The Megyn Kelly Show - Sen. Ted Cruz on the Supreme Court, the Debates and the Media | Ep. 4

Episode Date: October 2, 2020

Megyn Kelly is joined by Sen. Ted Cruz to discuss the Supreme Court and what happens next with Amy Coney Barrett, his personal experience working for Supreme Court justices, the debate this week and his suggestion for new moderators and a new format, the media, 2016, 2020 and 2024 presidential politics and more.Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms:Twitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShowFind out more information at:https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow

Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations. Hey everybody, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. We have got Senator Ted Cruz with us today, and he has got some strong thoughts on the debate this week and is actually calling now for new rules to be implemented on who can moderate these debates, suggesting there is too much anti-Trump or anti-Republican bias in the moderators, in the selections that the Commission on Presidential Debates are making. And it's interesting to me because I will tell you, I had my own experience this week where I live tweeted the debate and my random thoughts as I watched it and was promptly met by an article from some website that normally traffics in the Kardashians and the Bachelorette saying one thing is clear from her Twitter feed, Megyn Kelly is for Trump. So this is what happens when you just cover him and Joe Biden fairly, right?

When you just say, okay, point Biden, point Trump, point Biden, point Trump. This is a weakness for Trump. This is a weakness for Biden. And I encourage anybody to go back and look at my Twitter at Megyn Kelly to make up their own minds. But it's stunning to me, unless you are talking about Trump as though he is frothing at the mouth and only a little bit close to me, unless you are talking about Trump as though he is frothing at the mouth and only only a little bit close to human, you're biased. You're in the tank for him and you're clearly voting for him. I think this is crazy. And I will tell you, even when Trump and I are good now, but when he was coming after me for all that time after our debate last time around, you go back and look at my coverage. I hit him when he deserved

to be hit. He did a couple of really crazy things like going after the Gold Star family. But I covered him very fairly and defended him on a lot of stuff, even though personally, I wasn't that happy with the guy. And that is the challenge that these journalists face today. I know they hate him. They make no pretense of even trying to hide it. But you owe it to your audience to try, you know, just to be fair. And honestly, if you don't, you're going to lose them. You're going to lose at least half of them. They don't they don't trust you. There's not a single Trump fan in the country that trusts CNN or MSNBC. Whereas I do think some center lefties watch Fox News. They certainly did watch the

Kelly file when I was on. So I think this sort of attitude is at their own peril. And I think people really need to consider, is it that hard? Is it that hard to try to be fair to both sides? Hope springs eternal that they will learn. As Scarlett O'Hara said, tomorrow is another day. Evan Hafer is a guy who started a coffee company after about 20 years in the U.S. Army as an infantryman, special forces soldier and CIA contractor. And the company he started is called Black Rifle Coffee Company. He's now the CEO and he's the founder. And this guy served our country honorably and understood the troops needed something very badly. And that was caffeine and not just the troops. But listen to what he did. He started roasting his own coffee in 2006

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This is brilliant. They say you do well at things that you love. So put your passion into those and success will follow. So his company, Black Rifle Coffee Company, has donated over 45,000 pounds of coffee or over 1 million cups of coffee, if you want to look at it that way, to soldiers deployed overseas, as well as law enforcement officers, wildland firefighters on the West Coast, and medical workers during the COVID-19 response just in 2020 alone. Good for him. Now, the best way to enjoy this stuff, Black Rifle Coffee,

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from around the world to be roasted for vets and for people that love America and coffee. BlackRifleCoffee.com slash MK will get you 20% off coffee, apparel and gear, as well as 20% off your first month of the coffee club. Senator Ted Cruz, great to have you here. It's great to be with you, Megan, and congrats on the new podcast. Thank you so much. You know, you were the very first guest on The Kelly File, which turned out to be a very good omen for me. And so here you are, my very first week on The Megyn Kelly Show. So I'm feeling good. It's an honor. Well, I remember well, and you took off like a phenom on Fox, and I'm sure you will in the podcast world, too.

Now, the question for you is whether Donald Trump or Joe Biden took off like a phenom at the debate this week. What would you grade each one of those guys? Oh, look, I think the whole thing was a mess. I mean, they were yelling at each other. They were interrupting each other. They were insulting each other. I thought that got a bit much on both sides. At the end of the day, I doubt the debate changed a whole lot.

I think if you entered the evening supporting Trump, you left the evening still supporting Trump. And if you entered supporting Biden, you probably left supporting Biden. Did you feel like Trump did well? I thought he had some good moments. I thought the best moment that Trump had was the contrast when he said, Joe Biden wants to shut down the economy, shut down small businesses, take away your job, shut down the schools. I want to see the economy open. I want small businesses open. I want people to go back to work. I want kids to go down the schools. I want to see the economy open. I want small businesses open. I want people to go back to work. I want kids to go back to schools. And this is a choice between which path America goes. I thought that was a clear and important contrast and Trump's best

moment of the night. What did you make of all the interrupting? People may not know that you're a storied debater. You've argued in front of the U.S. Supreme Court nine times. You've had 43 oral arguments at courts of appeal across the country, not to mention all your years as a U.S. senator. So you've definitely got thoughts on how one debates well. What did you make of it? You know, I thought it was excessive. I would have rather had a more reasoned conversation rather than just yelling at each other. I also think several times Trump actually bailed Joe Biden out, that rather than letting him answer, he'd interrupt with something else. And I think I think Biden would have been in more trouble had he just spoken more. I also think Chris Wallace did a very poor job moderating.

