Welcome in his verdict with Center Ted Cruz, The Week in Review, Ben Ferguson with you, and these are the top stories that you may have missed that we talked about this week. First up, it was a very big week in Washington, d C. Especially after my ORC has failed to be impeached by the GOP.
Will they try again and what could that look like?
Also, the Senate immigration bill fails as well, so what will be next for the White House? Plus the DOJ comes out with a shocking report saying that Joe Biden is basically incompetent and couldn't be charged of crimes because he's just too old and can't remember anything. The fallout from that will be massive, So what does the White House do in response? And finally, polling shows that the American people are desperate for a secure border and this
includes Democrats. It's the Weekend Review and it starts right now. Not only is it a lie, Donald Trump's not the president right now? And you look at the numbers to also back up why in twenty twenty illegal border encounters for four hundred thousand twenty twenty one, it jumped to
one million, seven hundred and thirty five thousand. Then in twenty twenty two under Biden, get it jumped to two million, three hundred and seventy nine thousand, twenty twenty three, two million, four hundred and seventy six thousand, and yet he wants to say the only reason the border is not secure is because of Donald Trump.
It's a lie. They're the facts to back it up. But what's next.
Now, because well, and let me explain more why it's a lie. Listen, what Biden is saying, what Schumer is saying, is that we had a fabulous bipartisan agreement that would have solved this problem. But then crazy Donald Trump and they're telling, decided he didn't want to solve this problem, and he threw a fit and said, don't pass anything because I want a campaign on this. And then their narrative continues to be and all the Republicans are sheep
and they just obeyed Donald Trump. And the reason this failed is because because Trump ordered Republicans to oppose this. That is Joe Biden's story. It is also Chuck Schumer's story. It is also the story of every single Senate Democrat. I'm reading the clips and it's word for word, every Senate Democrat, And you know what, it's also Mitch McConnell's story, and it's the story of several other Republicans who are
going out and they're saying, oh, you're just following Trump's orders. Well, listen, I talked to Trump frequently, but I can tell you I haven't had a single conversation with Trump about this issue at all. I've been leading the fight against this issue from the beginning. We haven't talked about this supplemental bill, but it was obvious on the merits. I looked to the merits and said, does this bill solve the problem?
And it doesn't, but it is incredibly harmful when Republican senators, many of them just they don't like Trump and they're frustrated now and so they're lashing out, but they're lashing out in a way that helps Democrats.
So where do we go from here? I mean, there's also another defeat. People are frustrating the House side and impeaching my orchist that failed. Granted it could come up for another vote, but as of now it seems like that's a failure. We have an open border that seems like another failure. Is this now just going to be a wide open border till election day. And that's what this next election is going to be about. Hey, you vote for Republicans and you'll get a secure border only.
If we have the House, Senate in the White House.
Look, in all likelihood, yes, Joe Biden caused this open border. Joe Biden could secure it tomorrow. He did it unilaterally. He didn't pass any new legislation. He didn't change the law to cause this crisis. He simply defied the law. He made three decisions that caused this crisis. He stopped building the border wall, he reinstated the disastrous policy of catch and release, and he ended the incredibly successful policy. The agreement remained in Mexico. That's what caused this crisis.
Biden could change that tomorrow. He doesn't want to. He's not going to now. Actually to fix this, we don't necessarily need a Republican president, Republican House, and Republican Senate. We just need a Republican president. If Trump were president again, we would secure the border again. Why because he would vigorously enforce the law. Biden is defying the law. Winning the White House as the key to securing the border. Now with a Republican Senate in House, we can do more,
we can be more effective. But you ask what's next, Well, listen, what's next. Tomorrow We're going to vote on this supplemental with the bad border provisions that's going to fail. What we're anticipating will happen next is Schumer is going to go back to the supplemental that has Ukraine and has Israel and has Taiwan and does nothing on the border. That's what he tried initially that we blocked in the fall,
and I don't know what will happen. I'm going to oppose it because what I said before, I still believe I'm not going to vote for this bill until we actually secure our border. When I said it, unlike Republican leadership, I wasn't just reading talking points. I actually believe that securing the border is the existential national security threat facing the UNI States right now, and we should use the leverage that the Democrats desperately want on Ukraine to try
to get it done. So I think our view should be, if you want Ukraine funding, attach it to HR two and you'll get your funding. But Schumer's going to take up Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, he's probably going to begin tomorrow, and I don't know what will happen, but I think there is a very real possibility that a significant number of Republicans vote for that, that they care so much about the Ukraine funding, they're going to say, we try it on the border, we failed, Now let's fund Ukraine.
