Senator and Dr. Rand Paul, of Kentucky, questioned the illustrious Dr. Fauci during the Senate Help Hearing on Tuesday. Fauci refused to admit that the NIH was in bed with the Wuhan lab that created the COVID-19 virus. Unfortunately for Fauci there is a paper trail and evidence showing that the NIH did just that. Plus, a special tribute to Rush Limbaugh.The Sean Hannity Show is on weekdays from 3 pm to 6 pm ET on iHeartRadio and Hannity.com. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Three times a week, we do our podcast, Verdict with Ted Cruz.
Nationwide, we have millions of listeners.
Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, we break down the news and bring you behind the scenes inside the White House, inside the Senate, inside the United States Supreme Court.
And we cover the stories that you're not getting anywhere else.
We arm you with the facts to be able to know and advocate for the truth with your friends and family.
So down with Verdict with Ted Cruz now, wherever you get your podcasts.
You want smart political talk without the meltdowns?
We got you.
I'm Carol Markowitz.
And I'm Mary Catherine Hamm.
We've been around the block in media and we're doing things differently.
Normally is about real conversations.
Thoughtful, try to be funny, grounded, and no panic.
We'll keep you informed and entertained without ruining your day.
Join us every Tuesday and Thursday, normally, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
What I told people I was making a podcast about Benghazi, nine times out of ten, they called me a masochist, rolled their eyes, or just asked, why?
Benghazi, the truth became a web of lies.
From Prologue Projects and Pushkin Industries, this is Fiasco, Benghazi.
What difference at this point does it make?
Listen to Fiasco, Benghazi, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey, before we go tonight, listen, I want to tell you about this special podcast our very, very dear friend, Bo Snerdley, James Golden, is doing all the years that he was with our friend Rush Limbaugh.
And let me play here the trailer and you can listen to the full show on iHeart.
No matter whether the news was good, this is the happiest and the most optimistic presentation.
Or if it was bad.
It is popping.
All kinds of things happening.
In the middle of your day, he would be professors three hours in media, Rush Limbaugh having more fun than a human being could be allowed to have.
33 years.
Instructing, teaching, and fully.
33 years.
Of telling the truth.
I think I just happen to be saying what a whole lot of people think but don't have a chance to say themselves.
Of triumph.
The Presidential Medal of Freedom, the State of the Union address to Rush Limbaugh.
And now, tribute.
The man who has literally paved the way.
Radio icon Rush Limbaugh died today.
Losing his battle with lung cancer.
There is no talk radio without Rush Limbaugh.
33 years of excellence in broadcasting.
People don't remember what you say.
Too many words lying around it, but they never forget how you make them feel.
This is Rush.
From the very beginning.
Three hours of broadcast excellence straight ahead.
Great to have you.
Until now.
So I have to tell you something today that I wish I didn't have to tell you.
And it's a struggle for me because I had to inform my staff earlier today that I have been diagnosed with advanced lung cancer.
This podcast takes you behind the golden EIB microphone with those who knew him best and loved him the most.
And then Rush, being rush, apologized to us.
He said, I'm sorry I let you down.
And I let out an involuntary scream, no.
Hosted by James Golden, who you might know better as Bo Snerdley.
Rush made no secret about it.
He said it.
And it was just, but it wasn't.
I was born to host.
And you were born to listen.
And Until the very end, that was Rush Numba, born to host with talent alone from God.
This is the definitive story of Rush with special guests and stories never before heard.
Whether it happened on the air or behind the scenes, he was simply Rush.
It has been one of the biggest blessings to be able to tell you the entire story.
Talent on loan.
And they are all but memories now when they really just seem like they happened yesterday.
Coming soon to iHeartRadio or wherever you download your podcasts.
All right, thanks, Scott Shannon.
Thanks to all of you for being with us.
Write down our toll-free telephone number.
We'd love to have you join us in the course of this program.
It is 800.
It is 941 Sean if you want to join us.
Well, now that we know the CDC took dictation from the teachers' unions in terms of their policies with schools, now that they've been exposed, now that flip-flopping Fauci has been exposed, and now based on the efforts of people like us on this show and other shows,
and I give other people all the credit too, those of us that were ahead of the curve here, the mixed messages that your government has been giving you about vaccinations seems to now be coming to a definitive end.
And I'm proud to be able to announce that your CDC said this afternoon that if you are fully vaccinated, you no longer have to wear a mask indoors.
CDC recommendations that masking restrictions be relaxed would apply to most indoor and outdoor situations.
We're now at the point more than 45% of the adult population has been fully vaccinated in the U.S., according to the CDC.
I think it's 85% for people 65 and older.
The change in guidance comes as various officials have been recommending the changes in mitigation measures.
Last week, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the former head of the FDA under the Trump administration, said the U.S. should lift its mask mandates indoors immediately in light of the vaccination campaign.
Now, why do we have mixed messages?
Oh, I don't know.
Joe Biden fully vaccinated with Joe Biden, hand in hand, outdoors, socially distanced with masks on, going into a former president's home, 96-year-old Jimmy Carter, former first lady, 93 years old, taking off the mask indoor with no social distancing.
As a matter of fact, right on top of them, and then no mask inside.
And they come outside, socially distanced, fully vaccinated, and right back to the mask message.
I mean, you know, it's confusing.
They made it confusing.
So they're finally now saying you can ditch the mask.
I guess that means that every school can now open.
Because Gavin Newsom is saying, well, we may just, we may not lift indoor mask mandate, may not lift June 15th, but as soon as it's safe, all safe, Gavin.
And schools, I know your kids, precious little children, have been at a private school in-person learning while public school kids in your state have not been receiving in-person learning.
Now, according to this, you would think, oh, okay, well, now it's time.
And Biden is urging parents now to get their children vaccinated after a CDC panel backed Pfizer, the Pfizer vaccine for kids 12 through 15.
You know, I just can't believe that I have to even consider saying all of this, but I don't know why everybody thinks it's so important that I tell people what to do medically, especially when I got hammered for putting on alternative points of view and those zero therapeutics, nothing.
And bringing, you know, reading to you the foremost expert on hydroxychloroquine, others that believed in ivermectin and later Regeneron and the therapeutics we developed and Operation Warp Speed worked.
We never broke down the sequence of a virus this fast and not only had one, but three vaccines.
Doing a million a day when Donald Trump left office.
So that sounds like the hope is to get back to normal.
Governor DeSantis, Florida, has granted clemency to Florida business owners that arrested.
And you believe arresting business owners because they didn't enforce the mask mandate.
Good grief.
Mike DeWine, Ohio, two weeks from tonight, May 26, will announce the winner of a separate drawing for adults who have received at least their first dose of the vaccine.
They're going to be five winners.
In New York, they're offering free french fries.
You can't make this stuff up.
And, you know, even, by the way, did you see this bizarre article on Breitbart?
Apparently, India is now discouraging citizens from using cow feces to protect against coronavirus.
Anyway, there's a video of it they found.
Anyway, it's a school that is run by monks, which happens to be located across the street from a pharmaceutical company working on a coronavirus vaccine, shows believers smearing liquefied cow dung and urine over themselves to boost their immune systems.
I said, who knows?
Maybe there's something to it.
I have no idea, but I'm not recommending it.
Dr. Hannity, I'm not a doctor.
I'm not going to play one on radio or on television.
But, you know, I've had too many people that I know that have had really, really tough calls.
One person more recently, a friend of mine's mother, now multiple pre-existing conditions, comorbidities, et cetera.
Just, you know, the perfect candidate to be that textbook case of somebody that might struggle with it.
In fact, was on a ventilator.
We're getting very worried there for a while.
Thank God.
Off the ventilator, back to eating, now standing and walking, and soon going home, been transferred out of the hospital to a rehab center.
It didn't have COVID brain, which is a phenomenon that they noticed about a year ago where, you know, people that were on ventilators, they try to get them off because the lungs are fine, and then they just don't wake up.
I mean, can you imagine all the heartbreak, all the sadness, all the loss of life, God-given gift of life?
It's precious.
It is something that we take for granted.
And we've got to enjoy every second, every minute of every hour, of every day, because you never know when the time comes.
Anyway, I'm not trying to be morbid here, but we've got to pay attention.
All right.
Let me get to the economy and let me get to what's happening.
And you need to understand how bad this is.
This is really bad.
We now have the U.S. inflation rate.
Inflation, meaning you're going to pay more for everything you purchase.
Now, it's even going to get higher if this corporate tax goes through.
It's already higher because of Joe's, you know, distancing himself from energy independence.
It's now at a 13-year high, inflation.
Many people probably don't even remember inflation and how out of control it is.
Inflation is up 4%, the fastest pace increase in more than 12 years in this country.
This is an unmitigated disaster if this gets out of control, because that means there's no amount of money that you're going to be able to make that's going to be able to keep up with Rising inflation.
You know, everything that we, that you purchase at Lowe's Home Depot, at your pharmacy, at your grocery store, at your, I don't know, if you still go to a market, whatever, everything you, even if you buy it on Amazon, you're going to pay more for because it costs truckers more money to fill their diesel tanks.
The guys that bring us everything, that keep the economy running smooth and driving the tough roads every day.
They're going to need an increase in pay to make up for the inflation that they're going to be suffering as well.
Trucking companies aren't going to make less money per mile, nor are drivers going to make any less money per mile.
And that means everything that we buy, thanks to Joe, is going to cost us more.
On top of that, it's now on top of a 20-year record last month of illegal immigrants.
Well, we even topped last month's record high with a new record high: 178,622 illegal immigrants crossing the border.
And guess what?
Guess who's paying for their housing?
Guess who's paying for their health care?
Guess who's paying for their food and their education?
That would be you, the American people, on top of, well, by the way, and then the transportation into, you know, whatever state they're sending people to.
I guess you hit the lotto if you get sent to New York, New Jersey, or California, especially California, Sanctuary State.
You're good for life, apparently, unless Newsom gets recalled and you get a new governor out there.
But they're getting checks from the state government.
Now, I guess I'm so old-fashioned that if you don't like the law, you don't get to pick and choose what laws you obey.
States don't get to pick and choose what laws they enforce.
Joe Biden doesn't get to pick and choose what laws he's willing to enforce and ignore them.
You know, we're letting people in and then we're facilitating it all.
That would be aiding and abetting where I grew up.
Sanctuary State, Sanctuary City, aiding and abetting illegal activity.
We have nearly 10 million jobs available.
