0:00

The media have declared Joe Biden

0:02

the winner of the twenty twenty presidential

0:04

election. But under our constitutional

0:07

system, it turns out that the media don't

0:10

actually get to pick who the

0:12

president is. Fortunately, we

0:14

are joined by a constitutional expert,

0:16

somebody who knows a lot about elections.

0:19

He will help us understand the nitty

0:21

gritty and who, in fact will be

0:23

the president. This is a verdict with Ted

0:26

Cruz. Welcome

0:33

back to Verdicts with Ted Cruz. I am Michael

0:35

Knowles, Senator. I am

0:37

no constitutional expert. I did

0:39

not go to law school, but I think I am

0:42

right in saying this. The media

0:44

don't get to pick the president, right, thankfully,

0:47

although lord knows they're trying. It

0:50

is the voters who decide. And you

0:52

know, I got to say so.

0:55

You and I are filming this on Tuesday night.

0:57

Election Day was a week ago. We

1:00

haven't done a podcast since before election

1:02

Day. I kind of

1:04

feel like Thomas Jefferson in the

1:06

musical Hamilton coming

1:08

back saying so what did I miss? Like,

1:13

Holy crap, what a

1:15

week this has been. There's

1:19

never been a week like this in

1:21

politics, in media,

1:25

in life, and the

1:27

consequence for the nation are

1:30

enormous. You know, we've gotten a lot

1:32

of messages of people asking why

1:34

didn't you do an episode during the election or the

1:37

day after the election. And I think people

1:39

sometimes forget you are a sitting

1:41

US senator. You know, you do have a pretty busy

1:43

schedule, and the events

1:45

have been changing in real time. Obviously,

1:48

on election night, you had certain cable

1:50

networks calling Arizona, for instance,

1:52

for Joe Biden. Then

1:54

it seems like people were walking that back. Now

1:56

it seems unclear who's going to get Arizona.

1:59

You had a lot of vote coming really late in Pennsylvania,

2:02

in Wisconsin and Michigan, you had

2:05

the polls counting stopping

2:07

just at ten o'clock at night, and then

2:09

it was supposed to not resume until the morning. Other reports

2:12

that resumed in the middle of the night. There's just so

2:14

much disinformation,

2:16

misinformation, and on

2:18

the legal front, obviously, there are so many

2:21

questions. So I know you have been

2:23

through this actually before. You were a lawyer

2:25

on President George W. Bush's team during

2:28

the Florida recount and the questions of the

2:30

two thousand presidential election. What

2:32

are we looking at here in terms of

2:35

President's Trump's chances for a second

2:37

term in terms of the ability

2:39

to find fraud in Philadelphia, for instance.

2:42

Where are we on the legal front. Well, I'll

2:44

start with a radical proposition, which

2:47

is that elections are decided when

2:51

the results have been counted and

2:53

the legal proceedings are over that

2:56

that didn't used to be a controversial

2:58

proposition. You

3:01

know, think back to election night. I

3:04

was here in Houston, was an

3:06

election party with a number of friends. That

3:08

night was a great night. Republicans

3:11

were winning, We were winning

3:13

the Senate, we were winning House seats,

3:16

and President Trump was

3:18

winning re election. Early on Florida

3:21

was called for the president. Early on Ohio

3:23

was called for the president, and

3:26

we were leading. I went home to go to bed about two

3:28

in the morning, and we were leading

3:30

in Pennsylvania and Michigan and Wisconsin.

3:33

I mean, it looked like a really

3:35

strong night. And then I

3:37

suspect a lot of us went to bed and we woke up

3:39

in the morning and it's like what

3:42

happened. There

3:46

are multiple lawsuits all over the country

3:48

right now playing out. There

3:51

were going to be recounts in multiple

3:54

states. All of those

3:56

proceedings have to be concluded before we

3:59

know who actually will be

4:01

the winner state by state. By state,

4:04

and that's going to take, in all likelihood

4:06

several weeks. It's not going to take six months,

4:09

but the litigation is not going to be

4:12

over by tomorrow. And the

4:14

night of the election. Number one, the media,

4:16

two outlets, Fox News and AP were

4:19

really precipitous calling Arizona. That was

4:21

clearly a mistake. You

4:23

know, when when CNNA is calling out

4:26

Fox for being too anti Trump, you

4:29

know, somebody's jumped the shark somewhere. I mean,

4:32

I mean that that's a problem.

