Episode Transcript
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0:00
Government is using big tech
0:02
to shut down dissent. They're
0:05
doing it on the biggest podcast
0:07
platform in the world. They're doing
0:10
it up in America's hat with
0:12
Canadian truckers. We are
0:14
all we are all at risk
0:16
here and what happens now will
0:19
have a lot to say about the future
0:21
of free speech in our
0:24
society. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.
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again. Welcome back to Verdict with Ted Cruz.
4:17
I'm Michael Knowles, Senator.
4:19
They seem like very different
4:22
issues. Canadian truckers and
4:24
the most popular podcast are on the planet except
4:26
for the week that Verdict launched, But will
4:28
digress. We leave that for a couple of
4:31
years ago. They are
4:33
deeply connected stories. And actually
4:35
you seem to have played a role in all of this. You
4:37
caused a little bit of an international incident,
4:40
Senator, when you got into a Twitter
4:42
spat with the mayor of Vancouver over
4:44
this trucker protest going
4:47
on up in Canada. Well that's
4:49
true enough. The Mayor of Vancouver said, you know,
4:51
we Canadians don't want you truckers.
4:53
You guys go home, And I had to point out, I
4:55
said, gosh, you know, the Canucks
4:58
might have a different view if the truckers actually did
5:00
go home and suddenly your shelves were empty.
5:02
I mean, it seems to me two years ago, people
5:05
were waxing eloquent about the great
5:07
heroes that truckers were, and I agree that
5:10
they make our entire
5:12
system, our economy move forward.
5:14
But now these leftist politicians
5:17
are saying, to hell with you, truckers.
5:19
We don't like what you have to say. So it's
5:22
not just the little guy. It's not just the working
5:24
class that is being put upon here. It's even
5:26
one of the most elite,
5:30
influential popular voices
5:32
in the world. That would be Joe Rogan,
5:34
this podcaster who's got a massive, massive
5:36
audience, he's politically independent,
5:39
and a big tech is shutting him down.
5:41
We touched on it a little bit. Some aging
5:43
hippies were trying to boot him off of Spotify,
5:46
but it appears to be sort
5:48
of working well. These
5:51
two stories are deeply interconnected
5:53
and they represent together the
5:55
most dire
5:57
threat to free speech. We have Joe
6:00
Rogan, you have petty
6:02
government authoritarians enlisting
6:05
their buddies in big tech to silence
6:08
the voice of descent Canadian
6:10
truckers. You have petty government authoritarians
6:13
enlisting the voice of big tech and the power
6:16
of big tech to silence the voice
6:18
of descent and both look
6:21
that this would never have happened even
6:23
a year or two or three ago. This is a new
6:25
phenomenon. Let's take Joe Rogan, so
6:29
Jen SAKEI publicly
6:31
called from the White House podium for Spotify
6:34
to take down his episodes for Spotify to
6:36
silence him. I will say,
6:38
let me start off by saying, I'm pissed off. Look our
6:40
last podcast, we talked about how this
6:43
pod was the first podcast to be mentioned
6:45
from the White House podium, and incomes
6:47
Joe Rogan and bigfoots us
6:49
M that's true, Senator, we were the first
6:52
two. We can at least hang our hat on that. But
6:54
yes, Joe Rogan has come in. He is now
6:56
the third podcast to be referenced at a White
6:58
House briefing. Will say in
7:00
between the two, Jen Saki was asked
7:03
asked about this podcast and her comment
7:06
was she said she is blissfully blissfully
7:09
not a spokesperson for Ted Cruise,
7:12
which I have to admit. Michael I retweeted
7:14
and just said the bliss is mutual, the
7:17
feeling is reciprocated, right. But I will say
7:19
what we did talk about actually setting up
7:21
Margarita's and kickboxing and see if we could
7:23
recruit her over because she thankfully,
7:27
we're not going to do that. Look stop
7:29
for a second and think about the White House, the
7:34
executive office of the leader
7:36
of the free World, the most powerful man
7:38
on planet Earth, calling
7:42
for a voice of descent to
7:44
be silenced and calling very specifically
7:47
calling out big Tech, calling
7:49
out the oligarchs and Silicon Valley.
7:53
Jensaki was very specific, Spotify
7:55
take down this post. Now. Normally,
7:58
when you have suppression of free beach is a big power
8:00
in balance, and it's powerful people trying to silence
8:03
weak people. Well, here the person
8:05
they're trying to silence is Joe Rogan. Joe Rogan
8:08
as many things, but not weak. He's
8:10
got one hundred million listeners and viewers.
8:12
That is a crap ton of
8:15
listeners and viewers. And you
8:17
know he gets more viewers.
8:19
He's for
8:22
many episodes. He's
8:25
ten x or a hundred x what CNN
8:28
is and and the
8:30
White House is terrified of him. CNN
8:33
is terrified of him, the Blue check Marks
8:35
and Twitter are terrified of him.
8:37
And it's worth worth pausing. Look, you
8:40
and I are unlikely advocates
8:43
for Joe Rogan. I don't know Joe Rogan met
8:45
the guy.
8:47
As far as I know, he's not a conservative. He
8:49
endorsed Bernie Friggin Sanders. Generally
8:52
conservatives don't endorse wild eyed socialists.
8:56
But Rogan. Look, I've really
8:58
grown to admire Rogan because
9:02
he's demonstrated backbone. He's willing
9:04
to speak out and on COVID he's called
9:07
bullshit to the
9:09
continued propaganda and
9:11
the contradictions and the lies coming
9:14
out of Fauci, coming out of the Biden
9:16
White House, coming out of the press, and
9:19
for those in power, having
9:22
someone willing to dissent with a really
9:24
big megaphone scares them
9:27
and so they want to destroy them. In the important
9:29
thing to know about Joe Rogan, this is not spontaneous,
9:32
This is not organic. This
9:34
is an organized assassination
9:37
of speech. It started off kind of
9:39
comical, but then
9:41
the White House chimed in, and then you noticed
9:44
it started off with COVID misinformation
9:46
because he brought in scientists and doctors
9:48
who had views that differed from
9:51
the enlightened view of doctor Fauci,
9:53
which changes every week. But whatever it is
9:55
that week is holy scripture and
9:58
cannot be challenged. Yea, But
10:00
then you know this kind
10:02
of hack writer Don Winslow,
10:05
but I've never heard of other than he's loud,
10:07
obnoxious. On Twitter puts
10:09
out this video, an old video of
10:12
Rogan using the N word, and
10:14
look, using the N word is wrong. Neither you
10:16
nor I support it. And
10:19
suddenly all of the blue check marks
10:21
gathered up together and Rogan
10:24
is a racist for having used it. Look, that's
10:27
not a word that should be used in polite society.
