Fueling Russia's Aggression

Published Sep 10, 2020, 7:09 PM

What would happen if Russia gained total control over Europe’s oil supply? Senator Ted Cruz and Michael Knowles come together to warn against the havoc that a new oil pipeline, Nord Stream 2, is poised to wreak on the world if Russia completes their metal monstrosity. Then, the Senator talks about his new legislation aimed at blocking this hostile takeover of Europe’s energy supply chain. Plus, Senator Cruz issues a shocking correction to one of the pair’s previous mailbag segments.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As tensions ratchet up between Moscow, Russia, and the West, Germany is inviting Putin right into the heart of Europe. And the worst part of all is very few people even know that it's happening. Well, we know one person who knows it's happening, who's been very involved in this now for years. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz. Welcome back to Verdict. I'm Michael Knowles, joined as ever by Senator Ted Cruz. Senator. This is a subject which I will just put it out on the table. I know absolutely nothing about. I have heard little rumblings here and there, but there is something called nord Stream two. I know this involves oil going to Europe. I know this involves Germany. I know this involves Russia. That's all I know. But it's apparently a very big deal and nobody's talking about it. All right, Well, I hope somebody knows something or else. This is going to be a very short podcast. But so nord Stream too is a natural gas pipeline that is being constructed from Russia to Germany. And Russia has massive oil and gas resources, and in fact, I remember John McCain used to refer to Russia he used to say, Russia is a gas station with a country attached. Russia fuels its aggression through the export of oil and gas and Nordstream too. Right now, Europe relies on Russia for energy resources. But but much of that right now comes through Ukraine. Now, now this is harkening back to impeachment. You recall we talked a lot about Ukraine and how Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union broke off and Russia and Germany reached an agreement to build a new pipeline, a pipeline that cuts Ukraine completely out and that carries the natural gas eight to Germany. And the problem is, building this pipeline would do several things. Number One, it would enrich Russia. It would put billions of additional dollars in Putin's coffers, which he then uses to build their military, to be aggressive, to pressure to invade his neighbors, to reak havoc. Number Two, though it actually hurts Europe because it makes Europe more dependent on Russia. It gives Putin more control over Europe. And so I began over a year ago last year in twenty nineteen, really leaning in aggressively, trying to stop nord Stream two from being constructed. So you saw this happening early on, but I guess you saw it happening at a time where the relationship that we have to putin, the relationship we have to China is all kind of influx. And so I'm wondering, now, without having had my head in it, how should the United States even look at Vladimir Putin? Even look at Russia? Are we still in the Cold War? Is a different from the Cold Wars? It's still a threat to Europe. Where's that relationship? Putin is a bad guy. He is a KGB thug. He is not our friend, and we should be trying to minimize his power. We should be trying to minimize his ability to do damage to America and damage to Europe. And you may recall when when President Trump went and spoke to NATO, he leaned in hard and he took on Angela Merkel, the head of Germany, for why are you doing this nord Stream too thing? This is terrible. You're hurting Europe and helping helping Putin. So I was in the Senate. I'm on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and I said, all right, let's do something about it, and so I teamed up with a Democrat, with Jane Sheheen, who's a Democrat from New Hampshire, and we introduced legislation that was tough sanctions focused on any company that was helping build the Nordstream two pipeline. Okay, and it was designed to be iCal. There were only five companies in the world that had the technology to be able to build the deep sea pipeline needed, and so we were targeting those fives to try to cut them off. Well, when I introduced the legislation, it was very interesting. Russia has been aggressive in their counterpropaganda. They were they were putting out this legislation has no chance of passage. It will never pass, it can't go anywhere. I remember Rick Perry was Energy Secretary talking to Rick at the time who was in Europe, and was saying, look, you need to understand Cruz's legislation is going to pass. This is going to pass. These sanctions are going to happen. And the Russian disinformation was fighting with Rick Perry. Well, Senate Foreign Relations. We take up my bill and it passes the committee by a vote of twenty to two, so overwhelming bipartisan passage. I then sought to take it up and pass it on the floor of the Senate, and to use a mechanism called unanimous consent, which is the way a lot of things get passed unanimous consent. As the name suggests, it's got to be unanimous, which means any senator can object. In this instance, Rand Paul voted against it in committee, and he'd objected to taking it up on the floor. And one senator can kill unanimous consent, or you see, is what everyone calls it. Could I just ask not asking for you to tell any tales out of school here, but what