Latest / The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson / Cruz Torches CNN on Islamism, a 'GOOOOOALL' for College Sports Reform plus El-Sayed's Hamas Praise & Deleted Sermons Week In Review

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Cruz Torches CNN on Islamism, a 'GOOOOOALL' for College Sports Reform plus El-Sayed's Hamas Praise & Deleted Sermons Week In Review · The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome, it is Verdict with Ted Cruz, the Week in Review.
• 0:03
  Speaker 2: Ben Ferguson with you, and these are the stories that
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: you may have missed that we talked about this week.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: First up, CNN goes all in to attack Senator Ted Cruz.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Why?
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  Speaker 2: Because of his speech at the RNC midterm convention. So
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: what did he say that made them so angry? We'll
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: explain it for you in a moment. Up next, it
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: is sports season, especially college football season, and there's the
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: Big Save College Sports Act that is now working its
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  Speaker 2: way through the Senate.
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  Speaker 1: So what's actually in the bill?
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  Speaker 2: What would change for America or our colleges or maybe
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: your favorite team? We have that for you as well.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: And finally, pastors for El Said and Tallarico throw them
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: under the bus in two very different ways. We've got
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: the audio of what they were hoping you would never
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: hear that they said about their two individuals.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: It's the Week in Review, and it starts right now.
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  Speaker 2: All right, Senator, so let's go back to the midterm
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  Speaker 2: convention and your speech. We played that speech here. If
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: you missed it, it was one heck of a speech.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: I'd encourage people to go watch it on X. or
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: download the podcast as well, and you can hear it there.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: But one of the interesting things that came out of
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: your speech was the reaction to you being honest and
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  Speaker 2: blunt about radical Islamists and this idea that there's no
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  Speaker 2: such thing. There's shockingly a debate about this now, even
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: in the 25th anniversary of 9-11 happening this week. And
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  Speaker 2: CNN was frustrated with you for the way that you
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: were being so blunt about Now, you didn't say Islam.
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  Speaker 1: You didn't say the whole religion.
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  Speaker 2: You made it clear, Islamists, radical extremists, and yet they
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: are acting like you're talking about anyone that is Muslim.
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  Speaker 3: Well, as you noted, on Thursday, I spoke to the
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: Republican Midterm Convention, and the central theme of my speech
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: was that we are at a time for choosing. We're
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  Speaker 3: at a fundamental fork in the road, and on the left—
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: we're witnessing a red-green alliance, a combination of communists, of Marxists,
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: and Islamists coming together and trying to take over the
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: Democrat Party and having real success. And I was laying
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  Speaker 3: out the twin dangers of communism and Islamism. And the
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  Speaker 3: two are united because they share the same enemies.
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  Speaker 4: They hate Christians. They hate Jews. They hate capitalists. They
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: hate the Constitution. They hate America.
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  Speaker 3: And I laid that out And I got to say,
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  Speaker 3: CNN lost its minds over that. They really did not
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  Speaker 3: want me calling out what was happening in the Democrat Party.
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  Speaker 3: And in particular, on the 25th anniversary of 9-11, it
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: was too much for them to handle. Listen to your friend,
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: Abby Phillip, and the remainder of the panel just have
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: a really hard time with my speech to the convention.
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  Speaker 5: So there's commentary, obviously, about socialism and communism. We've been
• 2:55
  Speaker 5: talking about that. But the real theme there was... Islam
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  Speaker 5: as the enemy. Why?
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  Speaker 2: Why?
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  Speaker 5: Why is an.
• 3:03
  Speaker 6: Entire religion an enemy? Because his eyes are open. He's
• 3:06
  Speaker 6: been paying attention. This is sharp elbow politics. It's tough rhetoric.
• 3:10
  Speaker 6: I get it why anybody's offended by it, but he's
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  Speaker 6: giving as good as he got. He's talking about Mamdani
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  Speaker 6: as well as Al-Said, but mostly Mamdani. And he's talking
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  Speaker 6: about Mamdani because Mamdani does things like campaign with Hassan Baikar.
