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I'm Ben Ferguson, and I'm Ted Cruz.
Three times a week, we do our podcast, Verdict with Ted Cruz.
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All right, thanks, Scott Shannon, and thanks to all of you for being with us.
Hour two Sean Hannity Show, toll-free.
Our number is 800-941-Sean.
If you want to be a part of the program, less than two hours.
And we expect the astronauts that had been stranded for 286 days to return to Earth just as the end of, as this program ends today.
The flight plan began with a half-minute de-orbit thruster firing.
That started at, you know, well, this will happen later today, but they began.
It's a 17-hour journey.
And with Crew 9 Commander and a cosmonaut involved, launched to the station last September aboard the same SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, carrying all four of them home.
Now, it called for an automated seven and a half minute de-orbit thruster starting at 5.11 p.m. to slow down for a re-entry.
After what is called or described as a 27-minute free fall, the spacecraft is expected to plunge back into the discernible atmosphere for the final 12 minutes of descent, making a parachute-assisted splashdown off the Florida Panhandle Gulf Coast a few minutes before 6 p.m. tonight as we're basically going off this radio program.
Elon Musk will be on Hannity tonight.
We'll talk about all of this with him.
A SpaceX recovery ship will be stationed nearby.
They will haul the spacecraft on board so the crew can be helped out of the Crew Dragon's cabin and onto stretchers for initial medical checks.
Now, there are, just for your awareness, astronauts have a lot of health issues that they face as SUNY Williams and Butch Wilmore are finally getting their unexpected nine-month stay in space, but their health journey will just begin on Earth.
This is not an easy transition.
They may face a variety of health problems.
They may face weaker bones and muscles.
They might have vision issues, baby feet.
I'll explain what that is in a second, as their bodies now adjust to getting back to the planet's gravity.
And anyway, the expected arrival is 5.57 p.m. Eastern Time.
It is now 4.08 Eastern Time, now 4.09 Eastern Time.
And they arrived at the International Space Station.
They were only supposed to be there eight days.
It's 286 days that they have been up there.
And it's one of the longest periods of time on board the International Space Station.
Immediately, they will get checked out by doctors.
When they splash down, they'll undergo a very thorough medical exam at NASA's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston.
They won't be allowed to go home until the doctors clear them.
Astronauts often say they feel wobbly, nauseated when they return to Earth because of the ears.
Vestibular system has to readjust.
Interesting side note, bones become about 1% less dense for every month you spend in space.
They were there for nine months, especially bones in the legs and hips and spine, which do the heavy lifting on Earth.
Muscles don't need to work as hard in space.
So they begin to atrophy.
All of that could lead to falls, bone fracture, osteoporosis, other medical problems.
So this is not over if we've all prayed that they splash down successfully.
And now to counteract these effects, astronauts, they exercise two hours a day in space, including cardio and resistance training.
It's all part of their job to keep their bones and muscles strong, but they still feel the impact when they return home.
It's a big shock when they get back on Earth.
They have to get used to gravity once again.
Astronauts grow in space, believe it or not, because the spinal column will expand out without the gravity.
One astronaut, literally, Scott Kelly, became two inches taller.
On Earth, spinal discs will again compress, and that can create back pain upon coming back.
Astronauts' eyes and brain structure change in space, not being with gravity.
Fluids in the body shift upward to the head.
That puts pressure on the eyes.
It can cause visual problems.
That condition is known as space flight-associated neuroocular syndrome.
Changes include swelling in the optic nerve, folds in the retina, the flattening of the back of the eye, and blurry vision.
Some changes, you know, unfortunately, it's very risky what they do, very courageous what they do.
It could be permanent.
In some cases, they have what's called baby feet.
They're designed to, you know, on Earth to bear the body's weight.
So the skin on the bottom is tough and sturdy, and people walk around, but astronauts float in space.
You know, their feet don't support much, and the soles become very delicate.
You basically lose the thick part of the skin on your feet that develops and the calluses that develop, and those calluses fall off.
And one astronaut described it as the softest feet, according to a masseuse, that they ever felt in their entire life.
Anyway, so researchers report that the astronauts, you know, there have been astronauts that develop rash and skin sensitivity when they come home.
In that case, it was a 340-day trek into space.
The symptoms lasted six days after he landed on Earth, successfully treated with medication, hydrotherapy, a massage.
So anyway, here to talk about all of this is Luis Elizondo.
He's the former head of the Pentagon program responsible for the investigation of UFOs, author of Imminent Inside the Pentagon's Hunt for such.