10:30
But I will tell you who else is used the N
10:32
word repeatedly. Joe Biden,
10:36
rappers like crazy Howard Stern.
10:38
They're not castling Howard Stern. Why Because Howard
10:40
Stern is serviling,
10:46
kissing the behinds of those in power.
10:48
It's truly a shame. Howard Stern started out a rebel,
10:50
and now he echoes the
10:53
words of the petty tyrants. If you shut
10:55
up and echo what they say, you're okay.
10:57
If you're Jimmy Kimmel, you can dress in black
11:00
face, you can do whatever you want because
11:02
you're a mouthpiece for the regime. This
11:05
has followed a familiar script,
11:07
and I guess this also ties it
11:09
to the Canadian trucker protest, which is the
11:11
actual substantive issue that this is about.
11:14
Is COVID, and so Joe Rogan
11:16
questioned the COVID narrative. He brought on very
11:19
respected, very well known scientists. They
11:21
question the government's COVID narrative, the
11:23
narrative dujure because as you say, it changes
11:26
all the time, and so what
11:28
happens. Then they try to attack him. It doesn't
11:30
work. Then the left calls him a racist.
11:32
That is always the next card that they play. They
11:35
pull it out of nowhere, they take clips
11:37
out of context, they do whatever they can. They apply a standard
11:39
unevenly, and they're trying to do that.
11:41
That seems to have weakened him a little
11:43
bit. He's made some concessions. We'll see where
11:45
it goes. But I guess my question on it is
11:48
what is it about this COVID issue? Because
11:50
I guess what the left would say is, Michael
11:54
Senator, this is about health. People
11:56
are going to die if this information gets out
11:58
there, and that's why we've got to suppress the truckers.
12:01
It's why why we've got to shut up Rogan. Is
12:03
this a unique issue where people
12:05
are not allowed to dissent? It
12:08
is unique in the following way. It has revealed
12:10
the authoritarianism of
12:13
these government leaders. They believe they have the
12:15
power to force you to comply, to force
12:17
you to take a vaccine. My body,
12:19
my choice doesn't matter to them anymore. Nope, not your
12:21
body, not your choice. We're going to force you
12:24
to take a vaccine, to force you to wear a mask,
12:26
to force you to obey, and if you don't,
12:29
they will use the course of force of government
12:31
to shut your business down. You know, there's a restaurant
12:34
here in DC that was shut down because they
12:36
refused to enforce the vaccine
12:39
mandate. So local restaurant said, look, I don't want
12:41
to like have my customers come in demand
12:43
their papers, you know, intrude on their
12:45
medical business. And so what did DC do. District
12:48
of Columbia came in and shut them down.
12:50
I mean, it is arbitrary power. They will shut your
12:52
business down. They will shut your restaurant
12:54
down. They'll shut your bar down, they'll shut your store down.
12:57
They will fire you if your active duty
12:59
militarius, soldier, sailor airman, marine,
13:01
a Navy seal, they will fire you.
13:04
If you're a doctor, a nurse, they will fire
13:06
you. If you're a government employee, if you're an
13:08
FBI agent, if you're a border patrol agent. They
13:10
will fire you. It is
13:13
force. And these are the same guys that during
13:16
the height of COVID, when it started, we're
13:19
shutting down playgrounds, we're shutting
13:21
down churches. We're suing
13:23
to say, if you sing amazing
13:25
grace, everyone's going to die. And what
13:29
COVID is done has revealed
13:32
the arbitrariness, the
13:34
power. And by the way, you
13:37
know, some might say, all right, you're exaggerating.
13:40
Listen, all these Democratic politicians
13:42
know it's crap. We all saw this week Stacy
13:44
Abrams sitting in a classroom full of little
13:46
kids. The kids are all masked and
13:49
she's sitting there grinning ear to ear with
13:51
no mask right in front. Why because
13:53
she's a Democratic overlord and the rules
13:55
don't apply to her. They just apply
13:58
to the little people. In this case, it really was little
14:00
people. It was children. And
14:03
it's all the Democratic politicians, every one
14:05
of them. Gavin Newsom, you
14:08
know, palling around with Magic
14:10
Johnson. It's pretty cool he gets to hang out with Magic Johnson.
14:12
I'm jealous about that, you
14:14
know. Eric Garcetti saying saying,
14:17
oh, I held my breath. I had my mask off,
14:19
but I held my breath balogony.
14:22
But it's the
14:24
lie is so absurd. The
14:26
person saying it doesn't believe it, the person hearing
14:28
it doesn't believe it. But what it's
14:30
really about. And by the way, Barack Obama
14:33
this week, he's having this massive house built
14:35
in Hawaii, never mind global warming,
14:38
never mind the environment, and he's standing
14:40
there with the workers, little
14:42
working people. The workers are all masks,
14:44
and there's Obama, no masks, supervising
14:47
the servants. That's the same as Nancy Pelosi
14:50
when she does her fundraisers where the
14:52
serving people must be masked. It's
14:55
garbage. It is contempt
14:57
of elitists. But the fact that
15:00
they take their mask of I've talked in this pot all the
15:02
time. Democratic senators remove
15:04
their masks all the
15:06
time behind closed doors when
15:08
the TV cameras aren't there, boom,
15:10
the mask comes off. But as soon as they come
15:12
out, they put the mask on. This
15:15
is about power, and
15:19
Rogan and the truckers are threats to it. And I
15:21
gotta say, look, Rogan
15:23
in the world of speech
15:26
has a damn powerful megaphone.
15:30
Spotify is paying him one hundred million
15:32
dollars. One hundred million dollars a lot of money Michael,
15:34
if Spotify offered it to you tomorrow one hundred
15:37
million dollars, shave your head and become
15:39
an m a wrestler. I gotta
15:41
say, I think we'd see Michael Knowles. Yet,
15:44
you know, dressed in a red
15:46
tights, you going to wrestle. I
15:48
don't want to undercut my negotiation. I
15:51
would do it for ninety five I would, I
15:54
believe you, and I'd buy tickets to it. Well,
15:58
I guess this is what's so scary.
16:00
Here is Joe Rogan. He's got this huge
16:02
megaphone, and yet they can, at
16:05
least to some degree, make him concede.
