Trump dukes it out w Maine, Time Frame on a Big Beautiful Budget Bill & Assassin may have had Help Week In Review
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anchor on it. Find it now at Whole Foods. Welcome. It is Verdict with Ted Cruz weekend review. Ben Ferguson with you. And here are the big stories that you may have missed that we talked about this week. First up, Donald Trump and the governor of Maine, they come to blows over men in women's sports. The president making clear he's going to protect women in sports no matter what. So what happens on the legal front next? We'll have that for you. Also,

There is now a big question after the House passed a huge budget resolution and a big, beautiful bill. So what does the time frame look like to actually have a real budget that is passed? And what does it mean for the taxpayers? Will there be a chance that this can get through the Senate and to the president's desk to sign it?

I'll explain that in just a moment as well. And finally, there's new information out of Butler, Pennsylvania, and an accusation in the New York Post that the attempted assassination on Donald Trump, that shooter, may have actually had help from others. It's the Week in Review, and it starts right now. There's a badass moment at the White House where the president straight up

out a governor who was in attendance for the governors. They had a bunch of governors come to the white house. They had their big governors meeting. Uh, they invited these governors to come to the white house and, and the president just straight out called out one of the governors for the plan that had leaked in essence, that he was going to defy, uh,

the directive from the federal government about protecting women from men playing in their sports, transgender individuals claiming that they're a chick. And the president just said, I don't care. You're here. Glad you're here. Are you going to not go along with what I told you to do? And it was one of those flashpoint moments just showing you, I think, the difference is time and the mentality of this president.

Yeah, no, that's exactly right. Trump is not backing down. And I got to say, the Democrats, it seems they've learned nothing from the election. Here, give a listen to the exchange between the governor of Maine and President Trump. The NCAA has complied immediately, by the way. That's good. But I understand Maine. Is Maine here, the governor of Maine? Are you not going to comply with it? Well, we are the federal law.

Well, you better do it. You better do it because you're not going to get any federal funding at all if you don't. And by the way, your population, even though it's somewhat liberal, although I did very well there, your population doesn't want men playing in women's sports. So you better comply because otherwise you're not getting any federal funding. Every state... Good, I'll see you in court. I look forward to that. That should be a real easy one. And enjoy your life after governor because I don't think you'll be in elected politics.

I mean, the trash talking, I just got to say, looking at the female governor main saying like, hey, the people there want this, too. You should listen to people. I'll see you in court. All right, great. Look forward to it. I don't think you're gonna be in politics much longer, either. If you keep this up, this is just a different Donald Trump this time around.

Well, it is. And by the way, there's also real teeth to it. So simultaneously with this exchange, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that it had initiated a compliance review of the University of Maine and the state could be in jeopardy of losing $100 million in federal USDA funding over noncompliance with the executive order on keeping males out of female sports. And at the end of the day, and by the way,

This is not hypothetical. This is happening in Maine. In Maine, there was a transgender boy who identifies as a girl who took first place in the girls pole vaulting at Maine's Class B state championship.

And it's a win that helped the high school take first place overall. And so, you know, how would you feel if it's your daughter who's in second and she's the best pole vaulter in the state who's a girl, but there's a dude who says, no, I'm a girl.

Who beats her and dominates. It's just fundamentally unfair. And I got to say, overwhelmingly, 80, 90 percent of Americans agree with that proposition. And what's striking is this is not Democrats fighting on some issue where.

Where the voters are with them. I promise you, even in Maine, the voters don't want this. They're not happy about this. And today's Democrat Party, this election, if there is an elected Democrat who learned anything from this election, I don't know who it is.

Because not only are they doubling down. This has become like the new litmus test, though, of the extreme left, right? Yeah, but they're also doubling down on open borders. They're also doubling down on anti-Israel. Look, the Democrats in the Senate voted against sanctioning the ICC, the International Criminal Court, which has gone after Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel.

