Welcome. It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz Ben Ferguson with you, Senator, I cannot believe that I'm going to start Verdict by saying this. But apparently Joe Biden is going to build the wall, and I'm talking about the wall with Mexico. This was announced very you know, nonchalant, no big deal, and see it in is losing their minds over this. I want to play that in a second, but first I want to get your initial reaction to this.
Well, it in News of the Weird.
You know, have Joe Biden standing up promising to build the wall. I'm waiting for him to grab a red Maga hat, put it on, and and and and explain that that AOC is going to pay for it. It is truly loopy stuff. To cut to the conclusion, I don't actually believe him. I think this is this is make believe, This is trying to pretend they're responding to the border crisis. But but but here Playhouse CNN covers it because it really does show that even as media cheerleaders are calling BS on this.
Biden is building the wall, at least part of it. This is something he said he would not do. The Biden administration announced it will waive twenty six federal laws to allow border wall construction in South Texas because of what they call an acute and immediate knee. The plan is to construct up to twenty miles of new border barriers in Star County. That's in the Rio Grande Valley area. Some two hundred and forty five thousand migrants have attempted to cross the border illegally in just that one sector since October of last year. On the entire border there, the number is closer to three million. Hundreds of migrants rush pass border control agents near El Paso yesterday. So when he was running for president, Biden made clear that he would not expand the border wall if elected.
Come campaigned on build that wall.
Are you willing to tear that wall down?
Now?
There will not be another foot of wall construct it on my administration. The President also said today that former presidents have said to him that they.
Wish that they had built a wall.
Do you recall President Obama were saying that.
I can't think of a single one who said that we need border security, but that's not the border security we need.
And on the day he took office, President biden'signed a proclamation stating that, quote building a massive wall that spans the entire southern border is not a serious policy solution that we should know. Today's action does not do that. It's a twenty mile section. Nevertheless, it is very different than what President Biden campaigned on.
I mean, Senator, I love CNN here because they're like owning Joe Biden. They never fact check in this way because this is how much they hate the idea of a wall. They can't stand that he's quote flip flopping. And this is when it's fun to be a conservative. You can just sit back and watch them burn him down on this. I also think that part about this that needs to be put in perspective, because you've been to the border probably more than any other senator in history. Is twenty miles as great, but it's not near as much as we actually need.
Well, that's right, and from the announcement, they're putting it down in the Rio Grand Valley in Star County, and that's valuable. That's an area of very high traffic. So that is beneficial. If they actually follow through and build that section of the wall, that's beneficial.
But here's the important thing to understand.
You can build a wall on the entirety of the border and it will not stop illegal immigration unless, unless, unless you have an administration that will follow the law and deport the people who come here illegally. So when I'm down at the border, almost without exception, I sit down, I meet with the border patrol agents, I meet with ICE, I meet with sheriffs, I meet with local police and local law enforcement, and I try to listen. I try to ask them, Okay, what tools do you need, how do you actually secure the the border?
Now? Without exception, they say they need a wall, that a wall is beneficial, but understand that a wall alone doesn't solve the problem. And why is that.
Well, there's the old line that if you build a ten foot wall, someone brings an eleven foot ladder. And what law enforcement on the border tells me is that's true, that people bring ladders, they get over the wall, that they get around the wall. That the wall is not the complete solution. The reason a wall is valuable is what is critical if you're trying to stop illegal immigration is the time between detection and apprehension. And what a wall does is it slows people down. It takes longer to get over a wall to get around a wall that if there's no wall, And in particular, a wall is valuable in more urban environments where there's there's not much space between the border and disappearing into a heavily populated area, So they're parts of rugged West Texas where you've got really tough to and a wall, frankly is not that useful in an area where the terrain is already a natural barrier. But if you're dealing with a portion of the border that is by a heavily populated area and an illegal immigrant is able to cross and suddenly disappear into the city, that's where a wall is really valuable. But even when the wall is built, what you have to have is an administration willing to deport the people they apprehend, and what Joe Biden is not willing to do is to end catch and release. And as long as catch and release remains the policy, this crisis will continue to get worse and worse and worse. And I think the purpose of this announcement is that they want a photo off of building a few feet a wall, so that it can assuage some of the Blue state governors and blue state mayors that are getting worked up. But it will not work all to reduce ilegal immigration because Joe Biden intends to keep releasing the illegals that come.
