Latest / The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson / Exclusive Preview: Welcome to The Cloakroom

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Exclusive Preview: Welcome to The Cloakroom · The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, Verdict fans, I want to give you a sneak
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: peek of my new series with Senator Ted Cruz. It's
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: called The cloak Room on Verdict Plus. The only place
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: you're going to be able to find these episodes is
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: on Verdict Plus. So what are you waiting for? Go
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: to Verdict with Ted Cruise dot com, Slash Plus and
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: I have a promo code for you. If you use
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: promo code Cloakroom, you get one month free on an
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: annual subscription. That is Verdict with Ted Cruise dot com
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Slash Plus. Use my promo code Cloakroom to get one
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: month free on an annual subscription without further ado. Here
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: is The Cloakroom. Hello and welcome. I am so excited
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: to introduce today The Cloakroom on Verdict Plus. This is
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: only for Verdict Plus subscribers. If you are a member,
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: go ahead and become a subscriber so you can see
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: all the cool stuff that we're going to be talking
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: about over here. This is a brand new series with
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Senator Ted Cruiz. It's co hosted by me, Liz Wheeler. Basically,
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: what's going to happen is I'm going to pick his
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: brain like I would in a strategy session. It is
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: a behind the scenes peek into details of what goes
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: on in DC, just like the cloakroom of the actual Senate. Today,
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: we're going to talk about how to apply a constructed
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: foreign policy to a situation, a real life situation like Ukraine.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: We're also going to talk about Whoopi Goldberg, and we're
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: going to talk about Tom Brady again. If you are
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: a member of the Verdict plus community already, then become
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: a subscriber so that you can join us. If you're not,
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: then obviously go to Verdict with Ted Cruz dot com
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: slash plus to join us, use promo code Cloakroom for
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: a one month free trial on your annual subscription. Senator,
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: I'm pretty excited about this. Yeah, I think this is
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: going to be awesome and in fact, it may be
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: a good thing to start. Do you know what the
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: actual Senate cloakroom is? I do, but I have to
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: tell you I don't know a lot of details, except
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: it has this sort of cloak and dagger connotation. It's
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  Speaker 1: a back room right where you guys go to have
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: your off the floor, off the record conversations. So you know,
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: if you turn on c SPAN, you see the floor
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: of the Senate, and so that's where they're a hundred desks,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: and that's where we go to vote, and that's where
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: when we're speaking on the Senate we debate. And that's
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: all on CSPAN. And if you look at someone who's
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: speaking and you're kind of in the middle of the
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  Speaker 1: floor or the Senate, behind you are a couple of doors,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: and there are two cloak rooms actually, so there's a
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  Speaker 1: Republican cloak room and a Democratic cloak room. And the
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  Speaker 1: Republican cloak Room, to the surprise of nobody, is behind
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  Speaker 1: where all the Republicans sit, and the Democrats are behind
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  Speaker 1: where all the Democrats sit. So you go through those
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  Speaker 1: doors and basically the cloak room is a room in
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  Speaker 1: the back. There there are a bunch of couches, their
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  Speaker 1: leather chairs like this. There's still a bunch of ash trays.
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  Speaker 1: I don't think anyone has actually smoked in the cloak
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  Speaker 1: room for decades, but there's still ashtrays from back in
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  Speaker 1: the days when they did. And then you go around
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  Speaker 1: the corner and there are a bunch of phone booths,
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  Speaker 1: and the phone booths are where you can go and
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  Speaker 1: you can get on your cell phone, call someone, you
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  Speaker 1: can call your staff, you can call ever you want
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  Speaker 1: if you want to have a private conversation. And so
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  Speaker 1: people gather and talk in the cloak room, their TVs
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  Speaker 1: up there. There's cloak room staff that is sort of
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  Speaker 1: paying attention to what's happening on the floor. But it's
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  Speaker 1: basically the room and the back of the Senate floor
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  Speaker 1: where you gather when you're not on the floor, but
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  Speaker 1: you're not back in your office, which is far away.
