Who Is Ray Epps?

Published Jan 18, 2022, 11:16 AM

With one simple question, Senator Ted Cruz sets the internet on fire—Who is Ray Epps? Now, the Senator joins Michael Knowles and Liz Wheeler to ponder the answer to this and several subsequent questions. What was the FBI’s involvement in January 6th? Why are they stonewalling the Republican’s inquiries? And because a hard day’s work is never done, Biden and his band of hooligans continue to fight against the Senator on Nord Stream 2 and the filibuster. 


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Who is ray EPs. This is verdict with Ted Cruz. Verdict with Ted Cruz is sponsored by American Hartford Goal. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's noticed everything is getting expensive. We are in the biggest economic crisis since two thousand and eight, with a government that's printing trillions and trillions of dollars. Consumer prices are the highest we've seen in thirty years. Inflation is certainly here to stay, and if the government continues it's out of control printing and spending, the dollar could continue its free fall and lose its coveted role as the world reserve currency. So how do you protect your money, your retirement, your savings. Well, American Hertford Gold can show you how to head your heart earned savings against inflation by helping you diversify a portion of your portfolio into physical gold and silver. They'll even help move your existing IRA or four O one K out of the volatile stock market into a precious metals IRA, and they make it easy. 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With stamps dot com, there's no risk and with our promo code Verdict, you can get a special offer that includes a four week trial plus free postage and a digital scale, no long term commitments or contracts. Just go to stamps dot com, click on the microphone at the top of the homepage and type in Verdict. Welcome back to Verdict for Ted Cruz. I'm Michael Knolls and Senator. It's just a very simple question with which you set the Internet and the Senate on fire today. Who is Ray Epps and specifically, what was the FBI's involvement in January sixth? Well, look, I think it is a very good question, and it's a question right now we don't have an answer to. We have seen for the past year the Biden Department of Justice, the Biden FBI Stonewall, refused to answer questions, refused to take any accountability. And we've also seen, sadly the Biden Department of Justice be deeply politicized. We've seen this Attorney general used d J as a weapon to go after President Biden's political enemies. And ray Epps was a fellow who was there on January fifth. January sixth, there are numerous videos of him on the Capitol, on the Capitol grounds and leading up to the Capitol, urging people to enter into the Capitol. And in particular there there's one video that is that is very curious where he's you know, he's wearing a Maga hat. He certainly appears to be a Trump supporter, and he's screaming to the crowd, Uh, this is the day before January sixth, this is January fifth. He's saying, we must go into the Capitol, not just up to the capitol, we must go into the capitol. Let's take a look at it. Because the crowd's reaction is is remarkable. Tomorrow, he didn't you go into the capitol, So, Michael, it's it's very curious behavior. The crowd, as you see, begins channing fed fed, fed, fed fed. And the next day on January sixth, there they're also potographs of this fellow, mister Epps, talking to someone else wearing a trump had whispering in his ear. And then five seconds later, and you can actually on the video see that it's a total of five seconds, the person he was talking to is suddenly trying to tear down the barricades to the Capitol. And the obvious inference is that mister Epps urged him to try to tear down the barricades. That's certainly what the fellow does five seconds after listening to whatever it is that mister Epps says. Now, the FBI posted a public posting with a picture of mister Epps asking for help identifying this person. Who is this person? They identified him as someone that they wanted to question that presumably they potentially wanted to charge, and then magically he disappeared from the FBI posting, and when they put out the next list of pictures, mister Epps was gone, and I think a lot of folks are wanting to know what I asked today at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, I asked the FBI senior official at the FBI if mister Epps was a fed what was he a federal agent? Was he a confidential informant? Was he actively We saw that he was actively urging people to commit criminal conduct? But what was he doing so at the behest of the FBI and the Department of Justice and the FBI and DJ refuse to answer that, did any FBI agents or FBI informants actively encourage and incite crimes of violence? On January sixth, six Sir, I can't answer that, Miss Saburn. Who is Ray Epps? Yep, I'm aware of the individual, Sir, I don't have the specific background to him. Well, there are a lot of people who are understandably desired about mister Eburn about I mean, these four words, these are a completely valid question. It doesn't matter which end of the political spectrum you're on. This is a question that we all want to know the answer, because here's the thing, this should be a very easy question for the FBI to answer. If the FBI knows that ray Epps is not a FED, then they should