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Correct, that's exactly right. And you know I would point listeners back.
You and I did a podcast a number of months ago down on the southern border and we interviewed Brandon Judd. Brandon Judd is the head of the National Border Patrol Union. He's a good friend, and that's the union of all the border patrol agents, the men and women risking their lives to secure the border. And we sat down we were down to the Rio Grande Valley with Brandon and we sat down with him and interviewed him by the border. And one of the things Brandon said that a lot of people don't realize, but it was striking. He said, to secure the border, to fix this problem, he said, we don't need any more money. He said, we don't even need more agents. Although more agents would help, he said, that's not really what we need.
To secure the border.
He said, what we need is policy, a change in policy, a change in executive policy. And it comes down to one central question. When you apprehend an illegal immigrant, what do you do with that illegal immigrant? Now? Under Donald Trump, when they apprehended someone, they put him on a plane and they flew him back to where he came from.
They deported him. That was critical.
And then on top of that, and I'll explain this in a minute, was the remain in Mexico agreement, and that together, those two together produced the lowest rate of illegal immigration in forty five years. Biden literally his first week in office, he reversed that. So now when they catch someone, they'll give him a coordinate, typically several years in the future, and then they'll ask him where do you want to go in the meantime, And they'll say, I want to go to New York City, I want to go to Chicago, I want to go to Dallas, I want to go to la And the Biden administration will put him on a plane or put him on a bus and send them to whatever city they're in. And and in fact, you were just in New York. You told me you were sitting next to an illegal immigrant who was flying on the plane to New York with you.
Yeah, the plane was filled with them. It was it was shocking. I texted you the picture. There was a man sitting next to me. He had all of his papers in a in a in a see through, you know, kind of sheer plastic, you know, envelope, and he had his red cross blanket that was with him. He had his little knatsack that the US government gave him, he had his cell phone and and I speak very little Spanish, but I was able to communicate enough. I said, we're head. He goes, oh, I've come and I've come to America and they're now letting me go to New York City. And I said, oh, across the border and he said yes, and he was very excited. You and I taxpayers paid for that airline ticket. Uh, we paid for all the stuff that he had with him that was you know, new. And I'm assuming there's a good chance that cell phone he had was probably issued by the US government as well, because they've been doing that. But he wasn't the only one on that point. I mean, that was the first time. There's part of me saying, yay, I'm glad that he's going to New York City and not staying in Texas, because that's what's going to end up fixing this problem. Is what we're seeing with the they call it, you know, anarchy and chaos, and they can't handle the illegal immigrants. But that was the first time I'd ever witnessed it, sitting there knowing, Wow, I just paid for this guy just broke into our country to go to wherever he wanted to go. And I witnessed it first hit of a shocking to me when you're sitting next to it.
So and I understand that, and I've seen that many times, particularly when you've got flights coming out of South Texas. You can see half the flight or more filled with illegal aliens that the Biden administration he is paying to fly all over the country.
And that's happening day in day out.