But if you're making, what, 32, 34,000, whatever the number is a year working, you're going to make as much staying home.
They're not taking the jobs available, which is why the unemployment rate is going up, went up to 6.1%.
And that's why you have governors saying, yeah, no, we don't want the money anymore.
Now, add to that the gas shortage.
You know, what I'm trying to wrap my mind around here is we have been a victim of a cyber attack.
Now, the thing that shocked me the most in terms of what I saw today is that, and I was looking at this, I couldn't believe my eyes, is that in fact, we actually hackers were paid by colonial, the pipeline.
They paid a $5 million ransom to this Eastern European criminal enterprise that hacked the company, shuttering the largest oil pipeline in the U.S., spurring widespread gas shortages, panic buying all across the Southeast.
They paid the hackers and the criminals, apparently associated with Russia.
What's Joe going to do?
Israel is taking incoming rockets, you know, thousands of them.
What's Joe doing to help our number one ally in the Middle East?
Finally, he said something.
Yeah, we support your right to defend yourself.
Thanks, Joe.
Conflicting messages again from the administration.
On top of that, nobody seems to care about Iran partnering with China and Russia, Russia and China providing arms, transferring them to Iran, Iran then using it to send to Yemen to fight the proxy war in the rest of the Middle East.
What are you going to do on that, Joe?
What do you have to say about the ransom money that was paid here?
Why are we paying ransom to criminals?
Because when you pay a ransom, guess what?
They're going to come back for more.
And they're going to hack more.
And what are you doing for cybersecurity safety so it doesn't happen?
Epic Times pointing out, 15,000 gasoline stations are out of gas since this pipeline crisis began.
By the way, just because it gets online again doesn't mean it's, oh, instantly you just go to your local gas station.
It's going to take time.
I mean, what about this?
There's a storefront picture Sweet Baby James handed me.
The following is a list of items that we buy that are going up in price.
It's a message to their customers.
One, everything.
Unfortunately, these increases will lead to a price increase on all items we sell.
I appreciate the honesty, but that is a fact.
And these corporate taxes and capital gains tax, it's hurting.
It's going to hurt everybody.
Getting rid of energy independence, just hold on to your wallet.
Watch the price of gas to fill up your tank go up significantly.
It's already been going up before all of this.
The price to heat and cool your home.
I've been telling you about it.
The insanity is, is that you have Jennifer Granholm and John Kerry, you got the two of them actually making the case that, no, pipelines are the best way to transport energy.
Well, I have a question.
Why did Joe then fire the people that were building the Keystone XL pipeline?
Maybe we can hire them back.
It's like he decided, oh, maybe the wall isn't as xenophobic and hysterical as everything else and racist.
Because now he's going to build more of the Trump wall, which he never should have stopped.
Hey there, I'm Mary Catherine Hamm.
And I'm Carol Markowitz.
We've been in political media for a long time.
Long enough to know that it's gotten, well, a little insane.
That's why we started Normally, a podcast for people who are over the hysteria and just want clarity.
We talk about the issues that actually matter to the country without panic, without yelling, and with a healthy dose of humor.
We don't take ourselves too seriously, but we do take the truth seriously.
So if you're into common sense, sanity, and some occasional sass.
You're our kind of people.
Catch new episodes of Normally every Tuesday and Thursday.
On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen.
I'm Ben Ferguson, and I'm Ted Cruz.
Three times a week, we do our podcast, Verdict with Ted Cruz.
Nationwide, we have millions of listeners.
Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, we break down the news and bring you behind the scenes inside the White House, inside the Senate, inside the United States Supreme Court.
And we cover the stories that you're not getting anywhere else.
We arm you with the facts to be able to know and advocate for the truth with your friends and family.
So down a verdict with Ted Cruz now, wherever you get your podcasts.
What I told people I was making a podcast about Benghazi, nine times out of ten, they called me a masochist, rolled their eyes, or just asked, why?
Benghazi, the truth became a web of lies.
It's almost a dirty word, one that connotes conspiracy theory.
Will we ever get the truth about the Benghazi massacre?
Bad faith political warfare and frankly, bullshit.
We kill the ambassador just to cover something up.
You put two and two together.
Was it an overblown distraction or a sinister conspiracy?
Benghazi is a Rosetta Stone for everything that's been going on for the last 20 years.
I'm Leon NAFOC from Prologue Projects and Pushkin Industries.
This is Fiasco, Benghazi.
What difference at this point does it make?
Yes, that's right.
Lock her up.
Listen to Fiasco, Benghazi, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
All right, as we roll along 800-941-Sean, 15,000 stations out of gas.
In case you're interested, those shortages expected to last until Memorial Day in USA Today.
People will likely see gas outage numbers peak 48 hours from now, so it's only going to be a little worse.
It's going to be a crappy weekend if you were planning on driving this weekend, but that by Memorial Day shortly thereafter.
Okay, that's the temporary issue.
What about the long-term issue?
Now we're paying ransom to the hackers.
That's never a good idea.
Now we've got 15,000 stations out of gas and likely going to remain out of gas in the short term.
In the wake of the gas shortages, you know, well, why did they then close down the Keystone pipeline when Senator Granholm, and it turns out even John Curry, I voted for the $87 billion before I voted against it.
Recognizing that the fact that the best form of transportation, that would be a pipeline.
Pipe is the best way to go, Granholm said, and Kerry saying the same thing.
Okay, what are you going to do to prevent future cyber attacks against the country, Joe?
What are you going to do to offer more support to Israel?
What are you going to do to stop the emerging unholy proxy war alliance between Iran and Russia and China?
And what are you going to say to Vladimir now that you have all the flexibility in the world as president in regards to his cyber attack from his country to this country?
What are you doing, Joe?
I know you get your sippy cup.
You're warm milky.
You say night night, but what the hell are you doing?
Yesterday, he's confounded, confused, and utterly made no sense when he had a chance.
They told me I'm not allowed to answer questions.
You're the president.
Do what you want.
Hey there, I'm Mary Catherine Hammond.
And I'm Carol Markowitz.
We've been in political media for a long time.
Long enough to know that it's gotten, well, a little insane.
That's why we started Normally, a podcast for people who are over the hysteria and just want clarity.
We talk about the issues that actually matter to the country without panic, without yelling, and with a healthy dose of humor.
We don't take ourselves too seriously, but we do take the truth seriously.
So if you're into common sense, sanity, and some occasional sass, you're our kind of people.
Catch new episodes of Normally every Tuesday and Thursday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen.
I'm Ben Ferguson.
And I'm Ted Cruz.
Three times a week, we do our podcast, Verdict with Ted Cruz.
Nationwide, we have millions of listeners.
Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, we break down the news and bring you behind the scenes inside the White House, inside the Senate, inside the United States Supreme Court.
And we cover the stories that you're not getting anywhere else.
We arm you with the facts to be able to know and advocate for the truth with your friends and family.
So down with Verdict with Ted Cruz now, wherever you get your podcasts.
What I told people, I was making a podcast about Benghazi.
Nine times out of ten, they called me a masochist, rolled their eyes, or just asked, why?
Benghazi, the truth became a web of lies.
It's almost a dirty word, one that connotes conspiracy theory.
Will we ever get the truth about the Benghazi massacre?
Bad faith, political warfare, and, frankly, bullshit.
We kill the ambassador just to cover something up.
You put two and two together.
Was it an overblown distraction or a sinister conspiracy?
Benghazi is a Rosetta Stone for everything that's been going on for the last 20 years.
I'm Leon Nayfak from Prologue Projects and Pushkin Industries.
This is Fiasco, Benghazi.
What difference at this point does it make?
Yes, that's right.
Lock her up.
Listen to Fiasco, Benghazi, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
All right, 25 to the top of the hour, 800-941 Sean, if you want to be a part of this extravaganza.
Now, let me just point out: oh, get this.
Pump price hit nearly $7 a gallon in Virginia.
Gas station Richmond, $6.99 a gallon.
Not long after the governor declared a state of emergency because of the cyber attack.
I had half a tank of gas.
So when it got to $25, I started looking to see what was going on.
After I got to $30, I was like, oh my God, I spent $35 for six gallons of gas.
$35, the woman said.
A few minutes later, the price, by the way, I came with gas cans literally in that span of time.
I lived two blocks from here, and it was only $4.99 a gallon.
Then drove up the road to get gas at a $299 a gallon gas station.
Came back through here.
It was $5.99.
Then $6.59.
Now $6.99 a gallon.
I think, I don't know.
Sounds to me a little like price gouging, but I guess it's supply and demand crisscrossing and dictating price.
The thing is, is this happens so easily.
And I don't hear any talk about what are you going to do to stop it.
What are you going to tell Vladimir, Joe?
Nobody's asking those questions.
Now, this sounds just like Jimmy Carter telling you to put your thermostat down and wear a sweater in your house back in the 70s.
They're in that gas shortage disaster.
You know, what does Joe Biden and Jimmy Carter have in common?
They both project nothing but weakness.
I don't like weak people.
You're president of the United States.
How about getting on the phone and saying, Vladimir, you better fix it or else?
And then mean it.
This goes back to a truth that we discussed yesterday.
All of the world's bad actors, all these hostile regimes, we all know who they are.
Iran, Russia, China, North Korea.
We know there are plenty others.
There's satellite states, etc.
You know, look at, you know, there are countries all over the world.
A lot of evil in this world.
No one likes to face up to the fact that there's evil.
There's evil people.
Evil, we see it in America.
If you see shooting of innocent police officers, four-year-old kids shot in Times Square, four-year-old, a young mother, you know, nearly killed in Times Square this weekend.
50 people total.
Anyway, Joe Biden's, instead of solving the real problem, he's urging Americans to self-ration their gasoline usage.
He's urging rationing until service is restored.
Don't panic, number one.
Don't get more gas than you need in the next few days.
It's a temporary situation.
Don't panic.
Not doing anything.
Nobody should be using this situation for financial gain.
That's what the hackers are trying to do.
Why didn't you intervene and tell this pipeline company don't pay the ransom and get to the people that are doing it?
We've identified who they are.
Now let's find them wherever they are.
You add to that inflation up in April, consumer prices.
Now, what does a consumer price mean?
Consumer price is what we, the people, you, pay for consumer items.
That's inflation.
That's price inflation.
You pay more.
It went up a whopping 4.2%, the fastest it's ever grown since 2008, accelerating at the fastest pace of more than 12 years.
Consumer Price Index, which measures a basket of goods as well as energy housing costs, rose 4.2% from a year earlier.