was the objection to? I mean, this seems like a sort of common sense piece of legislation. Listen. I'll let Rand speak for himself. He is very skeptical of sanctions. Generally, he doesn't he often opposes efforts to use sanctions against foreign countries, including sometimes our enemies. I actually think sanctions are a very effective tool, and they're a tool far short of warfare. Look, Rand and I agree at times, and that we're both as does the President, that we should be very hesitant to use military power and only use it when critically necessary to defend the nation. But I think are an effective tool of power short of military force. So when Rand objected, I had to find another way to pass this. And in twenty nineteen, the National Defense Authorization Act, which is the big bill that passes every year authorizing our military defense, that was moving forward, and I've been an active part of passing the NDAA year after year after year, and so we decided, all right, let's try to attach this bill to the NDAA. Now to do that, we had to get a lot of sign off. To do that, I had to get number one, the chairman, a Republican, and the ranking member of Democrat of the Senate Armed Services Committee to sign off, because the Armed Services Committee passes the NDA. So we did that. I had to get the chairman and the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to sign off, because since that's the committee that had jurisdiction over my bill, Foreign Relations could have vetoed it and said no, we're not going to allow it to go onto the NDAA. So was able to do that, got both the chairman and ranking and then I had to do the same thing on Senate Banking that the Senate Banking Committee, because sanctions often go through banking. Banking could have vetoed it also, and so I had to get the chairman and ranking member of Senate Banking to sign off on and then I also had to get Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer to shine off on the majority and Minority leader. So we managed to do all of that. It got attached to the NDAA and it passed through the Senate. Then I had to do the exact same thing in the House, so get the chairman and the ranking on Armed Services, on Foreign Relations, on banking, and majority leadership. So we're talking phone call after phone call after phone call. As I'm talking to multiple members. Gene Sheheen is helping with the Democrats. She's talking to up multiple members in the House. We almost had it derailed from a completely unrelated education provision. I don't remember what it was, but it was threatening to derail at the House. So I had to be on the phone to Kevin McCarthy trying to like navigate through that and stop the objectives. December twenty nineteen, we get it past, okay. So once we get it past, then the question is, well, is the pipeline going to stop? Because they were building the pipeline and the pipeline was ninety to ninety five percent complete. Wow, right, because we're I mean, I think it's it's easy as we as we think about this legislation going through the Senate and then the House, we as Americans like to think that whatever we say goes, but that's only getting the American response set. But obviously Germany can do whatever it likes. So the question is are these sanctions going to work? Yeah? And let me pause for a second and point out what was truly miraculous December twenty nineteen. Can you think of anything else that was going on? Then? You know, I seem to recall it was a busy political time. The House was literally impeaching the president and impeaching the president over Ukraine. Now, mind you stopping Nordstream two benefits Ukraine. It is a frigging miracle. Is a Christmas miracle on thirty fourth Street that we got this done. We passed bipartisan legislation through both houses of Congress that concerned Ukraine. I didn't mention Ukraine at all. Every time I talked to people, I said Germany, Russia, Ukraine. Never heard of it. I don't know where it is, don't have my map doesn't have Ukraine on it, don't know anything about it. Like in the midst of that partisan mess, to get this national security win was miraculous. But then once it happened, there was a company, a Swiss company called All Seas that was actually building the pipeline. It was almost done and so they're rushing to just finish the pipeline. So I was like, well, tough luck, we're done. So what I did then is drafted a letter to the CEO of All Seas, and it is a letter that says, this is to put you in formal notice that your company is in direct jeopardy of facing crushing economic sanctions on your shareholders and your senior employees that will effectively put your company out of business. And there were a couple of questions that could arguably be ambiguous. Number One, the way the statute was written, the State Department had to do a report I think it was sixty days later, and so you could say, oh, well, we got sixty days to get this done. And number two, the statute allowed what was called a wind down period, so you didn't just stop immediately and cause environmental damage. Our letter explained, although the report is due sixty days later. Under the terms of the letter, your liability attaches instantaneously, and the sanctions are mandatory. The executive has no discretion over whether to impose them. And so what I wrote in the letter to the CEO, I said, you need to be aware the instant the President signs this bill, your company faces exposure and your only reasonable option is halt construction