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  Speaker 6: like campaign with an unindicted co-conspirator of the 1993 World
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  Speaker 6: Trade Center bombing, like an al-Qaeda lawyer. When he said
• 3:28
  Speaker 6: on the 20th anniversary of 9-11... You didn't answer my question.
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  Speaker 1: I am answering it.
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  Speaker 5: You didn't answer my question, which is why is the
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  Speaker 5: religion in and of itself... being described as the enemy
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  Speaker 5: of the United States. No, no, no.
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  Speaker 6: You're putting words in his mouth there. What he's describing
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  Speaker 6: is the.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, you are.
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  Speaker 6: What he's describing is the Islamism that Mandani and al-Said
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  Speaker 6: are both very comfortable with. And then when these deliberate
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  Speaker 6: provocations are provocative and people notice them, their fans turn
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  Speaker 6: around and say, well, how dare you? How have you
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  Speaker 6: the gall to notice this thing that we all noticed
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  Speaker 6: as well?
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  Speaker 7: How do you figure the overwhelming success that Mandani had
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  Speaker 7: Like defying all of the pundits, all of the inside crowd.
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  Speaker 7: And here's this guy, a Muslim guy, 40 years old
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  Speaker 7: or whatever, not even 40. And he stomped Andrew Cuomo.
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  Speaker 7: He stomped him.
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  Speaker 6: He barely won 50% in the first round.
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  Speaker 8: He's not a stomp.
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  Speaker 6: New York City really did revolt against this guy. He
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  Speaker 6: just underperformed it. No, it's not true. He underperformed in
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  Speaker 6: a Democratic primary. I answered your question.
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  Speaker 5: What is true is that he is the most popular
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  Speaker 5: politician in New York right now. That is true.
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  Speaker 6: He's very popular among Democrats. Do we think that NYPD
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  Speaker 6: Commissioner Tisch was a delusional bigot when she said, we
• 4:42
  Speaker 6: all have to stop muddling the waters here. We all
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  Speaker 6: have to be clear about who the terrorists were. And
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  Speaker 6: shame on those who are saying that the terrorists and
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  Speaker 6: the heroes are one in the same. Which Mamdani said
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  Speaker 6: in 2020 when he said we mourn the 3,000 dead
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  Speaker 6: and the killing hasn't stopped.
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  Speaker 1: You're the one muddying.
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  Speaker 5: The waters, Noah. You're the one muddying the waters. Terrorists
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  Speaker 5: are terrorists. I'm asking why Ted Cruz and you seem
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  Speaker 5: to want to make an entire religion anti-Nazis.
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  Speaker 6: You're putting words in my mouth, and I can't say
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  Speaker 6: it enough. The people who support radical Islamist violence are
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  Speaker 6: the people he's talking about.
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  Speaker 5: He didn't say radical Islamist violence. He said Islamism.
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  Speaker 1: That's what he said.
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  Speaker 6: He didn't say Islam.
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  Speaker 1: What does that mean?
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  Speaker 4: He didn't say Islam.
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  Speaker 1: Exactly.
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  Speaker 6: You know the definitions.
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  Speaker 5: Excuse me. So you're saying radical Islamic terrorism.
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  Speaker 6: Islam and Islam is not the same, just like Palestinianism
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  Speaker 6: and being pro-Palestine are not the same.
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  Speaker 5: That is a ridiculous argument.
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  Speaker 6: I'm surprised you've never encountered.
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  Speaker 5: That is a ridiculous argument.
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  Speaker 6: It is so common.
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  Speaker 9: It's like a social studies.
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  Speaker 6: I study the subject.
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  Speaker 5: By the way, as somebody who I'm sure would object
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  Speaker 5: to the idea of people considering Zionism and Judaism the
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  Speaker 5: same thing, I'm surprised that. you would make that connection
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  Speaker 5: about an entire religion that millions and millions of people
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  Speaker 5: in this world are a part of, and the vast
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  Speaker 5: majority of them are not terrorists.
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  Speaker 6: These are distinct things, and they have distinctions between them,
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  Speaker 6: which is that there's distinctions between Islamism and Islam and
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  Speaker 6: being a Muslim. They're distinct concepts. Of course I would
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  Speaker 6: object to the distinctions being blurred because they shouldn't be blurred.