If they get nine votes, which I think is probably pretty likely, they'll get sixty, which is what it takes to pass the Senate. And so I think there's a reasonable prospect that a supplemental bill that funds Ukraine and Israel and Taiwan will pass out of the Senate. But then I think it's very likely to fail in the House. I don't think the House will take it up. And that means that McConnell and Schumer and Biden still have
a problem if they want Ukraine funding. Passing a clean funding bill out of the Senate is not going to get the job done. And so what I would urge the House to do is take the Ukraine funding bill, attach HR two to it, and send it back to the Senate and keep fighting. Use the leverage we have to say, hey, you can have this funding if you want secure the border first, Because that matters more and
use that leverage. Look, that will not come from McConnell and Senate Republican leadership, but I'm hopeful the Speaker and House Republicans will hold the line. And I hope that's what's next.
Now, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation, you can go back and listen to the full podcast from earlier this week. Now onto story number two. Let's talk about the politics now of this, because you and I witnessed it for the first time in history. We've played it for everybody listening. The White House Press Corps turning on him, this is something he's never experienced. In fact, I want to play for you just an example of
how quick CNN turned on him. You would have thought they were talking about Donald Trump, except they were talking about Joe Biden.
Take a listen to this from CNN.
Ultimately, what Robert Hurt says in this report is essentially the technical elements of a crime. It appears Robert Hurst saying we're met. But what he ends up doing is looking at the soft factors. And you're allowed to do that. You have to do that as a prosecutor. And he takes into consideration things like what he says, and maybe this is overstated, maybe not on leave that to the political folks, but he says, essentially, Joe Biden would have
created a sympathetic picture in front of a jury. He had memory issues, he had age issues, and that goes into did he was he able to form the mental intent here?
That's CNN and they weren't done there. They also then went on to say that Joe Biden was an essence a liar at his press conference.
Here's this.
That is what blew my mind about Joe Biden's statement SEP. Two major things he just out right contradicts or is contradicted by. However you look at this this report, there are two things he said that are completely the opposite of what Robert Hurr found. And who do you believe is up to? I guess the individual consumer. First, Joe Biden says, I did not act wilfully. Wilfully just means voluntarily intentionally. Well, the second sentence of this whole summary
says President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials. The facts in here show it was wilful. He knew, he talked about it. And the second thing he says is I did not disclose classified documents to my ghostwriter.
Page three says that he did that.
He says, mister Biden shared information, including some classified information from those notebooks.
Senator I watched that on CNN and I said, holy crap. They're turning on him, and this is the end of Joe Biden's presidency as we know it. They're trying to offload him in real time because of this report, saying here it is, let's take him out.