just deny it to put an end to these questions. I mean, those on the left try to paint this as a conspiracy theory. It's not. It's a valid question because the FBI's engaged in this type of entrapment behavior before, with the Gretchen Whittmer plot, for example, and so all the FBI has to say is, no, he's not a FED. No, FEDS did not engage in any kind of entrapment behavior, and yet the FBI is refusing to do so. And listen to this. This is the statement from the January sixth Committee. They say, quote, the Committee has interviewed Epps. Epps informed us that he was not working, that he was not employed by, working with, or acting at the direction of any law enforcement agency on January fifth or sixth, or at any other time, and that he has never been an informant for the FBI or any other law enforcement agency. This is the statement from the January sixth Committee. And honestly I laughed when I saw this because ray Epps them using ray Epps's words his denial that he was a FED, as I guess their insinuation that he has not a FED. I thought to myself, well, Ray ups denying he's a FED is exactly what he would say if he were a FED. It does raise more questions than I think it answers, and we will have a lot of questions from our wonderful subscribers are Verdict plus subscribers coming up in the mailbag not too long from now. Is that right? That is correct? And there are questions related to I mean, as you know this, this clip of your senator went wildly viral on social media, millions of views, and a lot of people have questions about how this can be investigated and what kind of accountability there would be if these questions are not answered correctly, or if they're answered in the way that we think they might be answered. I'm going to go over there and collect all of those will answer them at the end of the show. Anybody who wants to ask a question can join us on Verdict plus at Verdict with Ted Cruz dot com slash plus and I'll see in a few minutes, wonderful we'll seeing a second Senator. I want to get to what Liz just brought up, which is that the January sixth committee partisan, though it may be is saying that Ray Epp says he's not a FED, he's never been an informant. So what do we make of that? Oh, well, it could be true. It could be false that the January sixth committee is wildly partisan. It is a kangaroo committee. It is set up by Democrats with an explicit purpose to elect Democrats, and it's going to be a partisan show committee from day one. So I don't give a lot of credence to their statements. I don't know if if mister Epps is a FED or not. His behavior is odd, it's weird when you watch how he behaved, how the crowd reacted to him, when they start channing FED that that's fairly suspicious. And look, it's important to distinguish. The FBI has federal agents, and they have federal agents who go undercover. That that is a legitimate law enforcement investigative technique to go undercover in groups, particularly if you anticipate that that that criminal conduct may occur. What the FBI can't do and shouldn't do, and it's improper for them to do, is for them to instigate criminal conduct. So the FBI can't join the Michael Knowles book club, and while you're sitting there reading some incredibly dry, you know, Latin book about the medieval times, say hey, let's go knock off a bank tomorrow. Come on, Michael, are you mad enough to knock knock over a bank? If the FBI agent instigates the criminal activity, if the FDBI agents incite you to commit criminal activity, that's where they cross the line. And the reason so many people are concerned about mister Repps is what we saw in the video. He is urging people to commit criminal activity that ultimately a lot of people have been are being prosecuted for. And so it was really stunning. I asked the FBI over and over and over again, did FBI agents commit acts of violence? On January sixth, the FBI refused to answer that question whether or not FBI agents committed acts of violence. I asked, did they incentivize, did they incite? Did they urge others to commit acts of violence? Again, the FBI refused to answer. And look, I get most law enforcement agencies. If you ask them, do you have an undercover officer or do you have an informant somewhere, they're gonna say, I'm not going to tell you, and then that's fairly typical law enforcement behavior. This is unusual the level of public scrutiny. There is a public accountability that needs to occur. If the federal government was actively encouraging illegal conduct, was actively encouraging violence, that is incredibly concerning because it is an abusive power. And look, everyone views this in the context that we remember the four years of the Trump presidency. We remember the FBI, the intelligence community, in the Department of Justice, in the deep state actively conspiring against the president. We remember the FBI fraudulently altering a document submitting it to a federal court, creating counterfeit. And by the way, this is not me saying this, This is the Department of Justice Inspector General that outlined how these deep state operatives were so passionately anti Trump that they broke the law. And so it does raise the question did that happen on January sixth? And the fact that the Biden Department of Justice refuses to answer is deeply, deeply concerning. And I got to say, even for Democrats it ought to be concerning. And I'm not going to out anybody, but I will