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  Speaker 1: Senator, I got to be honest with you.
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  Speaker 2: You are way more careful in your clarification of Islam
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  Speaker 2: as religion and Islamists, which is radical terrorists and that
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  Speaker 2: ideology than I have even been in my career. You
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  Speaker 2: make it a very clear distinction when talking about it.
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  Speaker 2: And I do love that if they actually listen to
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  Speaker 2: your speech, they read your speech, they listen to your words.
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  Speaker 2: You are not calling out Islam as a religion. You
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  Speaker 2: are calling out the Islamists, which is a radical within
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  Speaker 2: that religion who is in favor of terrorism and preaches
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  Speaker 2: it and wants there to be more of it.
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  Speaker 3: Well, I have to say, I made a comment before
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  Speaker 3: playing that clip. I referred to Abby Phillip as your friend.
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  Speaker 4: There's a reason. You've done her show a bunch of times.
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  Speaker 4: I don't know her. I've never met her.
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  Speaker 3: But watching that clip, there were two and only two possibilities.
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  Speaker 3: she is either stunningly ignorant about Islamism and what it is,
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  Speaker 3: or she is deliberately dishonest. Those are the only two possibilities.
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  Speaker 3: Because she repeatedly equates Islam and Islamism, and they're totally different.
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  Speaker 3: And so I actually decided, I just pulled out my
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  Speaker 3: phone and said, let's type in, so I typed in
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  Speaker 3: the word Islamism. And here's what Google Gemini just pulls
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  Speaker 3: up straight out of my phone. Islamism, is a political
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  Speaker 3: ideology that asserts that the religion of Islam should guide
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  Speaker 3: public life, legal codes, and political systems. So what is
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  Speaker 3: the difference? So let's continue on AI. Islam versus Islamism.
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  Speaker 3: Islam is a global religion focused on faith, personal devotion, doctrine,
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  Speaker 3: and spiritual patience.
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  Speaker 4: What is Islamism?
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  Speaker 3: A political and social movement that seeks to use Islamic
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  Speaker 3: laws and traditions to reorganize government and society. What are
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  Speaker 3: the core beliefs of Islamism? Number one, Sharia law. The
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  Speaker 3: primary goal is implementing Sharia law as the foundation of
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  Speaker 3: the state and legal system, forcing Sharia law on people,
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  Speaker 3: including people who are not Muslims, who do not believe
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  Speaker 3: in Sharia law. What are the other elements of it?
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  Speaker 3: Rejection of secularism. Adherents argue that religion and politics cannot
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  Speaker 3: be separated they reject secular governance where religion is separate
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  Speaker 3: from the state. And finally, alternative systems. Proponents claim that
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  Speaker 3: an Islamic political system is superior to capitalism, communism, and
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  Speaker 3: Western liberal democracy. Now, my guess, as I said, I
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  Speaker 3: don't know, Abby Phillip, my guess is she probably knows that. Um,
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  Speaker 3: If she knows that, she's being deliberately dishonest and is
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  Speaker 3: being a propagandist. The alternative, she may just be so
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  Speaker 3: staggeringly ignorant that she has no idea what it is.
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  Speaker 3: And by the way, if she wants to do a
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  Speaker 3: little research, there's a book that I would recommend to
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  Speaker 3: Abby and I would actually recommend to anybody who's interested
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  Speaker 3: in this topic. And we just had the 25th anniversary
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: of 9-11, so it's a good time for that. The
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  Speaker 3: book is entitled The Looming Towers. And it is by
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  Speaker 3: a guy named Lawrence Wright. Lawrence Wright is a left-wing
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  Speaker 3: journalist based in Texas. He is not someone, in fact,
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: he wrote a whole book some years later, Blasting Me
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: and Blasting Other Republicans in Texas. But the looming tower
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  Speaker 3: is a history of Islamism, and he traces the rise
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  Speaker 3: of it that has its origins in Egypt in the.
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  Speaker 4: 1930s and then 40s and 50s.
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  Speaker 3: And by the way, Islamism has killed more Muslims than
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  Speaker 3: it has Christians and Jews. Islamism is behind Al-Qaeda and 9-11.