Yeah. Look, this is a mass problem, and it's not a problem that goes away in a day or two, or a week or a month. This is a problem that continues every day Joe Biden remains in the presidency. I'll also point out something else, which is this report implicitly exonerates Donald Trump, which is an enormous problem for Biden as well, because look, one of their big marquee
cases against Trump. Now they're prosecuting him for damn near everything, including late library books, but one of their marquee cases is that Trump possessed classified documents in mar Laga. And let me read again from the report. This is what they say about Biden. Quote. Contemporary evidence suggests that when mister Biden left office in twenty seventeen, he believed he
was allowed to keep the notebooks in his home. In a recorded conversation with his ghostwriter in April twenty seventeen, mister Biden explained that, despite his staff views to the contrary, he did not think he was required to turn in his note cards to the National Archives, where they were stored a skiff, and he had not wanted to do so. At trial, he would argue plausibly that he thought the
same thing about his notebooks. If this is what mister Biden thought, we believe he was mistaken about what the law permits. But this view finds some support in historical practice. The clearest example is President Reagan, who left the White House in nineteen eighty nine with eight years worth of handwritten diaries, which he appears to have kept in his
California home, even though they contained top secret information. During criminal litigation involving a former Reagan administration official in nineteen eighty nine and ninety, the Department of Justice stated in public court filings that the quote currently classified diaries were mister Reagan's quote, personal records. Yet we know of no steps that apartment or other agencies took to investigate mister Reagan for handling, mishandling classified information or to retrieve or
secure his diaries. Most juror errors would likely find evidence of this precedent and mister Biden's claimed reliance on it, which we expect would be admitted at trial, to be compelling evidence that mister Biden did not act wilfully, as with the marked classified documents. Because the evidence is not sufficient to convict mister Biden for wilfully retaining the notebooks,
we decline prosecution. Now that entire passage, you could write word for word and simply replace the word Biden with Trump, and it would be a major defense for Trump. And this incoherence, the Department of Justice is going to have a nightmare because I promise you Trump's defense lawyers are going to quote that back at them and say, you know what, the Department of Justice was right and if
they were right about Biden. By the way, on this podcast, we walk through had the oracle president was president after president after president had kept documents, including President Reagan, including President Obama, including President Clinton. We walked through the history.
That's what the Department of Justice just concluded is their reason not to prosecute Biden, and the obvious screaming question is, well, then why do you go after the opposing party other than because you are politically trying to stop the voters from voting for the other guy.
You go back to politics of this for a second. And I can only imagine how stressed out White House staff is tonight. I'm sure you agree with me. At one o'clock in the morning right now as.
You are, they're all awake.
Nobody is at all awake.
Yeah, and they're probably at the White House still. They lost Democrats today, and they lost the media today, and now it's got to feel like you're either inside the inner circle of Team Biden to prop him up and protect him, and now the Democrats seem to be circling the wagon. In your opinion, is this the beginning of the end of the Biden presidency? Do you think he actually makes it to election day because he's going to dig in That was clear from the press conference tonight.
But it looks like and this could change.
But as of one am right now, it looks like Democrats are saying it's official, we are not going to support Joe Biden in this president to run any longer.
We got to figure out how to offload him.
Look, I think the odds remain very low that he steps down before the end of his term. I think as long as he is able to stand vertically and not fall over, he is going to finish out this year. That being said, as I said at the beginning of this pod, I think the odds that the Democrats push him aside and replace it with Michelle Obama about sixty five to thirty five. Or put it in another way,
it's about two to one. Now more likely than not that the Democrats decide this guy cannot be our nominee in November.
One other question I do want to ask you, does this change the way that Republicans investigate Joe Biden knowing that the DOJ is now basically said, you can't charge this guy with anything, or we're not going to charge this guy with anything. If they wouldn't do it now, why would they change that logic moving forward? How does that change the way that James Comer and Jim Jordan are doing their investigations And should it change the way they're doing their investigations at all?
It shouldn't, and I don't think it will, And as we've discussed at great length on this podcast, the evidence of Joe Biden's corruption, of his deliberately selling favors from the Vice President of the United States to foreign oligarchs, to Russian oligarch's, Ukrainian oligarchs, Chinese communists for millions and millions of dollars, that evidence is very significant, and it is repeated evidence not only of doing so, but doing
so willfully, doing so deliberately, and then aggressively covering it up and lying about it. And I think we will see the House continue to lay out that evidence and to lay it out at great length. And I would point out Number one, an immediate step for that potentially is impeaching Joe Biden, and the Department of Justice doesn't get a vote on whether or not to impeach Joe Biden. But number two, whether or not whether or not Biden gets prosecuted for bribery is ultimately not going to be
a question decided by this Department of Justice. The chances that Merrick Garland brings charges are zero points zero zero percent. He is acting, and he has acted his entire tenure like a political operative who works for the DNC so Merrick Garland's not going to do it. And indeed, there is considerable evidence underscored by two irs whistleblowers who are career employees and Democrats, that Merrick Garland actively lied to
Congress under oath, committed felonies, and obstructed justice. So with or without this report, this DOJ was never going to
prosecute Joe Biden. That being said, if the House continues to lay out the evidence and we have an Apartment of Justice that is not controlled by Joe Biden, if there's a Trump Department of Justice, and there is real evidence a bribery and corruption of Joe Biden and Hunter Biden and the extended Biden family, I think the possibility of a prosecution is real and significant.
