Verdict with Ted Cruz: The Path Forward: How to Fund DHS, Secure the Border, Pass Election Integrity & Win Historic Conservative Victories
4/16/202633 mincomplete
0:00This is an iHeart Podcast.
0:02Guaranteed human. Welcome. It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.
0:08And we've got a packed show for you, including predictions that we made in the
0:12last show that are spot on.
0:14And if you could be king for a day, I've got something I want to
0:17make that we should just ban in politics.
0:19We'll deal with that a little bit later.
0:21But we have big news.
0:22It looks like Republicans are actually going to stand up and win on a big
0:26issue in the Senate. Senator, fill us in.
0:29Well, let's say, first of all, Monday's pod, we made a prediction.
0:33We made a prediction that, number one, Eric Swalwell would resign from Congress.
0:37And number two, Tony Gonzalez, a Republican, would resign from Congress as well.
0:42It is Tuesday night. It is 1222 in the morning.
0:47And both of them are gone.
0:49Both of them have resigned.
0:51Both are in scandals. Look, Gonzalez's scandal was really ugly.
0:55It was not pretty. He had an affair with a staffer.
1:00Tragically, the staffer took her own life.
1:02She literally poured gasoline on herself and lit herself on fire.
1:07She was the mom of an eight -year -old child.
1:09It was horrific. Tragic. And so his stepping down, it is not a surprise to
1:16anyone. It needed to happen.
1:18And then Swalwell almost like pushed Gonzalez aside, said, hold my beer.
1:24I can be more slimy.
1:26I can be more nasty than you.
1:27At this point, the number of women who have worked for him, who have come
1:31out and accused him of sexually harassing them, sexually assaulting them, raping them, the number
1:38keeps spiraling. And so it is fairly amazing.
1:41A few days ago, Eric Swalwell was the leading candidate to be the next governor
1:44of California. He is now unemployed.
1:47And I think there's a good likelihood he'll be facing criminal prosecution.
1:51So, wow, the world can change.
1:54And it turns out, if you're a dirtbag, it can change really, really fast.
1:59Yeah. That prediction we told you about on Monday, we were accurate.
2:03And, look, part of what we laid out is the hesitancy.
2:07Democrats a day ago were calling on Swalwell to suspend his gubernatorial campaign, but they
2:13were not calling on him to leave Congress.
2:15And that's because the balance of power in Congress is exceptionally close.
2:20I think part of why this happened today is Gonzalez stepped down as well.
2:25So you had one Republican, one Democrat, both stepped down.
2:27So it didn't alter the balance of power.
2:31And I believe every one of the members of Congress is glad they did so.
2:36That was the right decision.
2:37Yeah, no doubt about it.
2:38We've also got a big deal that's going to be happening, it looks like, with
2:42Republican leadership. And I want to talk about what that looks like.
2:45But before we get to that, I want to tell you about our dear friends
2:48at Compassion International. I want to be honest with you for a second about how
2:54an act of compassion really feels.
2:56A couple of years ago, I made the choice to partner with an amazing organization
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3:59All right, Senator. So you're there in D .C.
4:01It's basically just let's round numbers here.
4:04About one in the morning.
4:05John Thune seemed to, as I was, it was described to me earlier, got some
4:10cojones and said he's had enough.
4:12And by golly, we're going to fight now and we're going to get funding that
4:15we needed. It's going to be done through reconciliation is what it's looking like.
4:19Can you explain what has been being said behind the scenes, how we finally got
4:24to this point, and now what actually happens moving forward?
4:28Well, Ben, I want to start by saying you said it's about one in the
4:30morning. I said literally three minutes ago that it was 12 .22 in the morning.
4:34I said rounding. I said rounding.
4:37Okay, that's not how you round.
4:38You round down to 12.
4:39I'm just saying that math.
4:40I always round up here.
4:42I was giving you more credit.
4:43Your dedication to the show at 1 a .m.
4:44just sounds better. And you're in Texas, so it's barely 11 o 'clock in Texas.
4:50Barely 11 .25 if we're going to get right at it, right?
4:53Okay, so we're going to restate the time for you.
4:55This is a podcast that's going to insist on truth in advertising.
4:59It's going to insist on accuracy.
5:01So it is now. What time is it now?
5:0312 .25. I love that he gets off the mic to get his phone to
5:07make sure that he knows what time it is.
5:08My phone is down there.