By the way, that's not Greg Abbott, or as Eric Adams calls him, that madman in Texas busting them to New York. That's Joe Biden flying them to New York. And that's happening day after day after day. But you know, I will say, if you didn't listen to the podcast we did with Brandon Judd, you ought to go go back and listen to it because he explained that it is the policy of catch and release that produces this problem and Joe Biden does not intend to change catch and release. And I mentioned remain in Mexico so remain in Mexico was an agreement the Trump administration negotiated with Mexico that said that when people crossed illegally into Mexico, and many of them were coming from South America or Central America, that they would remain in Mexico, that they'd stay in Mexico while their US asylum case was proceeding. And that worked incredibly well. That's what produced the lowest rate of illegal immigration in forty five years. Now, one thing you said, Ben that I think is probably not not the case. You said you thought that cell phone likely was given to him by the federal government. That probably is not the case because in my experience, virtually one hundred percent of the illegal aliens crossing the border have their own cell phone with them. It's one of the few property items they carry. And it's why catch and release is so pernicious, because what happens is they get here, they turn themselves in, they go look for a border patrol agent. They turn themselves in. The border patrol agent ask, Okay, where do you want to go? They say, I want to go to New York City. They say great. They start processing them and then what happens is the illegal immigrant they pick up their cell phone and they call their friends, they call their family, they call their buddies and say, hey, guess what if you come here, you get to stay. And by the way, when they let them go, the vast majority of these people are never seen again. The court date is a complete fiction. That is the source of the problem. And Biden the same week he halted the border wall, the same week he reinstated catch and release, that same week he pulled out. It remain in Mexico that caused this crisis.
But I explain the remain in Mexico that the same week he pulled out because people hear that, what did that actually do? What did it mean?
So what it What it meant is is that asylum cases would proceed, but they'd stay in Mexico. They would not be allowed to come to America. They would stay in that they had camps in Mexico just south of our southern border where they'd stay while the asylum case proceeded. But it meant they didn't get let go in America. The critical thing about remain in Mexico is they were not released in America, and so you didn't have the magnet. You didn't have the pull effect, and so they'd call home and they'd say, hey, don't come. I thought i'd get to America. I got here, I got apprehended, and I'm stuck in Mexico. Damn, and I'm not in America. I'm in Mexico. This sucks. I'm not you know, don't come. They've actually really secured the border. And by the way, Trump leaned vigorously on the President of Mexico on it MLO to force him to agree to remain in Mexico. Also, he got the Mexican government to put six thousand troops on their southern border. You know, the southern border of Mexico is much much smaller. It's just a few hundred miles as compared to our southern border that's two thousand miles. And it's just obviously Mexico narrows as it goes into Central America. The southern border of Mexico's much easier to secure than our southern border because it's much smaller. That combination, I want to contrast at the same AMLO that Trump, by standing strong, was able to get to agree to remain in Mexico.
When Joe Biden was president.
Let's go back to January of this year, January twenty twenty three, where Joe Biden did a press conference with Amlo and Amlo praised him for building being the first president in recent history to build not even a single meter of border wall.
Listen, President Biden, you are the first president.
Of the United States then has not built not even one meter of wall.
And that.
We thank you for that, sir, although.
Not like it, although the conservatives don't like it.
Now, Ben, I want you to listen carefully to what Amlo said.
And amlo is is the nickname, it's the abbreviation for the Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, that's the current president of Mexico.
He's a hard leftist.
And what he said, which we just played and you could hear him in the Spanish in the background and then the female translator, but I want you to listen to the words again. What he said is, you are the first president of the United States in a very long time that has not built even one meter of wall.
Neiun metro is what he said.
And he goes on to say, and we thank you for that, sir, although some might not like it, although the conservatives.
Don't like it.
And this entire time, AMLO's praising Biden for being the first guy in a long time not to build wall, including not Trump, not Obama, not Bush. Nope, Biden had not built even one meter of wall. Biden is sitting there grinning like some silly kid while he's allowing an invasion of our country. The important thing to understand is Biden still intends to allow the invasion of the country. He just realized that building a little bit of wall it is good camouflage to pretend that this is not all his fault.
Well, and let's back that up with facts and proof of what you just said. The Biden administration has been purposely cut out bob wire at the border to facilitate more legal aliens into the United States of America. Now this it was caught on video, reported on video on Fox News Channel.