Every Democrat but one, every Democrat but John Fetterman voted against Israel. And they did that after the election. They did that just a few weeks ago. I mean, that's where the Democrats are right now is they're still open border. They're still anti-Israel. They're still pro boys and girls sports. And it's look, look, this is the same issue we started with. Fundamentally, I think, you know, the Democrats love to prattle on about democracy.

But when they prattle on about what democracy, what they really mean is they want power and they don't care what the voters want. They don't care about respecting the will of the voters. Instead, they want to fight against the will of the voters. It's why they indicted Trump not once, not twice, not three times, but four times. It was designed to stop democracy. It's why you had multiple Democrats, judges and state officials fighting.

Trying to remove Donald Trump from the presidential ballot because nothing says defending democracy like stopping the damn voters for voting for your opponent and making it impossible. This is all intertwined, which is it is a lack of of humility, a lack of understanding that you have a boss and the boss is the men and women who elected you.

I'm trying to figure this out. Is this pure arrogance or is this a political move by the radical left to say we're not going to comply and we think it's going to be good for us to raise money and for our base? Break this down for us. What do you think? Well, listen, unfortunately, elected Democrats remain radical. They have not learned any lessons from the November election.

So if you look at Democrats in Congress, if you looked at Democrat governors, they continue to support open borders. They continue to support releasing murderers and rapists and child molesters into this country. You look at we talked about this in last week's pod, how Massachusetts is literally releasing violent child rapists.

who are illegal immigrants, rather than turn them over to ICE to be deported. And I got to say, look, this is not a 60-40 issue. It's not a 70-30 issue. This is an 80-20 or a 90-10 issue. I mean, if you ask any rational and sane person, a violent child rapist, should we release him into our community?

Any rational person, most normal Democrats would say, hell no, that's a dumb ass idea. And yet the elected Democrats in Massachusetts, their answer is let them go. We are opposed to deporting anyone, no matter how vile. They're continuing the same position on on. They continue to support the Democrats in Congress, continue to support Democrats.

and sterilizing and castrating children for sex change operations. Again, that's an 80-20 issue. They're on the wrong side of it, but they're listening to their radical base. And when it comes to men and women's sports, this is another 80-20 issue. The American people don't want boys competing against their daughters. They don't want men competing against women. And yet the Democrats are all in on that. And I've been amazed that

Normally, when your party gets clobbered in an election, you go and reassess, gosh, maybe we miscalibrated. Maybe we should change where we stand. The Democrats are not doing that. And so what happened this week is Pam Bondi, the new attorney general, targeted in particular three states, targeted Maine, California and Minnesota. And she issued a warning to them.

that those states have to comply with federal anti-discrimination laws that require them to keep boys out of girls' sports. And here's what Pam Bondi said, quote, This Department of Justice will defend women and does not tolerate state officials who ignore federal law. We will leverage every legal option necessary to ensure state compliance with federal law and President Trump's executive order protecting women's sports.

And she continues, the Department of Justice says, quote, as President Trump's recent executive order 14201 on this subject explains, allowing men and boys to compete in women's and girls sports, quote, is demeaning, unfair and dangerous to women and girls. This practice is also illegal under federal law.

It denies women and girls the equal opportunity to participate and excel in competitive sports in violation of Title IX of the educational amendments of 1972. And so understand the Department of Justice is making clear they intend to sue these states and they intend to cut off federal funds to these states.

If they continue to embrace the radical notion that they're going to let boys compete in girls sports. We talked about in Monday's pod how the governor of Maine is in open defiance, saying to hell with you. We'll see you in court. It's amazing. Democrats continue to embrace these radical positions. Now, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation, you can go back and listen to the full podcast from earlier this week.

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Now on to story number two. So for people that say, OK, this passed, how quick is this going to move forward or how long is this going to take? There's a long way to go. So what's the timeline on this? So we so we limit expectations or be realistic. So the budget resolution just starts this process. Now what's happened in the House is they've directed each of the House committees to draft the underlying bill.