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  Speaker 3: Islamism is behind ISIS. Islamism is behind the Islamic revolution
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  Speaker 3: in Iran. But Islamism and Islamism is also the heart
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  Speaker 3: of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslim Brotherhood, do you know
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  Speaker 3: who designates the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization?
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: Who is that?
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  Speaker 7: Egypt.
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  Speaker 1: Egypt.
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  Speaker 3: Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, these are Arab countries that
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: have dealt with Islamism, and they're aware that these are
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: theocratic radicals that want to forcibly subjugate and force everyone
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: to comply with their mandates. And my point was not
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: that Muslims are taking over the Democrat Party, but that
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: Islamists are. Listen, Mondami is an Islamist. He wants to enforce.
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: He's also a communist. He has said that he wants to, quote,
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: seize the means of production, which is a verbatim quote
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: from Karl Marx in The Heart of Communism. But he literally,
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: and Noah Rothman, who was on that panel, did a
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  Speaker 3: good job. Listen, at the 9-11 ceremony, he hands the
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: signing pen to.
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  Speaker 4: A lawyer for Al-Qaeda, literally.
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  Speaker 3: A lawyer who was representing the terrorist who murdered nearly
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: 3,000 Americans. Abdul Al-Sayed is an Islamist, he said. quote,
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  Speaker 3: he has an obligation to follow Sharia law. And Sharia law,
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: to be clear, is used to strip away millions of
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: people's liberties, to force women to wear hijabs against their wishes. Listen,
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  Speaker 3: if a woman chooses to wear hijab, that's a choice
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: she can make. But we are not in the United
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: States going to allow Sharia law to be forced on
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  Speaker 3: people against their wishes. And for CNN to pretend... They
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: don't know the difference. Actually, let me ask you, which
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: do you think it is? Does she not know the difference?
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: She knows the difference. She knows the difference.
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: Well, then that, to be honest, ignorance would be the
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: more benign explanation.
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  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: No, I'm going to go with she knows exactly what
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: she's doing. Only because I do that show a lot.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: So I've experienced this several times.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: On several issues.
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: Now, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation,
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: you can go back and listen to the full podcast
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: from earlier this week. Now on to story number two.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: All right, so this bill, it is passed. That's amazing.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: Like you said, it's been a long time in the works.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: You got bipartisan support. Give us some of the key
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: highlights of what now changes in college sports to protect
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: all of those other sports because of some of the
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: rules that are now going to be implemented.
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm going to tell you what's specifically in the bill,
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: but let's not bury the lead.
• 12:42
  Speaker 4: So today we had a vote.
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: It was the first time we've had a vote on
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: college sports, and there was some furious.
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: Lobbying against it.
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: The people leading the lobbying against it were Democrat Cory
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: Booker and Democrat Chris Murphy, both from the far left.
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: And they were doing everything they can to defeat this bill. Well,
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: we ended up having a massive, massive victory today. There
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: were a total of 74 senators that voted for the
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: bill today.
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: By the way, that doesn't happen just to put it
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: in perspective. When was the last time on a pretty
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: intense and debated piece of legislation, not a kumbaya piece
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: of something, like this was not kumbaya, where you get 74?
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  Speaker 2: I don't remember another vote that I can think of
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: that was this significant.
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: Well, and I will say also, look.
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: We said from the beginning, I've said on this podcast
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: a number of times, my objective was not to eke
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: by with 60. 60 is what you need to clear
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: a filibuster. And to be clear, Cory Booker and Chris
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: Murphy are trying to filibuster this bill. To defeat a filibuster,
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: we needed 60. And I said from the beginning, I
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: don't want just 60. I want a big bipartisan vote
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: that is overwhelming support. We got 74, and actually we're
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: even stronger than that because there were two Democrats who
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: were absent today, Chris Coons and Jackie Rosen, and they're
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: both co-sponsors of the bill. So they're supporters of the bill.