And you've obviously moderated those before and you've sat next to Chris doing it. And I think Chris did not follow the lines of impartiality. I think he stepped in repeatedly to bail Joe Biden out in a way that I thought was very inappropriate. Wait, I'll get to that in one sec, but I want to know, you know, as you're watching the debate go down and the interruptions are happening, are you thinking, how would I have handled this if I were Joe Biden? Because you've debated Trump many times. What would you have done if you'd been on the receiving end of that? Oh, look, I think Biden handled some of that pretty well. was probably that the expectations for him were so low that he was able to give coherent answers

and lay out his positions. And I had been raising a caution flag for some time that I think conservatives convince themselves that Biden has full-on dimension, that he can't operate a remote control. I think that's exaggerated. I think Joe has lost a step, but he was able to articulate what he believes and he did fine. And that was probably beneficial for Joe. It was also helpful for him to at least purport to run away from some of the more radical positions of his party. So when he, when Joe said he didn't support defunding the police, um, that was probably good for him to say. Now, I think Wallace and or Trump both should have pressed back on him and said, well, wait a second here. Uh, your party certainly does. The NYPD does when cutting a billion dollars,

the Austin police department does Portland does Minneapolis does. Um,PD does when cutting a billion dollars. The Austin Police Department does. Portland does. Minneapolis does. And we're seeing the results. I think there should have been a lot more pushback. But Biden at least tried to run away from the more extreme and more unpopular positions in his party. Right, that and the Green New Deal. And he wouldn't comment on whether he's going to pack the U.S. Supreme Court if he gets in office. But you raise a good point because I guarantee you, I guarantee you Chris Wallace had follow ups to all of those. There's no way he wouldn't have had that in his outline. But he didn't get to ask any of them because the clock kept ticking. Trump kept interrupting. It would spin out of control. And as the moderator, I mean, I could I could almost feel his panic, like the outlines gone, the debates gone. And I'll defend him in this conversation just by saying,

sometimes when you're panicking over the time that's that's ticking away, you try to do a fast wrap of the topic. And I think Chris kind of gave it to Biden many times over the course of that hour and a half in an attempt to move on and maybe didn't realize that he was leaning a little bit more toward the one candidate than the other. Yeah, look, I understand that. And this was an incredibly difficult debate for anyone to moderate. I mean, Trump is a force of nature and not a traditional debater, to put it mildly. You know, I think Chris snickered and laughed and had some smart-alecky comments that... I think it's perfectly clear that Chris is voting for Joe Biden

and not Donald Trump, and I think that came out in the debate, and that is not a good thing for someone who's moderating a general election debate. The questions, he was willing to ask the questions that are the oppo dump on Trump, and he didn't have the same willingness to do that to Biden. And I think that's, and actually something I suggested today, I'd like to see how debates are done reformatted. I saw that. So what do you what do you want to have happen?

Look, I think there is a pretense of objectivity. But I think in Republican primaries, many of the people who are moderating the debate are themselves liberal Democrats who want everyone on the stage to lose. Most. Most. Political affiliations of journalists. And in the general election, most of the people who moderate are also Democrats themselves. You know, the next debate, Scully was literally an intern for Joe Biden and an intern for Ted Kennedy. I mean, that's pretty remarkable. I didn't know that.

The guy moderating the next debate was an intern for Joe Biden? Yes. I mean, it's pretty stunning. And look, people can have political backgrounds and be in journalism, but what I would suggest is sort of drop the pretense. So I suggested two common sense rules going forward, which is, number one, in a Republican primary debate, the moderators should be to ask the kinds of questions a Republican primary voter would care about rather than in the Republican primary debates you have. So you, you know, you may remember one of the debates where, you know, John Harwood was insulting everyone in the in the primary debate. And I kind of went off on him on it. There was no doubt he was going to vote for the Democrat, and he wanted all of us to lose. And so I think that's a strange way to do a primary debate. And then what I suggested for the general election is rather than have sort of fake impartiality, just own the bias and have one outspoken conservative and one outspoken liberal.

So I suggested a couple of pairings. I said, you know, look, Mark Levin and Chris Hayes, everyone knows, or Rush Limbaugh and Rachel Maddow, or Ben Shapiro and Chris Cuomo. All right. Well, now, I object to all of this. No, I get it. I get it. Just be open about the bias. But if I object to these rules, number one, because they would exclude me in any way, shape or form, because I'm a registered independent and I think I know how to do a good debate. A fair point. And I actually agree you don't fall neatly into if you were sort of openly owning the bias that that might leave you out. So sorry. Sorry. I object to all of that.