Take a listen now at Eagle Pass in Texas. Our drone is up in the air again and this picture has not gotten better. We've watched this now for ten days. The state of Texas has put that barbed wire, the Concertina wire down to block migrants or to dissuade them from crossing the Rio Grande River. It's been mildly successful, but every time you see this, you get a back up on the banks of that river, and the White House puts a phone call in the border patrol and they cut that wire and then you see the line move.
And then in the.
Sanate of Texas, the leadership of Texas and the White House and the people in Texas largely have to deal with it. You know, one hundred thousand in New York is just you know, a very small number compared to what they've had to deal with in Texas. So it is in a stop Douatian. Plus you have all these children who have been brought here by human traffickers and the cartel basically in charge of the operations.
On and on it goes, and the federal government repeatedly challenges the state of Texas when they try and impede the crossing or the passing of those into that from the drone an egle pass Texas.
I mean, Senator, you can hear it there, Martha McCallum, Bill Himmer. They're watching this on TV. They're laughing at the idea that now you have a presence saying got to build this wall, but we're cutting down the bob wire to let people in. We're fighting with Texas saying you cannot secure the border. But then we bring an announcement saying we're going to secure twenty miles of the border and the rest of it. I guess they're going to keep cutting down bob wire. This is literally the definition of total insanity. Or they're just straight up lying to the American people, as you reference earlier, to play kate to these liberal mayors in places like New York that are freaking out they have one hundred thousand, Well guess what, Wait till you get a million, and then see what you do.
Yeah.
No, look, that's exactly right. The Biden administration wants illegal immigration. They want more of it. They want the numbers. Right now it's seven point six million, it's the highest in ever. They want it to grow to ten, to fifteen, to twenty million because they look at these illegal immigrants as future Democrat voters.
They want open borders. So you're right.
The state of Texas is putting barguire up trying to secure the border, and the Biden administration sends people in to cut it down, to open it up. So that the illegal immigrants can come faster. The Biden Department of Justice is suing the State of Texas trying to stop the State of Texas from putting barriers on the border. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and Alejandro Mayorcis, they want to accelerate illegal immigration. And understand this about may orcus He views doing his job well as get more efficient, getting faster in processing illegal immigrants, so that they shrink the time and make it even quicker and quicker and quicker to move illegal immigrants into the interior. And so this announcement today, it is one thing and one thing only. It's a press release, it's a photo op. It is designed so they can pretend, gosh see, we're secure in the border. But their objective is for the numbers to keep going up. And the way you know that is they're not changing catch and release, they're not changing the policies that cause this crisis. Instead, they're continuing to fly illegal aliens to every city in America, and they're continuing to enrich the cartels and turn them into multi billion dollar global criminal enterprises.
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Mexican government initiative that's likely going to complicate the migrant crisis at least here in the US. Authorities there have begun bussing migrants from the southern part of Mexico north.
Towards the US.
This is an attempt by Mexico to free of existing public transportation that's currently being overwhelmed by the estimated six thousand who crossed into Mexico each day.
I mean, you hear that that's shocking on its face as well.
Well it is, And understand this is caused by Joe Biden's weakness. MLO doesn't respect Joe Biden. He thinks he's an incredibly weak commander in chief. You know, we played earlier a snippet from the joint press conference they had in January where Amlo is looking at him and is able to walk all over him and listen. Amelo is a hard leftist.
He campaigned and got elected in part running on an anti American agenda. But when he came in, Donald Trump was president and Amlo was scared of Trump. He didn't want to mess with Trump. And so ironically, this hard leftist, anti American Mexican president cooperated And remember the way remain in Mexico got signed is Trump threatened to put in place a twenty five percent tariff on all goods coming from Mexico.
That threat scared the hell.
Out of Amlow, which is why he knuckled under and agreed to remain in Mexico. He didn't do so eagerly, but he was afraid that Trump was just crazy enough that he would put those tariffs in place. The difference now is Biden's so weak that Amlo he's getting even further left, more anti American, and he's deliberately fueling this invasion at our southern border and the dynamic and by.
The way, even Eric Adams.
