Welcome in his verdict with Ted Cruz Ben Ferguson with you as always, and these were some big stories that you may have missed that we talked about this week. First up, Sendor Cruz questioned the acting Director of the Secret Service about the lack of protection for Donald Trump after the first assassination attempt. Well, his answers are even more shocking after the second assassination attempt on Donald Trump.
We're going to break that down for you.
Also, Donald Trump had his campaign hacked by Iran. What did they do with the hacked information? They gave it to the Biden Harris campaign and also members of the media. Now they say, well, don't blame us, we didn't write them back. But did they use the information that was hacked. We'll describe those details in a moment as well. And finally Democrats come out showing their true colors in a disgusting move. This week, King ivf legislation that was brought
by Senator Cruz. It's the weekend review and it starts right now.
The acting Director of the Secret Service testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, and I questioned him, and you know what striking is is just about every single question I asked him two months ago remains entirely salient today and even more so now that this has happened twice. So I want to go back and let's listen again to that cross examination. This is the acting director of the Secret Service, shortly after the first assassination attempt on President Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Mister Row, thank you for being here.
I agree with what you said at the outset that the individual Secret Service agents demonstrated remarkable personal courage putting their bodies in between the line of sight of the shooter and the president. That being said, the bravery of the line agents is quite different from the decisions of
Secret Service leadership. Secret Service leadership committed catastrophic security failures, indeed the worst security failures for the Secret Service since nineteen eighty one, since the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan. It is incumbent upon this committee to determine why those
security failures happened. Just after the shooting, Secret Service put out an official statement from your spokesperson that says there's an untrue assertion that a member of the former president's team requested additional security resources, that those were rebuffed, This is absolutely false.
In fact, we.
Added protective resources and technology and capabilities as part of the increased campaign travel tempo.
Was this tweet accurate with respect to Butler, Pennsylvania? It is accurate, sir.
It is accurate that the Trump team had not asked for additional security and had not been rebuffed.
If you're talking about Butler, Pennsylvania, all assets requested were approved. If you're talking about the media reporting of assets requested, there were times when assets were unavailable and not able to be filled, and those gaps were staffed with state and local law enforcement tactical assets.
So I'm reading from the Washington Post July twentieth, twenty twenty four, Secret Service said to a denied request for more security at Trump events. The opening paragraph, top officials of the US Secret Service repeatedly denied requests for additional resources and personnel sought by Donald Trump's security detail in the two years leading up to his attempted assassination, according
to four people familiar with the requests. Is that right that repeatedly the Trump detail asked for more resources and repeatedly Secret Service leadership turned that down.
That is not accurate, Senator, assets are requested. There's a process that has made How.
Many requests did the Trump team or the Trump Detail ask for?
I can get you that number in a.
Que You don't. You don't know, no, So I.
Can speak to the ones that reported in the Washington Post and we can go through them if you like.
But you don't know how how many requests there were in general?
How many requests since twenty twenty one that the former Trump detail has made a requests for asking.
You've had two weeks you had a spokesperson put something out that is false on its face. By the way, did you approve this statement when it went out?
I don't know if I did or didn't.
Say.
Has this spokesperson is he still employed? Does he still have still so he lied on behalf of the Secret Service?
He still has a job.
Did your predecessor, the former director, does she approve the statement?
Senator? Our comms team they send out statements, they do deconflict them, and they put them out. Did she approve this statement? I don't know if she did or did not, And.
You don't know if you did either.
I don't recall approving it.
Senator, Will you commit to provide this committee writing every written request for additional resources from the Trump campaign or the Trump Detail, and every response from Secret Service.
Senator, I will commit to providing responses and getting you the information that you are seeking.
Me ask you something, and who makes the decision to those requests?
Did you make that decision?
Which requests are you talking about the ones that writ in the post?
Yes?
The processor is that a detail will make a request for either staffing technical assets. That is handled between the field office and the detail. It goes up to a logistics office between Okay.
So there's a bureaucracy. Is there a decision maker?
It's not a bureaucracy, Senator, it's the person that's the decision maker.
Is there one, Senator, it's a conversation. It's not just an absolute yet. So let me tell you what I believe.