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  Speaker 3: And so we're at 76. We have more than three
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: quarters of the Senate in support of this bill. We
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: also got 25, and with the two of them, that
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: will be 27 Democrats. So we got more than half
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: of the Democrat caucus, despite the fact that multiple major
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: interest groups on the left are lobbying against it. You've
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: got the trial lawyers lobbying against it. You've got the
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: AFL-CIO lobbying against it. The NAACP is lobbying against it.
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: So it is remarkable. Now, Why did we get such
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: a big vote? Because we've got, number one, it's a
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: really strong piece of legislation, but number two, we built
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: an amazingly strong coalition behind this bill.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: It was bipartisan.
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: That was part of your strategy to make sure this
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: was bipartisan, not with one sponsor that was a Democrat.
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: It was an all-out, go find great people that understand this,
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: and this shouldn't be political.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: This should be about saving college sports.
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: Well, Maria Cantwell is the ranking member of the Senate
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: Commerce Committee. I'm the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee.
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: So we're the top two senators on the committee. And
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: the two of us did this together. And I will
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: say negotiating it was painstaking.
• 15:07
  Speaker 4: I mean, it was.
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: Literally day after day, week after week, sitting in a
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: conference room for six, eight hours a day just negotiating.
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: And there were times where we wanted to pull our
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: hair out. There are times certainly when Maria wanted to
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: kill me. It was unbelievably, I joke that Middle East
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: peace is easy compared to college sports, and many people
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: care about it less than college sports. But we got
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: a bipartisan bill. We had five Republican co-sponsors, five Democrat co-sponsors,
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: and then the coalition behind it, we have 29 conferences
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: supporting it, so all the major conferences are behind it.
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: We had Over 370 colleges and universities backing it. The
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: historically black colleges and universities are incredibly vocal, supporting the bill, enthusiastic,
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: supporting the bill. The major league pros, the NFL, the NBA,
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: Major League Baseball, National Hockey League are all supporting the bill.
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: The NBA Players Association, the NFL Players Association are supporting
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: this bill. The Olympic Committee, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: Committee is enthusiastically supporting this bill. We have hundreds of
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: coaches across the country supporting the bill. Yesterday, we did
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: a press conference where we had student athletes from all
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: over the country come out asking Congress to pass this bill.
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: We had coaches like John Calipari, basketball legend, the old
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: Kentucky coach is now the head coach at University of Arkansas.
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: He was speaking in favor of it. Mark Few, the
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: basketball coach at Gonzaga, he was there speaking in favor
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: of it. With Craig Robinson, the head of the Basketball
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: Coaches Association of America, who happens to be Michelle Obama's brother.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: Interesting.
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: He was speaking out against it. That was very helpful
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: for getting Democrats on board. But, all right, what does
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: the bill do? It brings order out of the chaos.
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: It sets some basic rules. So one of the problems
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: is the transfer portal. And by the way, why is
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: a transfer portal such a problem? It means at the
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: end of every season, every team... has the potential to
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: blow up, and you have a lot of the players
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: in every team leave and jump from school to school.
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: The way I described it is it would be like
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: free agency in the NFL if every year at the
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: end of the season, every single player is up for grabs.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: You would get no continuity, and you'd have every quarterback
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: in the league that would just disappear to another team,
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: every wide receiver. You'd have no franchise players. You would
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: have no team. I mean, that's what was happening in
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: college sports. Imagine if you had LeBron James playing for
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: 15 or 16 different teams every.
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: By the way, we actually with LeBron James, we kind
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: of have. So that may not be the perfect example.
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: But but look, I mean, you want to root for
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: for players and teams for the fans, like like having
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: a team, having players that that like are your guys
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: is a big part of the fan experience is part
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: of the the the school experience. But but from the
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: perspective of the student athletes you mentioned before, the stat
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: is ninety nine percent, ninety nine percent of college athletes.
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: will not go on to the NBA, will not go
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: on to the NFL. So they're not going to earn
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: their living playing sports after college.
• 18:12
  Speaker 9: Yes.