And, you know, most of the journalists will tell you, oh, you know, I'm I'm I'm independent or I'm I'm nonpartisan. And they really are. I'm actually not. I've been a registered Dem. I've been a registered Republican. I've been a registered independent for the past decade plus. But, you know, I vote the I guess man or woman, not the party. Most politicians, present company accepted, irritate me, and it's hard for me to feel real affinity for them.

I can say candidly from having done several debates with you moderating that you don't have the contempt for the Republican field that a lot of the other moderators did. And it came across in the questions and the approach, which is not... And by the way, those journalists are great for a Democratic primary. They actually reflect the Democratic primary voters' priorities, because that's how they personally feel. But the questions many of the primary debates have are not questions that actual Republican voters care about. Okay, but let me ask you one thing on that. I agree that the Republicans are trying to figure out during their primary

who represents my view, who do I most want to see representing my party in the general. But the other piece of it is who can win? You know, and I remember at that debate, you know, the now infamous debate with Trump and my question to him about the women. One of the things I was asking Scott Walker about was whether he was too extreme on the on the abortion issue. Right. Because most of the Republicans are just fine with somebody who's pro-life. You kind of have to be pro-life if you want to win as a GOP presidential candidate. But I was pressing, I just chose to press him on whether that was going to be too extreme because he didn't want

any exceptions for the life or health of the mother and the Democrats would go insane to win in a general. So don't you think, you know, there's some value in having some representation of what's important to the left and whether you can overcome it to get enough people in the center to win? So, of course, there is. But but I actually think primary voters know that. I mean, you get that question all the time. OK, who's who's best positioned to win? And so that's if you look in the Democratic primary, I mean, that's the main reason Joe Biden ended up winning the nomination is because they had a very explicit conversation where most of their party was with Elizabeth Warren and was with the far left and with Bernie. But at the end of the day, Joe Biden convinced them in their primary that he had a better shot of winning. And so they had a very explicit conversation, but it wasn't a conversation. I mean, imagine a democratic primary debate this cycle moderated by Rush Limbaugh. I mean, that would be kind of absurd, wouldn't it?

Who wouldn't tune in for that? It'd be interesting. And my point is that it's all one-sided, that for a primary debate, you shouldn't have people moderating it who want everyone on the stage to lose. You should actually have people moderating it who are saying, look, one of were doing a debate, let's say with Mark Levin and Chris Hayes, you'd get hard questions. Both sides would get hard questions. I mean, I try to pick people who are smart, serious. I'm going to say, you do that and you add somebody, you add a news person in the center who can- And I could live with that too. That would be i think we've struck a deal i think we have it we obviously have it all right for when you run in 2024 which i'll get to in a minute um but let's talk about the supreme court because that's the hottest issue of the day and you're

the perfect person to ask about it let's start broad do you think amy coney barrett is going to be confirmed and by when uh i do i i feel very good about it. I think she will be confirmed. Obviously, the hearings start in judiciary on October 12th, and I think we will confirm her by the end of the month. I think she'll be confirmed before Election Day, which I think is really important to ensure we have a full functioning non-justice Supreme Court there in case there are any election disputes that come out. You don't think there are any meaningful, effective tactics the Democrats can do to stop it? I don't, and I hope there aren't. Now, I mean, I'll admit we've been sitting and brainstorming with creative parliamentary experts about everything. I think they'll try everything they can,

and they may try some extraordinary things. You know, they may try storming out and boycotting. I think at the end of the day, that is pretty limited. Or what if there's suddenly someone that's not exactly this way, but like a Christine Blasey Ford who suddenly comes out to die-fi with a hideous allegation against Judge Barrett? Well, I think they will try that if they can find anything.

So I sat down with Judge Barrett this week and spent about 45 minutes with her in the Capitol, and I think she's very impressive. Her credentials are very strong, but I was really impressed with her temperament. I think your temperament is very calm. It's, it's scholarly, it's a judicial temperament. And, and, you know, I, I told her, I said, listen, right now they're trying to find someone, uh, who, who went to third grade with you who hates your guts. And, and, you know, I don't know what's going to drop out of nowhere. Look, I had in particular feel for her because she's got seven kids. And we've seen a couple of Democratic operatives begin by attacking the kids and attacking that the two

of the children were adopted from Haiti. And I just think kids should be off limits. I mean, I mean, I think that's despicable. It's not only did we see Democratic operatives do it, but like there was one woman who worked for both Democratic and congressional offices and campaigns. She's tweeting about how she'd love to know which adoption agency Judge Barrett got her children from and suggesting something untoward happened. And then even Ibram X. Kendi, the author of How to Be an Anti-Racist, Boston University professor, apropos of nothing, oh, it just had nothing to do with her, although it happened right after she was announced,