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  Speaker 1: So let me ask you this, is this like a
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  Speaker 1: normal staffing room or is this where you go when
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  Speaker 1: you really want to be off the record and you
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: want to wheel and deal if you will. Is this
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: is this where shady deals are made? You know, I
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: wouldn't say shady deals, but it's just kind of like
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: if you're having a whole series of votes, it's where
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  Speaker 1: you'll go hang out. There's usually a little bit of
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  Speaker 1: food in there, like their peanuts, and that actually goes
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: back and forth, like in the Republican cloak room, the
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  Speaker 1: Georgia senators would want Georgia peanuts there, there'd be North
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  Speaker 1: Carolina peanuts. There'd be a little back and forth. There's
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  Speaker 1: some candy in there that you kind of grab, but
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: it's mostly it's also where they put things like condolence books,
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: Like we just had a few weeks back Johnny Isaacson,
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  Speaker 1: who had been the Republican senator from Georgia, he passed away,
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  Speaker 1: so we had a condolence book where we all went
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  Speaker 1: in and each of us signed something to Johnny's family
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  Speaker 1: and just thanks him for his service. So the cloak
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  Speaker 1: room is a place you'll find something like that, but
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: it's it's kind of where you sit around and hang out.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: People will tell jokes, people will talk about sports. I mean,
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: it's where you get senators hanging out in a more
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  Speaker 1: relaxed context. So it's real. It's really behind the scenes,
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: which means that this series on Verdict plus is very
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: aptly named because that's exactly what it is, behind the scenes.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: So one of the things that is going to be
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: unique to this series is I want to talk about
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: the philosophy of the political philosophy and sometimes the moral
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: philosophy of some of the things that are happening in
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  Speaker 1: our nation. So not just the practicalities, which are also important,
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  Speaker 1: and we discuss those all the time in a public area,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: but the philosophy and So what I mean by this
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  Speaker 1: is Whoopie Goldberg on the View this week said that
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  Speaker 1: the Holocaust was not about race, and she faced an
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: immediate backlash for this, as she should, and she ended
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: up apologizing for this, and she just said, I apologize,
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  Speaker 1: I was wrong about this. I stand corrected. I think
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: were her words. So my question to you is, obviously
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  Speaker 1: not was she wrong? Of course she was wrong. Obviously
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  Speaker 1: the Holocaust was about raised. Obviously the Democratic Party is
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: a little bit too cozy to anti Semites, and so
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: they tend to they tend to play footsie a little
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  Speaker 1: bit with these folks. My question to you is, given
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  Speaker 1: the cancel culture that's become pervasive in our nation, when
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  Speaker 1: should we accept the apologies of people in the public
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  Speaker 1: eye who make really nasty comments like this, like the
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: claim that the Holocaust is not about race. Oh look,
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  Speaker 1: I think when it comes to public comments on left
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  Speaker 1: or right, we should be pretty forgiving, particularly when someone
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  Speaker 1: says I misspoke. I'll tell you one reality of living
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  Speaker 1: a life where you have a TV camera pointed at
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  Speaker 1: you all day long. What you do and I do
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  Speaker 1: is if you say enough millions of words, some of
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  Speaker 1: them are going to come out wrong, and so you know,
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: look is the left. Are there too many anti Semites
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  Speaker 1: among the hard left, people like the squad who hate Israel? Yes,
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  Speaker 1: I have no indications that that describes Whoopi Goldberg. I
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: don't know anything. It was a dumb thing to say,
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  Speaker 1: but she said it was a dumb thing to say,
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  Speaker 1: So I'm gonna give credit for a sort of backing.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, the Holocaust is one of the
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  Speaker 1: most grotesques evils in the history of humanity, and it
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  Speaker 1: is driven by the explicitly racist ideology of Hitler and
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  Speaker 1: the Nazis that viewed viewed Jews and viewed to others,
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  Speaker 1: but Jews in particulars as an inferior race and as subhuman.
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  Speaker 1: And in fact, we've talked about on Verdict how that
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  Speaker 1: justification of this group of people does not qualify as people.
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  Speaker 1: In the history of mankind has almost always been a
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  Speaker 1: predicate for horrific evil, whether it is the Holocaust and
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  Speaker 1: the Nazis believing that Jews did not qualify as human beings,
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  Speaker 1: whether it was the justifications of slavery and believing that
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  Speaker 1: African Americans were not people but were property, or whether
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  Speaker 1: it is justifications behind row that unborn children are not children.