16:07
We were always told that, yes, the government
16:10
is bad and they do lots of bad things, but we've
16:12
got private enterprise, We've got our own private
16:14
organizations. We can do our own work
16:16
in the culture, fight back, build your own
16:18
Google, all that kind of stuff. And yet what we've
16:20
seen here in the States and with the Canadian
16:23
truckers is you're seeing the government using
16:25
these these private entities.
16:28
So you've got Spotify as being pressured by
16:30
the White House to boot Rogan or at least
16:32
to censor him. You've got go fund me. There
16:34
was a go fund me set up for these Canadian truckers.
16:36
A lot of people were donating to them, and then go
16:39
fund me under a lot of political pressure,
16:41
says, whoops, never mind, we're going to take
16:43
that money away from the truckers. Well,
16:46
so, now we don't have the government, we don't have the private
16:48
enterprise. What are we supposed to do? So
16:50
you look at Spotify. They haven't kicked Rogan
16:52
off yet, but the goal is to kick him off entirely.
16:54
That's what the White House called for. They
16:57
have taken down about one hundred episodes
16:59
of his show. So they've decided that
17:01
you and I we don't get to see what he said those episodes.
17:03
We're too dumb, we're too ignorant,
17:05
we can't listen. That speech is
17:07
dangerous, and so they're going to ban it. I
17:10
gotta say. Rogan responded by apologizing
17:13
and listen. If if there's one lesson Donald Trump
17:15
has taught us is don't apologize
17:18
to the woke left wing mob, because
17:20
they're not interested in apology. They're not interested
17:23
in truth, they're not interested in facts. Nobody
17:26
cares in the mob about
17:28
the substance of what was on those hundred episodes.
17:30
They don't care at all. They want to
17:32
destroy him. You look at the truckers. Listen
17:35
in Canada, the Canadian politicians,
17:38
you know, the mayor of Ottawa was was was
17:43
reveling in calling for go
17:47
fund me to pull down the site and
17:50
was bragging about it. And go
17:53
fund me people had given ten million
17:55
dollars to support this. I mean, it was, you know,
17:57
a spontaneous movement. And
18:01
when the government officials called on and
18:03
go fund me, just like the White House did, the government
18:05
officials in Canada call on Go fund me stop
18:07
this. You know,
18:10
go fund me didn't have one hundred billion dollars
18:12
tied up with the truckers. If they did, they might have behaved
18:14
differently. Spotify has been a little bit trying
18:16
to have their cake and eat it too. Yeah.
18:19
So go fund Me just said, nope, we're taking the
18:22
money. And first they said we're
18:24
going to give it to a bunch of left wing causes that we
18:26
support. Then there was
18:28
so much outrage they backed off and said, oh it, or
18:30
we'll just refund the money. Look. This weekend,
18:33
I sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission
18:36
asking the FTC to investigate
18:38
go fund me for deceptive trade practices
18:41
because if you take ten million dollars,
18:43
if you steal it from people
18:45
and divert it to a place that the consumers
18:48
who gave it didn't intend it to go, that
18:51
is deception, That is consumer fraud,
18:54
and it is indicative
18:57
of the arrogance of big tech and the
18:59
willingness for them to act as enforcers
19:02
for government officials. Now, there
19:04
was a second part of this go fund me story.
19:07
So I'm very glad that you
19:09
are bringing legitimate government
19:11
power against go fund me. Here. I will
19:13
never use go fund me again. Obviously,
19:16
we can't trust it if they're going to take the money away
19:18
from the causes we think we're giving to. Now, Michael,
19:21
that's not fair. If you want to support Black Lives
19:23
Matter and TIEF, if you want to support rioters
19:25
and people that are fire bombing police cars, if you want
19:27
to support people that are taking over police stations
19:30
and declaring Chad's autonomous zones, go
19:32
fund me is the site for you. So
19:34
if you want to support Marxists, that's
19:36
the place to go. And you don't even need
19:39
to donate directly to. You can donate to whoever
19:41
you want. Don't worry, go fund me will
19:43
redirect your money. You don't even need to think
19:45
about it. So I'm really glad that
19:47
you are leading on this issue and getting the government
19:49
to look into this, this obvious fraud.
19:52
But there was a second part to the story here, which
19:54
is that after gofund me took all the money,
19:57
a bunch of people then got together and
19:59
started to fund the truckers.
20:02
Not through the government obviously,
20:04
not even through some private enterprise
20:06
an organization might go fund me. They
20:09
did it through bitcoin. Bitcoin is
20:11
a powerfully revolutionary technology
20:14
cryptocurrency. I am very
20:16
bullish on bitcoin
20:18
and on crypto generally. And i gotta tell
20:21
you, the same petty authoritarians
20:24
who hate Joe Rogan, who
20:27
hate the Canadian truckers, they hate
20:29
bitcoin and they hate crypto
20:31
and their sem irony. So I've
20:33
become a very vocal defender of crypto,
20:36
probably the leading defender, certainly one of
20:38
the leading defenders in the US Senate. And
20:40
it's interesting a lot of the bitcoin
20:43
and crypto folks were Bernie bros, just like
20:45
Rogan, you know, the kind
20:47
of cool socialists that
20:50
seem hip. And yet these
20:52
authoritarians hate
20:54
bitcoin and they hate crypto, and it's for the
20:57
same reason. Why did they hate Joe
20:59
Rogan because they can't control him.
21:01
He's not subject to their
21:03
authoritarian power. Why do they
21:06
hit bitcoin because they can't control
21:08
it. It is a system of currency
21:11
outside of the monopoly control of the US
21:13
government. And I got to say, as I've addressed
21:16
you know, I spoke at a big cryptoconference
21:18
in Austin several months ago, and I said,
21:21
listen, you need to understand this
21:23
administration, I believe is going to go after
21:25
you and is going to try to destroy
21:27
you. And by the way, that's
21:30
a pattern of authoritarians.
21:33
China communist China outlawed
21:36
bitcoin for the exact
21:38
same reason. Why does Elizabeth Warren hate
21:40
bitcoin for the same reason that she
21:42
and China hates bitcoin because neither
21:44
one of them can control it. And the
21:48
theme through all of this is the
21:50
power of freedom to
21:52
be not subject to
21:55
the arbitrary whims of those
21:57
in government power. Now you have convinced
21:59
me on this. I don't know anything about
22:01
a crypto. I'm a terrible investor.
22:03
My investment strategy generally is by high
22:05
sell low, that's whenever I'm involved.