4:36

But the instant the vote totals

4:38

shifted to Joe Biden. We've

4:41

seen virtually the entire mainstream media

4:43

try to engage in an immediate coronation,

4:47

big tech engage in total censorship

4:49

of any view to the contrary. And

4:52

and they're behaving with this weird

4:56

you know. I mean, it's almost like

4:58

their persecuting heritage. If you dare

5:00

say, well, let's wait till

5:03

the litigation is resolved, they scream

5:05

at you your undermining democracy.

5:09

That's nutty. No democracy

5:12

means if they're legal challenges,

5:15

you resolve the legal challenges. And by the way,

5:17

this happens in elections all the time. We

5:20

see recounts, we see litigation.

5:22

We see disputes over if

5:25

there were votes that were illegally cast, that

5:28

litigation has to be resolved. And you

5:31

know the way it plays out. Their cases

5:33

in state court, their cases in federal court.

5:35

The cases in state court will

5:39

be adjudicated in a trial court. They will,

5:41

they will in many instances go up to an

5:43

intermediate court of appeals. They would go up

5:45

maybe to the state Supreme Court, and

5:48

then the US Supreme Court can take it from the

5:50

state system. There will also

5:52

be cases in federal court that start in federal

5:54

district court, maybe go up to the Court of Appeals,

5:57

and they can go up to the Supreme Court. So if you

5:59

look at Bush versus Gore, as

6:02

you know my book One Vote Away, it's a

6:04

whole chapter on Bush versus Gore, and

6:07

it goes into great detailed Bush

6:09

versus Gore took thirty six days when

6:12

we arrived in Florida.

6:14

Within days, we

6:17

had a chart of seven different

6:19

cases that we're all pending just in one state,

6:21

justin Florida, any one of which

6:23

could have cost the presidency of the United States. And

6:25

it was chaos. We went to the Florida

6:28

Supreme Court twice. We went to the US Supreme

6:30

Court twice. And when I say went to the US Supreme

6:32

Court, I mean brief the case, argued

6:35

it, and got a written decision

6:37

from the Supreme Court twice in

6:39

those thirty six days. And

6:42

by the way, we also tried a full case

6:44

in the Florida Trial Court in

6:47

addition to multiple other arguments. So the

6:49

court system can operate, but

6:53

all of us should expect the courts to

6:55

resolve these claims. There are lots of claims

6:58

of voter fraud. I

7:01

don't know which claims are accurate and

7:03

which aren't. You don't know which claims are accurate

7:05

and which aren't. That's why we have a legal system.

7:08

That's what courts do.

7:11

And in today's world where you see

7:13

you know, this Twitter allegation, that Twitter

7:15

allegation, all sorts of things, it's really hard

7:18

to know, all right, what really is

7:20

the state of affairs? Well, we

7:23

ought to allow the legal system to actually

7:25

hear evidence, to examine

7:28

the data, to listen to witnesses,

7:30

to examine evidence, and to

7:32

make factual determinations. That's

7:34

why we have a judicial system, of course,

7:36

And the idea that there was no fraud

7:39

whatsoever seems to me very difficult to believe.

7:41

You called this out right, and I have

7:43

to tell you, I don't mean to flatter you, Senator, but you

7:45

were one of the few elected Republicans who

7:48

actually came out strongly on this. Specifically

7:50

in Philadelphia, you had Republican

7:53

poll watchers show up every election. You

7:55

got poll watchers from both campaigns. They show

7:57

up, they make sure there are no shenanigans going

7:59

on. Republican poll watchers were turned

8:01

away. There was then a court order that said you

8:03

have to let the Republican poll watchers in. What

8:06

happened, they still encountered resistance

8:08

trying to take a look at these polls. That is

8:10

outrageous, That is illegal,

8:13

and who knows if that's through an election.