Dow Jones had expected a 3.6% increase.
Well, that explained, I don't know where the Dow is today, but that explained the last two days of losses.
And anyway, what does that mean?
What they're going to, I'm telling you what's happening now.
You watch what happens to interest rates.
Pay very close attention.
A lot of U.S. Treasuries to be sold.
They talk about a shortage for good reason.
The real problem is the surplus of money because they're printing money and handing it out like it's candy.
In other words, money is losing its value, but you're not making more money to recover from that decline in value.
You know, we've not only dropped the ball here, you know, it's just, you know, it's not only an infrastructure plan that is really a new green deal, it's worse than that.
This is not brain surgery.
This is Joey, you know, Sippy Cup Carter with gas shortages, MIDI's chaos, inflation, job stagnation, big, bad spending.
It's the same thing on steroids.
He's far worse than Jimmy Carter.
Federal taxes, spending, and deficit, all setting records through April.
You understand that?
Federal taxes, spending, federal deficits, all setting records through the first seven months of fiscal year 2021.
Federal tax revenues hit a record for the period while spending climbed.
He's already spent $6 trillion.
We only take in 3.8, maybe 4 if we get lucky.
None of it is any good.
Pete Butta Judge, America's mayor, genius that he is.
Americans, we understand the concerns about the high price, I guess.
Thank you for being so understanding.
Just like you told those energy workers on the Keystone XL pipeline, some of whom we interviewed, that were making $100,000, $200,000, more than $200,000 a year.
These are career jobs, specialized skills.
They're not transferable to any other industry.
And then you have Energy Secretary Granholm.
Pipe is the best way to transport fuel after Joe Biden canceled the Keystone XL pipeline.
Put it back online.
So this particular area of the country, this is why we have doubled down on ensuring that there's an ability to truck oil in, gas in.
But the pipe is the best way to go.
And so that's why hopefully this company, Colonial, will, in fact, be able to restore operations by the end of the week, as they have said.
Well, they're going to fix the fundamental problem that they were hackable.
And I brought this up the other day.
I mean, you had these crazy, brilliant, genius, computer wizzes, teenagers like Julian Assange and others.
They were able to hack in.
I'm not saying specifically him.
I asked him, he neither confirmed nor denied in the interviews we've had with him.
You know, why don't we bring Christopher Steele and extradite him?
That's the guy that I want to talk to from England.
Good grief.
John Kerry believes pipelines are more efficient.
Why is Joe canceling, eliminating jobs?
Oh, no, he wants you to get other good union-paying jobs.
There aren't good union-paying jobs out there.
They don't exist.
Now, with that said, there's plenty of job openings, but career jobs in the energy sector, you're blowing them away.
We need them.
People, you know, they're now suffering and selling homes and having to get rid of their cars and trucks and hit their retirement money and the money they put away for their kids' school because you just decide you want this new green energy madness here.
You got all these crises converging on Biden.
Yeah, okay.
And what's he doing?
You don't see him.
We have the tape of Joe yesterday when he says, I'm not allowed to answer questions.
They tell me I'm not allowed.
What's your take on that end of your meeting, sir?
Were you optimistic coming out of it today?
I love some shimmer of the kids.
Infrastructure, sir.
And in particular, guys are bad.
I'm not supposed to be answering all these questions.
I'm supposed to leave.
I can't resist your questions.
I'm not supposed to.
You're the president.
We don't recommend it, Circleback Sake says.
And when he finally answers a question, we played it on TV last night.
See, does this make any sense to you?
President, what do you say to Americans who are worried about the supply of gas and rising prices right now?
I think what this shows is that I think we have to make a greater investment in education as it relates to being able to train and graduate more people proficient in cybersecurity.
Well, look, what's the one thing people are concerned about with the gas?
Gasoline.
Price is going up.
Exactly right.
And it matters if you make $40,000 a year.
It matters.
If you're a two-family person and making $80,000, $90,000, two-wage earners.
It matters.
It matters, Joe.
And you artificially reducing the world's supply of energy is driving up prices, Joe.
Joey, come on, put down your sippy cup with warmy milk and stop saying night night.
Wake up.
It's your policies.
Just like at the border, you're causing all of this.
Unbelievable.
You know, I talk about the power of the squad.
How often have we talked about the squad?
We've talked a lot about them, Democratic socialists, right?
You know, AOC criticizing Biden's statement of late, by the way, support for Israel siding with the occupation.
Really?
Marjorie Taylor Greene apparently had a run-in with Ocasio-Cortez, and she reported her to security.
I don't know what happened.
I have no idea.
But when you look at what's happening with Israel, you got to understand something here.
I've been there numerous times.
I've been to Gaza.
I've been to border cities.
You know, you can't even let kids play outside in a playground because there's not enough time to get to a bunker because of the close proximity to where these rockets are being fired from.
You can see Gaza off in the distance.
Joe's now funding Bringing back the funding that Donald Trump stopped, $235 million.
40 days later, rockets are being fired.
And of course, the Iranians have their fingerprints all over Hamas.
Hamas's charter calls for the destruction of Israel.
You want to know the power of the squad?
Yeah.
Andrew Yang, mayoral candidate, mayor, New York.
He apologized after pressure from Ocasio-Cortez for his overly simplistic pro-Israel tweet.
No, he apologized because he's afraid he's going to lose Ocasio-Cortez's support.
I mean, I've been telling you, she is the speaker of the house.
The new Green Deal madness, that is her, that's her signature, the squad's signature.
Schumer's afraid of her.
He doesn't want to have to run against her in a primary.
Pelosi's scared to death.
She'll lose her speakership.
And Biden is oblivious.
And he signed on to the Biden-Bernie AOC manifesto.
Unbelievable.
You know, saying to Israel that you have, we support your right to defend yourself.
Oh, gee, thanks, Joe.
How supportive of you.
What would you do if a rocket's?
I don't even know what he'd do if a rocket was fired in here.
By the way, this colonial pipeline shutdown, hacker group, Darkseid, they're just getting started.
They got 5 million bucks.
Why wouldn't they keep going?
They're going to keep going.
After AOC criticizes Biden's statement of support of Israel and supporting and siding with the occupation, watch what Joe does.
Netanyahu rejected Hamas's ceasefire plea.
No, he shouldn't stop.
I'd get every Hamas leader they can.
We had the IDF spokesperson on yesterday saying they've gotten over 40 of the leaders.
I wouldn't mess with Israel.
I've got the toughest fighting defense forces.
You know, what's going to happen?
I showed last night the power of the Iron Dome.
Thank God we helped create that in conjunction with our friends.
And without that, how many Israelis would be dead today?
What happens if Iran gets a nuclear weapon?
You don't think they'd be willing to fire one into Israel?
Then you're naive.
You marry radicalism with weapons of mass destruction, and you're looking at mass death, a modern-day Holocaust.
They've already sworn themselves to the destruction of Israel, the little Satan.
The U.S. is the big Satan.
Death to Israel, death to America.
Burn American flags, burn Israeli flags.
Joe Biden says $235 million to the Palestinians.
Now he's trying to negotiate again with the Iranians that are fighting proxy wars all over the world.
Tell me how much sense that makes it to you.
FBI Director Chris Ray apparently continued to demonstrate that his bureau remains wholly a subsidiary of all things Democratic Party.
With his full approval, they refused to categorize the attempted assassination of Steve Scalise and other Republicans on the ball field as an act of terrorism.
Oh, okay.
That sounds about right, right?
Unbelievable.
By the way, fake news: CNN spent three times more time in 12 hours on Liz Cheney than the economic crisis.
That's a surprise.
That's a shocker.
With the wheels coming off, Biden resumed the construction of the border wall.
Thought walls were racist and xenophobic and hysterical.
Biden's deputies admit more people from other countries than ever before.
20-year record, two months in a row.
More this month of April than last month, meaning last month's numbers coming out just this week.
All right, oh, and the CDC, we're going to get to this later.
Ram Paul will join us.
Fully vaccinated people don't need to wear masks indoors.
Yay, they finally got it right.
Finally.
I don't know, with the mixed messages and the absolute faulty data and unmitigated, unprecedented mistakes made at every level.
Well, maybe it's time.
Person that got it right the most was Donald Trump.
I guess you can't say that.
Warp speed, travel ban.
He's the guy that provided the PPE.
He made the ventilators.
We never ran out.
Built the hospitals that Cuomo, Wolf, Murphy never used.
They stayed empty because they all sent elderly patients back to nursing homes.
Hey there, I'm Mary Catherine Hamm.
And I'm Carol Markowitz.
We've been in political media for a long time.
Long enough to know that it's gotten, well, a little insane.
That's why we started Normally, a podcast for people who are over the hysteria and just want clarity.
We talk about the issues that actually matter to the country without panic, without yelling, and with a healthy dose of humor.
We don't take ourselves too seriously, but we do take the truth seriously.
So if you're into common sense, sanity, and some occasional sass, you're our kind of people.
Catch new episodes of Normally every Tuesday and Thursday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen.
I'm Ben Ferguson, and I'm Ted Cruz.
Three times a week, we do our podcast, Verdict with Ted Cruz.
Nationwide, we have millions of listeners.
Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, we break down the news and bring you behind the scenes inside the White House, inside the Senate, inside the United States Supreme Court.
And we cover the stories that you're not getting anywhere else.
We arm you with the facts to be able to know and advocate for the truth with your friends and family.
So down with Verdict with Ted Cruz now, wherever you get your podcasts.
What I told people I was making a podcast about Benghazi, nine times out of ten, they called me a masochist, rolled their eyes, or just asked, why?
Benghazi, the truth became a web of lies.
It's almost a dirty word, one that connotes conspiracy theory.
Will we ever get the truth about the Benghazi massacre?
Bad faith, political warfare, and frankly, bullshit.
We kill the ambassador just to cover something up.
You put two and two together.
Was it an overblown distraction or a sinister conspiracy?
Benghazi is a Rosetta Stone for everything that's been going on for the last 20 years.
I'm Leon Navok from Prologue Projects and Pushkin Industries.
This is Fiasco, Benghazi.
What difference at this point does it make?
Yes, that's right.
Lock her up.
Listen to Fiasco, Benghazi, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
All right, our two Sean Hannity show, 800-941-Sean, our number, you want to be a part of the program.
Well, the CDC says fully vaccinated people do not need to wear masks indoors.
Oh, maybe now our children can go back to school like they've been in Florida since last August.