tweets out, some white colonizers adopted, in quotes, black children. They, quote, civilized these, quote, savage children in the, quote, superior ways of white people while using them as props in their lifelong pictures of denial, while cutting the biological parents of these children out of the picture of

humanity and whether this is Barrett or not is not the point it's a belief too many white people have if they have or adopt a child of color then they can't be racist that didn't have anything to do with Barrett even though she's mentioned nothing to do with her I mean even though she's mentioned, nothing to do with her. I mean, it's, I think it's twisted. And, and what I visited her, that was like, how are the kids? And, and, you know, look, this is something I've, I've seen firsthand having run for office. As you know, our girls now, you've known them since they were little, but our girls now are nine and 12. I remember on the 2016 presidential campaign when the Washington Post did an editorial cartoon of Heidi's and my daughter's where they drew them as dancing monkeys. And the girls were, I think, five and seven at the time.

And I had to sit down and tell them, OK, so there's this cartoon that was done of you. And I remember Catherine was just like, why would they draw me as a monkey? And I was like, well, sometimes people are mean and they get angry, but it's okay. And it was not. And so I actually told, told Amy about that. And I said, look, I've been in the position of trying to explain to young kids why someone would draw them in in into this kind of fight. And so I do. I hope that we don't see the hearings go that way. I hope I hope that that that some some bit of decency holds the attack back. But who knows?

And we're already seeing it, you know, people attacking her Catholicism. I mean, Bill Maher came out and called her an effing nutcase, talking about how Catholic she is. And I know the Democrats are like, well, Nancy Pelosi is Catholic too, and so do Mayor. But it is being made an issue of suggesting that The Handmaid's Tale was written based on some sect that she's... Anyway, there's a lot already, and it's going to be ugly. Question. Some of the Democrats are saying she should recuse herself if we go through an election nightmare and the case has to go up to the Supreme Court and she's on it, that she has an obligation to recuse herself from deciding it. Your thoughts on that? So I think that's an absurd claim.

I expect them actually to press it at the hearings. And it was certainly it's certainly a talking point that you're seeing pushed. One of the biggest reasons why it's important for us to confirm her to the court is that this election in particular, I think there's a very significant likelihood that it's contested. It's close. I think either side that loses, there's a real chance they'll file litigation challenging it. As you know, I was part of the legal team in Bush versus Gore. This is one of the things I talk about in my book, One Vote Away. Each chapter in the book focuses on a different constitutional right, and it talks about major landmark cases before the Supreme Court that I helped litigate. And Bush versus Gore,

you know, I was a young lawyer in the George W. Bush campaign. That's actually where Heidi and I met. We were in cubicles right down the hall from each other. And in that election, as you remember well, on election night, George W. Bush won, and he was declared the winner, but then it became the margin was very close. And so Al Gore challenged it, brought in lawyers and filed lawsuits to challenge it. And I was in Tallahassee, was in Florida for that entire time. And it was it was complete chaos. You know, I write in the book about how like we had a war room with a white board on the wall and there were seven different lawsuits that were pending simultaneously, any one of which could cost the presidency of the United States.

The stakes. And twice that case went to the U.S. Supreme Court. The first time we won unanimously, nine to nothing, where the Supreme Court said the Florida Supreme Court, which was a partisan Democratic court, had gotten it wrong. The second time it went to the Supreme Court on the question of remedy, the court divided 5-4. And the court held that the ballots had been counted four times, Bush had won all four. And that enough was enough that they couldn't keep challenging it over and over and over again and ended it. It was 36 days of complete chaos where the country and the world didn't know who the next president was going to be. And it's going to be harder this year. I think this year, and if there are eight, if the court is divided four, four, they don't have the authority to decide anything.

And and what could make it even. So what makes it really crazy is is in Florida, you just had one jurisdiction where it was being challenged. I think there's a real possibility. Let's say Biden, if he were to lose. I think Biden could file lawsuits in three or four or five states. And so you could have, say, the Ninth Circuit deciding a case out of Arizona and the Eleventh Circuit deciding a case out of Florida. Now, normally, if federal courts of appeals conflict, you go to the Supreme Court to resolve it. If the Supreme Court were divided 4-4, nobody knows what would happen. You just have conflicting decisions and

a constitutional crisis. Joe Biden would start appointing three extra judges from his home in Delaware. It's gotten so crazy, Senator. It would be nuts. It's going to be nuts either way if Trump challenges too, if he loses. Either way we might be headed for a massive, massive legal battle. And an important point, Megan, on the recusal. So a number of reporters asked me on the recusal, and I asked them, I said, well, do you think that Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor should recuse themselves because they were appointed in the Obama-Biden administration?

