story I'm going with. But look, they're different components of it. In games, I'll tell you I don't like it when you can buy in game items and sort of make
your character stronger or get advantages. Now, I'll confess, when I play some games, I'll sometimes buy it because it is more fun. If suddenly your character has a lot more great stuff that would take you six months or a year to build up. So sometimes I'll okay, I'll spend twenty bucks and buy a you know, a treasure chest full of coins, because then I can spend him
to get cool things in the game. You know, I think it is a greater concern when you're dealing with kids, when you're dealing with miners who have a potential number one to spend a whole lot of money. And you know, with some of the loot boxes, there's there's a fair amount of randomness that you could get a lot of great stuff or some lousy stuff. And so I guess that's the argument that it's gambling. I'll confess I haven't. I'm open to hearing arguments on this, but I approach
the issue with a pretty strong libertarian bent. So I'd like to not see kids exploited and harmed, and so I'd be interested in his views. But at the same time, I'm not sure that the federal government really has a dog in the fight that if people want to in a video game spend money on stuff in the game, I think my instincts are probably that that may not be a great choice if you're spending massive amounts of money in games, But I'm not sure the federal government
has a role preventing you from doing that. Well, we'll have to look into loot boxes more. Maybe I'll brush up on my Donkey Kong or you know whatever's really hip right now. Um, and I hope that we can figure out maybe maybe we'll have to be quite confident it's not Donkey Kong, is it not? Okay, I'm a little behind the curve, but uh, there were there were no lootboxes in Donkey Kong too, So we'll maybe we'll we'll hear from Osman Gold and you know, I will note.
So I actually just watched last week watched again Ready Player one. Did you ever see this this movie? No? I heard it was great, but I didn't catch it. I've seen it several times, but I just happen to have rewatched it last week, and it's it's a really good movie about virtual reality and people going into the game and a whole alternative world in the game. But people amass money in virtual reality and it ends up for many people subsuming the world. And look, there are
hard challenges. We're we're not we're not yet to the dystopic world of Ready Player one, but we might be. We're on a path towards that, and you know, escapism, there are times when escapism can be valuable, but it also is going to raise all sorts of challenges and challenges that can spill over from the virtual world to
the real world. And how those intersections happen, We're going to have to learn more about them, and specifically on this issue of the loot boxes and gaming, a lot of the question involves the role of parents and parental rights is a big topic these days, and I believe parental rights is the topic of your conversation on the
Cloakroom with Liz Wheeler. Is that right, Liz, Yeah, this is a great question, right, It's it's a question I think a lot of conservatives are asking our parental rights absolute. Ten parents actually be bad parents and take their kids to a dreg show or ten that? Or should that be illegal? We're going to break this down on the cloak Room. You can join us for this conversation Adverdict
with Ted crew dot com slash Plus. If you use my promo code, which intuitively you know this is cloak Room, you can get your first month free on your annual subscription. That's Verdict with Ted Cruz dot com slash Plus. But before I tossed this back to you, I I want to talk about the Tim Allen thing that you guys were talking about before the New Disney movie. The buzz
liked your movie. There was actually a member on our Verdict plus community today that was asking whether you, Senator, are ever going to star in a movie or even make a cameo in a movie. I think they said, are you gonna be a high powered lawyer in one of these one of these crime movies? And I laughed when I saw that. I thought to myself, what could possibly trigger the libs more than conservative Tim Allen being in a movie? And Senator, I think the answer is you.
I'll tell you right now. I'm not fighting Sylvester Stallone and Schwartzenegger would break me in half. So but but but I'm game. And and listen, if if Star Trek could have Stacy Abrams as the President of Earth, which which really was Look, I I'm something of a treky. I'm not a hardcore treky, but I like Star Trek and it really is just sad for them to be to be yet another woke mouthpiece. It's one thing to take on issues, it's another thing to be just silly.
It reminds me of me, you know, Michael Jordan. Republicans buy sneakers too, you know, Republicans watch Star Trek too, and you start putting Stacy Abrams there, and suddenly I'm gonna have to find something else to watch. I'll go back, I'll go back to original Star trek Um. James T. Kirk, by the way, was the best captain any ever anyway, So so that and you've never seen the Internet get more upset when than when I said that James T. Kirk as a Republican and Admiral Picard was a Democrat.
And and apparently lefties don't like it when you comment on their art. They believe they own it well. And now, Senator, not only will you be criticized by the President of the United States, not only will you be criticized by the President of Mexico, but you will be criticized by the president of the world on Star Trek. I have no doubt much more to be covered on the Cloakroom. So do not go anywhere. I will go somewhere though, because that is it for Verdict. I'm Michael Knowles. This
is Verdict with Ted Cruz. This episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz is being brought to you by Jobs, Freedom and Security Pack, a political action committee dedicated to supporting conservative causes, organizations, and candidates across the country. In twenty twenty two, Jobs Freedom and Security Pack plans to donate to conservative candidates running for Congress and help the Republican Party across the nation.