5:09I've got to see what time it is.
5:10So 12 .25. Those glasses and those hearing aids, we've just got to get them
5:14for your next birthday. But keep going.
5:16I'm ready. All right. You know, Ben, I'm tempted to hold up a finger to
5:21you, and it's not the thumb.
5:24It's not the thumb. And we're going to save that.
5:25for later in the show we're going to save that for later in the show
5:28i i was trying to give you a a segue there make make your damn
5:32point so i'll give the segue before the show started today we'll just pull back
5:35the curtain i said i would like to see a poll that is done on
5:40how untrustworthy people think politicians are both sides out if in every picture you take
5:47you're doing the thumbs up post like it maybe it's just me because i see
5:51more political pictures than than average americans but i i i despise all of them
5:56i find a picture of me with a thumbs up like you will not find
5:59that on the internet anywhere i'm not going to do that pose i don't care
6:03who's standing next to me and i i think you would trust americans more as
6:07you described it with the middle finger than you would like a politician with a
6:10thumbs up picture so if i was king for a day i would ban it
6:12so i will confess ben i uh you've done the thumbs up picture i googled
6:17it it's out there i i don't do a lot of it and the most
6:21common place i do a thumbs up picture is if i'm taking a picture with
6:24aggies so aggies will do a gigum and and that's the that's the symbol for
6:29texas a &m and i'll do a hook them for for longhorns as well so
6:33i will my guess is neither of those just for the record uh yeah you
6:37know that that that that's okay you you came to texas but it took you
6:41a while it did that's true that's true and and so i my guess is
6:4880 percent of the pictures that are thumbs up that i've done have been with
6:51aggies and then there have been a handful where someone really occasionally someone was like
6:54hey will you do a thumbs up and i'm like all right fine like if
6:57you really want to but but that is not my thumbs up but but i
7:01will tell you an interesting story by the way do you want to know how
7:04strong i i feel about this not really in the first trump administration when i
7:09was in the oval somebody said are you going to do the thumbs up i
7:13was like i will not i will not do the thumbs up and if you
7:15look at the picture that they sent i did not do a thumbs up i
7:18smiled i did not do this i i i do the thumbs up very rarely
7:22but i will tell you a funny story about thumbs up so this is like
7:25six seven years ago i was down at the border and i was at a
7:29border patrol checkpoint at our southern border where there were a bunch of 18 wheelers
7:33crossing from mexico uh over to the united states over to texas and i was
7:38just standing at the checkpoint and i gotta say if you're a truck driver and
7:42you're driving across the border there are a lot of things you may be expecting
7:45to see at the border patrol checkpoint but the u .s senator from texas is
7:50not one of them yeah it's not not on the list yeah and and so
7:53the the looks of startled shock from every truck driver it was really quite amusing
8:00because i i stood there probably an hour or so and and like greeted every
8:02truck driver and i took an informal survey so a number of the truck drivers
8:08gave me a thumbs up and the remaining one gave me a middle finger yeah
8:13yeah and it was i gotta say i actually felt pretty good about the truck
8:17driver survey because i think it was about 80 20 so about 80 percent got
8:21the thumbs up and about 20 percent flipped me off and i was like all
8:24right i'll take those odds like truck drivers are my peeps yeah the good number
8:30that's the republican party has become a blue collar party like truck drivers steel workers
8:36construction workers cops firefighters waiters and waitresses that's our base but it was still a
8:41fun because it literally was it's amazing almost every truck driver it was one of
8:47two fingers and i got it uh you know i don't remember how much but
8:51it felt like close to 100 percent that they would give me one finger or
8:54the other i you know what that's good odds there by the way on saturday
8:58i worked out i did get a middle finger in the gym from a liberal
9:01um and i mean i'm sitting there and i have my headphones in and i'm
9:06listening to music and this guy just you just you could just tell he just
9:10was wanting to talk and he just decided he'd had enough and he just he
9:14just put it right out there and i was like all right well i'm gonna
9:16go back to lifting weights now okay but that was a random dude and it
9:20wasn't like anna who was pissed at you no it was not that at all
9:23no it was just a random a random liberal who if he's listening to the
9:26show like that was probably the highlight of his whole year and i'm glad he
9:30had that moment i'm glad i could facilitate that for him all right i feel
9:33confident we don't have a lot of random liberals listening to this podcast we have
9:38reporters because when i walk on capitol hill and people ask me questions i'll say
9:42oh i just addressed that in the podcast why don't you listen to the podcast
9:45and then they go listen to the podcast and they write stories and like break
9:48news because we break news all right let's talk reconciliation because we're actually going to
9:52talk about real and hard news so department of homeland security has been shut down
9:58for two months yep the democrats do not care so understand for two months coast
10:06guardsmen have not been paid secret service agents have not been paid fema has not
10:12been paid department of homeland security the people that are fighting cyber terrorism the people
10:17that are fighting bioterrorism they have not been paid about 200 000 federal employees have
10:22not been paid for two months and the sad reality is not a democrat i
10:27believe cares and a big part of the reason they don't care is the media
10:31is not holding them accountable so they're in shots who is democrat senator from hawaii
10:38he's widely viewed as the democrat leader in waiting after chuck schumer he said about
10:43a month ago he said democrats are serene during this shutdown as long as shut
10:48down in american history about six weeks ago about six weeks ago I stood up
10:54to my colleagues in the Senate, and I said, the Republicans, and I said, look,
10:59the Democrats are wildly unreasonable.