I believe that the Secret Service leadership made a political decision to deny these requests, and I think the Biden administration has been suffused with partisan politics. Did the same person who denied the request for additional security to President Trump also repeatedly deny the request for security to Robert F. Kennedy Junior, whose father was murdered by an assassin and whose uncle was murdered by an assassin. Did the same person make that decision?
Senator? What I will tell you is that Secret Service agents are not political.
Okay, you're not answering, but you know what leader by the president.
Le come appointed by the president is political. I have a simple question, yes or no.
Did the same person deny the Trump requests that also denied the RFK request.
That's a yes or no.
Question, Senator. That is not a yes or no question. One. There is a process for a candidate nominee to receive protection.
Is there a by Cameron does a bike stole body?
Artisan process?
That they say by cameral bipartisan process?
What can candidate or not?
Congress? Don't a camera?
Mister Kennedy submitted a request that was referred over to the Sea Pack.
Okay, you're refusing to answer the question. Let me ask because because the failures on that day were catastrophic. By the way, is it true that on the day of the of the Butler event that Secret Service transferred agent for President Trump to the first lady.
No, sir, that's not true.
That's been widely reported.
It's not true. There was one airport agent that actually went on the MAMPI request for the Trump detail. They handled the arrival at the airport.
What is the relative what was the relative size of the Trump detail compared to the detail that is assigned to the president of the first Lady.
Senator, the former president travels with a full shift just like the president.
What's the red so the exact same size. Is that your testimony that the President Trump had the same size detail that President Biden has.
On the day of in Butler, the agent surrounding him. It is the same number of agents surrounding the president today. There is a difference between the sitting president who also not only and.
You're using president that is not clear.
Is it your testimony that in Butler, Pennsylvania, Donald Trump had the same number of agents protecting him that Joe Biden has at a comparable event.
I'm telling you the shift, the close protection shift surrounded Yes, or you asked me, Senator, and I'm trying to answer it.
You are not answering it. Is it the same number of agents or not?
Senator? There is a difference between the sitting president of the United States.
And what's the difference the difference two x.
Three x five Acational command authority to launch a nuclear strike.
I'm not over assets. How many more will the president? That's our former president.
You were refusing to answer a number of secret servers.
Stop interruption, Stop interrupting me, Go ahead.
You are refusing to answer clear and direct questions. I am asking the relative difference in the number of agents between those assigned to Donald Trump and those assigned to Joe Biden. I'm not asking why you assign more to Joe Biden. I'm asking is the difference?
Is it two X? Is it three X? Is it five X? Is it ten X?
Senator? I will get you that number so you can see it with your own eyes.
It's sad, Senator, but this seems now more relevant than it was after the first assassination attempt. The lack of answers, and by the way, you asked these questions on seven point thirty, if I'm not mistaken, so did you ever actually get the answers to all the questions where he said I will get that for you.
Nothing, nothing whatsoever? He provided absolutely nothing. I asked the Secret Service in writing. They have not responded to my questions in writing. I assume they'll do it sometime within the next century. But what he said in that hearing, I will get that information to you. We are sitting here in mid September and he has still not gotten it. And it is a sense of a complete lack of accountability. Now, look, what they're doing right now is a massive cya. They're
trying to cover their own rear ends. But the problem is with the senior decision making, and I believe the partisan politics that has been infused into the senior decision making. That is why I want to reiterate my call today the Biden Harris administration should announce that they are assigning a full presidential Secret Service detail to Donald J.
Trump.
And by the way, let me be clear on a little a sleight of hand that the acting director tried to try to pull in that hearing. When I asked, are the same number of agents assigned or what was the relative number of agents? He said, oh, the same number of agents are in the close protective shift. And he was trying to be really clever there. I think he thought he was clever. So the close protective shift are the agents that are assigned immediately on the body
of the protectee. Soume he was accurate that both Biden and Trump the immediate circle around him is the same number of agents. What is different is the way the Secret Service works is in concentric circles perimeters of protection. So there's a close detail of a number of agents around the protect teem, but then with a full presidential protection, there's an intermediate perimeter that they locked down and there's a broader perimeter.