Maybe that'll put an end to the conflicting messages now that we know the CDC was actually taking dictation from the teachers' unions and what the teachers' unions wanted.
Anyway, the great Anthony Fauci, I told you earlier this week, we played some of the exchange with Rand Paul about whether or not there's been gain of function research monies from the U.S. going to this Wuhan lab.
The next day, Rand Paul saying that, in fact, Fauci's lying.
We'll talk to Rand Paul in a second, but this is what happened earlier this week.
We have 11 labs doing it, and you have allowed it here.
We have a committee to do it, but the committee is granted every exemption.
You're fooling with Mother Nature here.
You're allowing super viruses to be created with a 15% mortality.
It's very dangerous.
I think it was a huge mistake to share this with China.
But again, we have not funded gain of function research on this virus in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
No matter how much it is.
There was research done with Dr. Xi and Dr. Barrick.
They have collaborated on gain of function research where they enhanced the SARS virus to infect human airway cells, and they did it by merging a new spike protein on it.
That is gain of function.
That was joint research between the Wuhan Institute and Dr. Barrick.
You can't deny it.
All right, joining us now, Senator Ram Paul, great state of Kentucky, also a doctor.
Well, I mean, we have a lot of issues to get to here.
Why don't you explain to people?
I gave my best layman's explanation of gain of function, but the research, and one thing that Fauci, flip-flop Fauci said during your grilling and during that hearing was in fact, well, it may very well have originated in the Wuhan lab.
Yeah, we've only been reporting that for a year.
But let's talk about gain of function.
Explain to people what it is, because even I can't explain it well.
So gain of function is when you take a relatively benign virus that occurs in animals and you adapt it in multiple different ways to make it infect humans.
So there are thousands and thousands of animal viruses that never infect humans, fortunately.
Occasionally, one will evolve and transfer over and it becomes a human disease.
This is unusual, but it's a problem.
What they're doing is actually taking these benign animal viruses and then they're adapting them either through passing them through cell culture.
They start out with like a broth and the broth is mostly mouse and a little bit human.
And then what they gradually do is decrease the mouse cells in the broth and increase the human cells.
And they do this over and over again until they can sort of accelerate natural selection to get viruses that would know originally would not infect a human to infect a human.
But some of the viruses they're doing this to are already deadly.
So SARS was an early coronavirus in 2004.
This virus had a 15% mortality.
The current pandemic that's killed 3 million people has a 1% mortality.
So a 15% mortality would be 45 million people dying.
They're experimenting with viruses that dangerous.
And so yes, there is a real danger in these labs.
There's 11 labs like this in the U.S. Dr. Fauci's on record, on record in the Washington Post and all other places saying that he is in favor of gain of function research.
He's been a longtime proponent of it.
He's worried to death, though, that somebody's going to prove that this came out of a Chinese lab and that he will be guilty of having funded the pandemic.
Nobody has proof of that, but there are tantalizing clues that say that maybe this virus came from the lab.
Clue number one is this.
Usually they find an intermediate host from bats to ferrets to humans or bats to camels to humans.
What they haven't found in the last year is they have not found an animal host for COVID-19.
They don't find an intermediate host.
But it's worse than that.
When they try to infect bats with COVID-19, if you say this came from bats, it should readily infect bats.
Turns out it doesn't infect bats very well.
So there's this question of where did it come from?
It turns out that the animal that COVID-19 best adapts to and best infects is humans.
How did that happen?
It's an animal virus.
How did it start out in humans?
It didn't start in humans.
How did it become so good at infecting humans?
Now, you could say this happened randomly, and that's possibly through nature, but there's a lot of things that don't add up.
But the one thing for sure is Anthony Fauci personally approved of the money going to this lab.
Now, he's saying it wasn't gain of function research.
He says it's some other kind of research.
But he's really parsing his words because he's acting as if he didn't send the money.
The money went through an intermediary and got to this Wuhan lab.
And then, when people got mad in this country and said, we need to investigate the lab, do you know who Tony Fauci appointed to do the investigation?
The guy that was head of the third party that gave the money to the Wuhan lab.
So, the NIH gave it to this group called EcoHealth, and EcoHealth gave it to the Wuhan lab.
So, they appointed the head of EcoHealth to be the one to investigate whether there was a problem.
I mean, it is a terrible circling of wagons, and we should all be curious as to how this really happened, how the virus got into the world, and how this pandemic started.
It really annoys me.
I don't know, Senator.
I mean, you know, they just spent $6 trillion under Joe Biden, and this is just a down payment as we understand it: blue state bailouts, emergency COVID relief that's not a COVID relief infrastructure that includes child care for newborn babies and pre-K and every other new Green Deal wish list item.
You know, all got pretty much a big down payment of billions of taxpayer dollars.
I'm sorry, trillions that we can no longer afford.
Why the hell are we funding any laboratory in Wuhan province in China?
That doesn't make sense to me, Senator.
I wouldn't send one penny to China.
Look, they're a rich country, they're kicking our butt in a lot of trade areas, they steal our stuff.
Why in the world would we be sending money to fund their research?
Are they not a rich enough country to fund their own research?
And a lot of the collaboration that they're doing with that Wuhan lab, we're sharing techniques for making super viruses.
Do we really trust the Chinese enough that we want to share with them how to create pandemics in a lab?
No, I mean, it's insane.
It was a bad idea.
See, but here's the thing: Tony Fauci goes on one of these shows this morning, one of the mainstream networks, and what do they do?
They're like, Oh, Tony, what are you going to do about this Rand Paul?
It's like, oh, I don't know.
It's crazy.
It's all conspiracy theory.
Nobody's addressing the facts.
No one asked him, did your institute give money to the Wuhan Institute and was it gain of function?
There's about 200 scientists.
We've talked to a handful of them so far.
They're not Republicans by and large.
They're not conservative activists.
They're not listeners of the Sean Hannity program.
They probably lean left.
And yet, they are very worried about these super viruses being created in the lab, and they think we shouldn't be doing it.
So there was a halt to this in 2014, but then Tony Fauci and all the higher-ups gave exemptions to the different labs to get started again.
So very quietly, they all started getting started.
Now they're getting smarter.
They're not calling it gain of function.
They just say, oh, we're funding the research, but it isn't gain of function.
But the other scientists say that.
But isn't the greatest evidence that the Chinese government knew that this could be very bad?
You know, when did they put in their travel ban?
Everyone seems to forget.
I don't remember Joe Biden criticizing China for China's travel ban that prevented people from Wuhan province from traveling to the rest of China or people from the rest of China traveling to Wuhan province, while meanwhile, they allowed people in Wuhan to travel to the rest of the world.
So they were protecting themselves and infecting all the rest of the world.
So when these people look at us and they say, oh, it's just a conspiracy theory that it could have come out of the lab, here's my response: the doctor in the lab, his name is Dr. Xi.
She was interviewed after this, and she said she couldn't sleep at night, and she was scared to death that this came from her lab.
Now, she looked up the different viruses and swears that it didn't come from her lab, but it's sort of revealing to say that she was scared to death.
That means she very much believed that it could have come from her lab.
And so all of these people, Fauci and others, dismissed it and said there's no way it came from a lab.
There's no way it's man-created.
They're sweeping it under the rug without even considering something that the inventor of these super viruses fully believed that it might have come from her lab.
So, you know, I think that this bears investigation.
The Chinese will never come forward in an honest way.
They don't want to be responsible for creating this large epidemic of pandemic.
But the thing is, the reason we have to discuss this is we have 11 labs like this in the U.S. There still is an open funding source for this lab in China.
We don't know if any money is going because we don't think they're going to be forthcoming with us.
We've asked for documents to see if any money is still flowing to China.
But even if it didn't go to China, we have 11 labs in our country creating super viruses.
And I'm not so sure they need to be, you know, toying with the 1980 Spanish flu bug and seeing if they can make it even more dangerous with the possibility it could be released.
I really don't think it should be monkeyed with.
So Ohio Representative Warren Davidson proposed a bill to fire Anthony Fauci.
Do you agree with him?
Yeah, I think the fact that he's come to Congress and been dishonest now is really the end of the rope.
Because slow down, Senator, wait one thing.
What if I lied to Congress?
I remember, wasn't that the crime that the big crime that allowed the government to send 20 armed, tactical, geared-up men to arrest Roger Stone and put Frogmen and CNN cameras just happened to show up at the same time?
Wasn't it for a process crime called lying to Congress?
Yep, you're right.
We ought to enforce it, and nobody ever does.
James Clapper came to the Confederate.
No, no, no, we do enforce it, Senator.
I beg to differ.
If you're a Republican or if you're a conservative, it gets enforced.
Selective enforcement, that's the definition of arbitrary government.
You know, it's this definition of injustice is arbitrary and selective enforcement.
You're right.
I mean, you're exactly right.
But do I think Fauci ought to be fired?
Yes.
I mean, you can't come to Congress and lie.
Now, he was trying to specifically say only didn't fund gain of function, but he hasn't gone on to be explicit to anybody that, yes, we were funding the lab.
We just didn't think they were doing gain of function.
He goes on television about every 20 minutes and just yucks it up with people and acts like this is all, you know, there is no truth to this.
But the absolutely true, we know the number of the grant.
We sent out a tweet that has the number of the grant, you know, 10-digit numeral that lists the grant that he got from Tony Fauci.
And there's no way he didn't know about this either because this is a highly controversial research.
He's just now saying it isn't what it is.
But, you know, we have a statement from an MIT biologist who's read the paper, who understands the paper, and he says that without question, this was gain of function.
This was juicing up and making supervision.
Well, it needs to be defunded.
Congress controls the purse strings.
That needs to happen first and foremost.
Let me ask you about the vaccinations.
I explained the story.
I hope you heard me talking about Joe and Joe Biden wearing the masks outdoors, fully vaccinated, socially distanced, go inside a 96-year-old former president, 93-year-old first lady, no mask right on top of them, no social distancing, no mask.
Then they come out, then again, socially distanced, fully vaccinated, mask on.
So we hear this term now, vaccine hesitancy.
Didn't they cause that?
And now that the CDC says fully vaccinated people don't need to wear masks indoors, doesn't that mean every restaurant should be able to open today and every school should open tomorrow?
Without question, every restaurant and school should be open and individuals in a free society make their own decisions concerning risk.
But when you look at the Bidens, their vaccine theater or their mask theater is a deterrent because when you're dishonest with people, they don't believe the rest of your statements.
So they're saying the vaccine works, but then they're acting like it doesn't work by still wearing a mask.