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: But what happens if a student transfers, the odds of
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: that student athlete graduating plummet. And if a student transfers
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: multiple times, the odds drop to almost nothing because you
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: end up having a student athlete You don't get any
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: attachment to the school. You don't have any loyalty. You
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: don't build relationships with professors. You end up that many
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: of the student athletes, if they're transferring multiple times, they're
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: not really working on their academic coursework. Their credits don't
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: always transfer. They're unlikely to graduate. And if they're not
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: going on to the NBA or NFL, they end up
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: coming out of it. having made a little bit of
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: money on NIL in college, not having a degree, not
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: having the skills. And what is powerful about college athletics
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: is it's an avenue for education for so many young people. Now,
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: I think it is better that student athletes are compensated.
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: I think the old system was unfair, that you had
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: incredible athletes generating millions of dollars of revenue, that everyone
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: got rich but them. And as a conservative, I think
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: you ought to be able to earn the fruits of
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: your labor.
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: If you produce... If you're a star quarterback.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: Tim Tebow and Johnny Football are two examples of this.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: They made— Almost nothing.
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: They transformed, by the way, those universities, including building the
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: Texas A & M Stadium for what it is now.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: That was on the back of Johnny Football. The amount
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: of booster money, the amount of money that was coming
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: to campus, and then you're having to do things on
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: the table. I don't blame, by the way, athletes for
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: doing that in the past. Tim Tebow should have made
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: more money in the NCAA than he did in the NFL.
• 19:41
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: It was not fair and it was not right.
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: So it is an improvement, I believe, that athletes can
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: be compensated if they have enormous skill. What we try
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: to do in this bill is set some basic rules.
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: So on the transfer, every athlete gets one free transfer.
• 19:55
  Speaker 7: All right.
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: So if you want to transfer, you can, but just once.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: For any reason.
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: For any reason. There are no restrictions.
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: You can have a second transfer and we specify you
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: can have a second transfer, number one, if your coach leaves.
• 20:07
  Speaker 7: Yep.
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: Number two, if your programs cancel. You're at Ole Miss,
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: they cancel their tennis program, you can transfer and go
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: play tennis somewhere else. Or number three, if you're the
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: victim of sexual assault or sexual harassment. So those are
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: three limited exceptions. And then beyond that, if you transfer
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: a second time, you can do it, but you have
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: to sit out a year. You have to redshirt a year.
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: You lose a year of your eligibility. That used to
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: be the.
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: Old rule before.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: You lose a year of eligibility. So that's the penalty.
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: Right. And that will mean that will slow down the
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: transfers massively. You may get one, but what happens, and
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: by the way, understand these are, you know, these are not,
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: pro athletes in the NFL or NBA who are 25
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: or 30 years old that are grown adults, these are
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: often kids that are 17, 18, 19 years old. So
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: they're frequently not terribly financially sophisticated. They're just showing up
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: at college. And you have agents who are unscrupulous who
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: will go to them and say, hey, Ben, I can
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: get you a little bit more money if you transfer
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: to Alabama.
• 21:07
  Speaker 9: Yeah.
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: And and the agents are getting a big cut of
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: the take and they don't care if it screws up
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: your education. It's terrible for you if they can get
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: you to move and they get to put some money
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: in the bank. You have this happening over and over
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: again and it's hurting the student athletes. So one transfer
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: is a big improve, but we also an eligibility. So
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: every athlete has five years of eligibility. It ends at
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: age 24. So there's not going to be 25, 26,
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: 27 year olds age 24. You're done five years.
• 21:32
  Speaker 4: You're done.
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: Those two reforms are a big deal. We also give
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: the authority to enforce basic rules like no pros. And
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: you can say you're not eligible if you're a pro.
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: Right now, the leagues are not able to enforce that
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: because that gets struck down under the antitrust laws. We
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: also say you can enforce rules like no gambling. You
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: look at Brendan Sorsby, who a local hometown judge says,
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: all right, he can play at Texas Tech because we
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: want a great quarterback at Tech. That's terrible for sports.
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: Gambling is becoming more and more of a problem in sports,
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: and if there's no ability to police it, if you
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: end up having athletes betting on their own games, you
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: are inviting just massive corruption into the system.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's no longer actually playing to win, it's
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: playing to get a payday.
• 22:20
  Speaker 9: Right.
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: So we put in basic rules. By the way, we
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: also protect women's sports and we protect Olympic sports.