So Eric Adams has been getting some praise lately for having the courage to say illegal immigration is destroying New York City. Well this week Eric Adams still said, well, we want open borders.
Understand what I'm saying.
We want open borders, we just want a process to deal with it. Basically, what he's saying is give us money. If the Feds will give us the money, we'll take these illegal immigrants and just give them billions of dollars. We just don't have the cash to cover it. But I think what happened is Adams was getting grief from his left flank, and he felt the need this week to say, look, understand, I'm a Democrat, I'm four open borders, but this is a real problem. This week's announcement about the border wall is essentially press damage control from Biden.
Yeah, it is is exactly that, and like you said, it's probably an empty promise. And watch the media. They will pound him on this issue to make sure it doesn't happen. I also want to get your take on a headline that's really exploded while we've been taping this right now, and that deals with there is now intel that shows that Maga Republicans, Donald Trump's supporters, will be targeted by the FBI as the twenty twenty four election nears. Newsweek is now reporting on this and Biden to go back tweeted in September of last year quote Donald Trump and Maga Republicans are a threat to the very soul of this country. The very soul of this country. Chris the FBI director, Chrisopher Ray and sworn testimony, said it's not just Trump supporters. Early this year, he said, House Republicans say the FBI document that they've obtained proved that several filled offices contributed to a memo that targeted traditional Catholics. We talked about this extensively on this show as potential terrorists and tried to turn parishioners on their fellow church goers. So if you just look at the last year, parents who show up at school board meetings are to be labeled domestic terrorists. The FBI was spending time recruiting people in the Catholic church to spy on their friends and family. And now we are being told that heading into the twenty twenty four election that if you are a Donald Trump follower supporter, that you may be now monitored or targeted by the FBI.
Well, that's exactly right, and part of the challenge heare, like, for example, you focused on the FBI's targeting of traditional Catholics, which they rightly got enormous grief because they were talking about infiltrating Catholic churches and trying to get priests to spy on their parishioners and and and become FBI informants to inform on the members of their church. So initially the FBI said, oh, that was a rogue office down in Richmond, Virginia. It's not a broader problem now that they've admitted that it was multiple offices that participated in that this was a much broader effort to target traditional Catholics and and and the same is true, uh with with the targeting of Donald Trump supporters. You know, even this language, so you can tell someone did a focus group on the Democrat side and they discovered the phrase maga Republican. They're going to brand that that like magi by the way, maga republican and their definition they mean everybody. They literally mean every Republican is a maga Republican. And then and then they just think the word maga is really scary, and they claim that that if you are a maga Republican is defined as a Republican who voted for Donald So you know, seventy five to eighty million Americans are defined, according to this White House as potential terrorists, as threats to democracy.
And this is how Democrats have become radicalized.
They now say if you dare vote against Democrats, you are a threat to democracy. Just understand, every time Democrats use the word democracy, what they mean is me, I'm a Democrat. I want to get elected, and anything that stands in my way is a quote threat to democracy. They don't actually want that. They don't actually want real democracy if it elects Republicans. What they want is Democrats to be in power forever. And by the way, this is intimately connected to their lawlessness on the southern border, because the reason they've allowed seven point six million illegal immigrants into the country is because they want to subvert democracy by getting them to vote for Democrats and keep Democrats in power.
Sindri I also think we should bring up in the Newsweek article it says that if you voted for Donald Trump, the government will track you.
Well, that's right.
And in June of this year, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security filed a joint report with Congress. And what they say in that joint report is they say, quote, threats from domestic violent extremists have increased in the last two years, and any further increases in threats likely will correspond to potential flash points such as high profile elections and campaigns or contentious current events.
So they're saying terrorists.
Are associated with high profile elections, and just to make sure there's no ambiguity that they're not talking about Antifa, they're not talking about left wing terrorists. They are focused on Republicans. Here's what the report concludes. Quote socio political developments such as narratives of fraud in the recent general election, conditions related to the COVID nineteen pandemic, and conspiracy theories promoting violence will almost certainly spur some domestic terrorists to try to.