11:02It is bizarre. But I think where Democrats are right now is I think they
11:07will never, ever, ever vote again to fund ICE.
11:10Their base just hates ICE.
11:12And this is an open borders, pro -violent criminal party.
11:17And I think from their perspective, they will vote against funding ICE forever.
11:23And they're perfectly happy to shut down all of DHS to do it.
11:26Now, the irony is DHS is defunded.
11:30You know what is funded?
11:32ICE. ICE. So when we took...
11:35Explain that quickly for people that may have missed those episodes.
11:37When we passed the reconciliation bill last summer, the working families tax cut, we funded
11:43ICE and we funded Customs and Border Patrol for the next three years because we
11:49knew Democrats were getting unreasonable.
11:51And so the rest of DHS is shut down, but ICE is alive.
11:55And it is literally the case that Democrats are voting to cut off funding for
11:58Coast Guard and FEMA and Secret Service and all the rest because they're mad at
12:02ICE and ICE is fully funded.
12:05That being said, here's what I said six weeks ago to my colleagues.
12:08I said, listen, this is where Democrats are.
12:11It is wildly unreasonable. It is indefensible, but it's where they are.
12:14So here's the approach forward.
12:17There were some Republican senators.
12:19They're saying, oh, let's do nothing.
12:20The pressure will build on Democrats and eventually they'll cave.
12:23And I said, you know what?
12:24They will never cave. They will leave DHS shut down for the entire year.
12:28And part of it is if the media were functional and real, they wouldn't because
12:32they'd feel heat. But nobody in the media is blaming them.
12:35And by the way, the standard media trick is they blame both parties.
12:38Oh, Congress is broken. That's how they give cover to the Democrats.
12:43To be clear, I have voted 16 times in the last two months to fund
12:47DHS. Democrats have voted 16 times to defund DHS.
12:52It's not both parties. The people who are voting to fund it are not responsible
12:57in the way that the people are voting to defund it are.
13:00The reason DHS is shut down is it takes 60 votes.
13:03We only have 53 Republicans, which means the Democrats can shut it down and they're
13:07doing so. Now, what I urge is I said, you know what?
13:11Let's pass a bill that funds DHS.
13:14And if the Democrats are so unreasonable, they will not fund ICE and CBP.
13:19Let's exclude them. Let's fund everything else.
13:22That's what the Senate did two weeks ago.
13:25It then went to the House.
13:27And I got to say, House Republicans, they kind of lost their minds and they
13:30began screaming, we're not going to defund ICE.
13:32Now, that claim was always false because ICE is fully funded.
13:36ICE is funded through the reconciliation bill.
13:38But I understand the sort of shock because the position of the Democrats is so
13:43wildly unreasonable that House Republicans were pissed.
13:48But the consequence, they voted down the Senate bill and it meant DHS stayed shut
13:53down. And I just think House Republicans had not gotten to the point where they
13:57have accepted, where they've internalized.
13:59These are the crazy ass Democrats in the Senate we're dealing with.
14:03And they're never, ever, ever going to fund ICE again.
14:06So here's what I suggested.
14:08Fund all of DHS except ICE and CBP.
14:11And then immediately take up a budget reconciliation.
14:15Budget reconciliation cannot be filibustered.
14:17The Democrats cannot block it.
14:19We can pass it with just 50 Republicans in the Senate.