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  Speaker 1: That any time you take a human being and say
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  Speaker 1: they're not a human being, that history has shown is
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  Speaker 1: usually the predicate to terrible evil. And and so you know,
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  Speaker 1: I'm glad that will be apologized for that. But as
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  Speaker 1: a general matter, I don't think we ought to be
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  Speaker 1: silencing people for stumbling over what they say, are saying
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  Speaker 1: something stupid. No, That's that's why I think this is
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  Speaker 1: a good discussion actually, because I mean, like you said,
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  Speaker 1: we both we both worked in the public eye. Hear
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: every one of us has said something that came out
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  Speaker 1: wrong for whatever reason, or misspoke or made an error,
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  Speaker 1: and correcting that or apologizing for that is fine. But
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: there's also the matter of someone betraying their true colors,
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  Speaker 1: I guess, or betraying a poisonous ideology, one that is
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  Speaker 1: as poisonous as you just described. And perhaps that's good
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  Speaker 1: for people for people to know. But like I said,
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  Speaker 1: the philosophy of cancel culture is sometimes it is sometimes
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: interesting to discuss, as I think it is here. I
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: want to move along these topics kind of quickly though,
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: because this one, are you ready, I mean, when I
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  Speaker 1: warned you that we were going to nerd out on
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  Speaker 1: this series. This is exactly what I meant. So you
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  Speaker 1: gave a speech in the spring of twenty nineteen about
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  Speaker 1: foreign policy. Now this wasn't about a particular real life
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  Speaker 1: event that was happening around the world. This was a
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  Speaker 1: presentation of foreign policy philosophy. And this is something that
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: I think is a lost art in the Senator. It
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  Speaker 1: used to be that all senators had a constructed foreign policy.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: Now most politicians, even in the highest offices in our land,
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: don't have a constructed foreign policy. And I think that's
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  Speaker 1: why we're seeing as when it comes to Russia and Ukraine,
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  Speaker 1: why we're seeing this this differing of opinion, this spectrum
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: among conservatives. Some people are very interventionists, some people are
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  Speaker 1: very isolationist, and there's not there's this disagreement on how
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  Speaker 1: to handle what's happening in the world right now because
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: people don't have a preconstructed philosophy on foreign policy. And
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: you do yours is and you say it's not actually
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: a middle ground between isolationism and interventionism. You say, it's
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: actually like a triangle. It's a third point. So first
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  Speaker 1: of all, can we talk just for a minute about
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: what your philosophy all world, real life events aside what
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: your philosophy on foreign policy is. Yeah, look, I'm happy
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: to And you know, the conventional wisdom looking at Republican
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: foreign policy is that it's it's it's binary, that they're
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: one of two approaches. That you're either what's typically called
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: an interventionist or a neo con which is your approaches.
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  Speaker 1: We got to go defend democracy, we got to go
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: use our military, we got to invade countries, we got
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: to get engage in nation building. There been a lot
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: of Republicans who have embraced that, that that had it's
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: it's assent under the presidency of George W. Bush, but
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: there have been people from John McCain and Lindsay Graham
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: to Marco Rubio and Tom Cotton that are explicitly interventionists.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: On the other side are the isolationists, and the most
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: notable proponents of that are Ron Paul and Ranpaul, both
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: of whom but there are others, particularly in the House,
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: there are several other people who I think would fall
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: into the more isolationist camp. And it used to be
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: that if you're a Republican you had to be one
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  Speaker 1: of the two. I think both of those are wrong.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: I disagree strongly with both of those, and as you noted,
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: I've described my views as a third point on the triangle.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: I describe myself as a non interventionist hawk. Now what
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: does that mean. It means that the central touchstone for
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: all US military involvement and for foreign policy should be
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: protecting the vital national security interests of the United States.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: What does that mean as a practical matter? Means we
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: should be very, very reluctant to engage in military conflict.
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  Speaker 1: But we should also focused on the purpose and the objective.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: So let's make it specific, because that's very abstract. So
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: let's make it. Let's bring it to concrete matters. And
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: let's take a couple of foreign policy disputes in the past,
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: and then I'll actually do one that is going on
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: right now in a discussion we had today that illustrates
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  Speaker 1: this this point. Yeah, apply it to Ukraine. So let
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: let me let let me let me first start start
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: with history and then go to Ukraine. When Barack Obama
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: was president, he wanted to attack Syria. When Bashar Assad
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: crossed Obama's red line and used chemical weapons, Obama drew
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: a red line, said if you used chemical weapons, we're
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: going to attack you, Asad did, and Obama says, let's
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: go attack. I was in the Senate at the time,
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: and my view was, Okay, I'm gonna keep an open mind.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: I want to hear how the commander in chief justifies this.
