This is a lightly edited transcript of Tony Kinnett’s interview with Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.
Tony Kinnett: Welcome back to the Tony Kinnett Cast here on The Daily Signal nationally syndicated first on 93 WYBC. It’s a pleasure to be joined again by Sen. Ted Cruz, this time, not on the phone dashing from one place to another. I know you’re really busy how those Senate confirmation hearings going.
Ted Cruz: Well, they’re moving well. We have had hearings now for half of President Trump’s Cabinet, and we will see—I believe the entire Cabinet will be confirmed, every one of President Trump’s Cabinet nominees. I think it’s going to make it through the Senate. And I think we’ll have them all in place within the first 30 days. The first couple will be in place on Jan. 20, on Inauguration Day. And I think within 30 days, all of them will be in place.
Kinnett: Now, states like Texas, they have tough Senate races because the Texas voters, they pay attention to what you guys are saying.
Cruz: Yeah.
Kinnett: And then I look at the Senate confirmation hearings and things like the Senator from Hawaii and her interesting statements. And I just wonder how close some voters must be paying attention. How do you have a bridge of your nose left? I would be pinching that just completely off out of exasperation.
Cruz: Well, listen, unfortunately, there are some of my Democrat colleagues who embrace really radical policies. You know, if you want to ask yourself, how did things get so bad over the last four years? How did how did we embrace policies of wide-open borders to allow an invasion at our southern border with 12 million illegal immigrants coming into this country? How did the Democrat Party get to the point where they look the other way at Americans being murdered, at women being raped, at children being brutalized by violent, criminal, illegal aliens they were releasing every day into America? How did we get to such an extreme point that that that you have Democrats advocating boys playing in girls’ sports and sterilizing and mutilating little boys and little girls to try to alter their gender. Those are extreme positions. How did we get so bad that you’ve got Democrats undermining Israel and anti-Semitic protests erupting at colleges across the country, so much so that Jewish students don’t feel safe going to school? All of that is the fruit of the radicalization of the Democrat Party. And I think what is clear, what the voters made absolutely clear in November is their policies aren’t working. We’ve got a mandate for change. That’s why we’ve got a new president, a new administration, a Republican Senate, a Republican House. And now, Tony, we’ve got to deliver. We’ve got to roll up our sleeves, and we’ve got to deliver on our promises. That’s what my focus is every day.
Kinnett: That’s why I wanted to have you on again because it’s a lot of frustration for the average American seeing a House and a Senate that’s more concerned about peacocking, that’s more concerned about posturing and preening in front of all of us than getting to work. We have the Laken Riley Act on crime and immigration. Now we have the bill protecting women in and high school and college sports. We’re actually seeing a bit of progress from the Senate side though, at least from where you are in your position, what is getting work done look like for this Senate in the coming year?
Cruz: Listen, I’m very optimistic about the Senate. The voters have given us 53 Republicans that—I’m very glad it’s 53 and not, say, 51, which is barely a majority.
Kinnett: Right.
Cruz: Fifty-one, you’re worried about losing one or two votes and having everything go down. With 53, you’ve got a little bit of a margin for error. And so, the first thing on the plate is confirming the president’s Cabinet, because under the Constitution, the Senate has a responsibility to provide advice and consent. And that’s an important check-in balance between our branches. That is going to consume a lot of time the first couple of months. In terms of what we have to accomplish, the very first thing we have to accomplish is we must secure the border. That is the clearest and most overwhelming mandate from this election.
Kinnett: Hmmm.
Ted Cruz: It’s what we’re going to do. Donald Trump is going to come in on Jan. 20, and on Jan. 20, catch and release will end. We will no longer be apprehending illegal immigrants and just letting them go in every community in this country. And you are going to see President Trump arresting, detaining and deporting criminal, illegal aliens going and finding the murderers, the rapists, the gang members, and getting rid of them. That’s going to happen immediately. And Congress is going to follow up by appropriating significant funds in the neighborhood of $100 billion dollars to fund the wall, to build the wall, to hire more Border Patrol agents, to hire more ICE agents, to build more detention facilities and more detention beds, to provide materiel, like fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft and drones and infrared, so that we could accomplish this task. We’re going to do that.
Kinnett: Hold on just a second here.
Cruz: Beyond that, there’s a clear mandate to unleash American energy.
Kinnett: Ah.
Cruz: We’re going to do that as well, and we’re going to unleash jobs, lower prices, and bring the economy roaring back.
Kinnett: Excuse me, just a second Senator, you said $100 billion dollars in the neighborhood for border spending all of that for here, usually for that kind of money, we have to send it to Paraguay or something.
Cruz: Yeah. Yeah. But that’s all right here in the U.S. of A. Much of it will be on our southern border in Texas. Of our 2,000-mile southern border, 1,200 of those miles are right along in Texas. And we are going to secure not just Texas, but the entirety of our southern border and our northern border. Look, we are seeing terrorists coming in over the border from Canada. I met with a senior Canadian official just this week, and made very clear that the president is absolutely serious about using every lever tool we have with Canada and with Mexico to make sure those two nations are active participants in securing the border, because we’re not going to allow this invasion to continue even one day longer.
Kinnett: You know, it’s always good to hear senators talking to officials from other states, even if they’re future 51st states in this particular instance. You ended your conversation about the resources made for the border, talking a little bit about bringing back some jobs. I know obviously Americans are concerned with the whole nomination process because the central focus, at least as the public relations and media aspect of government, isn’t as focused at the second on the grocery prices, on the job market, on the economy. That doesn’t mean that it’s out of sight, out of mind necessarily, though. What do you see the Senate doing, at least in vague terms, if you can’t give us any specific details, on bringing the American economy back?