8:15

We can't know that. Obviously a legal process has to

8:17

play out. But to say that there is no evidence

8:19

whatsoever and we need to certify these results and move

8:22

on and waiting even five days

8:24

is too long and unprecedented. That

8:26

just seems to be not in correspondence

8:28

with reality. Well, and let's take

8:31

that component for a moment. I've

8:33

been trying to be very active both on

8:36

social media and also on

8:39

media media,

8:43

engaging in these issues and leading

8:45

the fight it's interesting

8:48

the media talking points and the dem talking

8:50

points on the Pennsylvania ballot observers

8:52

is, well, no, no, no, they were in the room. What

8:56

they ignore is that they were being

8:58

kept twenty feet away or twenty five

9:00

feet away. If you've ever tried to actually look

9:02

at a ballot twenty five feet away,

9:05

you can't see the damn ballot. You are not

9:07

actually an observer if you're twenty

9:09

five feet away. Ultimately, they

9:11

went to a Pennsylvania state court and got an order

9:14

to be six feet away. To be honest, it's hard

9:16

to observe a ballot six feet away if you're

9:18

trying to see are the guy's

9:20

cheating? And that's a

9:22

second point to understand. It

9:25

couldn't sound like, oh,

9:27

it's a technicality. It's a procedural

9:29

issue whether there were observers there. But

9:32

the reason that the law mandates

9:35

the observers be there is to

9:37

prevent people from engaging in fraud, to

9:39

prevent people from stealing votes. You

9:42

look at Bush versus Gore. One

9:44

of the first things the Democrats did is they sought

9:47

recounts in four overwhelmingly

9:49

Democratic counties in Florida,

9:54

and I talk about in

9:57

my book one vote away. How

10:00

on the Bush legal team and I was a young

10:02

lawyer at the time. I was in my late twenties and was

10:04

part of it. Was an incredible legal team that

10:06

came together for George W. Bush. We

10:10

had a big debate about, Okay, do we counter

10:13

by asking for recounts and four

10:16

overwhelmingly Republican counties.

10:18

So if they're going to go seek recounts and Democratic

10:20

counties, does it help us to do get recounts

10:22

and Republican counties? We didn't

10:24

do so we decided no, let's

10:27

not do so. And I'll tell you the reason why.

10:30

Because we believe to a person that in

10:32

the Democratic recounts that the

10:34

hard leftist partisans would

10:37

cheat, that they'd be sitting there those had chads

10:40

that they literally we've poked them out with their fingernails,

10:42

like if you didn't look, boom, there you go another vote

10:44

for Gore. And what we said is,

10:46

look, our guys won't cheat. Like,

10:48

if we do a recount in a Republican county,

10:50

it doesn't help us because the

10:53

guys counting us are going to come

10:55

up with basically the same count that. Thankfully,

10:58

I'm glad our guys won't cheat. Now

11:01

look, some observers may say, oh, that's a

11:03

pretty partisan view of things. I can't

11:06

prove as a conclusive

11:09

fact that the Democratic counters cheat significantly

11:12

more than the Republican accounters do. What I can tell

11:14

you is the reason we didn't seek a recount

11:16

in the Republican counties is that all of our

11:19

lawyers, all of George W. Bush's lawyers,

11:21

believe that right, and so

11:23

we didn't seek a recount. It. As they recounted

11:25

it, you kept seeing the numbers for Gore

11:28

grow and grow and grow. I mean, it clearly

11:31

played out in the pattern we anticipated.