The broader perimeter.
Presumably would have caught this sniper on the golf course who was.
Trying to assassinate President Trump.
And so the Acting Director was trying to be cute by saying, well, well, the immediate shift, the close protective details identical. And look, everyone understands right now that there are markedly fewer Secret Service agents protecting Donald Trump than are protecting Joe Biden, which is amazing because as best I can tell, all Joe Biden was asleep on the beach in Delaware. But nonetheless we still don't know. And you know, Ben, there was a reason I did not
ask at that hearing. I didn't ask the acting director how many agents were assigned to Trump, and the reason I didn't ask that, and I didn't ask how many are assigned to Biden? And the reason I didn't is he would have reasonably declined to answer that that that giving that information could compromise the security that protect Tee. So I can tell you in my written questions, I have asked that specific question, how many agents give me
the number? And I've said that answer can be given as law enforcement confidential, so that it will not be made public because that shouldn't be made public. There's there's some details about security that should not be in the public domain. That's why I asked the question. I did give me the relative order of magnitude? Is it twice as many?
Is it three X? Is it five X? Is it ten?
And he adamantly refused to answer that question, and to this day he has not answered.
That question sooner.
Finally, I want to just talk about the media coverage of this second assassination attempt, and I can't even believe that it's gotten to this point. In fact, let's just look over the last like three days. This morning on Jensaki Show on MSNBC, you had a congresswoman that said, quote, Trump is the guy that stokes domestic terrorism. The problem
isn't the people coming in but this guy. You then add MSNBC's Alex Witt argue, quote, the Trump campaign needs to turn down the rhetoric now that Donald Trump has been shot at for the second time in three months, blaming Donald Trump for this. There's another example, and that's not enough for you. You also had people on TV referring to Donald Trump and implying that he was, you know, basically kind of like Hitler. And so this MSNBC guests said, quote,
Donald Trump is exactly like Hitler. Just quote it like it's supposed to be quoted. This is the rhetoric that's on TV right now. And they even say today, well, maybe Donald Trump needs to stop playing golf outside for a while. Somehow, I'm plying, what's his fault, He's exposing himself to assassins.
Well, we are, unfortunately in a horribly divided time. But I do think that that that personal rhetoric, the demonization of the left, but by the left of Donald Trump, has reached a level that that that we'd never seen before. And I think that kind of vicious rhetoric. It it bears fruit. People listen to the rhetoric when they hear people people describe him as another Hitler. Unfortunately, it increases the chances that some lunatic is going.
To act on that.
And and listen, I want to close this this podcast the way we opened by by giving thanks to God, giving thanks that that God protected Donald Trump.
Uh.
I talked with you at in Milwaukee and at the at the Republican Convention. How I visited with Trump right right after the the shooting. And Butler, yeah, and and and he he said to me there very quietly and in in he just said, God saved me for a reason. And and there was there was a quiet introspection about it that I would say is not typical of how President Trump behaves. And I think for the second time in just over two months, Uh, president Trump has been protected.
I am grateful for for that protection. I'm grateful for him, but I'm also grateful for the country.
Uh.
To to have a presidential election decided by an assassin, decided by murder is the ultimate affront to democracy. It is and it is an attack at the very essence of our constitution and the rule of law and the sovereignty of the We we the people to choose our leaders. And and so you know, today I'm just I'm grateful for God's protection on President Trump. And let me be clear, I'm grateful for God's protection on Joe Biden and Kamala
Harris and and on our leaders in both parties. You and I are both Christians, and the Bible commands us to pray for our leaders, and so I pray for our leaders, even even if I disagree with them strongly. I'm grateful for that protection. And I'm grateful for God's protection over our nation. This is a time, especially when when when we need to be one nation under God.
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 understory number two. Finally, I want to move to another story, and it deals with the Trump campaign and the Iranian hack of the Trump campaign.
We already knew that the Iranians had hacked the Trump campaign and stole a variety of materials, but now the FBI has announced that the Iranian hackers stole information from the Trump campaign and send it to people with Joe Biden's campaign. We also know that they also sent the information to journalists, and the alibis of what people did with this information are hysterical. This from CNN covering their ABS's listen.