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: As before, if you want to hear the rest of
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: this conversation on this topic, you can go back and
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: download the podcast from earlier this week to hear the
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: entire thing. I want to get back to the big.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: Story number three of the week you may have missed.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: Senator, I want to get into another big story, and
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: that deals with the other radical candidate you were talking
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: about and warning about earlier in the show. And that
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: is El-Said. And there is some news that's been broken
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: by the Free Beacon about some deletion of some videos from,
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: you know, just some of those around him.
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: Well, not just some of those around him. His pastor
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: is his imam in this case. And there's an interesting parallel.
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: Both Tallarico and El-Said are trying to lie to the voters.
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: They're both trying to cover up what they actually believe
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: because the voters are horrified by what they actually believe,
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: by what they're committed to. And in both instances, their
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: religious leaders, their pastors, are inadvertently revealing that they are
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: lying to you. And so, all right, let's give the
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: facts on al-Said. I'm going to read from the Washington
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: Free Beacon. Abdul al-Said's imam scrubs videos of sermons lauding
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: Hamas leader urging congregants to vote for El-Said. Abdelhamid Al-Ghiziawa
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: of the Muslim Community Association of Ann Arbor called Ismail
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: Haniyeh a, quote, heroic martyr and a, quote, symbol of jihad.
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: Left-wing Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Said's email scrubbed videos of
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: his sermons from YouTube. including one in which he gave a, quote,
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: absentee funeral prayer, hailing the late Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: as a, quote, heroic martyr, and another in which he
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: urged his congregants to vote for al-Said. The Muslim Community
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: Association of Ann Arbor's YouTube channel featured dozens of recordings
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: of Imam Abdelhamid al-Ghizawa's sermons as recently as Tuesday, but
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: now shows only the message, quote, this channel doesn't have
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: any content. A video of Al-Ghazawa's.
• 24:43
  Speaker 4: August 2nd, 2024 sermon. By the way, this wasn't a
• 24:46
  Speaker 4: long time ago. This was two years ago.
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: Eulogizing Hanaye, which was also accessible on Tuesday, is now, quote,
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: unavailable and set to primate.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: I wonder why.
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: So is a sermon al-Ghazawa delivered in the wake of
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: al-Said's primary victory, in which the imam described his victory as, quote,
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: a very big victory for Muslims and for the Islamic nation.
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: Listen to those words again. His imam said al-Said's Democrat
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: primary victory was a very big victory, quote, for the
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: Islamic nation. What nation do you think he's talking about?
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: He's talking about this country. He's talking about this country
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: as an Islamic nation under forced Sharia law. That's what
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: he believes. It's what El-Said believes. It's why El-Said says
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: he has a, quote, obligation to follow Sharia law. And
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: by the way, The Imam agrees on the obligation. Let
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: me continue reading. The removal comes in the wake of
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: a series of Washington Free Beacon reports on Al-Ghazawa and
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: the MCA of Ann Arbor, where Al-Said typically prays, according
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: to a source familiar with the situation. There, Al-Ghazawa spoke
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: about Al-Said personally, telling his congregants that the Muslim community
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: had a, quote, obligation to vote for Al-Said in November.
• 26:12
  Speaker 9: Why?
• 26:13
  Speaker 4: To, quote, change the society.
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: He also eulogized Haraye in a sermon delivered two days
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: after the late terrorist leader died from an explosive device
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: smuggled into his guest house in Tehran. Here's what he said, quote,
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: He is a symbol of jihad, a symbol of struggle,
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: a symbol of patriotism, and a symbol of devotion. No
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: one loves him except someone who loves God and his messenger.
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: In other words, if you love God, you love the
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: head of Hamas, who carried out the October 7th rape
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: and murder of over 1,200 innocent civilians, rape of little
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: girls and women. And by the way, according to this imam,
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: if you love God, you love him. Quote, He is
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: a righteous man, one of the righteous. He wanted to
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: liberate Palestine, his land and his homeland. He sought nothing
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: more than that except for murdering innocent civilians and raping
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: women and girls, but nothing more than that other than that.
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: Yet despite this, the unjust and wicked killed him. We
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: ask Almighty God... to grant him a place in paradise,
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: O God, place him among the martyrs and the righteous.