11:34

And just for people who think there isn't historical

11:36

president here, obviously you've got Bush,

11:38

bigre you've got the two thousand recount, but

11:40

actually your predecessor in the Senate

11:43

from Texas, Lyndon Johnson, who obviously

11:45

went on to become president. There's great controversy

11:47

about his nineteen forty eight election to

11:49

the Senate, where I think it was about a

11:52

million votes cast and he won by

11:54

something like eighty seven votes. You know, it

11:56

was fewer than one hundred votes, and it all

11:58

came from back thirteen

12:01

Box thirteen, a box of ballots

12:03

from a notoriously corrupt county, and

12:06

there's allegations that it had been stuffed

12:08

at. President Roosevelt actually joked

12:11

about stuffing ballot boxes at

12:13

the time. This is an American tradition. Unfortunately

12:16

it is. There has been significant

12:19

voter fraud. And by the way, in these big democratic

12:22

cities, cities like Pennsylvania,

12:24

cities like Philadelphia, cities like Detroit

12:26

in Michigan. In Detroit, they

12:28

put poster board and covered up the ballot

12:31

county areas to hide them.

12:34

You know, an analogy I use this

12:36

weekend on one of the Sunday shows, I

12:38

said, listen, if someone goes into

12:40

a bank and shuts off all

12:42

the security cameras, what

12:45

is the natural inference that leads It's

12:49

not that they're intending to do nothing

12:51

wrong. I mean, if you're shutting off the

12:54

mechanism for observing it, that people

12:56

naturally say, well, there's a reason you don't want

12:58

people to see what you're doing. But

13:01

but let me say, okay, in

13:03

terms of where we are, I mean a lot of people are

13:05

asking, all, right, where do we go? What's next?

13:08

Let me give you good news and bad news. Okay,

13:12

give me the good news first. Okay,

13:14

the good news. First, there

13:16

is reason for some optimism

13:19

because listen, this was a weird election

13:21

with COVID and you had

13:23

massive mail in votings and in person voting.

13:26

The data show that

13:29

on election day the people that went physically

13:31

to the polls and voted in person, that

13:33

Trump won those by a significant margin.

13:37

The data also show that in many states

13:39

on the mail in votes that Biden

13:41

won those by a significant margin. So

13:44

here's the good news, and a recount or

13:46

in an election contest litigation,

13:50

in person election day votes are

13:53

significantly less likely to be

13:56

deemed illegal rights

13:59

it's hard to cheat those votes. Generally,

14:01

the count is what it is, and the in person

14:03

election good point votes rarely

14:06

change mail in votes

14:08

if you look at recounts. If you look at election

14:10

contests, some significant percentage of

14:12

mail in votes fairly

14:14

predictably are excluded as this doesn't

14:17

meet the legal standards. This is whether

14:19

it's you know someone,

14:22

a dead person, whether it is someone

14:24

who didn't sign the thing like for whatever

14:26

reason. That varies state by state, but

14:28

mail in voters have a significantly higher percentage

14:31

of being excluded. In

14:33

this instance, mail in voters are

14:36

predominantly for Joe Biden, so we

14:39

may well see as these recounts go

14:41

forward, a larger

14:43

percentage of Biden votes being

14:45

deemed illegal than Trump votes. We don't know

14:47

that, but there's reason to

14:50

have optimism. Now

14:52

let me give you the flip side. Okay, I'm braced

14:54

for it. What's the bad news for

14:56

the Trump team to prevail? They

14:59

can't just win in one state. They've

15:03

got to run the table. So let me give

15:06

you some of the numbers, because it's this is

15:09

the challenging piece. So right

15:11

now, all right, I'm using the New

15:13

York Times election results as one source.

15:16

New York Times has Biden with a two

15:18

seventy nine electoral lead to

15:20

two hundred and fourteen. You need two seventy

15:23

to be elected president. So it has Biden

15:25

with two seventy nine. So

15:28

the Times hasn't called Georgia right

15:30

now. Biden has a fourteen

15:32

thousand vote lead in Georgia, so we

15:34

need to pick up fourteen thousand votes

15:36

in Georgia. The Times hasn't called

15:38

Arizona right now. Biden has a twelve

15:40

thousand vote lead in Arizona.