And joining us is Sarah Carter, investigative journalist.
And maybe you don't know this about her.
She knows an awful lot about the space program, was there for the Falcon 9 and re-entry of the Northrop Grumman invitation Red Wire to see it up close and personal.
Sarah, you're pretty obsessed with this.
I am.
I am.
I've got to admit it.
I'm a bit of a nerd.
I wish I knew as much as Elon Musk about all of these aspects of space.
I do believe that we are going to be a space-faring species.
We are.
I mean, I think we're going to go far beyond the moon and the ISS.
I think that's very exciting.
But I think, you know, a situation like this, you described the serious nature of it, Sean.
For the astronauts, they really are putting everything on the line.
Their lives are on the line.
They went up there.
They were thinking, you know, I'm going to be up here for a week.
It's been nine months.
It was unplanned.
So they're going to be going through recovery all year.
I think they're so excited.
They have to be to know that they're going to be coming back to Earth.
Everyone here on the planet is praying for them.
I was so excited to see Falcon 9 launch earlier this year.
It was a Northrop Grumman launch.
They were taking supplies with red wire for our scientists at the ISS at the time.
The astronauts were actually on board during that time, of course, still stuck up in space.
And when I saw the booster come back down, it was the most astonishing human feat that you can ever imagine.
My son was there, my daughter, our two youngest.
Our son is studying right now robotics at the university.
He is way smarter than all of us, and he wants to build specifically robotics for space for Mars.
His dream is to work at JPL.
So it was really one of the most amazing human feats ever.
And right now, SpaceX have completed 446 of these missions.
They've done a total of 401 of these landings.
And for those of you who haven't seen this booster come back down into re-entry, it is absolutely extraordinary.
It reminds me of watching something on science fiction.
And to say that humanity has reached this point is pretty awesome times.
So I have a lot of faith in SpaceX.
I have a lot of faith in Elon Musk.
And I'm very excited to see these astronauts return to Earth.
I am very excited, and our prayers are with them.
Luis Elozonda, what's your take on it all?
Well, Sean, you're absolutely right.
We're dealing with a lot of different issues here.
I'm not sure people really appreciate exactly what's going on right now.
First and foremost, we are going to be and are a space-faring species.
But as it is stands today, there's nothing routine about going to space.
It is still a very, very dangerous, very, very risky endeavor.
And there's all sorts of risks involved.
It's not just a telemetry and speed and engineering issue, but there is.
There's significant health consequences biologically.
My background actually was in the field of medicine and biology and microbiology.
And there are some distinct morphological changes that occur.
And you talked about baby feet and some things like that, but there's actually some other issues too.
There's issues to the vascular system because our veins are designed to have little valves in there in order to counter the effects of gravity.
And when you don't have gravity, now the circulatory system behaves differently, right?
You talked about muscle atrophy.
You know, what most people probably realize, the heart is a giant muscle, and that too is prone to muscle atrophy.
You have bone degradation where you lose a percentage, as you said, of bone density.
And that is really, really significant.
And so I talked to an astronaut a couple years ago, and he gave me a little bit of an analogy here that kind of makes sense.
He said, if you want to know what it's like to come back to Earth, imagine putting a jellyfish in a slingshot.
And that's what it feels like because you're used to a microgravity environment when you are in orbit.
And all of a sudden, now you're thrust back into reality of a 9.8 meters per second squared environment where your body, every part of your body is constantly being tugged towards the surface of the Earth.
And that puts a tremendous strain on the body, especially when you have to reacclimate.
And then you have just the sheer feat of engineering.
I try to explain to people, this is not like just shooting a rocket into space and kind of maneuvering to a space station.
It's more akin to firing a bullet, shooting a bullet into the sky at 17,500 miles an hour.
And then, oh, by the way, hitting another bullet that's traveling 120 miles above your head, that's also traveling at 17,500 miles an hour, right?
And there's a tremendous amount of engineering that goes behind these types of missions.
And by the way, this mission isn't routine itself.
One might even argue that this is actually a rescue mission.
So if anybody's ever seen the old movie of Apollo 13, you know, I think we're dealing with something potentially very similar to that, where you have the lives of astronauts, frankly, that could be at risk here, and their health, but also the fact that you have a space capsule that's going to be re-entering back to Earth, coming in from four points.
Think about this, 4.7 miles per second, right?