• 27:36
  Speaker 4: You know, there's no ambiguity there.
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: You know exactly what El-Sayed's pastor believes, and by the way,
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: I believe that's what El-Sayed believes as well. But okay,
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: you may say, all right, maybe the place he worships
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: the pastor is just a complete whack job, but maybe,
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: maybe El-Sayed is not. Well, we also know that El-Said
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: campaigned repeatedly alongside Hassan Piker. Hassan Piker, the radical, America-hating,
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: racist person who hates African-Americans, who hates Christians, who hates America,
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: who said, quote, America deserves 9-11.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: By the way, we played a montage. We can't play
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: it here because there's too many F-bombs in it. And
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: you don't hear anything, but there's now a montage online
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: going around of Hassan Piker, how many different times he
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: says on his podcast, whatever you want to call it,
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: his live stream, that he blanking hates America. And it's
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: like years of him saying, God, I hate this country. God,
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: I hate America. I blanking hate America. That's what the
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: guy really believes. And that's who the Democrats' number one
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: surrogate is.
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: And by the way, this is a clip from just
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: recently where he said America is worse than Al Qaeda.
• 28:49
  Speaker 4: Here, give a listen.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: He said that.
• 28:50
  Speaker 8: America is the top dog in terrorism.
• 28:53
  Speaker 9: Yes.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: Do you think America, then, is worse than al-Qaeda?
• 28:55
  Speaker 8: Pound for pound, as far as the number of deaths, yes,
• 28:58
  Speaker 8: we have caused tremendous terror all around the world. I
• 29:03
  Speaker 8: think that that is not only terror that we are
• 29:07
  Speaker 8: waging on regular civilians in nations in the periphery, but
• 29:11
  Speaker 8: it's also having consequences on ourselves. It's having dramatic consequences
• 29:17
  Speaker 8: on the home front.
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: Pound for pound, he says, America is worse than al-Qaeda.
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: By the way, this is just days after the 25th
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: anniversary of 9-11, where al-Qaeda murdered nearly 3,000 Americans. He
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: also very much wants the Ayatollah in Iran to have
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: a nuclear weapon.
• 29:31
  Speaker 4: Here, give a listen.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: Do you think the Middle East would be more stable
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: if Iran had a nuclear weapon?
• 29:36
  Speaker 8: I believe yes. I think that the Middle East would
• 29:38
  Speaker 8: be more stable. Having said that, once again, I'm not advocating.
• 29:41
  Speaker 8: I'm not trying to send Iran enriched nuclear uranium.
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: But he sure wants them to have it. He sure
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: wants them to have it. And look, these comments are
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: so extreme that even CNN, Dana Bash, couldn't take it anymore.
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: Listen to what she said about it.
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and for context, the clip we just played for
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: you guys of Assam Piker, this is what CNN had
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: just played on the air, and I want you to
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: listen to Dana Bash and how she responds.
• 30:05
  Speaker 9: El-Sayed's campaign did put out a statement saying that he
• 30:08
  Speaker 9: doesn't agree with his sentiment on al-Qaeda, probably because he's
• 30:11
  Speaker 9: running in a democracy to be part of a democratically
• 30:15
  Speaker 9: elected government as opposed to al-Qaeda, which is an actual
• 30:19
  Speaker 9: terrorist organization.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: Senator, I got to say, I couldn't agree with Dana
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: more on that assessment.
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: Look, you know, in CNN's own words, he is running
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: to be democratically elected in actual democracy as opposed to
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: a terrorist organization like al-Qaeda. And yet, al-Said embraces this
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: radical imam who calls the head of Hamas a heroic martyr,
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: and he embraces Hassan Piker, who thinks that America is
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: worse than al-Qaeda. There is a basic principle in life.
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: When they tell you who they are, believe them.
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: As always, thank you for listening to Verdict with Senator
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you. Don't forget to download
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: my podcast and you can listen to my podcast every
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: other day you're not listening to Verdict or each day
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: when you listen to Verdict afterwards. I'd love to have
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: you as a listener to, again, the Ben Ferguson podcast,
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: and we will see you back here on Monday morning.