tell you I had a conversation with a Democratic senator today who saw the questioning in Judiciary and he said, you know, I gotta tell you, I'd never heard of this guy ray Apps before or that hearing. That's really troubling. And he said, I'd like to know that answer now. I'm not going to out this senator because it frankly he or she would come under a lot of heat for saying that publicly because the Democrats don't let you buck their party. But if anyone genuinely cares about the integrity of law enforcement, you ought to be troubled by law enforcement in trapping people incentivizing criminal conduct. That's not what law enforcement is supposed to be doing. And I think the Biden DOJ needs to have some real transparency answering these questions. But how are we going to get an answer? Because you, I think brought this issue and this man ray Apps to national attention today in a way that he had not been before. But the FBI just stonewalled you and said, well, we're not going to tell you. Well, we're not going to tell you. Well, I can't answer that, and you know, apologies, but I don't exactly take the FBI at their word, especially these stays, so are we ever going to if a United States Senator in an open hearing can't get an answer out of the FBI, is that it We just have to believe them because they say so. Well, it doesn't have to be. Look, Republicans are in the minority right now in the Senate, so I lack the ability to subpoena anything. It takes a majority of a committee to subpoena something. If you had even one Democrat willing to break from the herd and say let's get an answer to that, that would be a step in the right direction. What needs to happen at this point, The first step we can do is shina light. What needs to happen is we need reporters actually do their job. We need reporters to ask the Attorney General who has ray apps? Did you have confidential informants? Did they incite violence? What are the details? You need reporters to ask Democratic senators why don't you care? Why aren't you asking this question? Why are you allowing the Department of Justice to stonewall We need sufficient public uproar that the Department of Justice is forced to have some accountability. It may take until a year from now. A year from now, I believe we will have at a minimum of Republican House of Representatives. We may and I hope we'll have a Republican Senate a year from now as well. If that happens, I very much hope that we see a House and or a House and Senate willing to use the subpoena power to get answers to this. But but absent that, we've got to have enough public attention that the Democrats are guilted or shamed or feel enough heat that they have to answer questions and get to the truth. I don't think that it makes a lot of sense right now to expect bipartisanship, because last I checked, the Democrats are trying to whip all the votes they can to get rid of the filibuster, to ram through the federalization of elections. You actually have come to be the public enemy number one, at least for the White House. They're whipping votes against you on this issue of Nordstream two and Russia trying to build a pipeline. So it does seem like the stakes are very very high right now, and any Democrat who bucks the party line is going to be thrown into the outer darkness. Well, Michael, that's exactly right. The Biden White House is fighting me tooth and dale on multiple fronts. They're fighting me on January sixth, they're fighting me trying to cover up what happened. They're fighting me on the filibuster and their attempt to federalize elections. And they're fighting me ironically in defense of Russia and Nordstream two. You know, if you look at January six the other half of the hearing this morning is I asked the Department of Justice. I said, all right, how many people have been charged with crimes of violence? If you assault a police officer, if you physically assault a police officer, you should be prosecutor, you should go to jail. Nobody should be able to violently assault a cop. But I asked, especially if it's a fan who's doing it. Yeah, how many people have been charged with crimes of violence? Barbent of Justice refused to answer. How many people have been charged with non violent crimes? They refused to answer. I asked how many people are currently incarcerated? They refused to answer. I asked of those people, how many have been placed in solitary confinement, both violent and nonviolent. They refused to answer, and then I asked, I said, all right, let's look at a different instance where we had violence across the country, which were Black Lives Mattered Antifa riots all over the country. So on January sixth, there were roughly one hundred and forty police officers who reported assaults on January sixth. That is, those cases involving violence need to be investigated and prosecuted. In twenty twenty, Black Lives Matter and Antifa riots injured roughly seven hundred and fifty police officers nationwide, seven hundred and fifty cops. I asked the Department of Justice, though seven hundred and fifty cops that we're injured. How many crimes of violence have been charged? I don't know the answer to that. How many nonviolent crimes have been charged? I don't know the answer to that. How do you explain the differential the political partisan prosecution that anybody you know a little old lady who came to the mall on January sixth waving an American flag and singing