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  Speaker 1: Explain to me the vital US national security interest in
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: attacking and I press the Obama administration both publicly and
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: classified settings. I said, okay, at the time, there were
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: nine major rebel groups. But shar saw it is a monster.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: He killed four hundred thousand of his own citizens. He's
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: a bad, bad guy. But I said, all right, if
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: we attack him and you topple him, he has a
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: big chemical weapon stash and they fall into the hands
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: of the rebels. There were at the time nine major
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: rebel groups. Seven of them were affiliated with radical Islamic terrorists.
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  Speaker 1: They were people like al Qaeda, al Nustra. And I said, well,
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: if chemical weapons fall into the hands of people like
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: al Qaeda and Isis who want to kill us, that's
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: worse for America. I don't want people who want to
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: kill us to have weapons to kill us. The Obama
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: administration could not give a coherent answer in terms of
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: how they prevent that from happening. So I opposed military
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: intervention in Syria because they said, it's not protecting America,
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: it's not protecting our lives. Rand Paul and I agreed
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: on that. We were both on the same page on that.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: Now Rand and I were for very different reasons. Ran
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: just from the beginning said no, no, absolutely not. I
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: could have imagined a military mission that I would have supported.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: If Obama had said, look, there's a chemical weapons cash here.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: It's big, it's significant. We're going to come in and
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: either destroy it or seize it and take it away
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: so they can't be used against us or our allies.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: I could have seen a mission focused on protecting America
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: that might have made sense. That was not what Obama did.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: On the other hand, Iran, the Ayatola Kama need getting
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: a nuclear weapon, I think is an existential threat to
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: the United States. I think the risks are too high
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: that the Ayatola, who chants death to America and death
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: to Israel, would use a nuclear weapon. And that's why
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: I'm the leading opponent of the Iran nuclear deal. It's
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: why I've said, if need be, if Iran is on
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: the verge of getting a nuclear weapon, we should do
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: whatever it takes to stop it, including military force. Now,
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: to be clear, when I send military force, I don't
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: mean go in vade Iran and spend twenty years they're
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: trying to turn it into a liberal democracy. I mean
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: bob living crap out of it and level what they're
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: doing and leave, like the focus should be protecting America.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: And another way of phrasing it, Liz, is peace through strength,
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: which is what Reagan's philosophy was that if you're strong enough,
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: you don't have to use military force. Biggest country Ronald
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: Reagan ever invaded was Grenada. Because he was so strong,
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: our enemies didn't want to mess with And by the way,
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: Trump's foreign policy was very much with me on that
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: third point in the triangle where you think about it.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: He wanted to withdraw from foreign conflicts. He didn't want
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: to leave our soldiers and sailors and airmen and marines
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: in foreign theaters getting shot at. But at the same
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: time he was strong and took out, for example, General
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: General Suleimani, the leading state sponsor of terrorism in Iran.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: And so that's peace through strength or being a non
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: interventionist talk. Yeah, President Trump called it America first, you
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: call it national interests. It's essentially as you say, the
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: same thing. Yes, here's where it becomes a little more nuanced.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: So here's my question here as it applies to Russia
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: building up or amassing troops on the border of Ukraine,
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: how do you determine under your foreign policy philosophy, how
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: do you determine what the national interests of the United
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: States are in either aiding Ukraine or becoming militarily involved
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: in Ukraine. Because there certainly are arguments to be made
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: that the United States has an interest in helping enforce
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: international law or defending a country's right to self determination.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: On the other hand, there are also arguments that that's
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: not a vital national security interest to the United States
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: to do that. So what are the elements that you
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: use to determine that? How do you apply to Ukraine?