instantaneously and before the bill is signed. Yeah, Now both Houses of Congress have passed it. There's a big lobbying press in Washington. Suddenly all CES hires a lobbyist. They're reaching out, so suddenly that there's word that at the NSC there may be an effort to try to undercut these sanctions. So I pick up the phone and I call Robert O'Brien, the National Security Advisors, a close friend of mine. Robert was headed to a Christmas party. I said, look, Robert, I need you to come out, and I talked to him about it and said, this would be don't listen to this dumbass lobbying effort. This is a huge national security win for the country. Thankfully NSC. Robert's a great guy and nscn't didn't bite. We then had a fight, an interagency fight between the State Department, the Treasury Department in the Energy Department. So I'm on the phone with Treasury Secretary Stephen Manuche, and I'm on the phone with Energy Secretary Danbury. Yet Mike Pompeo was in Europe. I forget where he was, but I'm texting Mike on my phone. All three of them, State and Energy were in the right place, which is wanting these sanctions to be robust. Treasury, unfortunately was pushing on the other side, and so it was a big fight. So I'm talking to all three leaning in hard. At the end of the day, State and Energy and National Security Council won that interagency battle, and so the sanctions remained tough. The President signed that bill. I believe it was a Thursday at seven pm, if I'm remembering the time correctly. About fifteen minutes earlier Thursday, six forty five pm, all CS puts out a press release. We are lifting anchor and leaving and we have immediately halted all construction of door Stream too. So where does this put the pipeline now? I mean, so, after there's a sort of herculean effort, it finally gets through all the very chambers of the Congress and then gets through the departments and it goes into effect. Where does that leave the pipeline. So for several months it just left it stopped. So it's ninety five percent bill. But remember a pipeline that is ninety five percent built is zero percent built. The pipeline doesn't work, so you connect both ends. So so right now it's a hunk of metal on the bottom of the ocean like it's not doing nothing. So Russia was then scrambling, all right, how do we build it? And they didn't have the technology to do it. They're trying to do it using a Russian ship called the academic Chursky. Now to do that, they had to get a new environmental permit from Denmark. So I was on the phone to the Danish ambassador, pressing on the Danish ambassador saying, don't grant the permit. Unfortunately, Merkel and Germany are on the phone with Denmark leaning on them hard, please grant the permit. They ended up granting it. By the way, they're serious environmental risks to how Russia wants to do it. Among other things. One of the ways they're looking at doing it is dragging an anchor on the seafloor and they are actually unexploded Kevin chemical munitions on the sea floor from World War Two that if you hit them you could have an environmental complete mess. Wow. And it's not like the Russians are very good at this. They don't know how to do this, which is why they had to hire a Swiss company to build it initially. Well, a sentator, you mentioned the world wars here, and maybe this is a stupid question, but just knowing the little I do of history, the Germans and the Russians have not always had a wonderful relationship, and I'm just wondering why is Germany so hell bent on getting this pipeline in this relation ship with Russia. Is it just money? You know, Michael, I don't have a great answer. I think it is not in the German people's best interest. Merkel is leaning in really hard. The European Union actually voted, I think it was about a year ago to condemn Nordstream two is harmful to Europe and the vote was something like four hundred to one hundred. I mean, it was an overwhelmingly lopsided vote condemning Nordstream two, and so the Russians have been scrambling to move forward. I have been since then. And by the way, all of the naysayers who were trying to stop our legislation, what they kept saying was it'll never work. It won't actually stop the pipeline. There's no chance of it succeeding. And of course it worked like a charm. It's stopped it into the tracks. Now the Russians are trying to retrofit their ship to be able to finish it. And so what I've done, I've been working very closely with State and Energy still and Treasury. But I introduced a second set of say sanctions that is even it's a tougher set of secondary sanctions that basically says anyone else who's affiliated with it, you're getting sanctioned to like if you if you touch this project, you're screwed. Yeah. Again, I did it with Jeane Sheheen. It was bipartisan, Republican and Democrat, and we passed passed it through the Senate, attached to the next NDAA and so and so we got that through. It's pending, it hasn't been signed into law, but we got it through the Senate. Again. And I'll tell you I recently joined with a couple of other senators and sent a letter to the German port where Russia is retrofitting uh, the academic Trursky and trying to to to lead its efforts to finish this pipeline. The German ports name, I'm I'm sorry, it's a German name along German name that I can't remember, but it uh, it had a whole lot of consonancy. So I sent them a letter pointing out, look, under the terms of these sanctions, you are facing serious sanctions under what Congress has passed. I