22:08
But what a lot of listeners probably don't know
22:10
is that you are much hipper
22:13
than I am, you have been on this crypto
22:15
thing for a while. It's true, and
22:17
you did make headlines because
22:19
well, while crypto was collapsing
22:21
and I was panicked and selling all my crypto,
22:24
you were apparently buying the dip that
22:27
that is true. So I bought bitcoin.
22:29
I own bitcoin. I think according to the public
22:32
reports, they're three senators
22:34
that own bitcoin, Me, Cynthia love Us,
22:36
and Pat Toomey. Um. You
22:38
know, I'll say, I don't know. Six eight months ago,
22:41
I didn't know a whole lot about bitcoin
22:43
and crypto, and I
22:45
saw that it was growing and developing, and I
22:47
said, look, I need to educate myself. And so
22:50
I started setting up dinners
22:53
with people involved in the crypto world
22:55
and just sitting down and listening to them. And I
22:57
started off with, you know, all sorts of dumb
23:00
questions, you know, what is it? How does it work? In learning?
23:02
And it's complicated stuff. And I certainly
23:04
I would not hold myself out as an expert today,
23:07
but I started learning and listening to
23:09
it and being fascinated by by the development
23:12
of it, by the ability that there's a book
23:14
actually that Cynthia Loves recommended to me called
23:17
Layered Money which I read that talks
23:19
about some of the history of the
23:21
development of money from the beginning. But but crypto
23:23
is the next evolution of it. And
23:26
I've gotten very bullish
23:28
on crypto, especially bitcoin,
23:30
and really
23:35
horrified at the efforts of
23:38
Elizabeth Warren and big government
23:40
Democrats to crush this growing
23:42
industry. You know, Texas is
23:44
becoming an oasis for bitcoin.
23:47
We're seeing more and more crypto moving
23:49
to Texas, particularly Austin. And
23:51
so I started several months ago. I actually
23:54
have a weekly by order in
23:56
for bitcoin that every week I just have an automatic
23:58
buy. You know, look, given that there's votility,
24:01
UM, I'm a fan of dollar cost averaging,
24:03
which is just having a buy that occurs
24:05
weekly automatically, so that high
24:07
or low it averages out. UH.
24:10
And then what I ended up
24:12
doing, UM,
24:14
I guess a couple of weeks ago is when
24:16
bitcoin dropped about in half, I
24:19
said, all right, I don't believe
24:21
this drop and and so I made a
24:23
bigger purchase. I bought twenty five thousand worth
24:25
of bitcoin. UM. Under
24:27
the Senate you have to file a financial disclosure
24:30
for a purchase over a thousand dollars. So I
24:32
filed that financial disclosure. And
24:34
you know, usually those financial disclosures
24:37
don't you know, maybe they get a little bip,
24:40
but they don't, they don't get a whole lot of attention. It actually
24:42
fascinating, Michael. When I filed the financial disclosure,
24:45
it generated a ton of press. And
24:48
listen, I am bullish on bitcoin. So
24:50
I'm proud to say I got skin in the game. I
24:52
believe in it, and that's that's that's why I invested
24:55
in it. But but I think we ought to be
24:57
encouraging. I want cryptocurrency.
25:00
I want America to be the hub
25:02
of cryptocurrency globally, and
25:04
frankly, I want Texas to be
25:06
the hub of cryptocurrency in America.
25:09
So I have been convinced
25:11
by you and by other I mean Ronald Reagan's
25:13
favorite economist, George Gilder was really
25:16
bullish on blockchain technology years
25:18
ago even and said this is kind of the future of
25:20
the Internet. Yeah, And so what I'm convinced
25:23
on here now is that this would be a way
25:25
to avoid government control.
25:28
This would be a way to avoid even the control of private
25:30
businesses that are often working at the behest
25:32
of the government. Anyway. But then my
25:34
final question to you is this if
25:38
the government was able to clamp
25:40
down on all these private businesses and build your
25:42
own Google and all of that, and that hasn't worked.
25:44
We saw it with the truckers, we're seeing with Rogan two.
25:47
What is to stop them from clamping
25:50
down on bitcoin. You've already heard rumblings out
25:52
of the government. What is the likelihood that Biden does
25:54
that? So look,
25:56
they may well, and I am quite concerned
25:59
about it. This ad illustration could kill crypto.
26:01
When I talked to the conference in Austin,
26:04
you know, there are a lot of folks in the crypto world. We're
26:06
a little bit utopian that they have a view
26:09
that that that that we are inevitable,
26:12
that that that bitcoin is
26:14
inherently superior to all other forms of
26:16
money. I will say one of the things I like about it
26:18
is it's a potential hedge against inflation.
26:20
And given this administration spending
26:23
trillions and driving up trillions in debt, I'm
26:25
interested in the hedge in inflation as they're devaluing
26:27
the dollar, and so I like bitcoin
26:30
as a hedge against inflation. But the point I made
26:32
at this conference is you only need to understand
26:35
government can destroy You
26:37
asked how many of you all have heard of napster
26:40
Um, you
26:42
know, and they all did, and I said, listen, it's
26:45
easy to think we're happily in
26:47
our sort of Austin, peaceful
26:49
place. And I think Bitcoin is actually where
26:53
Silicon Valley was maybe
26:55
fifteen or twenty years ago, which
26:58
is at a fork in the road where Silicon
27:01
Valley could have chosen to go towards
27:03
a libertarian utopia. Leave
27:05
us alone, let's be entrepreneurs, let's
27:07
have freedom. Or they
27:09
could have done what they did, which is to go down the
27:11
socialist woke path of we exercise
27:14
power, we are totalitarian,
27:16
and we're hard leftist woke, and unfortunately
27:19
Silicon Valley took the wrong choice. I
27:22
think Bitcoin and crypto more generally
27:24
is at that same fork in the road. I hope
27:27
that they go the libertarian way. I hope
27:29
they go the small business
27:31
leave us alone, let us be
27:33
entrepreneurs. You know, that
27:36
is really potent, So I'm trying to encourage
27:38
it. But absolutely there is
27:40
a very real and potent threat from
27:42
the Biden administration that they
27:44
will go after it, that they will try to destroy
27:47
it. And I'm going to fight against
27:49
that because I think it is a huge,
27:51
huge industry going forward,
27:54
and I don't want to see the idiot politicians in
27:56
Washington drive it out of America
27:59
and send it overseas. It won't disappear,
28:01
But Washington is perfectly capable
28:04
of sending the jobs overseas and sending
28:06
sending that business overseas. I think that would
28:08
be catastrophic, right, And it's especially
28:11
at a moment where we're dissent
28:13
against the ruling class, the liberal establishment,
28:16
the regime, whatever you want to call it, where that is so
28:18
difficult and where people are genuinely
28:20
persecuted for it. Yes, we have
28:23
to wield what political power we can. Yes, we need to wield
28:25
what market power we can. But if if there were an
28:27
instrument of technology really to
28:29
be able to exercise our rights in our way of life,
28:32
that's something very hopeful, and so I hope
28:34
that we can maintain it. We
28:37
unfortunately so far, are not accepting
28:39
bitcoin in the Verdict store, but
28:41
I think we really should. I think that would be a great
28:43
way to do it. So, Michael, I've actually introduced
28:46
legislation in Congress to
28:48
have the Congressional store accept bitcoin.