15:44

Now let's talk about the states that they have called

15:46

for Biden. Wisconsin

15:48

with ten electoral votes. Biden has over

15:50

a twenty thousand vote lead in Wisconsin.

15:54

Nevada with six electoral votes. Biden

15:56

has over a thirty six thousand vote

15:59

lead in Nevada. Michigan

16:01

with sixteen electoral votes. Biden

16:04

unfortunately has one hundred and forty

16:06

eight thousand vote lead in

16:08

Michigan. That's a big lead. And

16:11

then Pennsylvania, which is the big Enchilada

16:13

in terms of the most electoral votes of

16:15

the states we're talking about, Biden

16:18

has right now about a forty five thousand vote

16:20

lead. That is a lot

16:23

of votes to shift in

16:25

a recount or a contest litigation. If

16:27

you look at Florida and Bush versus Gore, the

16:30

whole course of it, we were talking about a few thousand

16:32

votes. Right at the end of the day, George

16:34

W. Bush won by five hundred and thirty seven votes.

16:37

Right, the totals in

16:39

Florida started out much much

16:41

closer than where these totals

16:43

are, And if we were talking about

16:45

one state, you

16:49

could be more

16:51

optimistic about what the result would be.

16:53

In this instance, the Trump team's

16:55

got to win in a whole bunch of states,

16:58

right, I suppose even when

17:00

you hear those numbers, I mean, it's amazing

17:02

how thin some of Michigan

17:04

accepted, how thin some of the margins

17:06

are in Georgia, for instance, or Arizona

17:08

or Wisconsin even But you

17:11

know that that is very tricky because time

17:14

is running out. I suppose one cause for hope is that

17:16

we are in this bizarre year of the universal

17:18

unsolicited maland so perhaps that

17:21

gives a greater opportunity to flip them, but perhaps

17:23

not. I mean, that's a lot of votes in a lot

17:25

of states. So what you're saying is,

17:28

let the legal process play out. Do not in

17:30

no way declare the winner, you know it, or go along

17:32

with the media, but maybe don't pop

17:35

the champagne. Yet, there's still a long hill

17:37

to climb. Well, and look there instances.

17:39

Let's take there was a county in Michigan

17:41

that has publicly admitted that there

17:44

was a what they called a

17:46

software glitch that

17:49

shifted six thousand

17:51

votes from Trump to Bide. Now,

17:54

thankfully they caught it. They caught

17:56

it and they did a hand recount and discovered

17:59

weight our results are way off what we anticipated.

18:02

And they said it's a glitch. This

18:04

software is used I believe in forty

18:07

seven counties in Michigan. So

18:09

look, if there were six thousand votes shifted in all

18:11

forty seven counties, that would be enough to move

18:15

the margin. What the

18:17

Michigan officials are arguing, however,

18:19

is that this quote glitch is

18:22

idiosyncratic to just this county

18:25

and that it's not present more widely.

18:28

Now, this is an example of there's

18:33

a reason to be skeptical of their sort

18:35

of self serving explanation. But

18:40

it actually is going to take the

18:42

lawyers proving this in court. It's

18:44

going to take right now. And

18:48

I've been on the phone with the President.