And the answer, by the way, is of course not, that every justice was appointed by a president and confirmed by a Senate. And justices routinely have to rule on cases that involve the president and administration that appointed them. That's part of the job. And it is important to underscore, look, I don't want to see any justice confirmed because that justice would rule for whatever candidate I happen to support. That's not a Supreme Court justice's job. What I want to see is a justice that will ensure that the law is followed, that if there's litigation and uncertainty, we should follow federal law and follow the Constitution. And that means whoever actually won the election should be the winner,

and we should have a functioning Supreme Court that can ensure we're following the law and have a clear forum to resolve those disputes. So not long ago, my husband Doug and I were visiting his mom, and she had boxes and boxes of slides of their family vacations when they were growing up. His dad died a couple of years ago. So we really wanted to see some of these things. And just I would like to see Doug when he was young and his family and so on. But they're in slides and we don't have a slide projector because we are modern day Americans. And so as it turns out, there is a solution to that problem and it works great. It's called Legacy Box. This thing

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Isn't that just as important as creating the memories? I love being able to easily send in my own old family videos and watch them back like all my stuff when I was first doing television. I mean, that that needs to be preserved just for mockability for my children to me. And it helps you save your memories that otherwise, you know, you'd lose. So the process from start to finish is super easy. You pack and send. Their team will digitize everything by hand and then you enjoy. It is a company you can trust. It was founded by college roommates, Nick and Adam, over a decade ago. So if they sucked, they'd be out of business by now. And today, Legacy Box is the world's largest digitizer of home movies and photos. I feel like I should be getting credit for saying digitizer so well and digitalized. It's not easy. Uh, right. Digitized, digitalized, digitized.

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You go to LegacyBox.com slash MK and you will get an incredible 40% off your first order. That's sweet. I think that's the best deal we've gotten for you guys. LegacyBox.com slash MK to get 40% off your first order you buy today to take advantage of this exclusive offer and send them in when you're ready. Again, it's Legacybox.com slash MK, 40% off while supplies last. Do you think that the threat that Joe Biden would not answer, whether he's prepared to pack the court with additional justices, which they think would be more even if he wins. If there is a Justice Coney Barrett sitting there.

Do you think they mean it? I mean, doing it would be it would devastate the court. I think it ruins the Supreme. There's no more Supreme Court effectively. So so I feel like it's an empty threat. So I don't. I think they are deadly serious about it. I think the anger on the far left is, it's not good for the country. The rage and division we see, I worry about the

country for it. But I think if Biden wins and the Democrats take the Senate, I think within the first couple of weeks, Schumer will end the filibuster. And I think they have the votes for it. I think every Democrat votes for it. What that means, if you end the filibuster, it means that the minority in the Senate can no longer stop whatever agenda they try to force through. I think one of the first things they would do after ending the filibuster is add two new states to the United States, add the District of Columbia and add Puerto Rico. And the reason, and they've been very open about this, the reason is crassly political, which is that they believe those jurisdictions would elect four new Democratic senators. So if we started January with

50 Democratic senators, we could end the year with 54. And then I believe that they would move to pack the court, and I think they would probably have the votes. It depends how big their margin is. This week, Joe Manchin said he wouldn't do it. And Dianne Feinstein has suggested she might not. Although, frankly, I'm skeptical if they have the majority and push came to shove. I'm skeptical that any of the Democrats would would buck their leadership. They are they're much better at party discipline, frankly, than Republicans are. And I think the threat to pack the court is very real. And I agree with you that it would deeply politicize the court and it would set the stage for the next Republican majority.

If they increase it to 11, we'd probably increase it to 13. I mean, it turns the court, it really undermines the independence of the judiciary. I think it'd be a terrible thing for the court. That's something Ruth Bader Ginsburg herself said we should not do, that that is not the solution. As many games as both sides have played when it comes to nominating lower court judges and Supreme Court justices, and I know you have a whole explanation as to why you don't think it's hypocritical for the Republicans to push her through. I do disagree with you. I do think the Republicans have reversed themselves from four years ago. But putting that to the side,

it's going to happen. And the Democrats have played dirty, too. And so the real question is, what next? How bad does the fight get? In your book? One vote away. You've got stories about your time clerking as a Supreme Court clerk for then Chief Justice Rehnquist. But I didn't know that you you could have been on the shortlist. Something was leaked about this, but that you were essentially offered a position on the shortlist in June of 2020 by Trump. Is that true? It is. So so each of the three vacancies that occurred, I had very serious conversations with Trump about them. And and it started in November 2016, right right after the election, where I flew to New York and went to Trump Tower and spent about four and a half hours with him and his senior team. And this was the Scalia vacancy that ultimately Neil Gorsuch filled.