28:50
Rile. That's one of the pieces of legislation I've
28:53
introduced as a way of
28:56
spreading its acceptance.
28:58
By the way, in El Salvador, I spoke with the
29:00
President of Al Salvador last week El
29:02
Salvador. It's it's legal currency, it's legal
29:04
tender in Al Salvador, and it
29:07
is Bitcoin has all sorts of potential,
29:09
particularly in developing economy, for
29:11
people to have secure savings. You may not have
29:13
access to a bank account, but if you have a cell
29:15
phone, if you have any technology, you can have secure
29:18
savings that can't be stolen from
29:20
you. It can also is secure
29:22
instantaneous transactions. You can
29:24
transfer it, buy and sell. You
29:26
know, they're massive inefficiencies right
29:29
now, and the transfers of cash that crypto and bitcoin
29:31
go all around, and so it
29:33
is a generation skipping
29:35
technology which is potent, and
29:38
that's one of the reasons. So I've introduced
29:40
legislation to repeal what
29:42
the Democrats did putting additional burdens
29:45
on crypto. And I've also, as I said, I
29:47
think the Congressional store how to accept it
29:50
because it helps it
29:54
helps expand the ability
29:56
of this industry to grow. And I think there's enormous
29:58
benefit to Texas and the country as
30:01
this industry grows. Well,
30:03
it's great to know that bitcoin
30:06
is good for developing economies, because if
30:08
Joe Biden's policies continue to destroy
30:10
our dollar and our jobs, we
30:12
may soon be a developing economy ourselves.
30:15
Now we have more. Just
30:17
when you think it's over, there is still more. Some
30:20
of you who have gone over and gone to Verdict
30:22
with Ted Cruise dot com slash shop and headed
30:24
over and subscribe to the Verdict Plus community.
30:26
Some of you know about this, but some of you might not know
30:30
this quite yet. But our friend Liz Wheeler
30:32
is hosting a new series with Senator
30:35
Cruz, the hardest working man in show
30:37
business and in politics, and that
30:39
is called Cloak Room. Liz, what
30:41
are you talking about? Hi? Michael Hi? Senator
30:43
Yes, and Michael, you and I joke. One series
30:46
is simply not enough for Senator Cruz, so there must
30:48
be two. I'm so excited.
30:50
This will be our second, our second episode in the series.
30:53
I'm excited to introduce it. It's called the Cloak Room.
30:55
It's on Verdict Plus. It is only for
30:57
Verdict Plus subscribers. You can of course join
30:59
us ad Verdict with Ted Cruz dot com
31:02
slash Plus. It's a it's a brand new
31:04
series with Senator Ted Cruz. It's co hosted by
31:06
me Liz Wheeler. Basically, how it's going
31:08
to work is I'm going to pick his brain like I would
31:10
in a strategy session. It's a behind
31:12
the scenes peek into the details of what goes
31:14
on in DC, just like the real cloak Room
31:16
of the Senate. Today, we're going to talk about
31:18
Stacy Abrams and that infamous massless
31:21
photo of her with kids who were
31:23
wearing masks next to her. Plus the
31:25
proper role, this is the nerdy part, the proper role of
31:27
public health and the administrative state
31:29
and the separation of powers. Doctor
31:31
and now leg I said, you can join us at Verdict with Ted Cruise
31:33
dot com slash plus. I also have a promo
31:36
code Cloakroom for you. If
31:38
you use this promo code Cloakroom, you'll get one month
31:40
free a one month free trial on your annual
31:42
subscriptions. It's going to be a good time.
31:45
Then, as I have mentioned before, soon
31:47
after that, we're going to have a series where
31:50
it is just me and Liz and no
31:52
senator, then a series of Liz and the Cactus,
31:54
and we're just building out a whole universe
31:56
here because as
31:59
the Left tries to clamped down on us, it's more important
32:01
than ever to speak out and Liz in our beneficence,
32:04
in our charity, which is a theological
32:06
virtue. We are not going to
32:08
keep this episode behind the paywall. In the future
32:11
of the episodes are going to behind the paywall, but right now
32:13
we have a sneak peek. So I'm going to get out of here.
32:15
Liz. You take it away with the Cloakroom. Thank
32:17
you, Michael. I'm Liz Wheeler. This is Cloakroom
32:20
on Verdict plus. Senator. We have a
32:22
great episode plans today,
32:24
So let's start with this photograph. This is the photograph
32:27
curd round the country, if you will. It is,
32:29
of course, Stacy Abrams, gubernatorial candidate
32:31
for the state of Georgia. She is not wearing
32:33
a mask in this photograph, which is surrounded
32:35
by school children, very small children with
32:38
wearing masks on their face. And not only
32:40
is this a terrible look, she actually is defending
32:42
this in the wake of all the outrage. So my question
32:45
to you, leg I said, is purely political. Is this
32:47
photograph going to be the reason that she loses
32:49
her election? Is this going to disqualify her
32:51
in the eyes of her voters. Look, I think this photograph
32:54
has the potential to be something like Terry
32:56
mcculloff's comment at the end of the Virginia
32:58
governor's race. He said in
33:00
the debate, he said, parents have no right to
33:02
say what's taught to their kids in school. And
33:05
and I think if there was one sentence
33:07
that defeated McAuliffe and elected
33:09
Glen Yonken, it was that sentence. It was the
33:11
arrogance that was revealed. It
33:14
was you know, there's an old line that a gaff
33:16
as when a politician tells the truth, tells
33:18
you what they really think. This
33:20
picture shows you what Stacy Abrams really thinks.