So what was voted on tonight was not securing the border. It was not rebuilding the military. It was not cutting taxes. It was the opening resolution to say, go draft that legislation. That was a real fight. So this is the first inning to use a baseball analogy.

Yes. Now, it actually gets your batter at the plate. Like if they failed, they don't even get a batter at the plate. So now we can start swinging. We're in the game. But they're going to be harder steps forward.

And I believe we're going to get this done. I believe we're going to get this done. We're going to secure the border. We're going to rebuild the military. We're going to unleash American energy and we're going to extend the tax cuts. But but it is going to be a lot of tradeoffs. It's going to be hard. It's going to be hard because the House majority is so excruciatingly tiny that on any issue, if you lose two votes, you're out of luck.

But I think we will get the job done. And I will say both Mike Johnson, the speaker, and Steve Scalise, the majority leader, they're both good friends. I worked very closely with both of them. And I think we will go through some difficult paths to get there. But all of us, from the most conservative Republican to the most moderate, squishy, wobbly Republican,

All of us want to produce these victories. We get there was a mandate from the election and we can't fail. And by the way, if we fail, if we don't secure the border, if we don't rebuild the military, if we don't unleash energy, if we don't extend the tax cuts.

will get killed in November of next year. Yeah, and that's probably a lot of what Donald Trump said on the floor, right? Like, hey, you don't want to be involved in this. Right. Get it done. We made a promise to the voters. Let's deliver on the voters. And I think today was an important step to doing that.

Let's talk about the border for a second. There was another big story, and I want you to just read part of this for people because it truly is heartbreaking. It makes me angry.

It's what you see in war in the Middle East. And it's happening now against ranchers and people in agriculture. The warning is very real now that the cartels are acting like what they are, terrorist organizations. I think this is another example of the president getting it right, saying we're going to declare them as terrorist organizations because that's what they do. They are terrorist organizations. And now we have another data point of saying, here's the proof.

So let me read from a story in the New York Post. Texas rancher killed by suspected cartel IED on Mexican border as authorities warn of growing threat. Here's what the New York Post reported. Quote, a Texas border rancher was killed near the border by a suspected cartel IED earlier this month. The Texas Department of Agriculture told the Post Tuesday.

as officials issued an urgent safety warning for the Rio Grande Valley. Rancher Antonio Gaspérez Saldirna, 74, who worked on both sides of the border, along with Horacio López Peña, was killed in the blast in Tamaulipas, Mexico, which was just south of Brownsville, Texas.

Lopez's wife, Ninfa Griselda Ortega, was hospitalized with injuries. Saldirna was driving on his ranch when he hit the explosive device, causing it to detonate, according to KRGV. Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller said the deadly explosion is part of a, quote, growing threat posed by cartel activity along our southern border.

and encourages ranchers to, quote, exercise extreme caution in the area. Quote,

Limit travel to daylight hours, stay on main roads, and avoid cartel-controlled regions, said Miller. This is happening right at the Texas-Mexico border. I got to say, it is dangerous, and it shows, you know, some in the media say, gosh, it's hyperbole, it's rhetoric to call the cartels terrorists. They are terrorists, and they're murdering Texans.

What does this mean moving forward if they continue this? And how could this change the way that we interact with them? Because I think there's a lot of Americans right now. They're like, look, if we're going to call them terrorists, let's go after them like they're terrorists. How dare them be allowed to do this? Well, I believe we're going to do that. I believe we're starting with we saw on January 20th, President Trump securing the border. We've seen the numbers of illegal crossings plummet, drop 90 percent.