14:22And we should fully fund ICE.
14:24And I will tell you today, so every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, when the Senate
14:29is in session, Senate Republicans have lunch together.
14:32So today, Tuesday, we had lunch.
14:35Let me ask you a question.
14:36When you say you guys have lunch, is it working groups at tables or is
14:40there like a big speaker?
14:42How does the lunch actually work so people understand?
14:45So there are two rooms that you have lunch in in the Senate.
14:49One is the LBJ room.
14:50That's a smaller room. It's just off the Senate floor.
14:52The minority gets the LBJ room.
14:54And then the bigger room is the Michael Mansfield room, named after Montana Senator, Senate
14:59Majority Leader Michael Mansfield. And it's a larger room.
15:02So whoever's in the majority gets the Mansfield room.
15:05I just want to know, for personal reasons, what do you eat there?
15:10So there's actually... Are you catered in or is it different senators that do it?
15:13How is that like, is there a host?
15:15So Tuesday and Wednesday, there is Senate catering.
15:19And there's like a catering office in the Senate that brings in food.
15:21It varies. Like today, we had some beef and some chicken and broccoli and green
15:26beans. I mean, catering is actually pretty good.
15:28I mean, one of the things that I'm surprised is like the food they provide
15:32at the Senate lunches is surprisingly decent.
15:35And those are Senate employees that do the catering on the Capitol.
15:39And so events there, they provide catering for any meal.
15:42We have dinners and lunches and things that are on the Capitol.
15:45So Tuesday and Wednesday, the Senate catering provides that.
15:49And then Thursdays, the way it works among Republicans is it rotates among different senators
15:54who hosts. So typically, like I host about once a year.
16:00And when you host, you usually fly in food from your home state.
16:05So for example, when I host, I fly in food from Texas, it's typically either
16:11barbecue or Mexican are the two things that I've done.
16:14I've done, I usually do barbecue.
16:15I sometimes do Mexican. So I'll fly in either, you know, different barbecue places in
16:20Texas. This is where we'll fly the food in.
16:23And then what actually happens when you host is you send a gift bag to
16:29your other senators. And the gift bag is usually a collection of stuff from your
16:33state. So I'll usually pick pick up some stuff like some, you know, H -E
16:39-B tortilla chips and salsa and, you know, kind of different.
16:44And you kind of put a gift bag together that I don't know is about
16:47100 bucks worth of different stuff from the state that you collect.
16:52And you send it, oddly enough, senators send a lot of booze to each other.
16:57So I actually have I have a whole shelf in my office filled with booze
17:00that senators have sent me.
17:02And I don't drink the booze very much.
17:03So it just sits there.
17:04It collects faster than I drink it.
17:06But you have varying senators that will send like the Kentucky senators will usually send
17:11bourbon around to win that ballgame.
17:12Right. And then I'm assuming Texas, you're like, here's some Tito's.
17:16I've done Tito's. I've done Scheinerbach is what I usually send.
17:19I'll often send a six pack of Scheinerbach.
17:21I have done Tito's in the past.
17:23Those those have been the two that are kind of you pick you pick a
17:26collection of stuff that sort of reflects your state.
17:30And so today we had and and the Tuesday lunch is the leadership lunch.
17:36So leadership runs it. The Wednesday lunch is the steering lunch.
17:39Steering are the more conservative senators.
17:42Rick Scott is right now the chairman of steering.
17:45There's about a dozen of us that are on the executive committee of steering.
17:48I'm on the executive committee.
17:50They are by design the most conservative senators.
17:53So the Wednesday lunch tends to be more policy driven.
17:57But we typically meet from about twelve thirty to two.
18:01So it's. Anywhere from an hour, an hour and a half, a lot of people
18:04get there about one. So it's typically one to two.
18:06Sometimes it's twelve thirty to two.
18:08But you have a good hour of robust discussion.
18:11And it's not it's not a bunch of quiet room where someone has a foreign
18:16is talking than someone else.
18:17So at lunch, it's not like you're sitting there hanging out with your buddies.
18:20And then for 15 minutes, someone speaks.
18:22It's the floor. It's it's actually a real working lunch.
18:25It is a working lunch.
18:26And actually, a lot of work gets done.
18:28And so I try to make the lunch every day because you have real debates
18:32and discussions with your colleagues.
18:34And and so today we had this was the leadership lunch today.