33:22
And it is I
33:25
think this picture will play a central role in the election.
33:29
You know, several things are striking. Number one,
33:33
they put the picture out. They were proud of
33:35
this picture. They saw nothing wrong with it. And
33:37
then suddenly the reaction was
33:40
so intense they deleted it, and they
33:42
got the school to delete it too. They like
33:44
tried to ban it, tried to erase
33:47
it, just delete the In fact, the school person
33:49
deleted her entire account. But
33:52
but then when
33:54
everyone naturally criticized the
33:57
self evident hypocrisy. The
34:00
Abraham's campaign put out this statement,
34:03
just snarling with
34:05
attacks that of course people are attacking
34:07
me because they're racists and it's
34:10
all about, you know, undermining Black
34:12
History Month because they're all just horrible
34:15
racist who hate me, completely
34:18
ignoring the substance. Also, a campaign put
34:20
out a statement that well, Stacy requested
34:23
that everyone wear a mask and she just took
34:25
hers off briefly. Well,
34:27
okay, so that doesn't make it better.
34:30
Maybe she held her breath like Garcetti
34:32
did. Indeed, And by
34:35
the way, I think it's much better.
34:37
The world would be better if democratic politicians
34:39
held their breath, because it would mean they couldn't talk, so
34:41
that would be an improvement. Look
34:45
this picture. I was reading something today that
34:47
was comparing this, saying, this
34:49
is the most consequential image of a
34:51
politician in a room full
34:53
of kids since George W. Bush
34:56
was reading a children's story to a room
34:58
full of kids when they came in
35:00
and told him the news about nine to eleven about
35:02
the plane flying into the twin towers. And
35:05
you know, we all remember that that image
35:08
and know that image, and I think this
35:10
one likewise, people will
35:12
remember years from now this is an image that
35:14
will define the
35:17
double standards, the arrogance, the hypocrisy,
35:23
and it speaks volumes. I also
35:26
thought it is notable, like the Washington
35:28
Post wrote a story about,
35:33
you know, Republican
35:35
outrage over Abrams
35:37
in the picture, and
35:39
what's interesting is they didn't show the picture. They had
35:41
a picture of Stacy Abrams like out on the campaign
35:44
trail smiling. The Washington Post
35:46
very deliberately wouldn't show the picture because you actually
35:48
don't need any commentary. You just need to
35:50
see the image, and it
35:53
tells you everything you need to
35:55
know, including the fact that if everyone
35:57
in the picture, the person at greatest
36:00
from a serious illness of
36:02
COVID was clearly Stacey Abrams. Yeah, she's
36:04
the one not wearing a mask. The little children.
36:08
The odds are overwhelming. If one of those kids
36:10
got COVID that there
36:12
would be few, if any, symptoms, and it would
36:15
not be life threatening. But
36:19
what it reveals is that neither
36:21
she nor the other Democratic
36:24
politicians that are insisting the kids
36:26
be masks. They don't believe
36:28
in this stuff. No, they don't. It's worse
36:30
than hypocrisy, isn't it. It's it's elitism.
36:33
They actually aren't just violating rules that they
36:35
think apply to themselves. They actually don't
36:37
believe that their own rules apply to themselves. And
36:39
this has been This is the reason the Washington
36:41
Post isn't picturing or showing
36:43
this photograph is because they know it's not a Republican
36:46
or a Democrat issue anymore among voters, especially
36:48
parents, that parents across the aisle are
36:50
outraged at how the public health establishment
36:52
has treated their children and continue to treat
36:54
their children in school. And that's where I want to dive
36:57
into this a little more nerdy,
36:59
a little more phyllisical aspect of as we've
37:01
seen up close and personal
37:03
the last two years, how the public health establishment
37:07
holds so much power over
37:09
the American public, how much they influence
37:12
politicians who issue dictates
37:14
and mandates and lockdowns and masks
37:16
and vaccines and all of
37:18
these, all of these fairly invasive
37:21
measures in the name of health, in the
37:23
name of public health. And so I want to talk to you tonight.
37:25
I want to ask you, from a philosophical
37:28
perspective, what is the role
37:31
or what should be the role of the public
37:33
health establishment in our country.
37:36
Well, it depends what qualifies
37:38
for public health establishment and in many
37:40
ways that is functionally
37:42
doctor Anthony Fauci, and and he
37:44
has become the face of it so much so that
37:47
that on TV he has said, I
37:49
represent science. You
37:52
know, it reminds me of Scripture. In the beginning was
37:54
the word I mean? It is
37:56
this hubers
38:00
to embody science with which
38:02
Faucci. Look. Two years
38:04
ago, Faucci had a pretty good reputation, he
38:06
was well respected. The
38:10
arbitrariness, the error against
38:13
the attitude of infallibility,
38:15
and the obvious contradictions that
38:18
have come from Fauci. I
38:21
think you've done massive and long
38:24
term damage to the credibility
38:26
of the CDC, of the NIH,
38:28
of the public health establishment.
38:31
Listen, you want to minimize the spread of disease,
38:33
lock every person on planet Earth in a
38:36
dungeon and never let them out. You will
38:38
reduce the spread of disease. They're just or other
38:40
negative consequences,
38:43
right. Well, that kind of get that kind of gets
38:45
to my questions. That's why I think that
38:47
we as a nation, especially the Republican Party and the
38:49
Conservative movement, need to analyze,
38:52
We need to be thoughtful about what the proper
38:54
role of public health is. When public health is defined
38:57
as you I mean as the promise that you laid
38:59
out, as as Fauci, as these
39:02
government bureaucrats who weren't elected,
39:04
they were appointed, who have the highest salary of
39:06
all federal employees, including the President of
39:08
the United States, And to me, it
39:10
speaks to the administrative state because
39:12
we could, we could get rid of Fauci, meaning President
39:14
Biden could fire him, he could resign. I mean, he's
39:17
old, He's not going to be in this position forever. You can
39:19
replace one bureaucrat with another bureaucrat.
39:21
But as long as you have this system, as we do
39:24
of these executive agencies
39:26
that Congress defers rulemaking
39:28
too, I don't see this problem,
39:30
particularly now that they have cemented
39:32
how they want to handle pandemics or public health.
39:34
They know that they can wage this power the
39:36
way that they have. I don't see this going away unless
39:39
we address the administrative state specifically.