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: So in Ukraine, I think, under no circumstances should we
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: send the US military to fight Russia and Ukraine. I
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: don't think that's our job to go fight Russia. I
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: don't want to send the military. If Biden or anyone
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: else supports it, I will oppose it. I'm not willing
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: to risk our sons and daughters in that military conflict. Now,
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: given that that doesn't mean, though that I'm willing to
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: walk away from Ukraine and abandon it. There are all
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: sorts of tools that America has, short of sending in
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: the Marines. What I can't stand about the neo kons
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: of their solution to everything is invade. We've talked a
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: lot on Verdict about Nordstream too, and the sanctions that
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: I drafted that were targeted sanctions that shut down that pipeline.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: Using our economic might to target the bad guys is
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: a great and powerful tool. I think we also ought
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: to be providing lethal weaponry to the Ukrainians. Look, the
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: Ukrainians want to defend themselves, I'm happy to help arm them.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: So if the Ukrainians want to fight the Russians, have
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: at it. I'm just not willing to risk Americans in
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: that fight. And you know I mentioned there's sort of
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: a real time application of it. So today we were
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: having Launch Every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. All the Republican
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: senators have Launch and we've spent a lot of the
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: time talking about Ukraine, and one of the Repubublican senators asked.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: Several other senators said, how would you justify in thirty
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: seconds or less, how it's on our interest to defend Ukraine?
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: And I got to say. One of my colleagues, who
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: will remain nameless, but he is someone who is a
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: prominent neo Khon gave this talk about, well, we have
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: these norms now that we don't allow countries to invade
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: other countries, and if they do, we've got to protect
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: those norms and protect the international order and prevent the
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: ability of one country to invade the other country. And
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: I'm sitting there at lunch going what a load of shit?
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: Like I disagreed with every word he said, and like
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: I literally had to stake. I didn't argue with him
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: at the moment. I just sort of clenched my fists
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: and let him talk. But about fifteen minutes later I
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: got up and I went back to the question that
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: one of my colleagues at ASS and I said, listen,
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: I don't agree with any of what so and so
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: said about the justification. You want to know why we
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: have an interest in Ukraine because Vladimir Putin wants to
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: rebuild the Soviet Union, and the Soviet Union was a
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: formidable and terrifying enemy of America. It is in our
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: interest not to have the Soviet Union rebuilt because I
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: don't want Putin in Russia stronger because they hate American
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: wanted to feat us. I want to keep Putin in
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: Russian weaker, and so allowing Putin to reassemble the Soviet
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: Union is really bad because it threatens the safety and
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: security of the United States. So we ought to use
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: what tools we can to prevent Putin from getting stronger.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: By the way, we ought to prevent the Chinese Communists
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: from getting stronger. We ought to prevent North Korea from
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: getting stronger. We ought to prevent Cuba from getting stronger.
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: We are to prevent a rand from getting stronger because
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: our enemies getting stronger threatens us. But I'm not interested
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: in sending the Marines to any of those places to
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: fight the bad guys. I want to use other tools
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: to weaken our enemies and strengthen our friends because that
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: protects American lives. Well. This is one of the interesting
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: things I think about having a preconstructed, meaning a well
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: considered foreign policy philosophy, because then you can take the
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: tenets of that philosophy and you can apply it to
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: real life circumstances instead of letting the emotions of whatever
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: conflict is happening on that day and that time sway
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: whether you think that you should send in the United
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: States military to crush whoever it is. And the other
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: thing I think worth noting here is that the same
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: thing happened in Afghanistan. Actually where we got to this
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: point where the choices almost seemed like a lose lose
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: either in Ukraine, for example, it's a lose if we
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: send in our troops, and it's a lose if we
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: allow Putin to take over Ukraine to try to rebuild
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: the Soviet Union. And it is worth noting too that
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: it doesn't have to be that lose lose, It doesn't
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: have to be that binary decision. But we're at this
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: place where we're at this binary lose lose because elections
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: have consequences. Because Biden also doesn't have a well constructed
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: foreign policy philosophy, and he's allowed it to get to
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: this point. Well, it's even worse than that, because Biden's
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: foreign policy is weakness. If you look at what he's
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: doing every enemy to America, he's showing weakness too. He
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: believes in appeasement. I mean it is the left wing
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: Democratic Party believes the enemies of America. They think everyone
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: wants to get along. They're all nice, and if you
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: just give in to Russia, to China and North Korea
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: to Iran, they're are right. It's why Biden is perfectly