So they are doing a direct disservice to furthering the vaccine.
But realize the CDC changing these things only came about because they were mocked by the whole world, including those on Capitol Hill, who said, oh, less than 10% of people are getting infected outdoors.
Oh, well, maybe it's 0.1%.
And then somebody else looked into it and says, maybe no one has been infected outdoors.
And the CDC came back embarrassed and changed it.
But this is a real problem because these people are not catering and giving you science.
The directives aren't coming from science.
They're coming from the opinions of sort of the busy bodies of the world, the nanny state people who really have no idea of what freedom is about and have no idea of any risk.
I am very pro-science.
I am very pro-vaccination.
I believe in our medical researchers.
I believe in the science.
There's been a lot of pressure put on me.
Hannah, you must use your powerful platforms and tell people they've got to get vaccinated.
Well, I'm not going to be practicing medicine without a license, but this is what I recommend to my audience.
Please do your research.
This is a deadly virus.
You don't want to ever be in a position of infecting somebody that is older, comorbidities, compromised immune systems, underlying conditions.
And I'm asking people to please read the research.
It's everywhere.
And then to talk to your doctor or doctors or medical professionals that you know and trust.
And then make the decision based on your specific medical condition of which I know nothing about.
And then make the right decision to keep yourself and your family alive and safe.
Now, am I giving responsible advice or should I be out there telling people what to do?
No, I think you're exactly right.
And I think the elitist on the left think that people are stupid.
They think that people need to be told what to do because people can't figure out the truth of things.
But look at the statistics.
85% of people over 65, the high-risk people, have gotten vaccinated.
So 85% of anybody choosing to do something is an overwhelming success.
The next category, and this is something the government hasn't been very good at, is over 65 is absolutely a risk category, but probably over 40 and overweight is a risk category as well.
80% of the people.
And you're a medical doctor.
And I urge people.
And 80% of the people dying are overweight.
Make your decision.
Talk to your doctors.
Do your research.
Pay attention.
We really appreciate your time, Senator.
You've been doing a great job, and we appreciate you always sharing your time with us.
Thank you.
Hey there, I'm Mary Catherine Hammond.
And I'm Carol Markowitz.
We've been in political media for a long time.
Long enough to know that it's gotten, well, a little insane.
That's why we started Normally, a podcast for people who are over the hysteria and just want clarity.
We talk about the issues that actually matter to the country without panic, without yelling, and with a healthy dose of humor.
We don't take ourselves too seriously, but we do take the truth seriously.
So if you're into common sense, sanity, and some occasional sass, you're our kind of people.
Catch new episodes of Normally every Tuesday and Thursday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen.
I'm Ben Ferguson, and I'm Ted Cruz.
Three times a week, we do our podcast, Verdict with Ted Cruz.
Nationwide, we have millions of listeners.
Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, we break down the news and bring you behind the scenes inside the White House, inside the Senate, inside the United States Supreme Court.
And we cover the stories that you're not getting anywhere else.
We arm you with the facts to be able to know and advocate for the truth with your friends and family.
So down at Verdict with Ted Cruz Now, wherever you get your podcasts, when I told people I was making a podcast about Benghazi, nine times out of ten, they called me a masochist, rolled their eyes, or just asked, why?
Benghazi, the truth became a web of lies.
It's almost a dirty word, one that connotes conspiracy theory.
Will we ever get the truth about the Benghazi massacre?
Bad faith, political warfare, and frankly, bullshit.
We kill the ambassador just to cover something up.
You put two and two together.
Was it an overblown distraction or a sinister conspiracy?
Benghazi is a Rosetta Stone for everything that's been going on for the last 20 years.
I'm Leon Nayfak from Prologue Projects and Pushkin Industries.
This is Fiasco, Benghazi.
What difference at this point does it make?
Yes, that's right.
Lock her up.
Listen to Fiasco, Benghazi, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
All right, 25 to the top of the hour, 800-941 Sean, if you want to be a part of the program.
I have contacts.
Linda has contacts in Arizona.
We've been watching closely.
We haven't really spent a lot of time talking about it.
We want to see what they come up with.
But the Arizona State Senate and the audit of the 2020 election.
And they were given the green light by a court now on a number of occasions that this audit is right, it's right to be done.
It's legal.
And the court had directly, specifically giving direction for Maricopa County out in Arizona to partake in this legal process of the Arizona State Senate.
Last night, Karen Finn, the state, I'm sorry, the Senate president, sent a letter to the Maricopa Board of Supervisors.
I've read the entire thing.
And if I had to sum it up, I would argue they're showing that they have observed anomalies in the entire audit process.
While nothing is definitive yet, and there are serious and legitimate questions, they believe about specific issues about the vote in 2020 as it relates to chain of custody.
You hear me talking a lot about that.
Why files were deleted, the handling of the ballots, contradictory numbers, and why access specifically granted by the courts in a court order continues to be defied and denied.
In other words, they have a forensic audit, but they won't allow and won't comply with the judge's ruling in this case.
That allows them to, in fact, get the hardware that would give them the information that they're looking for so that they can see if this was done with integrity and that people of Arizona can have confidence in the results as currently counted.
And so the Senate president, Karen Finn, tried to offer, for example, they want these routers and they've been denied even though the court ordered them to have it.
And she said, well, okay, well, we'll just, we'll have your people in Maricopa stay with us the whole time.
We don't want to see other things that may be on the router.
We have no interest in that.
We just have an interest in specifically what we're looking for, which is an audit of the election.
Pretty bizarre.
Now, you know, we have this history.
Some people say, wow, Stacey Abrams still to this day thinks that she was elected governor.
What was that?
Three years ago.
Nobody ever criticizes Stacey Abrams.
She is praised constantly in the media, constantly by Democrats.
You wouldn't think that Democrats ever and the media ever criticized Donald Trump on the election.
No, they went through efforts to delegitimize his win in 2016, and that never stopped through 2020.
Listen.
Do you think Donald Trump's win was legitimate?
Protect the lives of the election legit.
The election is by this intrusion.
I know Cyrus.
President-elect as a legitimate president.
You do not consider him a legitimate president.
Does he think that Democrats should put this away, this whole idea of legitimate, illegitimate?
President's not going to get in the middle of this right now.
I get it, but you didn't answer the question.
Is Donald Trump legitimate?
I think there's a cloud of questions around what happened.
There can be clouds of questions, and we disagree on things.
But honestly, I mean, yes or no?
Is he the legitimately elected president of the United States when he raises his hand?
We're counting on our law enforcement community to get to the bottom of these questions.
Do you agree with John Lewis?
Do you agree that Donald Trump is, in effect, not a legitimate president?
I think that there's no question that the process that elected him was not legitimate.
Although legally elected, is not legitimate for all the reasons.
Isn't it more difficult now to work together when you've said flatly he's not even a legitimate president?
I don't recognize his legitimacy.
John Lewis said that.
John Lewis said that.
You believe he's a legitimate president.
Well, he was elected.
On the fact that Donald Trump can't stand out, he's not a legitimate president.
He won fewer votes than Hillary Trump.
I can't bear to tell him the truth.
And now the delegitimization of the presidency is taking hold within the country.
Do you think it was a legitimate election?
I think that there are lots of questions about its legitimacy.
The 2016 election wasn't legitimate.
What does it mean to say it's not legitimate?
It was not a legitimate election.
Why do you think it was a legitimate election?
Time here, Donna.
My question to you is, was it a legitimate election?
Does it count?
My personal view is that it was not a legitimate election.
So it doesn't count?
All right.
So what is the truth now out?
Why do we have Maricopa County not cooperating with a court order?
Why an early perusal and red flags about the chain of custody issues?
Why weren't ballot bags sealed properly?
The significant discrepancies that were laid out in the Senate president's letter to Maricopa officials and the Board of Supervisors yesterday.
And why, very specifically, are they unwilling to turn over the routers?
And why were there major deletions of the main database?
And is that something that's recoverable?
Jay Kaufman is with us, member, Arizona House of Representatives, 12th District.
So I've read this thing cover to cover, and the first thing I'm shocked about is now that this has already been before a judge a number of times, is my understanding.
And the judge has been very firm that this information needs to be turned over, and they're defying a court order.
And the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, which I will add is a majority Republican, has been nothing but obstructionists since day one, since the election day, right?
They have obstructed every effort and every opportunity that conservative Republicans and quite honestly, Republicans across the spectrum have taken to understand exactly what happened in the last election so that we can secure our elections, ensure voter confidence, and legislate properly when it comes to election integrity moving forward.
Okay, so let's look at why they're unwilling to hand over the routers.
And Karen Fann, I guess, is the Senate president, I think, came up with a fair solution.
She was very clear that she has no desire to find anything else that might be on the router or in the data whatsoever.
And she is willing to allow the Maricopa Board of Supervisors to be there the entire time to make sure that that integrity is upheld.
That seems like a fair compromise.
It does seem reasonable.
And indeed, the Senate has been reasonable throughout the entire subpoena process.
In fact, the Senate didn't actually want to issue subpoenas.
They asked in good faith for the Board of Supervisors to team with them to conduct this audit.
And the Board of Supervisors snubbed their nose at even the mention that the election wasn't perfectly 100% and inextricably well run from start to finish.
You know, I mean, look, this is political double talk.
It's the same stuff that the American people and the people of Arizona are ticked off about in Washington, D.C., you know, one-party control D.C. right now.
They're ticked off about it there, and they're ticked off about it when their county board does it here.
Okay, so let's go to, for example, the things that they're discovering, at least at first sight here, because I think this is pretty important.
Let's go to the issue of chain of custody, because I think, and I've been saying, Jake, that I think we need five things to ensure election integrity and confidence in results in elections moving forward.
One, obvious is voter ID.
Two, signature verification.
Three, I always say is chain of custody.
Four, I think you always got to clean up the voter rolls before every election, make sure it's up to date and accurate.
And last but certainly not least, there is statutory language in almost every state that allows partisan observers from all sides to be able to watch the vote count start to finish.
I think that just ensures integrity and competence in elections moving forward.
Let's talk about the chain of custody issues that they've already discovered that are questionable here.
Yeah, absolutely.
So, I mean, look, your five things are 100% correct.
And so what we're talking about in chain of custody issues here is that there's zero chain of custody documentation for the ballots that's been provided from the county, right?
What does the law require currently?
So the law requires that they certify that there was a chain of custody process in place.
They have provided zero evidence to the fact.