And Trump at the time, he leaned in pretty hard and talked to me quite seriously about that position. And I told him then, I said, I didn't want it, that I don't want to be a judge and I don't want to go to the court. And the reason that surprises a lot of people, a lot of people find that a strange thing for me to say. Especially just given your background and, you know, the amount of arguments you've had before the Supreme Court, your time as a solicitor general of the state of Texas, U.S. Senate, all of that. I mean, yeah, you would think you'd want it because it's so prestigious. Well, and I revere the court, but a principled judge stays out of political and policy fights. And if I ever were a judge, I'd do that. I don't want to stay out of the fights. I want to be right

in the middle of them. And I think the right place to do that is the political world. The Senate is the battlefield. And so but I also write in the book that after that conversation with Trump, I went back home and he was giant on the court. And to be seriously in contention to replace him, I mean, it took your breath away. And a lot of my close friends thought I was crazy because as I was wrestling with this before Trump had made the decision, it was – I don't want to overstate it. Trump didn't offer me the position, but it was clearly a real and live possibility. And I thought about it. I prayed about it. I actually had, this is a story I tell in the book, I had my pastor came over one Sunday afternoon and we spent the afternoon talking about it and praying about it. And he had an interesting analogy that he drew. He said he understood why I didn't want to do it. And he said for him, he thought about it. If someone offered him to be the leading theologian in the world and to be this deeply respected academic theologian where you could have an impact on millions, but he'd have

to give up being a pastor. He'd have to give up working with the members of the church and counseling them and being a pastor. He said, you know what? I wouldn't do that, even though it would be very impactful. That's not my calling. It's not how I want to spend my life. And I had a real peace about it. It could be that someday we could wind up with a President Cruz, which would be, you know, arguably more powerful. I'll tell you one thing, just as an aside, I too loved Justice Scalia. My, my judicial outlook is definitely more along the Scalia originalist line. But I love and respect, respected Ruth Bader Ginsburg too. I really, I didn't have the same philosophy as she did, but I just thought she was a great woman and

she was so strong and he's going to Harvard as one of only nine women and all the shit she took. I just I really respected her. By the way, I love that she was legendary. I love that she fell asleep on you during one of your Supreme Court arguments. It was so that was actually the Texas redistricting argument. I tell this. I was there, too i i watched this as a reporter and as a very young reporter for fox it was so it was an afternoon argument which is unusual so it was at one o'clock instead of in the morning when they usually are and it was a two-hour argument instead of a one-hour argument and and i think this is 2005 if i remember. And she put her head down on the bench and fell asleep for about 20

minutes. And she had been, I think she had been under the weather. And so it made lots of news. Well, also, you might have been a little boring that day. It's possible that redistricting is not the sexiest subject. I saw her do it many times. And I'll never forget, she was sitting next to Alito, and he had just made it onto the bench, and she fell asleep. And Alito was up there looking around like, what's the protocol for this? Like, I'm new. Do I elbow her? You know, do I gently? What do I do? funeral just to cover it as a reporter. And of course, all the justices were there. And I saw Scalia on the steps of the church afterward. And he came right over to me. And I'd been at Fox for a few years and I'd been covering the Supreme Court. And he beelined over to me.

And I was like, oh, my God, this is it. He's going to say he respects me and I'm a fair and balanced reporter and he appreciates all my good work. And sure enough, he walks up to me and he says, Miss, would you mind taking a picture of me and this gentleman? All right. That's awesome. Well, he was Scalia was just a spectacular intellect. And Rehnquist, I mean, you know, he was my boss and he was utterly brilliant, totally different temperament than Scalia. I mean, Scalia, as you know, was this loud, voluble, brilliant Italian. I mean, he was, I remember one time up at Harvard, he was talking at the law school,

a couple hundred people there. And several of the students were raising their hands for a question, and he points at them, and they're like, me, me, me. And he's like, oh, it doesn't matter. You're all bound to be hostile anyway. Pick it. And it was just... That's perfect. I know he was so colorful. But I appreciate your stories about Rehnquist in the book, too, because, first of all, I never knew that Chief Justice Rehnquist and Sandra Day O'Connor dated or that you watched porn with them. Can we just can we address that? Can we address porn cases to make it to the Supreme Court. And the justices. So I was a law clerk for Rehnquist. And, you know, the justices at the time didn't really know what the Internet was. I mean, this was right at the dawn of the Internet. And so the court librarians decided to do basically a training session for the justices so they could see how the Internet worked. And so and they ended up pairing the justices together, doing two chambers at a time. So we were in this little room and they they paired this was just coincidence, but they paired Rehnquist and O'Connor together. So it was Rehnquist and O'Connor. The chief had three clerks.

O'Connor had four clerks. So it was the seven clerks and the two justices in this little darkened room with the librarian at the computer. And I still remember she typed in cantaloupe, misspelled, with the search filter off. And at the time, if you did that, you came back up with graphic hardcore porn. Oh, God. And I still remember, I mean, look, it's awkward to be in a room with Sandra Day O'Connor

with like porn on the screen. And I still remember what O'Connor said. She just kind of under her breath, she went, oh, my. And it was and I'm just like not reacting at all. And and one of the as awkward as it was for all of the law clerks. It must have been awkward for Rehnquist and O'Connor because, as you just mentioned, they were classmates in law school at Stanford and they dated. And actually he asked her hand in marriage and she turned him down. Because as you just mentioned, they were classmates in law school at Stanford and they dated. And actually he asked her hand in marriage and she turned him down.