When these space capsule, when the Dragon space capsule comes back into re-entry, roughly about 4,000 feet in altitude is really when the atmosphere of the Earth can really begin to become a serious effect on the spacecraft, where temperatures can range anywhere between 3,000 degrees to 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
Let me ask you both this, because we've all, you know, every part of this is dangerous.
We've all watched the launch of this rocket.
We've all watched the rocket actually land back.
We have the video of it landing and being saved, which is incredible in and itself.
We watched the docking video.
We now have the return and the takeoff video.
And now the final dangerous part of this mission is the splashdown.
Based on your experience, Sarah, how dangerous is that?
Oh, I think it's going to be extraordinarily dangerous.
I think that, like Lou was describing, there's so many elements that have to happen all at once.
I love the description of the bullet, right?
You know, shooting a bullet off into space just to hit another bullet that's up there.
It's significant.
I mean, so we're looking at physics, mathematics, making sure everything is in tune, making sure that everybody is on the same page and ensuring the safety of the astronauts come first.
You're going to have to look at weather.
Weather is extraordinary.
I mean, you can imagine being out there getting ready for a rocket launch, and then they got to shut it down within the last five minutes because of cloud coverage, because of something that is happening with the weather, because of high winds.
So they're going to be monitoring the weather.
They're going to be monitoring every aspect of that re-entry into Earth's orbit for those astronauts, because the most important thing, of course, we want to see them come back home.
We want to see them come back home safely.
We want to see them come back home and celebrate their safety and that they're back with us and back with their families and give them the heroes welcome that they deserve.
So they're going to try to make sure, Sean, that every single aspect of that re-entry is working like a perfect concerto, like a perfect musical concerto.
And I can tell you, based on what Elon Musk has been able to do, based on the fact that research and development in the private sector is extraordinary.
We would have never seen anything like this.
I don't believe if it was just government run, you know, research and development, R ⁇ D there, everything's really slow.
In the private sector, we're able to see extraordinary advances.
And I think this is where Elon Musk shines.
This is where SpaceX shines.
And working together with the government is essential.
And I think we're going to get those astronauts safely home as long as everything is working together.
Like I said, like a concerto so that they can get back in and be home with their family safely and be back on Earth.
About an hour and 37 minutes.
We expect a splashdown.
I appreciate your time, Sarah.
Thank you.
Louise Elizondo, thank you.
We'll get to your calls coming up straight ahead.
Hey there.
I'm Mary Catherine Hammond.
And I'm Carol Markowicz.
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.
We have what might be the most important election of the year, and it is for the Republican Party.
Now, I'll take you back to 2020 and the election of 2020.
And one of the arguments I made is, for example, in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, they have a Constitution.
The Constitution limited the ability of voters to vote by mail.
And rather than go through the arduous process of going for a constitutional amendment, they just decided to legislatively, you know, pass a law which does not negate the constitutional provision.
I believe that was unconstitutional.
You had similar issues arise in Wisconsin.
There was a 3-4 decision that went against my point of view in this particular case with a stinging dissent at the then Chief Justice on the Wisconsin Supreme Court talking about if we don't follow the rule of law in this state, it will forever be this way.
So it really does matter.
Now, there is a lot at stake, including redistricting.
You have two candidates that will be on the ballot, and I don't think most people in Wisconsin or the country are focused on it.
And this is going to be an argument I will make to you long before the 2026 elections get here.
If Democrats ever get a hold of the House and or the Senate, they're going to be impeaching Donald Trump 10, 12, 15 times.
It's not going to stop because that's the only thing that they can cling on to.
That, and of course, their defense of men's rights to play women's sports and putting the rights of illegal immigrants over the safety of Americans and somehow calling it a constitutional crisis if you identify waste, fraud, abuse, and corruption in government spending.
Well over $100 billion identified now and we're just getting started.
But anyway, it would also, you know, they will decide the fate of the Republican 2011 law that ended collective bargaining for most of Wisconsin public employee unions.
Parts of it were struck down by a lower court judge this year.
The candidates-only debate took place Wednesday night, last Wednesday, in a modest-size lecture hall at Marquette University Law School.
And at the end of the day, voters, you know, have now begun to cast their ballots as of today in this pivotal Supreme Court case that will determine whether liberals keep this slim majority on the highest court in what is a critical battleground state.
Anyway, here to weigh in on the ramifications of how important this is is former governor of Wisconsin, friend of the program, Scott Walker, is with us, now president of the YAF Young American Foundation, warning us about how important this election is.
Governor, great to have you back.