Engage in violence.
Now, everything they list there they associate with Republicans, and notice they say COVID. So if you don't like lockdowns, you're a terrorist. If you don't like forced maskings, you're a terrorist. If you don't like vaccine mandates, you're a terrorist. If you're concerned about the potential health negative effects of forced vaccines, of the COVID vaccines, you're a terrorist.
That is the narrative. Anyone that disagrees with the regime.
They now define as a violent extremist, And amazingly enough, left wing violence in their narrative doesn't exist. So black lives matter, not a word about them, Antifa, not a word about them. The efforts targeting Look, we've got now violent riots that are playing out right now in cities like Philadelphia where they're ransacking and looting stores where they're attacking police officers.
That is not violent extremism. If you're a.
Leftist, that's okay, that's wonderful, that is beautiful social protests to burn American cities. But yet, if you're if you don't want to see America locked down again on COVID, clearly you're a terrorist.
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Well, my understanding is the House is going to vote on speaker next week and then I expect it to be a roller coaster ride. I mean, you remember back in January we had a roller coaster ride of over a dozen different ballots before Kevin mc carthy was elected Speaker, and it was very narrow. It may well be a similar battle at this point. There's several contenders that are talking about running. Two have announced publicly. One is Steve Scalise. Steve Scalise is the majority leader, was Kevin McCarthy's number two. Steve is generally perceived to be more conservative than McCarthy, and so Steve is running as the candidate that can unify both the moderates in the Republican Conference and also some of the Conservatives. A second candidate who's running, as you noted as Jim Jordan. Jim Jordan was one of the original founders of the Freedom of Cacaucus. He is a prominent and well known conservative. The media is deeply skeptical of Jim Jordan, and they say he's too conservative to get elected and the moderates will never support him.
I don't know if that's true or not.
There is also discussion that Kevin Hearn, who is a Republican from Oklahoma, that he may run.
Kevin is a good man.
It's not clear if he will, although there have been reports that he's telling other Republicans he's looking at the race seriously. And then there's been some chatter that Chip Roy might run. I don't know if Chip will.
Run or not.
At this point, neither Kevin nor Chip are in the race, but next week they might both be in the race. And I don't know if yet another Republican might jump in. So I think it will be vigorously contested. I'm sure there is a lot of horse trading going on right now. There's a lot of negotiations going on right now. What's striking is that each of the potential candidates went and met with the Texas delegation. The reason they met with the Texas delegation is Texas is the largest contingent of House Republicans and so you've got the biggest block of votes, particularly if the Texas Delegation votes together. It's not clear that they will, but they might, and so at this point I don't know what will happen. My intention is to stay out of it and to leave leadership elections to House Republicans. But the answer as to who comes out of it is going to matter quite a bit, and so we will certainly watch with interest and continue to provide the best analysis we can.
One of the things I've heard over the last twenty four to forty eight hours center is there are people that love Jim Jordan, but they don't want to lose him on this investigation of Hunter Biden, and they're afraid that if you became the speak expertise, is that something that should be a concern or could he still continue to do both or have more power as a speaker?
Well, look, there's no doubt that the Speaker is by far the most powerful player in the House, and the Speaker of the House has enormous institutional authority. The questions of what is the best role for each of the Republicans in the House are going to be questions that the House members are going to have to decide. And I'm sure if that's a question being asked about Jim Jordan, I imagine Jim will be answering that question to his colleagues, and I expect a whole lot of conversations on between all the House Republicans throughout this weekend and throughout next week, and my guess is we'll see multiple ballots and we'll see what ultimately comes up.
It's going to be very interesting. We're going to cover it here. Don't forget. We do this show Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays. Hit that auto download or follow button or subscribe button wherever you're listening so you don't miss episode plus our weekend review show. Make sure you grab that on Saturdays, and we'll see you back here in a couple of days.