God Bless America, the Biden DOJ is going to come down on like a ton of bricks. But some Antifa rioter whose firebombing police cars, they can't be bothered to prosecute and the Biden DOJ just stiff arm did the Heisman said, we're not answering anything we don't know. There needs to be accountability there. On the filibuster, Chuck Schumer is trying to ram through an exception of the filibuster to federalize elections, and in particular what he wants as a bill that would subject any change in election laws to what's called preclarance. Preclarance means the Department of Justice, This same politicized Department of Justice that has no transparency, that is behaving in nakedly partisan ways. He wants unelected bureaucrats of the Biden Department of Justice in charge of every election of America, and he wants them to have the ability to strike down laws adopted by democratically elected legislature. So I represent the state of Texas. They're twenty nine million Texans. The people of the state of Texas support voter ID, support requiring an identification to go vote. Eighty percent of Americans support voter ID. The vast majority of African Americans support voter ID. Well, the head of the Civil Rights Division and Department of Justice, is a left wing activist, is one of the leading advocates of abolishing the police in the country. She is a hard liberal partisan, and the Schumer Democrats are saying she should have the power to Trump to set aside, to repeal laws that twenty nine million Texans through the democratic process want adopted. It is a brazen power grab, and I'm help leading the effort to stop they're destroying the filibuster, to stop there destroying the integrity of elections, to fight against voter fraud because Biden and Schumer and Pelosi have decided voter fraud is good for Democrats. But the issue here, of course is if we're getting back actually to the issue of ray Apps in the investigation of the FBI, we can't do anything until we win more elections and get a majority in the Senate. If the Democrats grab this power, it's going to be much much, much much harder. I think in a lot of Democrats minds, they think it will give them a permanent majority because they're going to be taking all the power for running the elections. So how urgent is this issue? Am I am? I just clutching my pearls and waking up in a cold sweat for no reason, or is there a genuine threat here. We're looking at a generational kind of powagram, So listen that there is a real threat here. On the filibuster. It all comes down to Joe Mansion and Kirsten Cinema. So far they have resisted ending the filibuster. What Schumer is trying is to say, well, let's just make a limited, narrow exception for voting rights, because voting rights are so important to mind you. The bill he's pushing actually undermines voting rights. It puts an unelected bureaucrat with the ability to throw out laws adopted through voting rights through the democratic process. So it's an anti voting rights bill. But their rhetoric they claim it's voting rights and listen, I don't know if the Democrats are going to do it or not. They're putting massive pressure on Mansion in Cinema. If they give into it, it will have a massive negative effect on the integrity of elections. It will be used to undermine voter id laws. It will be used to undermine laws prohibiting ballot harvesting. It will be used to undermine every reasonable, common sense law that states have adopted to try to protect the integrity of elections. So it is dangerous. Democrats are doing it nakedly as a power grab. But the irony is it's a power grab on like multiple levels. It's like an Escher painting that it folds in itself over and over again. What they want to do to elections is a power grab. The way they want to do it is a power grab because to eliminate the filibuster, they have to break the Senate rules in order to change the Senate rules. And you know, today I was part of a press conference with about a dozen other Republican senators where I and others had great fun reading from a Chuck Schumer's speech. By the way, those are words that have never before been uttered in the English language. Great fun reading from a Chuck Schumer's speech. But it was in two thousand and five where he was railing against some Republicans that we're talking about ending the filibuster then, and he said that if you break the rules to change the rules, that it would turn America into a quote banana republic, and that it would be quote doomsday for democracy. That is Charles Schumer on what knooking the filibuster would mean, and yet now he's trying banana republican doomsday for democracy to use the Schumer words. Why look, Frankly, the real reason is Schumer's terrified AOC is going to primary him from the left, and so he wants to give the crazy left everything they can in order to show just how tough he is. This theory, I've heard it whispered before, but this would explain it. Because Chuck Schumer is an institutionally very savvy guy. He's certainly not the most radical of the Democrats. I can't believe you said for the first time that you you enjoyed reading a Chuck Schumer speech. I'm saying for the first time, I agree with Chuck Schumer on what would happen if we repealed the filibuster. But there is a legitimate threat from the most talked about politician in New York, and that would be AOC. Listen, I think he is looking over his left shoulder like crazy, and