One other question, and this is something that I think so many Americans want to know. When you see this report that just came out, and you see the cognitive decline and what they're stating in this report there, you got to ask this question, who is running this country right now? Because if it is as bad as this special prosecutor is saying, it is behind closed doors, and we know how this media has propped him up and protected him, and we know how the White House is
limited as schedule. He sleeps in the morning. He works usually between I think they said what noon and four. He's not doing big events. He's getting the name of leaders wrong now and when there who's alive and who's dead now on a regular basis. That's happened three times in the last three days. Who is running the country?
Senator? And does that concern you as well?
So I can tell you I get asked that question regularly. I got asked that question tonight. Every week someone asks me who's running the White House? Who's running the government? The honest answer, and this is really scary.
I don't know.
I genuinely don't know. I have a theory. I think it is Barack Obama, but I can't prove that. I don't know that to be a fact. It's just that that there are various data points, including the fact that Obama remained in DC, something no president in modern times is done. He's regularly in d C. He's regularly holding court, he's meeting with Democrats, he's meeting with members of the administration at his house. And so I think it is likely Obama, but I can't prove that. I just know
it's not Joe Biden. So it is some combination of Obama and other senior White House officials and people like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and AOC. But the candid answer is I have no idea.
As before, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation on this topic, you can go back and down the podcast from earlier this week to hear the entire thing. I want to get back to the big story number three of the week you may have missed.
So then, how did leadership get this so wrong?
Because the American people in the polling specifically on the border crisis was overwhelmingly in the side of conservatives and what we've been calling for, what we've been advocating for and for genuinely securing the border.
In fact, it played even more.
Into the Hans the Republican Party after you had this fight between Texas and cutting the razor wire and the boarder and the myiorchists and what's happening with the Biden administry, and the polling shows that the American people are not with Joe Biden on this issue. Yea, how could they not see that? How could Mitch McConnell not see.
That because Mitch McConnell. What he cares about is Ukraine funding. He has said repeatedly it is the most important thing in the country to fund the war in Ukraine.
And so does he believe that or is there something behind the scenes politically?
I think he believes it. I have no reason to doubt his sincerity in saying that. But he is passionate about it. And when it comes to the border, look, would he like to secure the border shore? Would he vote for something to secure the border shore? But it's not a driving priority for him. If it doesn't happen, well, okay, that's unfortunate, but it's not. It wasn't his objective in
this whole thing. And so here's the fundamental challenge. And listen, this bill was negotiated by James Langford, Republican from Oklahoma, by Chris Murphy, an extremely liberal left wing Democrat from Connecticut, and by Kirsten Cinema, a liberal to somewhat moderate Democrat
slash independent from Arizona. And Lankford. Langford's a really good guy and Langford has been just just gone through a buzzsaw on this And basically what happened is leadership pushed him out on a limb and then saw the limb off behind him, and he's been getting pounded. But here was the problem for Langford, and Langford was just followed orders and did what leadership asked him to do. And here was the problem. There were two mandates that were
non negotiable. Chuck Schumer's mandate effectively was we will not secure the border. We won't agree to anything that is effective securing the border. That was Chuck Schumer's non negotiable. Mitch McConnell's mandate, his non negotiable was we must must get a deal because what he cares about is Ukraine funding. So Langford was essentially told do whatever you can to get a deal from Schumer. But no, oh is not
an answer. You must agree to what Schumer wants. And so Langford spent hundreds thousands of hours negotiating with Chris Murphy, which I do not envy the guy. That was not fun. But he was operating from a position that McConnell wouldn't let him say no. McConnell's instructions were get a deal. So when you ask James, well, why are these terms so bad? Why aren't there better. He says, well, that's all the Democrats would agree to. Yeah, like, it's real simple.