How are you?
Thank you, Sean.
Thanks for having me on.
And thanks for, as usual, being on top of the most important things out there in this case that probably most people listening don't even know about.
Yeah, the polling as of March 9th and 10th showed a 47-47 split.
Now, for the conservatives to have a majority on the court, that means that that means that Trump Republicans in Wisconsin are going to have to show up.
This is going to be that kind of election, a base election.
That's going to be, you know, who gets more of their people out to the polls.
And again, I'm worried that most people aren't aware of what's happening in two weeks.
Well, that's exactly right.
Anybody listening, not just those of us from Wisconsin, but anyone who knows anybody, a business friend, an ally, an old schoolmate, whoever it might be, needs to tell them how important this is because we know, the good news is we know that if all or nearly all of the people who, like me, voted for Donald Trump here in Wisconsin last November, if we show up to vote, we will win this election.
But historically, there's a big drop off.
And that's particularly true in the research we've done of people who cast a ballot for Donald Trump and JD Vance last fall.
Many of them, several hundred thousand of them, are people who don't traditionally vote in the spring elections.
And so our case has been made and why it's such a national issue, not just the things you mentioned in state, certainly the reforms I did, school choice, voter ID, all those things are at stake in this election because they'll all go away if there's four radical activists on the court.
But just nationally, if you care about ensuring that Donald Trump can continue to do the phenomenal job he's doing, just look at this weekend alone as an example.
We saw what one judge can do to try and stop a president and his administration who are trying to send back some of the worst people in the world, the worst criminals out there back to their countries of origin.
Imagine Susan Crawford, the liberal running in this race and three others on the Wisconsin court blocking that from happening in the state of Wisconsin.
Then on top of that, she's said, I mean, the people campaigning for her, they sent out a mailing for one of these fundraising calls.
She appears on it.
And they actually said in the invitation that their plan with her winning is to take two House seats currently held by Republicans and gerrymander them into Democrat-controlled seats.
This is what it's all about.
It's why George Searles, Rex Hoffman, J.D. Brisker, and others are spending millions of dollars here.
We can win.
We can counter that.
But if we get the right people out, and that means everybody who voted for Trump has got to vote this spring for Brad Schimmel.
All right.
So it's very, very important.
Now, is there any centralized organizational effort to get conservatives to the polls for this election that's going to take place on April 1st?
And early voting had just started today?
It started today.
My wife and I live in Waukesha County, in the town of Delafool.
We're voting today and made the pitch.
The good news is the movement has woke up.
So besides the Republican Party of Wisconsin, besides the Schimmel campaign, which is Schimmelforjustice.com, besides the RNC and others, you've got every major group here.
Elon Musk has got his super PAC vested, who helped us out and win this last fall.
You've got Turning Point Action.
You've got Heritage Action.
You've got Americans for Prosperity.
You've got all these groups and so many others out there like them outplowing away.
But it's going to take all that and more because, again, why does George Searles care?
It's not just because he wants to get rid of the reforms I did years ago as governor.
It's because they want to stop the Trump agenda dead in its tracks.
And they know if they put one more, not just a liberal, but an activist justice on the Supreme Court in Wisconsin, they will do everything in their power to block the Trump agenda and to flip the House majority potentially even before the 2026 elections.
We cannot let that happen.
You know, what's amazing about this is the fact that, you know, this election has taken place and so few people know about it.
I'm glad that all these groups are now mobilizing, and I think they're going to play a very critical part if we're going to win this runoff, basically.
And why did they schedule it at such an odd time?
I mean.
Well, that's just the case with these spring elections.
And, you know, right now there's a 4-3 split the last several years since President Trump's been in office.
Eric Holder and the liberals and Soros funding and all this have systematically gone after our Supreme Court.
But this race is even more critical because the fourth justice who's left of center is someone who's been on the bench for 25 years.
She still believes in some degree in precedent, but she'll be gone after this election.
If they elect the fourth, truly activist one, this is just critical in terms of what can be done here.
I was just last night, for example, with Donald Trump Jr.
making the case nearby my home in Waukesha County.
My hope is in the next two weeks, we'll get President Trump in here because I think the president being here, his presence, 4747, you mentioned that poll done by the statewide chamber, so very reliable poll.
I mean, it's a dead heat.
If President Donald Trump comes to Wisconsin, I believe he alone can push this race over the top and not just save Wisconsin, save the Republic, as he's done some of the things before.
I mean, look, we see this now playing out on a large scale.