whatever she says, if he if she says jomp, he says how high he's in the air, and and and and doing backflips. And by the way, I gotta say, you know, the image of Chuck Schumer exerting himself athletically is really a frightening thought. Um, but it is almost complete and total that that that that that you know, when when AOC went down to party over the holidays and in in Miami, I expected to Schumer to show up in in uh in a bar at Mono Keiney just you know, partying alongside her. Thank you for putting that image in my head. To Senator on that note, should we bring our friend Liz back to hear from some of our listeners in the moment, we should, And Michael, you will wake up tonight in nightmares with the image of Chuck and the boorat Yep, it's already there. Liz. I just want to say, it's very mean to bring me back right at that reference, to put that in my mind. As you bring me back, you both you both owe me for that. You both owe me for that. We have a lot of good questions, fortunately none on that particular topic, but we have a lot of good questions. Senator, I want to combine this question. It's actually two questions, one from Bill Smith and one from Linda Brown. Bill Smith, Senator Crews also asked the question where is ray Epps? Why doesn't Congress subpoena him to appear? And Linda Brown says, what can be done to find out who ray Epps is and if the FBI are in collusion with the Democrats to instigate these riots. Well, Congress certainly could subpoena him. An individual committee could subpoena him, but it takes a majority on an eddy committee, and right now the Democrats have the majority. So it would take Democrats being willing to go along with it, and right now they're not willing to. If the January sixth Committee were anything other than a Democratic kangaroo court, they would subpoena him and bring him in for public testimony. But I'm not going to hold my breath there because that conflicts with their narrative. In the meantime, you know, there's information about where he's from. There's information on the internet. People are speculating. Again, I don't know this fellow. It may be that that that he's not. These are questions. His behavior is very curious, and the fact that the FBI was unwilling to deny it raises serious questions. But but it would take either course of legal force through a subpoena, which right now the Democrats have a monopoly on or it would take sufficient public scrutiny that the FBI and Department of Justice feels compelled to actually answer the questions. Right now, I think they believe they are totally unaccountable, that there is no there are consequences for their conduct, and that's really a dangerous dynamic. Look, it's frankly what we saw earlier this year when Merrick Garland directed the FBI to go after and target parents at school boards as domestic terrorists. It's the same thing. It's it's abusing the political process for partisan ends, and that's really dangerous. Yeah, I mean, I think that's correct. Obviously, the Democrats are partisan, and they're certainly going to be unwilling to vote in favor of subpoenaing ray ups. The question is if the Republicans gain control of the House of Representatives at the end of the year, which I think most people are expecting that Republicans will. I don't want to jinx it, but history shows that that's very likely, and so does the condition of the country. Do you think Republicans could possibly subpoenat him at that point if if the question has not been answered by then, yeah, I think the House representatives. We take the House, the House could absolutely do it. If we take the Senate, the Senate could do it also. Now I think there's a very real chance that potentially mister Epps might fight the subpoena. He might plead the fifth I don't know what he would do. If Republicans in the House or Senate tried to subpoena the Department of Justice or the FBI, they would almost certainly fight it in Stonewall. And I think the pattern we can expect is similar to the pattern we saw in the Obama Justice Department. The Obama Justice Department was heavily politicized. We ended up ultimately seeing Eric Holder, the Attorney General, held in contempt of Congress because he defied congressional subpoenas. So just winning a majority wouldn't necessarily cause the FBI or the Department of Justice to answer the question. But I think if we had a majority today, I would be prepared to issue a subpoena today if it were up to me, and I would certainly vote for that. We'd need to get a majority willing to do so. Yeah, and I think the American people certainly call for it, and his behavior if he were to face that hypothetically, it would be telling depending on what his behavior is. Okay, the next question I think is for Michael. This is directed to just the senator's co host, with the question why aren't you willing? And like I said, I assume this is Michael, why aren't you willing to have Madison Cawthorne on your show on MSNBC. Michael, I think this person thinks you're Rachel Maddow. You know. I was waiting for the punchline on that. And it's a good question actually, because Rachel Maddow has said, or her producers said in an email that they didn't want to ask Madison Cawthorne, the Republican congressman, for comment, because he might come on the show. I would criticize Rachel, but we doppelgangers have to stick together, and so I'm not going to be throwing any stones at my MSNBC