18:50

I've been on the phone with Jared Kushner. I've been on the phone

18:52

with the White House. I have been urging

18:54

them to bring in a

18:57

stronger legal team, more curious,

19:01

high powered litigators, and

19:03

to go make their case. At this point, yelling

19:07

about it isn't

19:09

going to change it. You got to go into court,

19:11

Yeah, and you got to put on evidence and

19:15

demonstrate to a court a

19:17

legal basis that the

19:21

margins we're talking about state by state,

19:24

that that portion of the votes were illegally

19:26

cast and that's got to be proven with

19:28

cross examination, with evidence. And

19:32

we're not there yet. I hope we get there but

19:34

that's not an easy task and it takes

19:37

some real hard,

19:41

careful, diligent work, right

19:43

right, Okay, you have not completely thrown

19:46

me into despair. There is still some

19:48

cause for hope, and obviously we'll see that play

19:50

out. One of the reasons I think a lot of people

19:52

want President Trump to get reelected is

19:55

because they are so infuriated

19:58

at the blob, the deep state,

20:00

the administrative state, the out

20:03

of control agencies, whatever you want to call it. And

20:06

you know, speaking of legal questions, I was

20:08

wondering if you were going to be arrested for murder

20:10

earlier today because you eviscerated

20:13

mister Andrew McCabe, one of these corrupt

20:16

officials who was involved in

20:18

the entire hoax and the scandals

20:20

of twenty sixteen surrounding that election and

20:22

thereafter. It's not getting any

20:24

play. I noticed the testimony of Andrew McCabe

20:27

is not getting any play because everyone's focused on the presidential

20:29

But I thought it was extraordinarily telling. It's one of the

20:31

most important issues of the past four years.

20:33

And maybe going forward, could you just take

20:35

us through a little bit of what happened. First, we'll just play

20:38

a little clip of your grilling

20:40

of mister McCabe. Mister mcabe.

20:43

Yesterday on MSNBC, Ben Roods,

20:45

the former deputy National Security advisor

20:47

to President Obama, said that foreign

20:50

leaders are already having conversations with

20:52

Joe Biden quote, talking about

20:54

the agenda they're going to pursue January

20:56

twenty. It's mister McKay. Based on that testimony,

20:59

do you believe Joe Biden is violating the Logan

21:01

Act. I'm not aware of Ben Rhodes's

21:04

statements, or take

21:06

it on faith he said what I read, assuming

21:08

he's that quote is accurate, and so a verbatim

21:10

quote, is that a violation of the Logan Act

21:12

under any plausible theory? I

21:15

am not prepared to take your statement

21:17

on faith, and I am

21:19

also not prepared to conduct legal

21:22

analysis. All right, you're a lawyer. Have

21:24

you ever answered a hypothetical in court? If

21:27

it is correct that I am accurately

21:29

quoting, it's something the Department of Justice frequently

21:31

did wrong in this

21:33

investigation. If that is what Ben Rhodes

21:36

said, If Joe Biden is talking with foreign leaders

21:38

right now, does it violate the Logan Act? Yes? Or

21:40

no. I'm not going to opine

21:42

on a hypothetical question about

21:45

what him he is talking with

21:47

foreign leaders, and it doesn't violate the Logan

21:49

Act because the Logan Act is unconstitutional,

21:51

which is why it's never been used to prosecute anyone.

21:54

You authorized using it to go after

21:56

General Flynn as part of a political

21:59

persecution. I can give you the answer. Hell, no,

22:01

Joe Biden is not violating the Logan Act. The

22:03

reason you won't say it is because

22:05

that was your flimsy political basis

22:08

to go after a decorated war hero

22:10

because you disagreed with politically with President

22:12

Trump. Well, look, McCabe

22:14

was the deputy director of the FBI. Today

22:18

was significant because there's

22:20

been a conflict. There's been a conflict for a couple

22:22

of years between McCabe and James Coomy,

22:25

his boss, over whether

22:27

Comy authorized

22:29

him and directed him to leak to the press.

22:33

Comy's testified now repeatedly under

22:35

oath under penalty of perjury, that he did

22:37

not, that he never has, that he didn't. McCabe

22:42

had told the press that

22:44

Comy had authorized to But

22:47

today was the first time McCabe ever said

22:49

that under oath. So that's

22:51

a big deal. It's one thing. Look,

22:55

it ain't a crime. Delight of the press. May

22:57

i'd be a good idea. It may not be honorable

22:59

or ethical, but it is not. It

23:01

doesn't carry a prison term

23:04

to lie to the press. If

23:06

you lie to Congress under oath, that

23:11

is a crime. And so my

23:13

objective in this cross

23:15

examination was to get and and Comy

23:17

testified before the election. I got him on record

23:20

again saying, no, he

23:22

didn't authorize McCabe to do this. McCabe,

23:25

now he you want to talk about a slippery witness.