You know, there's another issue when it comes to chain of custody, which is unsealed ballot bags.
Now, they've found they're supposed to have tamper-proof tape on the ballot.
And that's written into the law as well?
It's written into the election procedures manual, which will be codified.
The legislature is doing a wholesale look at the election procedures manual and codifying things like that so that there isn't any regulatory ambiguity in the process.
But yeah, they're supposed to have that type of tape on there under the current regulations when it comes to running an election.
And they're not.
They simply aren't doing it.
There's ballot batches that are commingled together.
So they're supposed to separate ballot batches and have documentation for what's in each batch.
And in some cases, we're finding that, one, they're using flimsy dividers.
And in many cases, there aren't even dividers.
The ballots are simply commingled together.
And probably most concerning is that we found a significant number of instances in which there is a disparity between the actual number of ballots contained in a batch and the total that was denoted on the pink report slip accompanying that batch.
Now, those pink slips, many, in many cases, have come out with greater numbers of ballots than what are actually in the batches of ballots.
So they're reporting higher numbers than the ballots that actually exist.
Okay, that would be a pretty big, significant issue.
There shouldn't be one discrepancy.
Hey there, I'm Mary Catherine Hamm, and I'm Carol Markowitz.
We've been in political media for a long time.
Long enough to know that it's gotten, well, a little insane.
That's why we started Normally, a podcast for people who are over the hysteria and just want clarity.
We talk about the issues that actually matter to the country without panic, without yelling, and with a healthy dose of humor.
We don't take ourselves too seriously, but we do take the truth seriously.
So if you're into common sense, sanity, and some occasional sass, you're our kind of people.
Catch new episodes of Normally every Tuesday and Thursday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen.
I'm Ben Ferguson, and I'm Ted Cruz.
Three times a week, we do our podcast, Verdict with Ted Cruz.
Nationwide, we have millions of listeners.
Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, we break down the news and bring you behind the scenes inside the White House, inside the Senate, inside the United States Supreme Court.
And we cover the stories that you're not getting anywhere else.
We arm you with the facts to be able to know and advocate for the truth with your friends and family.
So down with Verdict with Ted Cruz now, wherever you get your podcasts.
What I told people, I was making a podcast about Benghazi.
Nine times out of ten, they called me a masochist, rolled their eyes, or just asked, why?
Benghazi, the truth became a web of lies.
It's almost a dirty word, one that connotes conspiracy theory.
Will we ever get the truth about the Benghazi massacre?
Bad faith, political warfare, and frankly, bullshit.
We kill the ambassador just to cover something up.
You put two and two together.
Was it an overblown distraction or a sinister conspiracy?
Benghazi is a Rosetta Stone for everything that's been going on for the last 20 years.
I'm Leon Nayfak from Prologue Projects and Pushkin Industries.
This is Fiasco, Benghazi.
What difference at this point does it make?
Yes, that's right.
Lock her up.
Listen to Fiasco, Benghazi, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
As we continue, Jake Hoffman, member of the Arizona House of Representatives, 12th District, is with us.
Explain this router thing.
And by the way, understand you're talking to a technical idiot here.
And I know nothing about anything technical, but tell me what it means.
Well, look, so on the routers, what they're doing is they're refusing to produce the virtual images of the routers.
And as you noted, the Senate has been reasonable and said, hey, you know what?
We understand that you may have other things contained on these server systems.
And so we're willing to come in and in the county offices actually conduct our analysis so that you can observe and maintain the maximum amount of integrity in that process.
And they've denied that.
The other thing that they're refusing to remit regarding the routers is some of the administrative passwords needed to access the data on the machines that have been turned over and the routers that have been turned over.
And that's, again, they should have a contractual opportunity with their vendor to provide those.
Can you imagine paying millions upon millions of dollars as a government and not having access to the administrative passwords from the vendor that you purchased the equipment from?
That's just, it's insane.
But unfortunately, we're really seeing that politics is becoming the land of the insane today.
And this is the case in point.
You know, I mean, I'm listening to all of this and it's like, I don't fully completely understand why.
You know, it's now May 13th, and I know you're a state representative.
You're but one person.
And I'm thinking, you know, how is it possible in this day and the age that we find ourselves in this position?
It's somewhat frustrating to me because the five things that I mentioned, it's not particularly complicated.
You know, for example, we had voting problems in Florida in 2000 with swinging, pimpled, dimpled, hanging, you know, perforated Chads, and that got fixed.
Then we had problems in 2016 in Florida.
Those problems in Broward and Palm Beach County got fixed.
And one thing that we've got to ensure is election integrity.
And, you know, it's funny how all these other countries, they don't allow any early voting whatsoever.
I know Arizona has a lot of it.
But this guy, if we're going to have it, we have to ensure that we have integrity in the system with checks and balances.
Nothing too burdensome.
The same checks and balances you need to buy a six-pack of beer or a pack of cigarettes or a jewel pot or to visit Joe Biden in the White House or to go to a Democratic National Convention.
And yet there's this mysterious reluctance and resistance, Jake, to these simple reforms, especially voter ID.
Why voter ID?
Why are they targeting that so hard?
Well, thankfully, we have common sense reforms like voter ID for in-person voting here.
Now, we're having quite the hard time getting additional ID requirements for our early ballots, which, as you know, approximately 80% of our ballots in elections are cast via early ballot process.
Has been that way for years.
And so, you know, why is there pushback to that?
You know, it's because right now, look at HR1 and S1.
They just did the markup on it this week.
Democrats have abandoned any attempt at common sense and are instead trying to actively put their finger on the scale to rig the system in their favor, right?
I mean, election integrity has become the civil rights issue of our day.
If people can't have trust in the process, if people can't have trust that their vote counts, why vote?
What's the point of being in a civilized society?
And so this is something that I will tell you: Arizona, while we're fighting with our own board of supervisors right now to get all of this, what should be common sense information from them, Arizona is stepping up and is leading when it comes to election integrity.
And we're fighting like heck here in the House and in the Senate.
And thankfully, the governor is signing our bills so far.
And we've put through a number of good reforms.
We've banned the Zuckerberg money, the half a billion dollars that Zuckerberg gave to try and influence the 2020 election.
We've banned that practice.
We just did a big cleanup on our voter rolls.
It's happening in states, thankfully, all across the country.
And all I know is if I defied a court order, why do I think I'd be in jail?
I'm beginning to think I'm like the only one that actually obeys laws anymore.
Stupid me.
I don't know.
I just, if I don't like the law, I abide by it anyway.
And I just try and fight to change it, which is the way you're supposed to do it.
Jake, we'll watch it closely.
Thank you for being with us.
We appreciate it.
800-941 Sean is our number.
Quick break right back.
All right, news roundup and information overload hours, Sean Hannity Show, 800-941.
Sean, if you want to be a part of the program, we'll get to your calls by the bottom of the half hour.
I have been friends with Bo Snerdley, better known as, well, James Golden is his real name.
And Bo Snerdley was the name that Rush gave him on air.
He was with Rush Limbaugh for nearly all 33 years of the Rush Limbaugh show.
Now our syndicator, our partners in radio, our premier radio networks, and iHeart, and they, along with the EIB network, they are now launching a new original, limited, original podcast series, Rush Limbaugh, The Man Behind the Golden EIB microphone.
It's a 12-episode series.
It's narrated by my good friend, and he's been a good friend all these years, James Golden, a.k.a.
Bo Snerdley.
It launched yesterday.
It's on demand.
You can take it anytime you want.
And it is the behind the scenes.
Here's the trailer.
Whether the news was good.
This is the happiest and the most optimist, optimist presentation.
Or if it was bad.
It is popping.
All kinds of things happening.
In the middle of your day, he would be there.
The fastest three hours in media.
Rush Limbaugh having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have.
33 years.
Instructing, teaching, and 33 years.
Telling the truth.
I think I just happen to be saying what a whole lot of people think that don't have a chance to say themselves.
Of triumph.
The Presidential Medal of Freedom, the State of the Union address to Rush Limbaugh.
Now, tribute.
The man who has literally paved the way.
Radio icon Rush Limbaugh died today.
Losing his battle with lung cancer.
There is no talk radio without Rush Limbaugh.
33 years of excellence in broadcasting.
People don't remember what you say.
Too many words flying around there, but they never forget how you make them feel.
This is Rush.
From the very beginning.
Three hours of broadcast excellence straight ahead.
Great to have you.
Until now.
So I have to tell you something today that I wish I didn't have to tell you.
And it's a struggle for me because I had to inform my staff earlier today that I have been diagnosed with advanced lung cancer.
This podcast takes you behind the golden EIB microphone with those who knew him best and loved him the most.
And then Rush, being Rush, apologized to us.
He said, I'm sorry I let you down.
And I let out an involuntary scream, no.
Hosted by James Golden, who you might know better as Bo Snerdley.
Rush made no secret about it.
He said it.
And it was just what it wasn't.
I was born to host.
And you were born to listen.
And until the very end.
That was Rush Limbaugh.
Born to host with talent on loan from God.
This is the definitive story of Rush.
With special guests and stories never before heard.
Whether it happened on the air or behind the scenes, he was simply Rush.
It has been one of the biggest blessings to be able to tell you the entire story.
Talent on loan.
And they are all but memories now.
I mean, they really just seem like they happened yesterday.
Coming soon to iHeartRadio or wherever you download your podcasts.
And that podcast now, you can download it.
We go, it's right on the iHeart app.
It's iHeart.com slash apps on iHeartRadio.
Rush Limbaugh, the man behind the Golden EIB microphone, hosted by the dear friend of mine for many, many years, James Golden, a.k.a.
Bo Snerdley.
You know, it's hard for me.
I'm just listening to all of that.
And it's like I still haven't fully grasped that he's not with us anymore.
Does that make any sense?
Of course it does, Sean.
I'm listening to it with you.
And believe it or not, my eyes are teary again, even though I've heard this trailer, you know, at this point dozens of times, but just it just still hurts and it still seems to be quite unreal.
You know, it was a particularly hard time in your life.
And I don't know if you want me to share this or not.
But you lost your mom within a week after losing Rush.
Three days later.
And just say something, too, because you said you tell people you're good friends, Nate.
And people, yeah, yeah, good friends.
People say those words all the time.
No, Sean Hannity is not just a good friend.
He's a dear friend.
He's an everything friend because throughout this whole process, from the time that Rush made his announcement till the time that Rush passed.
And then, as Sean just mentioned, my mom passed three days later.