got to say Germany is the German government is flipping out, is losing their minds. They're very upset. Russia's very upset. Now other players in Europe, like I spoke two weeks ago to the Polish ambassador Poland thinks, you know, Europe has seen the danger of Russian aggression. You know, for Poland, Soviet tanks in the streets are real memories. They know what that's like. And and part of the reason you don't want Europe totally dependent on Russia for energy is because Putin's demonstrated he'll shut off the energy in the middle of a brutal winner in order to extract concessions from people he wants to get concessions from, and so he uses it. You know, it's a little bit like saying, you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna make myself dependent on the mafia, on the mob you know, you know, you know Vito Corleoni, I'm gonna put him in charge of of of air and water for my house. That's a really bad idea, because Vito will come to you sometime and ask for a favor. And then Putin has a lot of Vito Corleoni. Apologies to Marlon Brando somewhere he's rolling over in his grave. It was it was like I was watching the film. But so this battle is ongoing right now. M here's the bottom line. I don't believe this pipeline will ever get constructed, but we are literally fighting both Merkel and Putin right now who billions of dollars are at stake to complete this pipeline. We have managed to keep a bipartisan coalition throughout the government in Congress and the executive branch, Republicans, Democrats, all the other issues were fighting about. We've managed to keep this coalition together on national security. And if we continue to stop the pipeline, which we've done so far, it hurts Putin, taking billions of dollars out of its pockets. It helps Europe by making it less dependent on Russia. And it helps America because if Europe because Europe, it would be much better for Europe for them to be importing energy from America, creating jobs of the United States of America rather than enriching Putin. And so this is a win win all around. And it's an active diplomatic battle that it is ongoing right now, and I think that's an important point. First of all, it serves American interests, Second of all, it serves European interests, and third of all, this harkens back to something that we talked about very early in the podcast during impeachment, which is, I think a lot of our focus now is on China. Obviously, we're living in this pandemic and these lockdwns that were caused by China, and so people are saying, Okay, China is the real threat. You know, Russia was a threat during the Cold War, but now China is the real threat. This doesn't have to be an either or Here, it's not the case that just because China is now threatening us in a way that we hadn't seen before, then all of a sudden, Vladimir Putin is our best friend. Is surely he does not have our interests at heart now that that's exactly right. Listen, In terms of magnitude of threats, China is the far bigger geopolitical threat. I think it's the biggest threat we have over the next century. But Putin and Russia remain dangerous, and we need to be vigorous against them. And for that matter, of nuclear Iran would be profoundly dangerous. North Korea's dangerous. So there are lots of dangerous places on Earth. China, strategically, their economic might makes them, I think, a different level of magnitude than every other player for the next century. But Russia is dangerous, and putting billions of dollars in Putin's pockets to use against us is a really bad idea. Well, moving from the realm of foreign policy to tell on domestic affairs here in our last few moments, I want to get to the mailbag, Rob asks. He says, I would like Ted's thoughts on the recent comments by Dems that a Trump landslide on election night could be a mirage. That basically you could get Trump winning on election night, but then some mail in ballots come in weeks later and all of a sudden, the election goes to Joe Biden. Well, look, I think it is a moment where the Democrats actually set out loud the things that they meant to keep quiet, which which is they're admitting from a democratic perspective, there were one or two outcomes. Either they win in November or they're going to scream the election is illegitimate. They're going to file litigation in every state and jurisdiction they can, and they're going to do everything they can to steal the election. That they the outcome of Trump winning that there's so much rage at Adam that I and you can see them setting the predicate for them. You can see them already setting the stage to challenge the legitimacy of the election. And and you know, it's interesting there have been prominent Democrats, Hillary Clinton asking, you know, would Trump accept it if he lost? And there's an odd thing that a lot of Democrats do. I mean, it's a Freudian projection, which is they accuse the other side of doing what they're doing. Look, it's the Democrats that still haven't accepted they lost in twenty sixteen. You know, it's Stacy Abrahams who still thinks she's governor of Georgia. And I am very concerned that that they are unless they win, in which case it will be Hosanna, hosanna income the Socialists. But but if if there's any outcome other than they're winning on election night, hold on tight, because they're going to do everything they can to dispute the outcome. Right. It's very funny because Hillary Clinton said in twenty sixteen that Donald Trump is threatening not to accept the