For example, we've had this battle and there's this rogue judge.
It's very, very clear that the president is commander-in-chief and the Alien Enemies Act.
And if you look at the actual verbiage in this, is that any invasion, predatory incursion shall be perpetrated or attempted or threatened against the territory of the U.S. by any foreign nation government, the president of the United States shall make the proclamation of the event.
All native citizens or subjects of hostile nations being males over the age of 14 and upwards within the U.S., not actually naturalized, shall be liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as alien enemies.
Well, that's going on right now.
And yet you see this one rogue judge is preventing Donald Trump from even getting rid of Trende Aragua gang members, which makes absolutely no sense to anybody.
No, I mean, I think all of us who voted for Donald Trump, this is exactly what we wanted.
We wanted the worst of the worst when they wanted these radical criminals elements, these gangs, worldwide global gang members out of America, back to the country of origin.
He's doing exactly what we expected.
And I think the vast majority of Americans, not just Republicans or conservatives, but just red, white, and blue-blooded Americans understand how important this is.
And I give credit to people like Stephen Miller.
He went through our program years ago at Young America's Foundation.
He's just done a bang-up job of getting this and spelling this out.
Any of us who've been to the border, I know you've been there many times, but any of us who've been to the border, I've seen it firsthand, have seen the full-scale invasion we saw during the four years of the Biden administration.
Anyone who claims that's not happening is just blind.
He has every right as President of the United States to invoke this, just like Greg Abbott did what he could during the four years Biden was in office to stop the invasion happening along his portion of the border in Texas.
We've got to do that now more than ever.
And we've got to get these, not only secure the border, but get these criminals, these gang members, these malicious terrorists out of America.
And we don't need any judge, be it a federal judge like we saw this weekend or Susan Crawford and the other crazy liberals in Wisconsin that want to take over the Supreme Court.
We can't let that happen here either.
So in 2023, after the Democratic-backed candidate won and flipped control of the state Supreme Court in Wisconsin to the left for the first time in 15 years, the court has thrown out Republican-drawn legislative maps.
That has led to Democratic gains in the November election and reinstated absentee ballot drop boxes.
It heard a case challenging an 1849 law banning abortions in the state.
They've yet to issue their ruling there.
What are the very specific issues that the court is likely to take up in, you know, once this new, once this court, the makeup of the court is finally determined?
Well, it is clear based upon the latest, most recent radical, as you mentioned, when Xi-1 in 23 took office that August, the groups just lined up after that because they knew, even though it was 4-3 leaning left over right, that that fourth that I mentioned, the one who's retiring, still believe in precedence.
So things like the law that I pushed through that took power from the big government union bosses and put it back in the hands of the hardworking taxpayers.
That law, immediately they went to challenge that after this new justice joined the court with the idea being that once a fourth came up this year and was put on the bench, if they had a four-three activist, not just the liberal majority, but activist, radical, brazen political folks, that they could undo that and everything.
Even going back to 35 years ago, Wisconsin had the first school of choice voucher program in America, the city of Milwaukee.
That could be gone.
Voter ID could be gone.
Concealed carry could be gone.
You name it.
Every major conservative reform we've done in this state could be gone just because of the election.
And that shows you how radicalized these liberals have been.
Is it true that you have Soros money and you have J.B. Pritzker involved and Tim Walz is supposed to make an appearance tonight and host an anti-Musk town hall and Eric Holder is all involved in this too?
Absolutely.
You got every major one of the henchmen on the left is here and spending big in Wisconsin.
We had leveled the playing field and they just poured millions more in.
So right now, Crawford and her allies are running about 1,000 points higher.
I think the way to offset that we saw last fall, you know, Donald Trump's campaign and allies were outspent by about a billion and his command of earned media, his command of social media combined to counter that, that's why I just hope and pray that we can get the president in before this election because I think he can help offset all the money that's being spent here.
They're spending a lot more than they did two years ago.
All right, Scott Walker, we're going to stay on this issue and follow it closely.
April 1st, early voting has started in Wisconsin.
I'd ask everybody in Wisconsin, get your friends, your neighbors, and assume that your vote will be the determining vote in this race.
A lot of money is being thrown at the conservatives, the conservative in this race for the very purpose of having a liberal court, Supreme Court in Wisconsin.
Scott Walker, good to hear your voice again, my friend.
Thank you.
800-941-Sean, if you want to be a part of the program.
You want smart political talk without the meltdowns?
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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.
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.