Sean Hannity was on the phone with me so much, just making sure I was okay, checking to see not just me, how the rest of our staff was doing.
He called other members of our staff.
Sean, and Sean, I guess you will never know how much all of that meant to me and how much it means to all of us for the love coming from you.
And it was all through the process.
And Sean, it just meant so much.
You know what the amazing thing is, is that when I came to New York to work on Fox in 1996 and then worked at WABC in New York, we referred to it affectionately here as the ex-wife at this point, but that's just a side note from the business.
But anyway, you know, I remember going into, for the first time, the control room.
Rush was doing his show, and I knew you and I knew Mike Mamon and I knew Kit Carson.
And if Kit wanted to throw you out, he'd throw you out in two seconds, but we all seemed to get along pretty well.
That was like the smoking center for cigars and everybody and all things going on that you're not allowed to do anyway.
And then I realized very quickly that there was always a show going on behind the show.
And that was you basically telling people to go F off and arguing with people at the top of your lungs that you were screening calls with.
I'd never seen anything like it because I was kind of always brought up in the tradition that our listeners, they're like your customers.
You got to serve them.
And meanwhile, you're slamming down phones, telling them to drop dead.
I mean, it was, if I could ever run those shows, it would be, that would be a story in and of itself.
Well, you know what?
I've mellowed over the years.
By the way, no, you have not.
You haven't mellowed at all.
That's not true.
Well, let me ask you this.
Okay.
So this incredible journey with this unique, incredible performer, passionate patriot, unbelievable human being, generosity beyond comprehension.
You know, talk about the big picture.
And you also, you say in this, because I've had a sneak peek of it, the only blessing greater than working with Rush was knowing the man that he truly was.
It was not only my honor, but my duty to help ensure his legacy is properly acknowledged.
And that's why, you know, I'm so glad you got to do this.
And I mean every word of that.
You know, Rush, all the things that you just mentioned, his generosity, his incredible professionalism, his wit, his intellect.
Oh, yeah, all that is great.
All that is wonderful.
And the whole professional life that he had is something that most of us in this industry wish we could aspire to to have.
And Sean, you're having a great ride yourself there, buddy.
Just waiting for somebody to wake up and realize they screwed up and made a mistake.
Rush was a gentleman.
And you know this because you were in there with us.
You know, somebody brings him a cup of coffee.
What does he say?
Thank you, sir.
Thank you, ma'am.
Off the air, very quiet, off the air, always extremely polite, always so much of a gentleman, so much of a nice guy with respect for everybody that he comes in contact or came in contact with.
I mean, this guy, Rush Limbaugh, was just as a larger-than-life figure off the air for being a great person, a good guy that treated others the way that they should be treated, as he was for everything that he did in radio, which will live on and on for generations.
As he made that announcement that day, and I want to talk about that day in a minute, but one of the things as after the announcement that he had advanced stage four lung cancer, you know, I started reading.
I'm sure you did too, right?
We all go to the internet and we think, you know, check out what Dr. Google had to say, and there was not much good at all in that diagnosis.
And there was little hope.
There was little, you know, I tried to pull out whatever I could find that gave me some hope, as I'm sure you did.
But what was the amazing thing to me is, you know, I don't know if you've seen the movie The Bucket List with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman.
That's a great movie.
I have seen that.
And here's Rush.
When you get chemo the way he was getting it, they half-kill you in the hopes to either save you or buy you more time than you otherwise would have had.
That's what chemo does.
And I think one day we'll look back as our treatments of cancer as barbaric and we'll have it advanced so far medically.
That's what I believe.
But he's going through it.
What was Rush's bucket list?
It wasn't to travel the world.
He knew that his time was likely over, and it's just a matter of how much time.
And he'd be many days sick as a dog after being treated.
His bucket list was to get back up behind the golden EIB mic and be with his audience.
That's exactly right.
Rush's bucket list this final year, the final year that he spent with us.
And Sean, it was as difficult as you say, and even more.
And here's the amazing thing about it.
When the mic came on, even after he came back from his treatments and he was going through it, he was going through all of the effects of the chemo.
When the microphone came on, you couldn't tell.
His energy was the same level as if he were just having a normal show.
His enthusiasm, his drive, all of that was the same.
He was robust.
It was just, if you were listening, you could not tell that you were listening to someone that was fighting and having the major fight of his life to stay alive.
What you heard was someone that was just giving it all to his radio show like he did for the entire 33 years this national show was syndicated and before that to even get there.
But after the show, Sean, there were days when we were, the three of us sitting there, Brian Dawn and myself after the show, when he could barely get up some days after the show.
He was so weak.
He was so exhausted from the energy.
And you know this.
I mean, if people don't think, and I'm not saying this that they should, there's a lot of energy in doing a radio show.
There's a lot of focus.
There's a lot of energy.
And the prep work that it takes to be able to even perform is demanding.
And so by the time the show was over, my goodness, he had expended the energy that he had.
And that, he gave it, he left nothing off the field.
He gave it his all.
And that's what he wanted to do, to be with his audience as long as he could for as many days as he could.
Take us back to the day that he told you, Brian and Dawn and the staff and Mike Mamone, and I'm going to forget everyone's name here, forgive me.
That he told you what was going on before he went on the air and told America.
Yeah, it was an all-hands staff meeting, and we knew immediately.
I was on my way to work when I got the call that we were going to have a meeting, and I knew something was wrong.
My stomach immediately got, I had butterflies immediately because we didn't have meetings.
We didn't have an all-hands.
We had maybe one or two in the entire three decades meetings of the entire staff.
And those that weren't in Florida were on the phone lines, were on conference lines.
And so we all knew that something was wrong.
Dawn, in fact, came back.
She was on a scheduled vacation day.
And Craig had reached out to her at Craig Kitchen and had asked her to come back in early from her vacation.
So she knew something was wrong.
But everyone was trying not to panic.
And then, as I say, and I talk about this on the podcast, Rush came in, and at first, you couldn't tell.
He didn't look like anything was wrong.
He was just stoic.
He looked like he had no anxiety.
But within minutes, we all knew because that's when he broke the news to us that he had this advanced lung cancer.
And he did apologize to us, which I still to this day.
Every time I think about that, it still hits me emotionally that he felt the need to do that.
And I wish, you know, but that's just who he was.
I mean, he always felt like he was responsible for all of us on this staff.
And it was just an amazing thing.
My gut instinct is to hold you over, but I'm going to tell you why I'm not going to do that.
And I mean this, is because I want to hear the rest of the story.
And that's what this whole series is about.
Rush Limbaugh, the man behind the golden EIB mic, 12 episodes narrated by our dear friend here, James Golden, aka Bo Snerdley.
Very simple.
Visit iHeart.com slash apps.
And you can download the episodes right now.
I assume, is it one at a time, or can you get all 12 at once?
We're releasing one per week.
All right.
So you can download the first one today.
All right.
We'll put it up on Hannity.com, iHeart.com slash apps, and you don't want to miss this.
James, I love you.
You're a brother to me.
You've been through the toughest time ever.
We'll be friends for life.
And I'm going to be listening to it as well.
Thank you, my friend.
Thank you, Sean.
Thank you so much.
All right, 25 to the top of the hour, 800-941.
Sean, if you want to be a part of the program, we did a segment on TV last night on critical race theory.
And there's a woman, and she happened to be African-American, and she was passionate.
She gave this speech in the Loudoun County Public School District in Virginia, and it was amazing, really strong and powerful.
Anyway, it caught our eye, and I wanted to have her on.
I had her on with our friend Larry Elder.
And so she comes on TV, and I, and this is very common.
She doesn't do TV.
She's a mom.
She did a great job challenging the school district.
Remember, we can't even, our kids can't even read, write, and do math anymore.
Never mind what history our kids are learning and what wokeness they're being taught every hour of every day.
We've got to get back to fundamentals.
We've got to get back to basics.
And she very passionately and articulately made the case before the school board.
So we were glad to have her on the air last night.
And in the beginning, she was a little bit nervous.
And I could tell, and she was reading.
And meanwhile, I had already watched her presentation before the school board.
And I knew she knew the material.
And I just try to say, I said, Chantelle, just speak from your heart.
You understand this.
And then she clicked in and just killed it.
She did great.
Let me play a little bit of it.
CRT is racist.
It is abusive.
It discriminates against one's color.
Let me educate you.
An honest dialogue does not oppress.
An honest dialogue does not implement hatred or injustice.
It's to communicate with deceiving, without deceiving people.
Today, we don't need your agreement.
We want action in the backbone for what we asked for today, to ban CRT.
We don't want your political advertisement to divide our children or belittle them.
Think twice before we indoctrinate such racist theories.
You cannot tell me what is or is not racist.
Look at me.
I have a biracial family.
So does this mean they should resent their white ethnicity and take advantage of the current narrative?
Perhaps the white half of my children should reflect on their guilt and shame for something that they have no control over.
I think not.
So I'm fighting against this prejudice.
I encourage parents to research CRT.
A key word to look out for is equity.
I mean, it was so powerful.
And she did such a great job on TV.
You know, it's, Linda, we have talked about this a lot.
I have friends of mine that they're like, how do you do it?
They start trembling at the thought.
If they have to give a presentation or a speech of any kind, and they're like, you're on the radio shooting your mouth off three hours a day and on TV, an hour a night.
And, you know, I remember when I started, I had nerve, you know, I got nervous sometimes.
I remember with those days.
But it's the number one fear, public speaking is the number one fear people have.
And I'm very proud of the fact that I have, I am able to and have helped people that don't like public speaking.
And I'll tell you when I really learned a very valuable lesson.
You remember the case of Terry Shivau?
Linda, remember we were down there for like a whole week back in the day and broadcasting on TV?
There was this lovely woman and she was a nurse and she had taken care of Terry Shiva and she believed that Terry did at times seem to be aware and showed a response.
You might remember the balloons and her eyes following the balloons, etc.
That was just a terrible case.
You have these parents that they want to take care of their daughter, her husband that doesn't want her on a machine the rest of her life and a conflict.
And they were saying, we don't want anything from you.
Just let us take care of our daughter.
Now, if it was me and I had parents begging and pleading and they really wanted to do it and the doctors were telling me that the odds are like, you know, negligible at best.
There's no chance.
I probably would concede to the wishes of the parents because I would want to honor them and maybe even pray for a miracle too.
But he was free to go on with his life.
I'm not sure why he pushed it that hard.
There were all sorts of theories about it at the time.