If you want the Ukraine funding, pass HR two and you got to be prepared to walk away. Now. I don't know what they would have done if that happened, but we will never know because McConnell's immediate response when Schumer said no, no, no, we won't do HR two is well, okay, well then we'll do whatever you want. And it's even worse than that. This was an incredibly misguided strategy. But I want you to listen to McConnell at a press conference today after our lunch to give a listen.
Leader McConnell, Leader mcconom You know, Senator Schumer says that he worked extensively with you on this package. What do you say to your colleagues who said that you miswrite your conference in helping to craft this border for this this.
I followed the instructions of our conference who were insisting that we tackled this in October. I mean, it's actually our side that wanted to tackle the border issue. We started it obviously with a Democratic president and a Democratic senator. Our negotiators had to deal with them and James Langford under those situations, did a remarkable job to pick off the Border Council, which supported President Trump. Certainly underscores that it was a quality product that that particular union felt
would make progress towards making things better. But as I said earlier, things had changed over the last month, and it's been made perfectly clear by the Speaker that he wouldn't take it up even if we sent it to him. And so I think that's probably why most of our members think we ought to have opposition. Tomorrow. We'll see and then move on with the rest of the supplement.
I mean, that's a great story center, but does it seem to necessarily add up with reality?
Does it well?
And I want to underscore, So you're seeing half of what was the biggest fight at lunch today, and so I wanted you to listen to that because that's what Mitch said at lunch. And I have a policy at the lunches, which is I don't repeat what other senators say at the lunch. I think they're owed some expectation of privacy that we can have candid and really frank discussion. So I don't repeat what others say, but I repeat what I say, because if I said it, I have
a right to repeat it and say it elsewhere. Given that Mitch went out and just said it to the reporters, I can tell you that's what he said in the room as well. And when he said it, I stood up and I said, by the way, and you listen to the words he just said that press conference. He said, well, gosh, it was the Republican conference that wanted to tackle this issue. Notice, tackle this issue. Yeah. No, we didn't want to quote tackle this issue. We wanted to solve this issue, fix
the border. Notice he said, well, gosh, it's Democrats. So obviously we weren't going to succeed in solving the border. So we just had to tackle the issue and do what the Democrats want. That's his view. But when he made that argument, and you just listened to it, I stood up immediately after him and I said, I got to say, if Republican senators go out and repeat what Mitch just said, it would be spectacularly harmful and it would be a massive political favor to Chuck Schumer and
every Democrat running. And let me explain to you why, because what Mitch argued, Notice he said, there, hey, you know, James did a fantastic job and this bill was a great work product. It was a terrific bill. And Mitch was like saying, well, just say, well, the House wouldn't pass it. I said, let me be clear. If a bunch of Republicans go out and say this is a
terrific bill, but the House wouldn't pass it. Every Democrat John Tester this week has already said, look, I was ready to secure the border, but these crazy right wingers wouldn't pass it. And their story they want to tell is these knuckle dragging Trumpers don't actually want to secure the border because we had a great bill to secure the border, and they're so crazy they want so their argument is that Republicans want the issue, We want a
campaign on the border rather than actually fix it. And I'll tell you I yelled at my colleagues last week when they were making this argument, and I said, listen for me, I've lived this border. There is nobody in this body who wants to solve this more than I do, because it is a travesty that is hammering and destroying Texas every day. But I said, listen, if a bunch of Republicans go out and tell the story. This was a great bill that would secure the border. But you know,
Trump is so crazy, we couldn't do it. But the Speaker of the House and the House Republicans, they're so crazy, we couldn't do it, and so it's their fault. But we had a fabulous bill. I said, listen, you are literally repeating Schumer's talking points for every Senate Democrat incumbent. If you want John Tester to win, go say what you just said to the reporters. If you want Shared Brown to win, if you want every Democrat running to win, go say that. And I said, look what you ought
to say. And I said, listen, you don't have to throw James Langford under the bus. He's a good man. But the reason this bill sucks is because the Democrats are radical zealos who don't want to secure the border, and so they wouldn't agree to a bill other than a bill that sucks. And that's not a complicated message. You don't have to say, you know, Langford is a
horrible human being. You just have to say he was given an impossible task because it depends on the Democrats agreeing, and the Democrats want open borders as long as they want open borders, they won't agree to legislation that stops open borders. But the infuriating thing is Mitch walked right out and said it to the press. So he's perfectly happy to say, hey, great bill, just crazy Republicans won't pass it. And that's exactly what Schumer is saying as well.