Wow. Well, it would have been really awkward if he had said, could you just just see it to the end? The end part's great. I've seen this. Right. Well, it was. Well, and they used to have that actually used to be a routine part of the Supreme Court. So in the 70s and 80s, the test'd have whatever the movie was that they were adjudicating. And Potter Stewart, a former justice, had a famous test for obscenity, which is, I know it when I see it. I see 100% a man came up with this. There's zero chance a female judge said, what we're going to do is watch the movie.

And then there's just right no way a woman settled on that and i'm glad the court is out of that business now but but i i think it's woodward in in the brethren tell stories of um i think it was thurgood marshall clerks down watching the movie who would who would kind of heckle and be like i know it i. I see it. That's it. Oh, yeah, I see it. And I'm very glad the court is no longer another five or 10 minutes or 40. So now they don't do that anymore, which is a good thing. You, you know, obviously had a lot of success in the judicial world, in the legal world. You go on to run for senator and win and become one of the most prominent senators in the United States. And then you decide to throw your hat in in the presidential race and did really

well last time around. I mean, it was just down to you and Trump. And I followed you a lot on the campaign trail. I was at a lot of your rallies and there was tremendous love for you amongst the voters. You just happened to be going up against a very unusual, extremely dynamic, unlike anything we've ever seen before, candidate on the other side. Sure. But I wonder, as a man, how hard it was when you finally had to admit that it was over. So it was very hard. It was one of the hardest times in my life. Now, look, I loved every second of the campaign trail. I mean, it's the most fun I've ever had. And we came very, very close. We ended up winning 12 states at the end of the day, had about 8 million votes cast for us. We had 326,000 volunteers. We raised $92 million, which is the most money any Republican has ever raised in the history of primaries. We raised more than George W. Bush or John McCain or Mitt Romney.

It was 1.8 million contributions. And it was really, it was an amazing grassroots movement. And at the end of the day, Trump won. And he is a phenom. And in particular, he ended up receiving over $3 billion of free media, and that became too much to overcome. And so, you know, one story I tell in the book is on the night that we suspended the campaign, it was after the Indiana primary where the numbers were clear that we did not have a path to victory. And so I went out that night and gave a speech and announced that, that we were suspending the campaign. And, and I still remember there was a woman in, in, in the crowd who, who, who let out just a, uh, a shriek. I mean, I mean, she just, she, and it, it pierced me

and I barely could make it through the rest of the speech. And there were several hundred people there who were volunteers, who many of them had traveled to Iowa, traveled to South Carolina. We set up, we had dorm rooms where people would come and camp and they'd go knock on doors. And I wanted to stay and personally thank every one of them and hug them. And I just lacked the strength. And so I went backstage because tears were running down my face. And there were a gazillion TV cameras there. Look, I'll be damned if I was going to, on the way out of the race, let the press turn lying Ted into crying Ted. I just was not going to cry in front of the TV camera, so I needed to go backstage. Good for you.

But Heidi's— Because it's not a good group of people. It was not going to be an image that I was going to give them. But Heidi stayed out with with everyone there for, I think, over an hour. Just she had the strength to thank everyone just to to hug them. And and I was grateful she was there. I wished I could. I still feel guilty that I didn't. It's so personal. Stay out with them. And it's good to hear that you have the same reaction most humans have, which is you can hold it together. But then as soon as you see somebody else is either feeling sorry for you

or upset about bad news you've just gotten, that's what pushes you over the edge. Like you can hold it together until you see the sympathy or pain in someone else's eyes. And then you got to go. Knowing Heidi, by the way, I'm not surprised. By the way, Heidi Cruz is a powerhouse in her own right. She's, I think it's fair to say she's the breadwinner in the family. She's got a very powerful job in finance and was a lawyer and the whole bit, and yet still is soft when the moment calls for it, which by the way, is very possible. I want to ask you because... Everything else is transient. You know, life, there are high points and low points. And if you're on a journey with someone who you are partners, that's an incredible thing. And I'm incredibly blessed in that regard. My advice to my children is good little boys and girls never leave their mommy.

Never. Never, ever. And it gets terrifying. Caroline is 12 right now, and I'm, and it gets terrifying. Caroline is 12 right now, and I'm quite frightened for the teenage years. You're on the edge, man. You think running for president was hard? You know, walking around New York City these days, it doesn't feel that safe.

A lot has happened here, especially where I am on the Upper West Side, that makes you worried. You know, I would not let my kids walk the dog by themselves at 730 in the evening like I would have six months ago. The character of the neighborhood is changing and the threat level is very clearly increasing. And there have been shooting deaths in New York City like we haven't seen in a long time. So it's just it's getting a little scarier. And I know New York is not the only place where that's true. Now, some people, here in New York, you can't have concealed carry. So if you want to carry a gun, forget about it. But they do allow pepper spray in most places. And there is a company called Palm Industries that is making sort of the next gen of pepper spray.