counterpart. Okay, that's a very political answer to that. Michael. Well, that's all right. I made that question up anyway because I thought it was funny. Senator. Here's here's a real question for you. This is from Real Truth Cactus, who has some of the best questions. She says, why have we seen the left suddenly switched the COVID messaging from inflated statistics and fearmongering too accurate COVID information that would have gotten you banned from Twitter a year ago. Yeah, because they're brazen hypocrites and they realize that their policies are very unpopular. People don't want small businesses shut down again, people don't want their schools shut down again. Children, literally millions of children are being hurt by these ridiculous policies, and people are tired of the brazen mask mandates. You know, today we had a press conference in the Senate and they're about a dozen Republican senators there, and all the reporters were there, and a reporter from PBS asked me a question. She said, all of we reporters are wearing masks. None of you senators are wearing masks. What's wrong with you? Why aren't you wearing masks? And I laughed at her, and I said, because people are tired of the ridiculous double standards we've seen. We've seen Biden say no vaccine man, and then suddenly vaccine mandates for everyone. We've seen Biden say, if you're vaccinated, you don't got to wear a mask, and then suddenly everyone's got to wear a mask. We've seen Fauci say masks don't work, and then suddenly you need two, three four masks, And then well, I'm gonna lie to the American people about masks because I don't think they can handle it. We've seen the flip flops back and forth. And I told her, I said, look, you're a reporter. If you want to wear a mask, you can wear a mask for the rest of your damn life. I don't care. But some of us actually believe in freedom and are not going to wear a mask for the rest of our lives. But then I turned to her, Liz, and I said, you know what, how come your reporters never asked Joe Biden when he's standing at the damn podium in the White House, he's not wearing a mask. How come you never asked Joe Biden, wear's your mask? How come Jen Saki, the White House Press Secretary, when she's standing at the podium, no mask. We don't see reporters say, Miss Saki why aren't you wearing a mask because you guys are a bunch of partisan hypocrites. She didn't like that answer. No, I bet she didn't. I personally would like if the press would question Biden about not just why he doesn't wear a mask at the podium, but why he does wear a mask on the beach by himself outdoors when he's walking his dog, because that one, that one will blow your mind. I tell you that one's the craziest. Okay, next question is from a New a New Verdict plus community at member Padre Boston. I happen to know that this is a Catholic priest in Boston. Padre Boston says, Senator, can doctor Fauci be forced out by a Republican dominated Congress? That's actually a good question. By a Congress is tough because the executive power has the power of hiring and firing. So Fauci, as far as I know, is not currently in a Senate confirmed position, so he doesn't require Senate confirmation. I assume I haven't studied this, but I assume the Secretary of HHS could fire Fauci, or the President could direct that he be fired. Congress could put a lot of heat on the administration. Congress could, I suppose, theoretically try to attach something like an appropriation writer to legislation. I've never seen that targeting a particular individual that would almost surely be challenged in litigation if you tried so. The principal thing Congress could do is shine a light on Fauci's repeated contradictions, on his abusive power, on his hypocrisy, and on what appears on the face of it to be his committing of a federal crime lying to Congress about whether the federal government funded gain a function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. And that's a lying to Congress as a federal crime, a felony punishable by up to five years in prison. I've asked about that, I've shined the light on that, I've pressed on that. But the problem is, look, under our constitution, we got three branches a government legislative, executive, judicial. Only the executive can prosecute Fauci for lying to Congress, and at least right now the Biden doj they ain't gonna do it. Forget about the law. Politics trumps everything, sadly with this administration, and that's part of the problem with the administrative state is Congress should have more power than they have, but they legislated away. They legislated away using vague, vague wording in pieces of legislation that just defers this rulemaking to these agencies. And these bureacrats are unaccountable to the American people. They are in positions that it's difficult to fire them. This is one of the problems, one of the many problems with the administrative state. Senator, this isn't work. This is a fun question. This is a question that reminds me of what one of the audience members at Texas a and m asked you about your home state of Texas. This person's user name is ssnyh. He asks, would Ted be willing to moderate a Texas governor's debate before the primary? That's an awfully good question. It's a lively question. You know, I probably shouldn't do that. I'm friends with all the people running for governor. Greg Abbott has been a good friend. He was my boss five and a half