The two of them, this wasn't a Langford Murphy bill. This was a Schumer McConnell bill. This was the two of them. And why was it Because both of them desperately want to fund the Ukraine war and on immigration. They just wanted to throw whatever fig leaf was necessary on the table to give to give an excuse to try to get Ukraine funding passed.
There's a lot of people that are gonna be listening.
They're gonna say, all right, well, yes, this seems like this is a victory that we didn't have this bill become all But there also seems to be a lot of frustration of okay, what's next, I mean, Senator, we we can't secure the border. That is their leverage on everything. Biden sitting there saying, okay, fine, we'll just keep having record number of legal immigrants come across the southern border. You look at the numbers, uh there there that we're
breaking record after record. I go back to the basics that Biden said in his press conference quote, the only reason the border is not secure is Donald Trump.
We know that's a lie.
I notice notice, by the way, that's Mitch McConnell's talking point too. If Joe Biden Mitch McConnel are saying the same thing, why is the Republican Senate leader repeating Biden and Schumer's talking point? That is a lie.
Not only is it a lie, Donald Trump's not the president right now. And you look at the numbers to also back up why it's a lie. In twenty twenty illegal border encounters for four hundred thousand, twenty twenty one, it jumped to one million, seven hundred and thirty five thousand.
Then in twenty twenty two under Biden again, it jumped to two million, three hundred and seventy nine thousand twenty twenty three, two million, four hundred in seventy six thousand, and yet he wants to say the only reason that border is not secure is because of Donald Trump. It's a lie. They're the facts to back it up. But what's next now, because.
Well, and let me explain more why it's a lie. Listen, what Biden is saying, what Schumer is saying, is that we had a fabulous bipartisan agreement that would have solved this problem. But then crazy Donald Trump and they're telling, decided he didn't want to solve this problem, and he threw a fit and said, don't pass anything because I want to campaign on this. And then their narrative continues to be and all the Republicans are sheep and they
just obeyed Donald Trump. And the reason this failed is because Trump ordered Republicans to oppose this. That is Joe Biden's story. It is also Chuck Schumer's story. It is also the story of every single Senate Democrat. I'm reading the clips and it's word for word every Senate Democrat. And you know what, it's also Mitch McConnell's story, and it's the story of several other Republicans who are going
out and they're saying, oh, you're just following Trump's orders. Well, listen, I talked to Trump frequently, but I can tell you I haven't had a single conversation with Trump about this issue at all. I've been leading the fight against this issue from the beginning. We haven't talked about this supplemental bill, but it was obvious on the merits. I looked to the merits and said, does this bill solve the problem?
And it doesn't, but it is incredibly harmful when Republican senators, many of them just they don't like Trump and they're frustrated now and so they're lashing out, but they're lashing out in a way that helps Democrats.
As always, thank you for listening to Verdict with Sentner, Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you don't forget to dial with my podcast and you can listen to my podcast every other day you're not listening to Verdict or each day when you listen to Verdict afterwards, I'd love to have you as a listener to again Ben Ferguson Podcasts, and we will see you back here on Monday morning.