Cruz: Well, in terms of legislation, there’s quite a lot. I have this week introduced legislation, number one, to reverse Joe Biden’s ban on offshore drilling for much of the American coastline. That is something he’s done in these waning weeks. I’ve got to say, I’ve never seen an outgoing president do what Joe Biden is doing, demonstrate such contempt for the voters, such anger for the voters that decided to change the path we’re on. and every day Biden is issuing another policy that is basically a screw you to the voters. It is the opposite of what the voters said in November, and it’s an effort to hamstring President Trump and the incoming administration—well, I’ve introduced legislation to reverse that, because I think one of the clearest mandates of November …
Kinnett: Well said.
Cruz: … is unleash American energy. We are going to be energy dominant. We are going to lower energy prices. We’re going to lower prices of food and clothing and everything else. And so that’s legislation I introduced this week. Another piece of legislation I introduced this week is my bill to have no taxes on tips, to eliminate taxes on tips. That’s going to impact all sorts of people who are working and climbing the economic ladder, from waiters and waitresses to barbers and hairstylists to people working in nail salons to bartenders to taxicab drivers. And I got to say, my legislation is bipartisan. We’re going to get that done. And we are going to pass legislation, number one, as I said, funding securing the border, number two, unleashing American energy, number three, rebuilding the American military to defend this nation, and number four, extending the Trump tax cuts, which expire at the end of this year.
Kinnett: Absolutely.
Cruz: We’re going to make them bigger and bolder, and that is going to unleash small businesses and economic growth.
Kinnett: You’re like a hop skipping a point over where I want to go next. It’s just, oh there’s so much content, the last time that you were on I asked you if Heidi would let you have a throw pillow in the house that said drill baby drill and after hearing this actually if a listener to the show actually ended up cross stitching drill baby drill on to something, so, I got to tell you it’s gonna happen we’re gonna get the drill baby drill throw pillows out there and really unleash the energy independence and homes across the country.
Cruz: That’s awesome. And if you want to share the pillow, I can tell you I will happily put it in my office. I don’t have nearly the sway to be able to put it in the house. There are some things that Heidi would put her foot down on, and that’s clearly in the category.
Kinnett: That’s very fair. Moving to some of the conversation, obviously we saw with the future Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth in his confirmation hearing, a little less on the room of questions about America’s future, threats that America is facing than I would expect in a confirmation hearing about the secretary of defense. I was really disappointed that we spent so much time on frivolous, debunked theories rather than actually discussing America’s policy towards China, towards the Middle East, towards Western and Eastern Europe, instead asking Hegseth to get out his flashcards and name economic alliances. What do you think?
Cruz: Well, look, I think that’s exactly right. This is this is a topic I discussed in depth in one of my latest episodes of my podcast, “Verdict with Ted Cruz.” I do that three days a week, and we’ve analyzed this week each of the different confirmations, what’s happening, the issues that came up. If you look at Pete Hegseth, you know and Tony, I don’t know if you’re a poker player, but if you play poker, there’s something that’s called a tell. And a tell is when someone has either good cards or bad cards and something about the face, how their body language reveals what they have. That’s called a tell. Well, the Democrats have a tell. And they have a tell, which is when they don’t want to talk about the actual substantive job that someone has been appointed to do.
Kinnett: They put [Sen. Mazie] Hirono on the confirmation hearing.
Cruz: Yes, instead, what do they want to do? With Pete Hegseth, they wanted to go into the gutter. They wanted to engage in personal accusations, almost all of which have been made by anonymous accusers who won’t put their name to it, who have no evidence for what they’re saying, but the Democrats seemed eager to go into the gutter and just throw as much slime as they could.
Kinnett: Right.
Cruz: What you didn’t hear Democrats talking about is why Pete Hegseth was nominated. He is a decorated combat veteran. He was deployed abroad, leading soldiers, fighting the bad guys, protecting America. He’s devoted his entire life to advocating and fighting for our veterans and for our active-duty military. And I believe Pete Hegseth, number one, he will be confirmed. But, number two, his principal objective is to get the Department of Defense back to its core mission. And that core mission is supporting the warfighter and being prepared to defeat and, if necessary, kill the enemy. That’s the job of the Department of Defense. And we’ve seen, under Joe Biden and Barack Obama before him, the Defense Department run down all of these politically correct woke ideologies and focus on every other damn thing on Earth, other than supporting the warfighter and being prepared to defeat the enemy. And here’s a prediction I’m going to make for you. When Pete Hegseth is confirmed as secretary of defense, we are going to see enlistment numbers rise dramatically. There’s right now a crisis where under Joe Biden, young men and women are not signing up to serve in the military. That’s going to change, because I think if you ask a young man or woman or a young patriot, hey, do you wouldn’t want to be part of this left-wing social justice crusade?
Kinnett: Right.
Cruz: A whole bunch of people say, no, thanks. I’m going to do something else with my life. If you ask them, do you want to defend America? Do you want to be a hero and keep this great country safe? There are a lot of men and women who step forward and say, ‘Yes, sir, that is my duty.’ That’s what I want to do.
Kinnett: Well said. I’m looking at the live transcript here and I didn’t see you mention anything about pronouns or admirals in dresses. So that, hey, if what a plus, Sen. Ted Cruz from Texas.
Cruz: Ah.
Kinnett: Thank you so much for joining us a little bit and good luck at the rest of the confirmation hearings.
Cruz: Take care.
Kinnett: We‘ll be back in just a second. Don‘t go anywhere. It‘s the Tony Kinnett here on The Daily Signal.
This article was originally published at www.dailysignal.com