We're going to go after them. We're going to go after them. We're going to go after the people who are here, the murderers, the rapists, the child molesters, the gang members. We're arresting them. We're deporting them. We're going to send them back. But we're also stopping the traffic coming in, the human traffickers, the drug traffickers. That is impacting the cartels' bottom lines. But I think we're going to use leverage to go after the cartels directly and try to—Joe Biden and the Democrats—

gave billions of dollars to the cartels. A stat you and I have talked about multiple times, but it's a stunning stat. In 2018, the Mexican drug cartels made roughly $500 million from human trafficking. $500 million is a lot of money. Last year, they made $13 billion, a 2,600% increase.

That is ending now. And I have every confidence the Trump administration is going to go after their money. It's going to go after them directly. And you are going to see the cartels targeted just like we target Al Qaeda and Hamas and Hezbollah. The days of the cartels terrorizing Americans, those days are ending. As before, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation on this topic, you can go back and download the podcast from earlier this week to hear the entire thing.

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I want to get back to the big story, number three of the week you may have missed. There was another shocking headline that also came out today, and that deals with the assassination attempt on Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania. The headline for the New York Post is, quote, would-be Trump assassin may have had an accomplice, and data shows, as investigators say, FBI suppressed investigation.

I wouldn't believe that headline if I wouldn't have just had the conversation with you for the last 10 minutes that we just had about the FBI covering up Epstein information as well. Well, this is a stunning article. I do not know if it is true, but if there is evidence that the attempted assassin, the man who shot Epstein,

Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, had an accomplice or multiple accomplices, that would be a big damn deal. And, you know, I got to say, it has been a long time. It has been 229 days since President Trump was shot at that rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

And yet we know next to nothing about the shooter. It's almost as if it just dropped into a memory hole and disappeared. And I want to read some of this article from The New York Post because it it it has some very interesting information in it. It's not clear. It's not clear what's what's true or not. But let me read from The New York Post.

quote it's been almost nine months since a seemingly mild-mannered 20 year old attempted to assassinate then republican presidential nominee donald trump at a rally in butler and we still have no good reason why sources told the post the fbi has obstructed efforts to solve the mystery of why thomas matthew crooks who left no manifesto did what he did

It's left local law enforcement, as well as Crooks' former friends, classmates, and teachers frustrated. Those who may know Crooks' parents, Matthew and Mary, have refused all interviews and remain in their small three-bedroom home, sealed off from the world like hermits.

Neighbors say they only leave the house at 3 a.m. to buy groceries. Quote, by the way, why do we know nothing about that guy in Butler? Elon Musk yelled out to the audience at CPAC last week.

before warning that FBI Director Kash Patel is going to get to the bottom of it. A veteran private investigator from Erie, Pennsylvania, who was hired shortly after the fateful July 13th event at Butler Farm to look into crooks by a private client, told the Post he believes a, quote, criminal network was operating with him at the time of the assassination attempt.

is still in existence and still wants to kill President Trump. Doug Hagman, whose team of six other investigators had been working the case for months and have interviewed more than 100 people, said they also conducted extensive geofencing analysis of cell phones and tablets not belonging to crooks that were found with him at his home, at the rifle range where he took target practice,

at the rally and at Bethel Park High School, where he graduated in 2022. Quote, we don't think he acted alone, Hageman told the Post. Quote, this took a lot of coordination.

In my view, Crooks was handled by more than one individual and he was used for this assassination attempt. And I wouldn't preclude the possibility that there were people at the rally itself helping him. Hageman said one of the electronic devices geolocated with Crooks at several different places at the time of the shooting is still pinging today.

at Bethel Park High School. Look, I don't know if this is true or not. I don't know any background about this private investigator. And I don't know if his allegations are right or not. But it is frustrating that...

that the American people, look, I'm on the Senate Judiciary Committee. I have no information that isn't public about who this would-be assassin was, what his motivation was, what evidence there is of anyone else being involved. And I'll tell you, when I sat down with both Kash Patel and with Pam Bondi when they were preparing for their confirmation, I had an extensive conversation with both of them about the need for transparency.

that when you've had four years of both the Department of Justice and the FBI politicized and weaponized, the result is that people don't trust the FBI. I mean, this article in The Post repeatedly argues that the FBI is obstructing efforts to get to the bottom of what happened. That...