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: fine with Iran getting a nuclear weapon, because they're like, oh,
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: they'll be fine with a nuclear weapon. They don't understand evil,
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: and so you look at Russia. One of Biden's first
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: acts was surrendering on Nordstream too and waiving the sanctions
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: that had worked, that had stopped Putin. I wrote them,
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: I authored them, Trump signed him in the law they worked.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: Biden came in and just gave them away, just gave
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: Putin this gift. And I got to tell you right now,
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: the Biden administration is so panicked about the Ukraine invasion,
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: which they've caused, that they are in full on appeasement mode.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: So they are in the process I fear of dismantling
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: NATO where they're offering to Putin. You want us to
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: pull our troops out of Europe. You want us to
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: abandon the Baltics, you want us to abandon Poland. You
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: want us to abandon Romania, you want us to abandon
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: Estonia and Lithuania and Latvia, We'll pull out, We'll pull
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: missiles out, we'll pull troops out, we'll stop exercises, we
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: will abandon Europe if you just promised to be nice
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: to us, mister Putin. And weakness invites conflict. It's the
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: left believes if you're weak, you don't have military conflict.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: I actually think weakness makes military conflict more likely. Why
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: do you think our enemies didn't attack us when Donald
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: Trump was president because they thought he was backcrap crazy
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: and he'd like blow him off the face of the planet.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: And he was strong enough that enemies of America didn't
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: want to mess with us. Why is it that we're
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: facing a Russian invasion of Ukraine. Why is it the
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: na is preparing to invade Taiwan because they think Biden's
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: so weak that they run all over him. And so
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: I think the leftist weakness creates more military conflict. It
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: does weakness and Bolden's authoritarians and dictators. We can see
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: that with what's happening, what's with the behavior of Vladimir
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: putinam the Chinese honestly, and the North Koreans. Okay, that's
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: our nerdy deep dive into foreign policy, and now we're
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: going to do a hard pivot into Tom Brady quarterback.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: Tom Brady announced his retirement this week. And I gotta
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: tell you, I'm not a huge football fan myself, but
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: my husband is a diehard, lifelong Patriots slash Tom Brady fan,
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: to the point that I had to ask him when
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: Tom Brady left the Patriots and went to the Bucks
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: whether he was going to root for the Patriots or
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: whether he's going to root for Tom Brady at the Bucks.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: And you know, I have to say his answer was
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: tom Brady here. However, the controversy here is that Tom
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: Brady when he announced his retirement, he thanked the Bucks
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: organization and all the Bucks fans and his teammates, and
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: he didn't thank Patriot Nation. He didn't thank his old teammates,
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: he didn't thank his old coach, he didn't thank his fans.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: He laid or did on Twitter, but only after backlash. Um,
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: what do you make of that? Was that? Was that
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: a deliberate diss You think I don't know that it
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: was a disc to the fans and in fact, I
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: doubt that it was. I mean, I mean, Tom Brady
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: is so beloved to New England, um that that that
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: I can't believe he was dissing his fans up there
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: was it a disc to his old team? Was it
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: a disc to Bill Belichick? I'm sure it was that
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: that was quite quite deliberate. And look, there was always
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: I always like Brady. I always thought he was a
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: heck of a quarterback. You know, there's there's a constant
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: debate in sports over the goat the greatest of all time. Uh.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: In basketball, the debate is between Michael Jordan and Lebron James.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: I am emphatically on team Jordan and that although some
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: of that generation. I'm fifty one, I you know, I
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: grew up watching Jordan dominated. I'm not a big Lebron fan.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: Although he's ridiculously talented. I will concede his talent, but
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: I think Jordan had more hard and was more of
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: a champion. UM. In football, the goat, you could argue
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: different players. Some might say Joe Montana. He was certainly
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: someone that had a strong claim to it. Brady was
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: unbelievably winning with the Patriots. I mean he would win
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: over and over and over again. But you could give
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: all these sorts of excuses. He had an amazing supporting
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: cast around him. Bill Belichick's a great coach, he had
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: great receivers, he had I mean, he just had an
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: amazing team around him. So some credited Brady's success to, well,
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: look at everyone he's playing with. And Brady did something
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: that's phenomenal, which as he left the Patriots and he
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: went and joined Tampa Bay and he basically said, to
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: help with you guys, I'm out of here. The Patriots said,
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: you're too damn old, you can't win, and he went
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: and joined Tampa Bay and won the Super Bowl with them,
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: Like it was one of the biggest hoss moves I've
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: ever seen. To leave, you got all your stars, I'm
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: going to Tampa Bay. Watch me do it again. Gronk
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: came out of retirement to play with him, which was
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: awesome and it was spectacular. I tweeted at the time.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: I just tweeted a emoji of a goat, like, like,