I have no idea what really happened.
Anyway, so this nurse comes on and I could see she was so nervous.
She was visibly shaking.
And what happens, you know, the mind can mess with you.
And what happens, you get into this like cycle and you start spinning spiraling downwards where your thoughts create these feelings of fear.
And then you feel the fear.
And that just, you know, creates more of the thoughts that are creating the fear.
So the feelings create more thoughts.
The thoughts create more feelings and sicker feelings in your stomach.
And then to the point where you're so locked into your fear, you can't get out of it.
And that's why some the best athletes are able to get in the zone, as they call it.
Anyway, I did something.
It's going to sound a little mean.
I promise it wasn't.
But I kind of like put my arm on her and I put a little tiny extra pressure so she would notice it.
Not a lot.
Believe me, it was very gentle.
And I saw her eyes like look, whoa, this guy's strong or something like that.
She was thinking, but I did just, it took her right out of her head.
And then I said, hold my hand.
I guess, give me your hand.
I held her hand and I held it tightly a little bit, a little tighter than a normal handshake.
And she noticed that too.
Now she's not thinking and now she's not in the spiral.
She's not thinking about, she's thinking, what is he doing?
He's all shakes.
Man, he's got a hard handshake, that kind of thing.
And you can snap people and shock people out of that state.
She ended up doing a great job.
She started out shaking.
Now, does that make sense?
Because you've got to break that cycle.
Linda, does that make any sense to you?
Yeah, I mean, I think what you're trying to say in not so many words is that we use pressure points, right?
So like it's kind of like, you know, you put a paperclip in your hand or some people like they cross their legs or they, you know, do something with their hand.
Anything to distract your mind from being nervous from what you're about to do.
And so that works.
Give me a great point.
Like tennis player.
You know Nadal.
I mean, it's so exaggerated or Maria Sharipov have so exaggerated their rituals.
And the reason Nadal does, he takes one side of his hand and pushes back his hair.
Then he touches his nose.
Then he does the other side of his hair, touches his nose again, then grabs his backside and he bounces the ball the exact number of times and then he serves.
The reason is, is that he does not want to think at that moment.
So he's thinking about only doing his rituals.
And then when he sits down, he sits there and his bottles are put one here, one here, one here, exact same spot.
I mean, it became a big deal when one of the players walked by and purposefully knocked it over to mess him up.
I mean, it's crazy, but the mind is so powerful and we don't pay attention to it.
And I've been able to, over time, like friends of mine, when they're going to give presentations, I said, all right, look, come on over and I'll show you how to do it.
And you give them little techniques.
There are people, some of the best speakers I know, I can pick up their techniques of staying relaxed and in the zone.
Newt Gingrich is an example.
He often keeps his hands together and he rolls his thumbs.
Why?
Because that puts him in the zone.
If you know your material, you don't really have to refer to your notes as much as you think.
You might just want to have a list of bullet points that you want to touch.
And I know it's so funny.
Maybe we should do like an online class one day.
Overcoming your fear of public speaking.
Do you like that idea?
Yeah, except that they'll all have their cameras and their mics off and we won't know if they're there because they'll be too scared.
So I don't know if it's going to work too good.
I mean, Katie, Katie, who works on our team is super scared.
Put your mic on.
Put it on right now.
Okay.
Yes, it's terrifying.
I hate it.
Why do you hate it?
Like what I'm about to say, if I go to Linda and Ethan and Sweet Baby or JC Own, and then I go to you, you're like, if I don't go to you first, you're a wreck, right?
I shake.
Like I'm terrified.
I hate it.
Like this is killing you right now, right?
It's killing me.
And same in school.
Like when I was in school and had to do presentations, I hated it.
Listen, I had to show my own kids stuff, but of course they're my kids, so they're not going to listen to anything dad says.
I don't even think they know what I do for a living.
And so now, did you, now what I just said, does that make sense?
Can you relate to that?
Yes, the twiddling of the thumbs, that's definitely me like just trying to distract myself from overthinking it or I don't know.
The anxiety that just builds up.
It's like you can't really control it.
I don't know how you.
You'll say, Katie, make sure you tell them.
So Katie does this walk off the ledge thing with a lot of the callers.
People call in and they get nervous.
They go, oh, never mind.
You know what?
I don't want to go on the air.
I don't want to go there.
And Katie's like, no, no.
You're going to do it.
It's going to be fantastic.
Your point is great.
You know, she does this.
By the way, the opposite of James Golden, right?
Or the opposite of yourself.
Correct.
Yeah, okay.
And me.
I like some people.
I would go in there and I'd be like, can you please be nice to our customers, please?
And what would I always say?
I forget.
Maybe.
Yeah.
It depends.
I've been such a great employee.
Always listen to the boss.
Always listen to the boss.
I'm like, I'm giving out bonuses during coronavirus.
Boss, I'm not taking it.
I'm not going to cash me bonus.
I don't need the bonus.
I'm like, see that?
I'm giving the bonus to everybody.
That's a faithful employee.
I need the bonus.
No, it's not.
If your boss offers you money, take it.
And back to the public speaking.
So, yeah.
So, Katie.
You don't want to talk about your weak points.
Listen.
I didn't say that I did or I didn't.
Just said, let's talk about Katie.
You can devise from that whatever you like.
All right, let's do a quick survey here.
Robert in Long Island, do you have a fear of public speaking at all?
Robert.
Oh, maybe Robert's not there.
I'll take that as a yes.
He's scared of it.
Brian in Arizona, do you have a fear of public speaking?
No, but I'm getting one after listening to you guys.
Hang on there, Brian.
We'll get right back to you.
Heather in Oklahoma, do you have a fear of public speaking?
Not really until right now.
What am I doing?
I'm like ruining my whole show.
Corey in New York, do you have a fear of public speaking?
Absolutely not, Sean.
I've been in the military for a long time, so public speaking is kind of my thing.
All right, Brian, Heather, and Corey, we're going to put you all on at one time because we don't have enough time for individual calls.
Thank you all.
Brian, we'll start with you.
You can say hi to Heather and Corey and what's on your mind.
Can you hear me?
Yes, sir.
I can hear you.
All right.
Hey, Sean.
So, on a regular basis, I hear you say that the DNC has been taken over and controlled now by the radical left with being led by AOC and the squad.
What I've yet to hear you hear, though, is kind of an explanation as to how that's possible.
It just doesn't seem practical to, you know, everything Joe is doing, everything Pelosi is doing, everything Schumer's doing is in accordance with their new Green Deal.
Okay.
But a bartender just becomes, you know, elected to Congress and then everyone's suddenly scared of her.
I don't understand that.
Listen, I'm a bartender that became a talk show host.
Anything can happen.
It's the greatest country in the world.
Now, I was 17 when I was attending bar.
Heather, where's your thoughts on this?
Well, my thought is: where are Republicans in Congress?
Why have they not invoked the 25th Amendment or impeachment for this administration?
If I'm right in my suspicions, they've got a big problem.
Who knew what?
If I'm right, that Joe is really, really struggling cognitively.
And that would be a degenerative condition.
And in fact, the pressures of the office would probably make it worse.
But they would have to create an event to justify that.
And most people are afraid to just state the obvious.
My problem with all that is our enemies can see exactly what you see and I see and Brian sees.
And Corey, do you see a cognitively struggling Joe?
Oh, for sure.
I mean, he's been struggling.
But if you invoke the 25th Amendment, then you have your other choice, which would be Kamala, which I really personally don't want.
I think he's the worst of the two evils.
Rick Renell thinks that Susan Rice, I believe, is running the show.
He said that yesterday.
What do you think?
Somebody's running the show.
He's definitely not.
Susan Rice would be a big one.
And then, well, she's got her two cents in there.
And then, you know, Schumer and them.
So they're all corrupt anyway.
But Joe has his little sippy cup of warm milk every night around 7 in bed at 7:30, and it's night-night time.
Is that going overboard, Heather, or is that pretty fair?
I think that's more than fair.
And if they would invoke the 25th Amendment, then perhaps we could get Kamala impeached for her dereliction of duty and ignoring the human trafficking that is happening at the southern border.
There is a case to be made about the fact that they just ignore the laws they don't like.
I don't know.
Brian, maybe I'm paranoid.
If you break the law, Heather breaks the law, Corey breaks the law.
I break the law, I'm going to jail.
I don't get to pick and choose what laws I obey.
Do you?
I'm so tired of the hypocrisy.
No, I don't.
Yeah.
Well, you're all amazing.
And none of you, you all get an A-plus for public speaking today, okay?
Brian, thank you.
Heather, thank you.
Corey, thank you.
And thanks for listening.
And we hope we'll call and we'll do this again soon, okay?
Definitely.
Thank you, Sean.
How do you do, Sean?
Thanks, Sean.
Thank you, guys.
800-941-Sean, our number.
All right, that's going to wrap things up.
But today, we have the latest out of Israel tonight.
We'll talk to an ex-NSA hacker.
You know, what do we do now to stop these cyber attacks?
We'll get updates from Mark Meadows and Tom Cotton, Leo 2.0, Terrell, Judge Janine, and much, much more.
Oh, James Golden, Bo Snerdley, Rush's Bo Sleerly will join us tonight as well.
Mine Eastern, Hannity.
Oh, and Dr. Nicole Sapphire.
Nine Eastern, Hannity, City DBR, Fox News.
We'll see you then back here tomorrow.
Thank you, as always, for being with us.
I'm Ben Ferguson.
And I'm Ted Cruz.
Three times a week, we do our podcast, Verdict with Ted Cruz.
Nationwide, we have millions of listeners.
Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, we break down the news and bring you behind the scenes inside the White House, inside the Senate, inside the United States Supreme Court.
And we cover the stories that you're not getting anywhere else.
We arm you with the facts to be able to know and advocate for the truth with your friends and family.
So down with Verdict with Ted Cruz now, wherever you get your podcasts.
You want smart political talk without the meltdowns?
We got you.
I'm Carol Markowitz.
And I'm Mary Catherine Hamm.
We've been around the block in media and we're doing things differently.
Normally is about real conversations.
Thoughtful, try to be funny, grounded, and no panic.
We'll keep you informed and entertained without ruining your day.
Join us every Tuesday and Thursday, normally, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
When I told people I was making a podcast about Benghazi, nine times out of ten, they called me a masochist, rolled their eyes, or just asked, why?
Benghazi, the truth became a web of lies.
From Prologue Projects and Pushkin Industries, this is Fiasco, Benghazi.