39:42
Yeah, look, I think it's a very good point. I
39:44
think the Trump administration made serious
39:46
mistakes as COVID broke out, and one
39:49
of the mistakes was elevating
39:51
Fauci and deferring to him for far
39:53
too long. The Trump administration
39:55
should have fired Fauci the way Fauci
39:58
and the declared lord's
40:00
a public health treated is
40:02
is that they were infallible. Yeah,
40:05
and they did it while being cynically
40:07
political at the same time. That
40:10
combination is a really toxic
40:13
brew. It is, and especially because if there's
40:15
a doctor in the private sector who has a
40:17
terrible opinion or gives you terrible medical advice,
40:20
you just you go somewhere else, you go to a different
40:22
practice, you go to a different provider, and that
40:24
doctor. I mean, it's a meritocracy, or it's supposed to
40:26
be, and that's not the case when it's a government
40:28
bureaucrat. Again, That's why, that's why I
40:30
think that when we're looking
40:33
at the power of these bureaucrats and federal
40:35
agencies, we have to understand the history a little
40:37
bit. That this idea of the administrative
40:39
state was introduced, you know, at least
40:41
theoretically by Woodrow Wilson. He
40:44
thought that there should be this this class of
40:46
neutral bureaucrats that ran our federal government.
40:48
I personally don't believe that there can be someone who
40:50
is politically neutral. I think everyone has an opinion.
40:52
Then LBJ and FDR expanded
40:55
this administrative state. So now we have this bloated,
40:57
this bloated apparatus, which a
40:59
lot of people called the deep state because
41:01
of all these politicos that work there
41:04
that aren't accountable to the voter. In my
41:06
opinion, and I want your take as a constitutional
41:08
lawyer on this. In my opinion, the
41:11
advent of this, or what really
41:13
caused this to grow out of control, was
41:15
when the Supreme Court stopped applying the separation
41:17
of powers doctrine. That, of course,
41:20
was when Congress would delegate their
41:23
legislative authority to the
41:26
executive agency. The judicial
41:28
brands used to not allow that, but then they
41:30
stopped and they did allow Congress, and now look
41:32
what we have. So i'd love to hear your
41:34
take on that and how we reverse that. So
41:37
you're exactly right. It got exacerbated
41:39
by a decision from the Supreme Court that was called
41:41
the Chevron decision, where they created something that's
41:44
called Chevron deference, which the
41:46
courts now will defer
41:49
to the judgment of an agency even
41:52
if the statute, even if the law doesn't
41:54
require that outcome. If the expert agency
41:57
has an outcome, they will defer to it. If there's
41:59
any ambiguity in the statue. I
42:01
think there are a lot of folks and I would count myself
42:03
among them who think Chevron was a mistake, that
42:05
it contributed to the growth of the regulatory
42:08
state. And you've got a couple of things at play
42:10
here. Number One, elected
42:13
politicians like
42:15
to shift power to the executive branch
42:18
because they can avoid responsibility. They can
42:20
pass a vague in general law, and
42:22
then when the agency does something bad, they can say
42:24
to their voters, Hey, it's not me that did it. It's it's
42:27
it's it's the EPA that did it. It's it's
42:29
it's the agency. It's OSHA that did it. But
42:32
secondly, there's a problem that we've
42:34
seen that's called regulatory capture.
42:36
And this is a notion from economics, where
42:38
you have regulators that are regulating
42:41
in particular industry who become captured
42:43
by it. They have a revolving door
42:45
where people come from the agency to
42:47
the to the private sector that they're regulating,
42:50
and back again, and they end up
42:52
following the interests
42:54
of the giant companies in
42:56
that industry. So you see it in
42:59
the aviation world with the FAA
43:01
and a company like Boeing, and you look at the seven
43:03
thirty seven macs where there was an instance the
43:05
FAA was not remotely
43:08
effective enough and ensuring the safety of the seven
43:10
thirty seven macs. With respect
43:12
to COVID. You look at the FDA
43:15
and just how in bad the FDA is
43:17
With Big Pharma. I've seen some
43:19
data with ivermectin and hydroxy chloroquine
43:22
that have suggested good results, particularly in
43:24
the developing world. But both
43:27
of those drugs are incredibly cheap. Both of
43:29
those drugs are you can get
43:31
for pennies, whereas Big
43:33
Pharma if you look at the
43:35
treatments they're pushing their thousands
43:37
of dollars. And I do think there
43:40
is a real question of agency capture.
43:42
Why is it that
43:44
the agency favors treatments that cost
43:46
thousands of dollars versus treatments that cost
43:49
pennies, And
43:51
particularly in the weird
43:54
politicized world where
43:56
the fact that Trump said hydroxychloric
44:00
and good caused half the country
44:02
to say it must be bad if Trump likes
44:04
it, which is a really weird way to make
44:06
medical or scientific decisions. Yeah,
44:08
so that's well, that's science if you're defining
44:10
science as doctor fauci here, So get
44:13
a little bit, get a little bit nerdier if you can
44:15
on the Chevron deference
44:18
here, I don't understand, Senator,
44:21
why so many in the judiciary, and this
44:23
is not just the Supreme Court, this is this is all levels.
44:25
Why there's such deference to precedent
44:28
for the sake of precedent when precedent is
44:30
so clearly unconstitutional. Now,
44:32
you know, you and I have talked about Dobbs versus Jackson
44:35
Women's Health, we talked about Roe v. Wade,
44:37
We've talked about decisions that are obviously unconstitutional
44:39
that the left, there are judicial activists
44:41
who actually don't want to overturn a
44:44
demonstrably wrong and unconstitutional
44:46
decision just because it's been quote unquote
44:48
settled for decades. So I
44:51
don't understand that jurisprudence,
44:53
if you want to call it a jurisprudence. But how
44:55
do we undo the Chevron deference
44:58
because it is incorrect and right
45:00
Congress is never gonna do anything
45:02
about it because it makes their jobs easier, not to
45:04
be responsible for what they legislate.
45:07
So there's a doctrine courts follow that's called
45:09
starry decisis that is respect
45:12
for precedent. It's following precedent and
45:14
look stary decisis makes sense and that you
45:17
want predictability
45:19
in a legal system. You
45:21
know, if you look at how laws are structured,
45:24
there's a tension between rules and
45:26
standards. Rules
45:29
are clear bright lines where you know
45:31
which side you fall on them. Now, they have the advantage
45:34
of predictability. They have the advantage that
45:36
xante beforehand, you can know
45:39
where you will be afterwards.