23:27

Boy, This guy, he's smarmy

23:29

and political and hates Trump

23:32

and is a hardcore Democrat and

23:35

it was up to his eyeballs

23:37

in the political persecution of the president.

23:40

But finally, after trying to wriggle

23:42

away repeatedly, repeatedly, repeatedly, he

23:44

said on the record, Yes, Coomy

23:46

did authorize me. And critically.

23:50

I ended this cross examination by

23:53

saying, mister

23:55

McCabe, the FBI has the records to

23:57

demonstrate who's telling the truth. Either

24:00

you're telling the truth or Comy's telling the truth. You

24:02

can't both be one of you's lying. Do

24:06

you think the FBI should release the

24:11

records, whether emails or remember and or

24:13

whatever documents they have to if

24:15

you're telling the truth, to vindicate you, to tell

24:18

show that you're telling the truth, and if Comey's telling the

24:20

truth, to vindicate him. Do you think

24:22

the FBI should release the materials? And

24:24

McCabe said, yes, they should release the materials.

24:27

Well, hot diggity damn, I can tell you. I pulled my

24:29

chief counsel aside right after the hearing and said,

24:31

all right, I want you to draft a letter to Bill

24:34

Barr and to Chris Ray, which we

24:36

will send in the next day or two, quoting

24:40

Comy's testimony, Quoting McCabe's

24:42

testimony, pointing out there

24:44

directly in conflict that the FBI has records

24:47

demonstrating who's lying and who's telling the truth.

24:50

And now even McCabe

24:52

is calling for them to be released. And I'm going to ask

24:54

Barr and Ray release them

24:56

now and let

25:00

us know who committed perjury

25:02

because they can't both be true true. One

25:04

said yes, one said no. It

25:07

is impossible for both to be testifying

25:09

truth truthfully. And this is the issue. We

25:11

hope, in Secretary of State Mike

25:13

Pumpey's words, we hope for a smooth transition

25:16

into a second term for the president. But

25:18

in any case, there is no reason not

25:20

to get this information out. Now you know

25:22

that you won't get it under a democratic administration,

25:25

So very important, I thought. I thought

25:27

the grilling was just terrific

25:29

to watch, and I do hope

25:31

that we can see the release of this

25:34

kind of material, and I do hope that these

25:36

people are held to account. Speaking of these

25:39

agencies that are out of control, we'll

25:41

want to get to two mail bad questions. First, one from

25:43

Kim Joe. Biden, if

25:45

he is named president, wants to issue

25:47

a lot of executive orders that would overturn Trump's

25:49

executive orders. How easy is that

25:51

to do? After the Supreme Court upheld

25:53

one of Obama's unconstitutional executive

25:56

orders, doesn't that make it harder for Biden

25:58

to overturn Trump's owes

26:00

if Biden actually gets elected. That is

26:03

what is the deal here. We've always told, you know it

26:05

lived by the executive order, die by the executive

26:07

order, that they're easy to overturn. But sometimes

26:10

the court has shown us that they're not so easy

26:12

to overturn. So that is a really

26:14

smart, savvy question. If

26:17

we were living in a world of principle

26:20

and reason, the answer

26:22

to that should be yes, it does make it

26:25

harder. All

26:27

right, let me step back and answered

26:29

a little bit differently. In

26:32

any ordinary world where you're following the law,

26:35

a president condissue an executive order, the

26:38

next president can rescind the executive order,

26:40

and the power to do so is

26:42

unlimited. Now it's a different question whether the executive

26:45

order is legal, but the power to rescind an executive

26:47

order is complete in total.

26:51

And an executive order, by the way, should

26:54

not be making law. It is directing

26:56

the executive their executive orders, going back to George

26:58

Washington. But those are

27:00

instructions from the president to the executive

27:03

branch. Here's how you are

27:05

to execute the law. So

27:08

it's so, and that's an authority.