18:38And so you had a presentation from John Thune and from Lindsey Graham about the
18:41plan. And the plan is to take up a reconciliation bill, which is what I
18:45proposed six weeks ago. They are planning right now to fund DHS and ICE for
18:51three and a half years through fiscal year twenty twenty nine.
18:56And they want to keep the bill very narrowly limited to just ICE and and
19:01CBP. And so I stood up.
19:04I actually talked at length today and I made a pretty vigorous argument.
19:08I said, listen, this is a no brainer.
19:10We need to do it.
19:10It's the right thing to do.
19:12Absolutely. All of us agree with this.
19:14But I said, I think we're making three very serious mistakes.
19:18Number one, I think the proposal to fund ICE and CBP for three and a
19:22half years is a mistake.
19:24We should enough. Yes, we should fund them for 10 years.
19:2810 years is the limit under the statute for how long you can fund anything
19:32under budget reconciliation. And I said, the Democrats are going to vote against border security,
19:37against ICE and CBP for the foreseeable future.
19:39If that's the case, let's fund it for a decade.
19:42Let's take the opportunity we have right now to ensure that border security is funded
19:45for 10 years. I said, secondly, if we simply respond to the Democrats' legislative terrorism,
19:54shutting down DHS by funding what we would have funded ordinarily, I think that's really
20:01dumb. What I have argued is we ought to increase the funding for ICE by
20:0510 percent so that the consequence – and this is – it's a policy decision,
20:10but it's also a political decision.
20:12The consequence of Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders shutting down the government for two months
20:16and going nuts on border security is congratulations, Elizabeth.
20:20You just increased the funding for ICE by 10 percent.
20:23That's just – rather than be on defense, let's go on offense and say, you
20:28know what, we are the party of border security, we're going to fund it, and
20:32because you guys were wildly unreasonable, we had a bipartisan agreement on DHS funding until
20:37the Democrats backed out of it.
20:38So the consequence of your stupidity is you increased the funding of ICE.
20:42I think that's a no -brainer.
20:44I don't know if my colleagues will agree with either of those points, the 10
20:47years or increasing the funding.
20:48By the way, why would they not agree with the 10 years – and my
20:51cynical view is always I'm going to go there first – is it because they'd
20:55want it to be an election year issue within the next 10 years, so therefore
20:58they're saying, hey, let's fight on this in a couple years again?
21:01No, it's not that. Do you like how cynical politics has made me, sir?
21:06I just want to be clear about that.
21:07Immediately, I'm like – I could see somebody like, I don't want to – I
21:10like this issue. I want it to come up every couple years so I can
21:13fight over it. Yeah, look, there's a natural instinct of essentially playing small ball, and
21:19this is the outcome of negotiations between John Thune, Lindsey Graham, and the White House.
21:26And I think the White House is playing small ball too, and so I am
21:29urging the White House, let's go 10 years, let's up the budget.
21:33I've made this case to the White House.
21:35They're not there yet, and so they're focused on the challenge right in front of
21:38us rather than the challenge tomorrow.
21:40But here's the big case that I made, and I leaned in really aggressively.