That's infuriating, if true. And it is very much my hope that we'll see Pam Bondi and Kash Patel make significant information about this assassination attempt public. The American people have a right to know, have a right to know if anyone else was involved with this. And I don't know if the FBI, if they didn't put a priority on it. I don't know if they didn't investigate. I don't.

I guess it is possible this kid acted alone. But the absolute dearth of information is frustrating and infuriating. Well, and it goes back to the point that I think Pam Bondi made at the White House with many of these conservatives, which is we're doing everything we can now to be transparent. But there is still a very deep state relationship

rebellion and they are hell-bent on not letting the American people know what's going on. They're above us. They think they're more important than us. They don't believe they have to play by the rules. They don't have to be transparent. And until you get that fixed, there's going to be a lot of doubting from the American people in these institutions. I think that's exactly right. You know, the article says that Hagman, this private investigator,

said that he was personally escorted to the Butler County line and told to leave twice during the course of his team's investigation. The people who did so were either federal agents or some type of private security. And so...

Look, and I actually I can understand an FBI investigation that they would be frustrated with having a private investigator interviewing the same people. So so that actually the fact that the FBI was telling this guy, you know, buzz off. That's not shocking to me.

But I don't know what investigation the FBI conducted. I certainly don't know the results of the investigation. They haven't made anything public to the American people. And I think the FBI's attitude has been in recent years, they don't know the public at answer. You don't get to know anything.

anything if they don't want to tell you. Yeah, great point. I want to move also to another story, and this goes back to the issue of trust. Elon Musk and Doge, new poll numbers are out saying that the majority of American people actually approve of what Elon Musk is doing, and they think that Doge is having a real impact in a positive way for this country and for taxpayers. And the waste, fraud, and abuse, they want them to keep moving forward. What we're

Also saying, Senator, at the exact same time, I would now describe it as a clearly well-organized, orchestrated effort by the media and the Democrats to ramp up their smears against Trump early on.

And early on, they were trying to drive a wedge between Elon and Trump. You could see it in their rhetoric where it's like, well, you know, Elon thinks he's the president. Oh, yeah. The Time magazine cover story that put Elon at the resolute desk in the Oval Office was obvious in a clumsy attempt to piss Trump off and get Trump mad at Elon. And it was so transparent that I think it did not remotely have the effect they were trying to have.

Yeah, it backfired. But that was where you could tell they were. The first step was, well, maybe we can drive a wedge here. That hasn't worked. So now what we're witnessing is just a full on smear campaign against Elon Musk, even on the view of.

And this was an interesting moment for me because it's like you're getting real close to slander and libel when you do what The View does against Elon Musk. I don't know if they care. They have to apologize pretty regularly now for things they say on the air with legal notes they keep having to make. But Joe Behar had this to say on The View.

Elon Musk and I want to play it and then get your reaction to it. And Elon Musk kisses his butt and strokes his tiny ego or big ego, whatever it is. And he doesn't get to do, he can take a nap while the guy was not born in this country, who was born under apartheid in South Africa. So has that mentality going on. He was pro-apartheid as I understand it.

He's a naturalized citizen. Right. He's a naturalized citizen. Now he's a naturalized citizen. Oh, really? How did he do that? Did he come over the border legally? He flew in. Yeah, he allegedly overstayed that visa. Yeah, but I think this is just perfectly wonderful for Trump. He's going to take a nap and let this foreign agent, you know, an enemy of the United States, do his job.

I mean, not only does she say he's an enemy, but then she says he's in favor of apartheid. By the way, not true. Came back on the air later in the show and tried to undo that and said, Elon, don't sue. Well, look, I mean, the view they are unhinged lunatics.