There's new information into CNN on foreign efforts to interfere to try to interfere with the US election. Federal law enforcement officials now say Arian hackers not only stole information from Donald Trump's presidential campaign over the summer, but also now adding that they sent it unsolicited to people associated with the Biden campaign. Law enforcement saying there's no indication
the Biden team ever did anything with the information. That detail, though, did not stop Donald Trump from leaning on conspiracy without evidence.
It's amazing, right, Well, we didn't we didn't respond to Iran. So we're good. We didn't share the information. Well, if you read it, you know what it said, it's gonna you're gonna be able to use it. This is such an amazing word salad of like, hey, we'll say we didn't respond. Well, anyone that gets us out assume would know not to respond to Iran, and by the way, they would know not to forward it to anybody else. Doesn't mean that you didn't take the material and use it to your advantage.
And look at how CNN ended that little segment where they attacked Trump for they say, pointing to conspiracy without evidence. Now, no that's there's a technical word for that. That's called a lie. Here's the evidence. This was released from the federal government. As we know, the Iranians hacked Donald Trump. That's there's evidence of that. That is a fact. There's hard evidence of that. We know the Iranians then took the stolen materials and forwarded it to the Biden campaign.
There's hard evidence of that. And yet what does CNN say It's conspiracy without evidence. That is an utter lie. Let me read from ABC. Quote. The FBI and other US intelligence agencies released findings that the Iranian hackers have continued efforts to influence the twenty twenty four presidential election, with stolen information from former President Donald Trump's campaign being sent to individuals associated with President Joe Biden's campaign before he left the race.
Quote.
Iranian militious cyber actors in late June and early July sent unsolicited emails to individuals then associated with President Biden's campaign that contained an excerpt from stolen non public material from former President Trump's campaign as text in the emails. US intelligence agency said in the statement Wednesday, quote, there is currently no information indicating those recipients applied, so that's their attempt to defend the Biden administration. They didn't reply.
You know what they haven't said, did the Biden administration? Did the Biden campaign read the emails? Did they learn anything that was politically useful in the emails? Did they call up their friends in the media and leak the information that was in the emails to their friends in the media. Did the media then publish the information in the emails? To mind you, they didn't forward it and they didn't reply, because they're not complete blithering idiots.
But did they read it? Did they use it?
We don't have an answer to that, and I'm not aware of any reporters asking that question. They're just saying, well, they didn't reply, so it's all good. Look Caroline Levitt, who's the Trump campaign's press secretary, here's what she said, quote Kamalin Biden must come clean on whether they used the hacked materials given to them by the Iranians to hurt President Trump. What did they know and when did
they know it? That is a very good question. Is their any journalist in the country willing to ask it? If there is, I haven't seen it, but this would be a good opportunity for someone to actually pretend to be a real journalist.
I want to ask you one final question about this, and that is, Look, when Trump was in office, there was maximum pressure put on Iran, sanctions that made Iran weak and poor, which meant they were not able to sponsor near as much terrorist activity as they are now. And under Harris, Iran is extremely rich, extremely strong, and
more in bolden than ever. That's why they're trying to influence the outcome of this selection, because they want a Kama Harris administration so they can do whatever the hell they want to do in the Middle East and honestly around the world. I mean Biden Harris's appeasement campaign with them, and they're proxy. He has given them tens of billions of dollars and even the sanctions that we have on them, apparently we're not enforcing them. And this is the appeasement
towards Iran has happened. The attacks have resulted in the death of US service members.
Look, of course, you know, as you know I've said many times about this election, the classic question in any election is are you better off now than you were four years ago? And I've said tongue in cheek unless you're a Mexican drug lord.
The answers no.