21:44I said, listen, we should do a – reconciliation bill we should fund ice do
21:50it for 10 years we should fund cvp do it for 10 years we should
21:53up the budgets but we shouldn't limit it to just those two we should do
21:59a much broader reconciliation bill in the case i made to my colleagues i said
22:03this is the last meaningful chance we will have to pass republican priorities uh and
22:12there's a very real chance right now it's substantially more likely than not that we
22:16will lose at least the house in november we may lose the senate too if
22:21that's right then we have just the remainder of 2026 to pass conservative victories because
22:28starting next year the house will be nothing but all impeachment and all investigations all
22:32the times and so we will not be able to pass conservative priorities so my
22:36case to my colleagues was we ought to take this up and use reconciliation just
22:41like we did last year on the fourth of july where we passed the working
22:44families tax cut and had a massive number of conservative victories we ought to do
22:48it again and i suggested there are a lot of things we can do so
22:50for example i have a bill called keep america flying that says the democrats will
22:56never again be able to shut down uh civilian air traffic so they won't be
23:02able to defund air traffic controllers they won't be able to defund the tsa they
23:06won't be able to defund the federal workers that are critical to keep planes in
23:11the air by the way september 30th budget funding is going to expire again right
23:16now the democrats are going to force another shutdown 100 i will wager right before
23:20the elections they will force a shutdown i think we are idiots to do nothing
23:28to prevent them but the problem is a lot of folks in congress just look
23:31an inch in front of their nose and they can't look 10 inches in front
23:35of their nose so if we're headed to a shutdown in september we'd be morons
23:40not to do something to forestall it so one of the things we can do
23:43is make sure that the the four -hour lines at airports the people missing their
23:48flights for spring break that doesn't happen again we could pass funding that says we're
23:52going to keep planes flying democrats no longer get to destroy your vacation or destroy
23:58your work trip just because they're mad that i think makes a lot of sense
24:02uh what i've urged is we ought to do things that make sense for the
24:05economy so for example uh an idea that i have been pushing hard is indexing
24:12capital gains to inflation so the way it works let's say 10 years ago you
24:17bought a a stock for 100 and in the course of 10 years inflation has
24:23driven the cost of that stock to 200 now if that's all inflation you don't
24:29have any meaningful gain but if you sell that stock at 200 you pay capital
24:34gains tax on the difference between 100 and 200 and that's a phantom gain and
24:40so what i believe is you ought to index capital gains to inflation which means
24:44whatever the inflation is you base you raise the basis you raise the cost of
24:50whatever it is you've invested that would have a massive positive stimulus effect for the
24:55economy and affordability is a huge issue for the voters it has an enormous impact
25:02on housing so here's what's interesting if you have a house let's say you bought
25:06a house and the house is appreciated massively in value same principle is true if
25:11you sell it if the appreciation is due to inflation you pay taxes on that
25:15yeah and so what happens is a lot of people don't sell their house when
25:20you die if you pass your house on to your kids the basis steps up
25:26which means your kids take it not at the cost you paid but whatever the
25:30the cost is when they inherit it so that capital gains tax disappears when you
25:35die what it results in particularly in high -tax states is people holding on to
25:41houses a really long time and not selling them here's an amazing question ben california
25:46which has among the highest taxes in the country yes what percent of hopes do
25:53you think are passed on at death in other words are held on to so
25:57long because the the the capital gains tax would be so high i'm not gonna
26:02i'm gonna totally guess i would say at least 40 percent now i may be
26:06wrong but i know people that they get they that's how they got their parents
26:10house for the same reason you just described it so you are wrong that's a
26:14little too aggressive it's about 25 percent but 25 percent insane by the way because
26:18like in texas what is it three percent four percent it's much lower i don't
26:23know the texas number but it's much lower and and the consequence let's say you
26:27have a family that has a bunch of kids they buy a big house and
26:30they raise their kids in it and then their kids graduate go off into the
26:34world you've just got an older retired family now many like an older retired couple
26:40doesn't need a big house with a bunch of bedrooms in a normal world they
26:44would sell that house they'd put it on the market and they'd buy like they'd
26:48buy a smaller little townhome or condo they'd buy something that is more appropriate to
26:52their stage in life but especially in california and other high -tax states they don't
26:56do that because their tax bill would be huge so the effect of this would
27:01be to lower the cost of housing for people that are buying what it means
27:05is a young married couple that wants to buy that first house if there were
27:09more houses on the market it would drive the prices down and they could afford
27:12it more so that's an example of something we can do i also suggest said
27:16we could plus up the school choice provisions.
27:19We could plus up the Trump account provisions.
27:22There are lots of things.
27:24Ron Johnson has advocated for the Shutdown Fairness Act, which says that, number one, when
27:30there's a shutdown, all essential workers will be paid.
27:33Number two, there's another bill that says we won't have shutdowns.
27:36In the case that you don't have funding, you will continue at the prior levels,
27:40or maybe you'll ratchet down slightly.
27:42My point, look, when I stood up to my colleagues and I said, listen, I
27:47am not today advocating for any one particular policy.
27:52And I told them the story.
27:53So back in 2018, we had a Republican House, a Republican Senate, and we had
27:59a Republican president, Donald Trump.
28:01And in August of 2018, I gave a presentation to the Senate Republicans, and it
28:05was a PowerPoint, about 50 pages long.
28:08And I called it Carpe Diem, seize the day.
28:11And I went through in the last hundred years, what had happened every time the
28:16Democrats had had the House, the Senate, and the White House.
28:20And they passed fundamental transformations of this country.
28:24They passed the New Deal.
28:25They passed the Great Society.
28:27They passed Obamacare and Dodd -Frank.