results of the election. This is a threat to democracy. She then went on to dispute the election for four years, and now she's saying Joe Biden should not concede under any circumstances. You know, if there were self awareness on that side of the aisle, I'm I'm sure we could all laugh about it, But sadly there seems not to be. So, Michael, let me jump in actually on a mailbag topic, and this is actually a correction from prior mailbag. Hold on center. I'm going to stop you, right, there. I'm shocked. I'm edified, but shocked that you would correct something on the air, because if this were The New York Times and you had said something wrong, you would bury the correction in page three thousand and fifty of some supplemental book that no one would read. But you are going to make a correction right here on the show, I am, and I'm gonna I'm gonna shine a light on it. Which is which is. Several episodes ago, we were doing a mailbag and we had a question from from from one listener who's handle on Twitter. You and I both were heard to is Bay Lamb's donkey? Yes, And we were talking about it going well, you know, and we're sort of we made some jokes. Well, I gotta tell you afterwards, Um, a dear dear friend of mine, guy named Willie Langston, is one of my closest friends on earth. Uh and and Willie is a deep devout Christian, a godly man and and and a he knows the Bible through and through. And I gotta say, Willie had a little bit of fun making fun of you and me. I know, I know where this is going. For our lack of biblical literacy, because what it actually was referring to is Balom's donkey, and who is Balam? And I had to be reminded I didn't remember this, and Willie laughingly recounted, So if you look in the Book of Numbers, chapter twenty two, so Balom, he wasn't an Israelite. He was with the Mennonites and the Moabites, but he was someone to whom God spoke and the story in numbers twenty two. And I actually want to read the story because I remembered it, but I didn't remember it when we were talking about it, and it's worth remembering. So numbers twenty two, starting with verse twenty two. But God was angry because Balam was going, and the Angel of the Lord took his stand in the way as an adversary against him. Now he was riding on his donkey and his two servants were with him. When the donkey saw the Angel of the Lord standing in the way with his drawn sword in his hand, the donkey turned off the other way and went into the field, but Balam struck the donkey to turn her back into the way. Then the Angel of the Lord stood in the narrow path of the vineyards with a well on the side and a wall on that side. When the donkey saw the Angel of the Lord, she pressed herself into the wall and pressed Balaam's foot against the wall, so he struck her again. The Angel of the Lord went further and stood in a narrow place where he was no place to turn to the right hand of the left. When the donkey saw the Angel of the Lord, she laid down Underbalom. So Balam was angry and struck the donkey with his stick. And the Lord opened the mouth of the donkey, and she said to Balom, what have I done to you that you have struck me these three times? Then Balam said to the donkey, because you have made a mockery of me. If I'd had a sword in my hand, I would have killed you by now. This is the guy talking to his donkey. The donkey said to Balam, Am, I not your donkey on which you have ridden all your life to this day. Have I ever been accustomed to do so to you? And he said no. Then the Lord opened the eyes of Balam, and he saw the Angel of the Lord standing in the way with the drawn sword in his hand, and he bowed all the way to the ground, and the Angel of the Lord said to him, why have you struck your donkey three times? Behold, I have come out as an adversary because your way was contrary to me. But the donkey saw me and turned aside from me these three times. If she had not turned aside from me, I would surely have killed you just now and let her the donkey live. And so our listener, bloms Donkey was a wonderful biblical reference that as a graduate a second Baptist high school, I am embarrassed that I did not recognize immediately. But Willie, I'm fessing up and fessing up for all to hear. You know, it's so funny you mentioned at Senator. I did have this thought. I was thinking about Bay what is that? And after the episode, I thought, oh, my gosh, I actually did read numbers, probably two years ago. I had never read all of numbers. It's two or three years ago. And you know it's not It's a little bit dry as far as books of the Bible go. And but I thought, oh gosh, this is very bad. And I, unlike bloms Donkey, I deserve to be struck three times. We do on this show. For our biblical ignorance. We've really covered a lot of ground. We've not only gone to modern day Russia, We've gone to the ancient mid East. We've covered everything in between, all the way from heaven to Earth. We'll have to stop it there and we will see one another next time, and I'm gonna catch up on my Bible in the meantime. I'm Michael Knowles. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz. This episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz is being brought to you by Jobs, Freedom and Security Pack, a political action committee dedicated to supporting conservative causes, organizations, and candidates across the country. In twenty twenty two, Jobs Freedom and Security Pack plans to donate to conservative candidates running for Congress and help the Republican Party across the nation.