27:11

Obama abused it by trying to

27:13

change the law, which an executive order can't

27:15

do. The

27:17

Supreme Court lawlessly,

27:22

and the most egregious example of it was

27:24

this past summer in June, the Supreme Court

27:26

struck down President Trump's revoking

27:31

Obama's amnesty executive order,

27:34

and it was John robertson the Four Liberals,

27:36

and John Roberts wrote what I think was a

27:38

deeply unprincipled opinion

27:42

where the Chief

27:44

Justice didn't dispute that Obama had

27:46

no authority to issue the executive order, and

27:49

he said, of course Trump can rescind it, but

27:53

he didn't provide enough explanations

27:55

as to why. So we're going

27:57

to call a process foul and

28:00

send it back. And the thing that is utterly

28:02

and completely hypocritical is the

28:04

chances that John Roberts holds a

28:06

Joe Biden presidency to the same standards

28:09

or zero. It was

28:11

clearly a pretext to

28:15

reinstate amnesty,

28:17

and it's frankly it's the same pretext

28:20

John Roberts and the four liberals did the

28:24

prior term in the census case,

28:27

where the Trump administration was going to ask in

28:29

the census, are you a US citizen? A question

28:31

that has been asked for two

28:34

hundred years. It's been asked

28:36

over and over and over again in censuses.

28:38

Are you a citizen? Well, left

28:40

wing activists don't like that question because they don't

28:42

want how many people are here illegally? Yeah,

28:46

and Roberts played the same game,

28:48

said, well, of course you can ask that question, but

28:53

the memo laying it out you didn't have good

28:55

enough reasons, So we're striking it

28:57

down and saying, show your work, Go show your

28:59

homework a little more. And it was a

29:01

political game because they ran out of time, and so I didn't

29:04

ask the question. That

29:06

game has been ship will only

29:08

apply to Trump Biden?

29:12

Will I think repeal executive orders?

29:14

I think if Biden as president, he will re

29:16

enter the Paris Climate

29:20

Agreement. If Biden

29:22

as president, I think he will reinstate many

29:25

aspects, if not the entirety of

29:27

the Iran nuclear deal. There's a

29:30

lot the president can do unilaterally.

29:33

If Republicans keep the Senate, we can stop

29:35

the worst legislative things.

29:38

That's also something I supposed to hope

29:40

for now. Senator, I

29:42

know you don't want me to bug you about future

29:44

plans, so I will not. But I felt this

29:46

was a very important question, so I'm going to

29:48

include it. This is from Tommy. If

29:50

Senator Cruz ever seeks higher office,

29:53

will he keep the beard? I

29:55

think he should. Senator. Your answer,

29:58

damn define out. The Beard's

30:01

been fun. I grow it on a whim. I've

30:03

had fun with it. At

30:05

some point. Heidi is not crazy

30:07

about the beard, so there is some pressure

30:10

to get rid of it. Well,

30:13

we'll see how it shakes out. I'm fun with it, right now,

30:16

Senator, I would like on the record you

30:18

know I won't be like Andy McCabe here. I won't try to

30:20

be weasily about my answers. I

30:22

am fully one hundred percent pro

30:24

beard. I think if

30:26

for the Verdict listeners, if you agree

30:29

with my position on this, please let us know on Twitter.

30:31

I think it's great, it's very has lots

30:33

of Abraham Lincoln vibes. I think it's cool. If I were

30:36

able to grow a beard, I would. Unfortunately

30:38

it doesn't quite work out on me, but maybe

30:40

someday in the future. Well, I will say

30:42

that the baby face is a

30:45

good look for you. Well, that's very

30:47

kind, Thank you, Senator. I appreciate that very

30:49

much, and I will I will try to keep the baby face.

30:51

We will. I'm sure the next time we speak have

30:54

a million more developments in this

30:56

crazy, crazy end to a

30:58

crazy crazy year. In the meantime, I'm

31:00

Michael Knowles. This is Verdict with Ted

31:02

Cruz. This

31:12

episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz is

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