By the way, if you're a Mexican drug lord, Kamala Harris and Joe Biden have given you billions of dollars and frankly, you ought to vote for Kamala Harris. She's been great. Well, I now need to amend that and say, unless you're a Mexican drug lord, or unless you're the Ayatola kameenee, because actually Kamala Harris has given even more money to Iran's Ayatola than she's given to the Mexican
drug lords. The Mexican drug lords made roughly thirteen billion dollars from human trafficking courtesy of Joe Biden, Kamala Harris,
and Congressional Democrats. In the last four years, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have flowed over one hundred billion dollars to the Iyatola and to the Mullahs in Iran, even while Iran's the leading state sponsor of terrorism, Even while Iran provides ninety percent of the funding to Hamas and ninety percent of the funding to Hesbela one hundred billion dollars, no wonder, the Iranian government is hacking Trump's campaign and giving it to the Biden campaign. They're trying to give
a campaign contribution. And if someone gives you a hundred billion dollars, you would be motivated to do a campaign contribution. But you know what, the American people have a right to be deeply upset about that.
Yeah, the media, the question they should ask is this, what did Kamala know? It's an old question, and when did she know it? Don't worry they won't ask her that question.
He ran Ben, not just what did Kamala know? What did her campaign know? Who received the email, who read it, Who did they show it to? Who else read it? Who did they give it to? Did they leak any of the information, did they use any of the information? Don't give Kamala a bailout of Oh no, no, we kept her in the dark. She had plausible deniability. If her apparatchiics she used it, she's responsible as well. So it's not just her, it's or the members of her campaign or the Biden campaign.
As before, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation on this topic, you can go back and down the podcasts 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, Senator, there's another really important story, and it's not getting as much press as it should. And that's why I think many people actually listen to the show because they get
info like this. You may remember, if you go backwards, there was a big fake controversy by virtually every Democratic operative, the people running for office, congressmen, senators on the left, and it was over IVF. Conservatives have been in favor of IVF and protecting IVF for I mean, as long as I can remember. My kids are in vitro fertilization kids. Without it, I probably wouldn't have kids. And I'm so
thankful for the technology. And so when this controversy happened in Alabama, you teamed up with Katie Britt to say, Okay, we're going to put our money where our mouth is and make sure that we protect IVF. And there was an opportunity to do that in Congress and the Democrats stopped it.
Why so, look that this story is incredibly revealing of everything that's wrong with Washington and how corrupt on a lot of politics is.
Let's start with IVF.
You and I both strongly and unequivocally support in vitro fertilization. I think IVF is an incredible medical miracle. It has enabled.
Millions of parents, moms, and dads to have kids that could otherwise have kids. Two percent of all live births.
In America come from IVF. There are over eight million children born via IVF, including your kids. Yeah, that is an amazing A very close staffer of mine who is with me most days, we were talking about this issue as I was fighting to defend IVF, and he told me, much to my surprise, he said, you know what, I was born via IVF. I'm an IVF kid.
Wow.
Like, that's amazing, and I think IVF is extraordinary. Now, following a decision of the Alabama Supreme Court concerning IVF, there was enormous uncertainty. There was enormous fear and enormous concern that IVF would be in jeopardy to be clear, in Alabama. When that concern was raised, the state legislature acted incredibly quickly to pass legislation making clear that IVF would be protected in Alabama. So, as a real practical matter,
I believe there is zero threat to IVF in America. Why, well, let's take the US Senate. In the US Senate, there a one hundred senators. To the best of my knowledge, all one hundred senators support IVF. I do not know of a single senator in either party who opposes IVF. But yet there was genuine concern, there was confusion that IVF might be in jeopardy. And this is where Democrats and the corporate media had an intense political interest to
flame that fear and and to encourage that confusion. And so as that was happening, I saw that I was dismayed. And I will tell you so. When the Senate's in session, Republican senators we have lunch every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday together, so all the Republican senators together. And Katie brit the senator from Alabama, has become a good friend. She's been
a guest on this podcast. She stood up at one lunch and she gave an impassion speech to the other Republican senators about how important IVF was and how she was hearing from from women and men, although mostly women, but parents and would be parents across Alabama who were incredibly concerned IVF was in jeopardy, and he said. She said, we've got to protect that. I listened to what she said, and so I went to her an approach her and said, listen,
U sport IVF ice sport IVF. Let's draft legislation that puts a clear, unequivocal protection into federal statutory law to make clear that no state and no local government can ban IVF. Let's find common grounds.
She agreed. I drafted the legislation, we did it together, we filed it.