years. There's enough contentious dispute. I'm supporting Abbott because he has been a close friend and supporter for decades. So you probably shouldn't have a moderator who's taken a position in a race senator, senator that has never stopped a moderator before. Obvious an overt bias and personal relationship. I think that's just the part for the course at this point. So actually, Mike, I'd remind me when when Chris Wallace moderated the debate between Trump and Biden, was Wallace actually wearing a Biden tshirt with a giant foam finger that said number one? I'm pretty sure he was like wearing the same shirt we see on illegal aliens crossing the border now, and you know, with a giant foam cowboy hat. You know, Biden's Biden's cheerleader. Yeah, I mean you're thinking of Candy Crowley surely, or someone from CNN who's giving questions Dhillary Clinton. Let's not get confuser. I personally don't believe that there is someone who isn't bias. Anybody who follows politics has an opinion, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think, in fact, sometimes owning up to bias makes it makes it more fair because then your audience can control for your bias. But I thought that was a fun question, So, Liz, I was going to jump in on the question of debate bias real briefly. One change I've actually suggested in how presidential debates happen is two stage Number one, Republican primary debates in the presidency should only be moderated by people who intend to vote in a Republican primary. So if you're a lefty journalist, if you want every Republican to lose, you shouldn't be a moderator every primary. A condition for to be a moderator, as you have to say, I'm going to vote in the Republican primary. I'm making this choice as well. Secondly in the general election. Obviously that's not an option when you have a Democrat and a Republican. Is what you just said about everyone's biased, Rather than pretend they're not, I would open it, and I would have one left wing moderator and one right wing moderator, so I you know, I would have um, you know, Chris Hayes and Mark Levine. I'd have Rachel Maddow and Michael Knowles that they could be separated at birth and and and and just have them own it completely. They'd have to wear name tags to differentiate Michael, do you have the glasses like her? You got the haircut, but do you have the like big dark black glasses. I'm not joking. Ben Shapiro told me I couldn't wear my glasses anymore because I looked too much like a certain MSNBC host. That is not a joke, and so everything is just blurring. Lest I be confused, That's okay. If you get this hosting role, we'll give you name tags to differentiate yourself from her. Um On that note, anybody who wants to spark one of these lively discussions and ask question to Senator Cruise, Michael Knowles or to me can do so at Verdict with Ted Cruise dot com slash Plus. Join us over on the Verdict plus community. It's a lively bunch over there, and you get access to ask questions. Also, don't forget if you want a cactus hat, if you want a Verdict T shirt, if you want a sticker for the back of your laptop, visit our merch shop at Verdict with Ted Cruise dot com slash shop. We have some sweet merch over there that I like. I think you'll like. Michael likes, the Senator likes we all like it. Michael. On that note, I'm going to hand it back to you. Wonderful Liz, Thank you very much. I am not Ray Epps, I am not a fed I am Michael Knowles. This is Verdict with Ted Cruise. We will see you next time. By the way, don't forget our tremendous giveaway in honor of the two year anniversary of Verdict. If we reach fifteen thousand members on Verdict Plus by January twenty first. January twenty first being of course, the anniversary the inaugural episode of Verdict with Ted Cruise, then we will bring one Verdict Plus member to a live taping of Verdict. Now you don't have to pay anything. This is an unpaid All you have to do is join the Verdict Plus community at Verdict with Ted Cruise dot com slash plus. If we reach fifteen thousand members by January twenty first, maybe you will be invited to a live taping of Verdict also on YouTube. We will be selecting fifteen random people who leave comments on episode one hundred. That's episode one hundred on YouTube. Fifteen random people we will be selecting to get a box a Verdict merch from the Verdict Merch Store. We're talking about sweet cactus hats, we're talking about t shirts, we're talking about stickers, really cool stuff. You could be one of the fifteen lucky people. Head on over to our YouTube channel and leave comments. Fifteen of you are going to get a box of Verdict Merch and perhaps the most fun. This isn't exactly the giveaway, but it's even better. If we get to fifty thousand reviews on Apple podcast, that means that you go over, you subscribe to the show Verdict with Ted Cruise, you leave us a five star rating, you give us a glowing, obviously great review over there. If we get to fifty thousand reviews, then we're going to do a poll to see exactly what Michael and Senator Cruz are going to do in twenty twenty two. These are the options, and by the way, shout out to Real Truth Cactus for this idea. These are the options. Either the Senator wears a Braves jersey for a whole episode. That's option number one. Option number two Michael and the Senator arm wrestle. I'm very biased, but this one's my favorite. 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