45:43
The downside of clear bright line rules
45:45
is sometimes that are unfair. Sometimes a line
45:47
where result in a particular case where you say,
45:49
well, gosh, that rule resulted
45:51
in an unfairness for this particular person because
45:53
of some weird circumstances. On the other
45:56
hand, standards where things are flexible. They
45:59
can spawn to, oh, if it's unfair
46:01
to do this here, let's not do it here. If it's fair to do
46:03
it there, let's do it there, so you can respond
46:05
to the exigencies of the circumstance.
46:09
But the problem with standards is they're unpredictable.
46:11
It's hard to predict on the front end what
46:14
the answer will be stared
46:16
is scisis is a structural
46:19
rule that you want players
46:21
in our society, whether individuals,
46:23
whether people looking at the civil law, where
46:25
the people looking at the criminal law where their companies
46:28
to be able to predict the outcome. And
46:30
so if you know, all right, there is this precedent,
46:33
so the courts will follow this precedent, then
46:35
you could order your behavior accordingly and say,
46:37
okay, here's what the law is. You can
46:39
go to your lawyers ask what the law is, and you can
46:42
know what it is that that has an advantage.
46:44
You want stability. You don't want the law
46:47
changing willy nilly. But
46:52
the scisis is not absolute. There
46:54
are times when precedents are wrong and precedents
46:57
are overturned, and the
46:59
courts have laid out rules for
47:01
when precedents sho should be
47:04
overturned, and the rules look to things
47:06
like have there
47:08
been has
47:10
the law been settled, have people had reliance
47:13
interest on it? Has
47:15
the law proven administrable?
47:17
As it proven Sometimes there's a bad decision
47:19
that just produces chaos and the courts
47:21
say, okay, this didn't work. The
47:23
courts also are
47:26
more willing to follow starry descisis
47:29
for a statutory question than
47:32
they are for a constitutional question. Now why
47:34
is that? Because a statutory question, which
47:36
is the interpretation of a federal law passed
47:38
by Congress, sign a law by the president. If
47:41
the courts get it wrong, Congress
47:43
can change the statute, and it does that sometimes.
47:45
So if there's a statutory question, the courts get
47:47
it wrong, Congress
47:49
has the ability to fix it. So there's a higher
47:52
protection for starry descisis in that instance
47:55
because you want the predictability even
47:57
if the court got it wrong. With respect
47:59
to the Constitution, there's
48:03
more of a view that a constitutional
48:06
decision, if it is wrong, can
48:09
be revisited. So, for example, the most
48:11
famous overturning
48:14
of a precedent was Plessy versus
48:16
Ferguson, which upheld separate
48:19
but equal and upheld the discrimination
48:21
in schools, and Brown versus
48:23
Board of Education overturned Plessy. That
48:26
was the right thing to do. That
48:30
Brown was the right decision. Plessy was wrong.
48:33
During the argument in Dobbs, you had the Supreme
48:36
Court justices asking the Council,
48:38
well, okay, look here are all the decisions we've overruled,
48:41
and they listed some big ones. Why
48:44
doesn't Row meet that standard? But how
48:48
willing a justice is to overrule precedent?
48:50
That varies justice by justice? I will say,
48:52
By the way, as a final point on this, the
48:55
liberals it's not that they're
48:57
devoted to start descisists. They don't believe in started
48:59
to at all. They're
49:01
devoted to left wing outcomes yep. So
49:04
they want star decisis to be followed for left
49:06
wing decisions. So Row versus
49:08
Way for them, star decisis is critically
49:10
important because they support Row. They
49:13
don't want star decisis. When it comes to Heller,
49:15
which is the court's decision upholding
49:17
the Second Amendment right to keep in bear arms, the Liberals
49:19
would immediately over rule Heller. They
49:21
don't want stary decisis. When it comes
49:24
to Citizens United, which protects our political
49:26
speech and the right to engage and and and
49:29
criticize politicians. They disagree with Citizens
49:31
United, they would overturn it. So, particularly
49:35
for the left, when it comes
49:37
to stary decisis, that is
49:40
usually an excuse for
49:42
whatever policy outcome they want, because
49:45
the left views the courts as really
49:47
very little different from a super legislature
49:51
enacting the policy they agree with. Right
49:54
and so we have to get to it. We don't
49:56
have to. We want to get to a really funny question
49:59
from the verdict usum subscribe
50:01
or pool here in just a second. But let me ask you a very
50:03
quick yes or no question. Is there a possibility
50:06
that Chevron deference, that Chevron could be overturned
50:09
at the Supreme Court level? So yes,
50:11
I think there's a good possibility, especially
50:13
deal Gorse, which has been quite critical of chevron
50:15
a deference, and it's it's a doctrine that has come
50:17
under more and more criticism. I think I think there's
50:19
a real possibility Chevron's overturn because
50:22
the Left, as they have the past decade,
50:24
has overshots. They've overshot on their
50:27
abuse, and the American people want to reject it. Okay,
50:29
this is a really funny question. I saw this one.
50:31
It's not a it's not a policy question at all. This
50:33
is from Paul on the Verdict plus
50:36
Community. Paul says, is Ted short
50:38
for Theodore, is Liz short for Elizabeth?
50:40
And is Michael short from Michael Angelo. Ooh,
50:44
I like that, So
50:46
I'll address my piece of it at least. So Ted
50:49
is actually not short for theater Theodore.
50:52
My full name is Raphael Edward
50:54
Cruz. Raphael is after my father, RAPHAELBM
50:56
and Evil Cruz, who's Cuban. My
50:59
mental name Edward. It is after my grandfather,
51:01
my mother's father, who was Edward Dara. So
51:05
sometimes people refer to me as Eduardo.
51:07
No, he was Irish and Italian. He was
51:09
not. Actually he was Irish.
51:11
My grandmother's Irish and Italian. Um it
51:14
was Edward and Ted is a nickname for Edward,
51:16
and so that's that's where Ted comes from. And Liz
51:18
is short for Elizabeth. I will answer on behalf
51:20
of Michael and say that it's not short for my clangel. It's
51:22
short for Saint Michael. Kidding,
51:25
obviously kidding. This actually will
51:27
be a test to see if Michael does watch this series,
51:29
because if he does, you know whole comment on it. If
51:32
you are not already a subscriber over on Verdict
51:34
Plus, please join us at Verdict with Ted
51:36
Cruise dot com Slash Plus. I have a promo code
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for you. The promo code is, of course, Cloakroom.
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51:50
I'm Liz Wheeler. This is the Cloakroom
51:53
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52:02
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