28:29Like when they have control, they push the pedal to the metal and they floor
28:33their socialist left -wing plans.
28:36Republicans, we are piddly. We don't do nearly as much.
28:39We did the working families tax cut.
28:40That was a big, big victory.
28:43But we haven't done a whole lot since then.
28:45And the case I made in 2018, as I said, we ought to take up
28:49another reconciliation. It was the vehicle for the biggest legislative victories we have.
28:54And I had a chart that I put together of like 50 bills that different
28:58Republican senators had introduced. And I said, listen, I'm not being crazy.
29:02I'm not saying we should pass all 50 of these.
29:04I'm saying, let's pick five.
29:07My case was not, we should do something specific.
29:11My case was simply, we should do something.
29:13And I turned to my colleagues.
29:15I said it, when I said it in 2018, I talked in particular to the
29:19class of 2014. There was a big class, nine new senators, Republicans were elected in
29:242014. And I said, listen, you guys, if we don't take this opportunity, we had
29:32183 days left in the Congress, this may be the last opportunity you ever get
29:38to pass meaningful legislation. If we lose the House, you're done.
29:42No more legislation, forget about it.
29:44If that's the case, don't we have an urgency to do something?
29:51And as I look back at my entire tenure in the Senate, the most indefensible
29:55legislative decision was Mitch McConnell's decision in 2018, not to take up another reconciliation.
30:02And I fear that we're repeating the mistake.
30:04And by the way, so look, for the last couple of months, I have been
30:08searching around for how do we do another reconciliation?
30:11I've been making this case for a while.
30:13But I've said what we need is a tentpole.
30:17What do I mean by a tentpole?
30:18I mean an idea that is big enough, that is bold enough, that is important
30:22enough, that it will unify 50 Republicans in the Senate and 218 Republicans in the
30:27House, because we have really narrow majorities.
30:29So you've got to have something big enough that everyone gets behind.
30:33And then you can have other provisions carry along if you have a tentpole.
30:38In my view, ICE and CBP are the tentpole.
30:42There is not a Republican.
30:44I don't care if you're the most rock -ripped conservative or completely squishy mod.
30:49No Republican wants to vote against funding ICE and CBP.
30:53That is a tentpole that can carry the rest of it.
30:57And so that's the case I'm making to my colleagues.
30:59Right now, the White House is not on board.
31:01And my intention is I'm going to make this case to President Trump directly.
31:05I have not done so yet.
31:07Today was the beginning of it, making it to my colleagues in the Senate.
31:10But I think this is a decision.
31:13Do we swing for the fences and get victories, economic victories, that we can campaign
31:18on and win elections in November?
31:21Or do we play small ball?
31:22And by the way, one of the things that leadership is saying is, no, no,
31:25we'll do another reconciliation after this.
31:27Well, you know what? The next reconciliation will fail.
31:30Because without a tentpole, without something like ICE and CBP, you ain't getting 50 and
31:36you ain't getting 218 because the Republicans will scatter on all sorts of different grounds.
31:40So you've got to have something big enough to bring them together, and then we
31:44can win real victories. That's the case I'm trying to make to my colleagues.
31:49Yeah, it's going to be really interesting how this plays out.
31:52And you're right. I think Americans are like, what are you doing for me right
31:55now? I wish all the Republicans would understand that and be bold like you described
32:00it. We'll see if that happens.
32:02Otherwise, some of your colleagues may not be your colleagues after the election this coming
32:06November. And Ben, by the way, one of the things that I'm also urging my
32:09colleagues to include is election integrity, to include as much of the Save America Act
32:14as we can. Now, it is limited because of reconciliation.
32:18There are rules under statute as to what you can include in reconciliation.
32:22It has to be budgetary and not policy.
32:25And so how you get, you can't get the full Save America Act in reconciliation,
32:30but you can get election integrity provisions.
32:33You can, for example, condition federal grants, for example, the Help America Vote Act grants,
32:39which are grants that go to help fund elections.
32:41You can condition those on election integrity.
32:44You can condition those, you can take those away from Sanctuary City.
32:47So I'm arguing we ought to be using, like, let's take this opportunity to pass
32:52legislation that Republicans agree with.
32:55Let's win victories. Let's not give up the chance to win victories.
32:59Yeah, great point. We're going to keep covering it, and we'll keep you up to
33:02date on what's happening in Washington, D .C.
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