And they don't care about truth. But they, you know, the crazy thing is Joy Behar believes what she says. You know, it's amazing. Apparently, Elon Musk is the only immigrant that that that

Joy Behar and the crazies on The View dislike. If you're an MS-13 gang member, if you're a murderer or a rapist, they're perfectly fine with you. They don't have a problem with Joe Biden and the Democrats releasing millions of criminals into America. That they have no problem with. But if someone comes legally to this country, if someone builds multiple incredible companies, creates thousands and thousands of jobs...

is an incredible innovator and then volunteers his time to serve his nation, that merits being called a foreign agent and an enemy of the United States. You know, at the end of the day, what The View was saying doesn't say much about Elon Musk, but it says a lot about the media and the left and how terrified they are of him. And I'll tell you, Marcy Kaptur, a Democrat congresswoman,

had very similar comments. Listen to what she said about Elon Musk. Apparently, she enjoyed the horror reading from the same talking points. Yeah, and this was in front of the United States Capitol where she said it. Mr. Musk has just been here 22 years, and he's a citizen of three countries. I always ask myself the question, with the damage he's doing here, when push comes to shove, which country is he loyalty to? South Africa, Canada, or the United States?

And he's only been a citizen, I'll say again, 22 years. By the way, I thought it was Democrats for the last four years that were obsessed with illegal immigrants coming into this country and saying, who is anyone else to say that they aren't Americans and we don't even call them illegals, you must call them immigrants and they're just like you and I. But

But all of a sudden, a guy by the name of Elon Musk is actually getting things done. And now they're just going to slander him and say, which country is he really loyal to? Like he's some sort of secret agent or bad actor for another nation. Well, look, I spent a good chunk of this morning with Elon over at the White House. And he met with a number of senators talking about what he's doing on Doge.

And it was a very interesting meeting. And it's stunning some of the things that they're finding. They're finding, for example, they're going into agencies and finding agencies that have more electronic subscriptions than they have employees. Wow. And in many instances, thousands and thousands more, like 30,000 licenses for different electronic subscriptions.

applications, 30,000 licenses and 15,000 employees. That order of magnitude. And so they're going in and canceling the ones that aren't used. They also went and checked and they said hundreds and hundreds of them had never been open, had never even been installed. So even of the employees, not everyone is using them. They've never logged in. And so they can go and check. All right. And so anyone who's not using it, they're canceling those. Those are the sorts of things

they're finding, they're really just astonishing. When you met with him today, does it seem that he's even shocked by what he's finding? You know, there are things like he talked today about ghost payments, about the Treasury has computers that transfer funds that make federal payments. And he says that there are

Ghost payments that are going out that a program officer puts in for for for a payment to to a contractor to to to somebody. And then the program officer retires, dies, leaves is gone and the payments just keep on going.

And, you know, he said it's stunning. The Treasury computers have a field where you categorize, OK, what is this payment for? And what in the congressional appropriation is it going for? And he said routinely.

That field is left blank. He said USAID, they always left it blank, he said. So there's no way, he said, in many ways, it's incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to audit the billions of dollars that are going out the door because they don't keep the records. And it was interesting, Elon's comments, he said, if any public company did this, he said they would be massively fined and the executives would be put in jail.

As always, thank you for listening to Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz. Ben Ferguson with you. Don't forget to download my podcast so you can listen to my podcast every other day you're not listening to Verdict or each day when you listen to Verdict afterwards. I'd love to have you as a listener to, again, the Ben Ferguson podcast. And we will see you back here on Monday morning.

Ready to celebrate the magic of live music? South by Southwest Music Festival returns to Austin, Texas this March 10th through the 15th with a fresh lineup of legendary and rising talent. Join a global community of music lovers, artists, industry professionals, and creatives at the 2025 South by Southwest Music Festival.

With hundreds of showcasing artists performing across six days in over 50 venues, Discovery is right around the corner at South by Southwest. Explore the lineup at SXSW.com.

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