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: you go and win with another team and do it
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: again and not in like when Lebron James left Cleveland
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: to go to Miami. It was a temper tantrum of
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: a spoiled star. You know, he did this whole show
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: of who gets Lebron like, oh, piss off? Like you know,
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: you're not all that. Brady was very different. He went
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: and just one and so I'm a huge Brady fan.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: I'm sure that the disc was meant to Belichick and
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: the Patriots themselves, but I would be astonished if Brady
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: had anything but respect and adoration for the fans who
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: loved him and who continue to love him. And I
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: will say, based on the experience of my own household,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: at least you are correct about one things. The fans
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: do not take it personally. They forgive him for tweeting
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: about it after and consider it just a disk to
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: the team and not to them. All right, Senator, we
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: have one mail bag question from one of our Verdict
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: plus subscribers. This is from the Steve forty two. Steve
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: asked what are Senator Cruis's thoughts on Conservatives and the
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: Republicans finding a way to unify for the twenty twenty
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: two and twenty twenty four elections. Republicans have an amazing ability,
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: he says, to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: with these golden opportunities on the horizon. How do they
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: how do they not just fff it up? Ooka. It's
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: a very good question. And you know there's an old
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: cartoon back before you and I were born, Hoogo had
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: a line this cartoon from the fifties. We have met
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: the enemy and they is us. There's a lot of
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: truth to that. We manage to shoot each other. Listen
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: twenty two. I think we're gonna be fine. I think
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: we're gonna win. I think Republicans are going to retake
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: the House with a big margin. I think it's going
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: to be like a tidal wave year. And I'm getting
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: more and more confident we're going to retake the Senate. Also,
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: the one danger that could screw it up is a
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: civil war between Trump and Senate Republicans. I don't want
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: to see that happen. I hope that doesn't happen, because
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: that's if we're just, and that means we need some
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: restraint on both sides. We need There are some Senate
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: Republicans that desperately want Donald Trump to go away. He's
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: not going away. That is delusional, and the Senate Republicans
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: who want it need to shut up and stop provoking him,
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: and then I hope that President Trump exercises some restraint
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: and doesn't unload on the Senate Republicans he's irritated with.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: If we avoid going to war with each other, we'll
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: win in twenty two. After we win in twenty two,
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: then we need to actually do something. If we have majorities,
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: we've got to actually deliver on our promises and fight.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: Are we going to be able to pass great new legislation? No,
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: because Biden will veto it. But we need to have
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: some backbone to fight against Biden. And there will be
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: will there be Republicans wanting to roll over and surrender.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: Do I expect that I'm going to be fighting tooth
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: and nail against them. Yes, there is a difference of philosophy.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: Republican leadership in Congress often believes the way you win
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: is don't rock the boat, don't make an issue, don't
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: don't cause too much fuss. Look on the Biden Supreme
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: Court nomination. I've had several of my Republican colleagues say
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: it'd be good if this just went through quickly and
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: we just let it happen and didn't didn't make a mess.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, are you out of your mind? He's
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: going to nominate a leftist who wants to destroy the Constitution,
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: and we need to fight like hell. Now. We may
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: not be able to beat it, beat the nominee. We
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: may not be able to beat the nomination, but just
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: stand up and fight for what you believe in, so
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: that even now is a fight. Once we have majorities,
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: it'll be a bigger fight. But I think the way
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: we win in twenty four is fighting for something that
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: matters and that you know, if Donald Trump doesn't run
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: for president, we'll have a big, crowded primary in twenty four. Look,
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: I think primaries are good and healthy. We'll have a
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: discussion about what's the right direction to go. The advice
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: I give candidates, the advice I give both House members
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: and senators is real simple. Do what you said you
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: would do. Just just follow through and your promises, whatever
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: you told the voters you'd do, do it. Too often
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: politicians don't do that, particularly Republicans. And if we do
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: what we said we would do, I think that's a
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: path to winning. Yeah, and like you said, I agree
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: one hundred percent. Force that veto show the American people,
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: not only what that you're doing what you would promised,
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: and that Biden is vetoing it. But it also puts
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: on record all of these squishy Republicans who won't vote
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: for a conservative agenda and the Democrats who are voting
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: against what people want. It's a very powerful tool. Senator Cruise,
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: this was a really fun inaugural discussion for this series.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: Thank you for sitting down. We're gonna do this again.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: This is the cloak Room on Verdict plus