Now, the Democrats want to fearmonger on IVF. So there's a different bill that they call an IVF bill is that is introduced by Tammy Duckworth, the very liberal Democrat for Illinois. The Tammy Duckworth quote IVF bill is not an IVF bill. It's a radical abortion bill. It would give the Secretary of HHS Health and Human Services broad authority to, under that bill protect abortion in a vast variety of circumstances.
Also, the Duckworth bill.
Explicitly overturns the protections of religious liberty under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. I support IVF, but I certainly don't want to force a physician to participate in IVF if it's against their religious faith. It's not against my religious faith. But if it's against theirs, I respect everyone's religious liberty to decide, Okay, I don't want to personally participate in it.
And yet the Democrats they do want to force, let's someone to potentially violate their own religious faith to participate in something that they have moral concerns about.
And so.
Yesterday Chuck Schumer teed up a vote. It's the second time in a couple of months on the Tammy Duckworth bill. Now, the reason he teed up the vote is because he knew it would fail, and it was written in such a way as to be filled with poison pills as to force any publican with principles who believes in life to vote against it, because this would empower a Joe Bidener Kamala Harris administration to go after laws protecting unborn
children in states across this country. This was an abortion bill, it was not an IVF bill, and it was again designed to trample religious liberty. So yesterday on the Senate floor, I went to the Senate floor along with Katie Britton. We tried to pass our IVF bill, and I stood up and gave a speech in support of it. Katy Britt stood up and gave a speech in support of it, and I asked for unanimous consent to pass our bill.
And what happened.
The Democrats stood up and objected. They said no, we will not allow this to pass. And we had a debate back and forth. And I want to encourage you, if you care about this issue, go listen to the debate, Listen to my speech, listen to Katy Britt's speech, and then listen to Patty Murray, the Democrat from Washington State who objected. Because the entire point of what the Democrats were doing was a purely political exercise. If they actually wanted to protect IVF, all they had to do was
very simple. Not say two words, not say the words I object. If they had not said those two words, today the Senate would have unanimously passed my legislation protecting IVF. But from the Democrat's perspective, that would have been a catastrophic disaster because if we actually pass a strong statutory protection for IVF, then they can't run millions of dollars to campaign ads scaring voters into saying the mean Republicans
want to take away IVF. So they objected to Katie Britz and my legislation because they don't want to protect IVF. And a point that I made in the debate, I said, listen, the Democrat bill was drafted deliberately with poison pills.
They're objective.
They wanted to Republicans to vote no because they don't actually want to pass their bill.
What they want to.
Do is force Republicans to vote no so they can run ads say, oh, Republicans are opposed to IVF.
That is a lie. Not a single Republican as appost IVF.
A couple of months ago when we had this debate, one of the people who joined Katie and me on the Senate floor was Roger Marshall. Roger Marshall, Republican senator from Kansas, is a physician. He is an obgyn who has delivered thousands of babies, and he actually has performed IVF procedures for hundreds of parents. He literally was an IVF doctor. And yet the Democrat's talking point is an
IVF doctor is opposed to IVF. It's absurd. So understand, they drafted their bill with poison pills because their objective was to make Republicans vote against it, and all but two of us did. My bill, and Katie's bill has no poison pills in it. Every Democrat agrees with every word of our bill. There's not a war in it that they disagree with. Their problem is if it passes, the issue they want to run against goes away, and they don't want the issue to go away, and so
sadly they objected it. And I got to tell you this is an example of where the corrupt corporate media matters. When I was giving my speech, when Katie was giving her speech, there were no reporters in the gallery. If you read any of the press coverage, the reporters all said. The headlines today were Republicans block bill to protect IVF. And you know what, the corporate media virtually none of them covered the fact that we had a bill to
protect IVF the Democrats blocked. Part of the reason the Democrats are willing to do that is they know the media will not cover what they're doing.
As always, thank you for listening to Verdict with Center, Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you don't forget to dealt with my podcast and you can listen to my podcasts every other day you're not listening to Verdict, or each day when you listen to Verdict afterwards, I'd love to have you as a listener to again the Ben Ferguson podcasts, and we will see you back here on Monday morning.