It's like good looking to hold the container and it works well. So it's kind of like the apple, I'd say, of Palm, of pepper sprays. It's got this intuitive, easy to use, discreet look to it. It's attractive, but it works. They've leveraged decades worth of experience producing these aerosol products. So they know how to create the most up-to-date, simple, safe, powerful self-defense products. And, you know, they've made it so it's not overwhelming for you. You know, when you need your pepper spray, you need it right away. You don't want to have to spend 40 minutes figuring it out. Apparently, all these elite trainers around the company love it. They call

it the go-to non-lethal self-defense product. And they use the strongest and safest formulation legal to carry in all 50 states. So if you're going to go the pepper spray route, you can't do better than this. No harmful side effects. It's got fast acting, powerful bursts of spray. It goes a maximum distance of up to 12 feet and 12 seconds of continuous spray. Good Lord. Can you imagine? That's good. 12 seconds. That gives you enough time to start running. Um, it's got a practical carry size, most compact half an ounce personal carrying unit available, and you can get it in three different forms. You can get it like a clip. Usually the guys like that, cause you can clip it in your pockets of

your pants. You can get it in a key, which is like a key ring. So ladies, you know how it is always scary when you're coming home to your house by yourself, just you and your key ring. So you could pop it right on there. And then there's a snap, which you can sort of attach to a ring or a lanyard, which is really sending a message like, don't, don't even think about messing with me. You know what this is around my neck. Um, so deterrence is always good. Anyway, it comes in 30 different design color combinations and you can get it. Again, it's called Palm Pepper Spray at pompepperspray.com. That's P-O-M, pepperspray.com, at Amazon, and at selected gun shops or pharmacies or retail stores throughout the country. So we're starting a new feature for you today on the Megyn Kelly Show called Sound Up. It's where we take a soundbite making the rounds

in the news and weigh in with our thoughts. Steve Krakauer, my executive producer, who also writes and produces Fourth Watch, which is an awesome newsletter, which you guys should check out. It's totally fair and balanced and I'm entertained by it all the time. He's here with me. So what's our first soundbite, Steve? Thanks, Megan. Yeah, we've got actually two soundbites that are very related. They're both about our good friend, Governor Andrew Cuomo from New York. So the first one, we'll just play it first and let you react. I put my head on the pillow at night saying Iaposition between one's public image and the facts. I, too, was swept up by the Cuomo smoothness at the beginning of the coronavirus quarantine. You know, I felt like the guy was giving it to me straight. He had these press conferences. He would tell you the good. He would tell you the bad. I'm like, OK, I get it. I see what he's doing. Boy, oh boy, did that change once the true data started coming in on the deaths in New York State. And the thing that

he has not taken responsibility for is the thing my pal Janice Dean has been jumping up and down trying to call attention to, which is the deaths in the New York nursing homes. Thanks to his order, his order, 6,000, 6,000 plus COVID positive patients were sent to nursing homes. All right. Since his order in it, that was in place for 46 days and people died. We lost thousands of people. We lost more than we lost on 9-11. And the guy refuses to take responsibility. He's blamed the nursing homes. He blamed God. He blamed, I mean, like I could go down the list. But for him to then try to turn it into, I put my head on the pillow at night knowing I saved lives. You know, tell it to the families of the people who died unnecessarily in the New York State nursing homes. I just, I'll wait. I'll wait. Yeah. That was from a radio interview yesterday. So still not taking any responsibility. Okay. Staying with the Cuomo family, here's our second and final sound up clip. Letting tens of thousands of people, they went to the hubs. That's why we got so sick here.

Does it trouble you at all that New York and New Jersey had the highest death rates in the country? Of course. Does that make you pause and say, gosh. It all troubles me, Ted. And to watch guys like you stand by and stroke your beard like a wise man instead of telling the president to get on it when you have power is a problem. How about tell your brother to get on it? My brother will stand for his own record.

How about thinking about the public policy? Why don't you talk to the president the way you talk to my brother, Ted? You afraid of him? You think he'll smack you down at home? Oh that what it is? Like he shut you up in the primary? You guys are really tough. I'm talking about the president. My brother's not the president. I'm talking about the president. The one who called you a liar. The one who said your wife was ugly. That guy, you know, the guy now who you won't say anything about. I recognize that you like it. You actually wonder why you don't have a lot of Republicans that want to come on your show.

I have more than any other show. Yell at me and insult. I'm not. I'm not yelling. And by more than any other show on CNN, Chris Cuomo means I've just had this one. I have this one who appeared on my show tonight. Well, that's a timely one. And we got to take it up with Ted Cruz. Speaking of children, I saw parts of your interview last night with Chris Cuomo. I don't know why you went on that show. I know you're you're selling a book, but still, I don't know who in his audience is going to buy Ted Cruz's book.

And he was just as disrespectful to you as I'm sure your team predicted. And to me, it was infuriating. It was infuriating. He was he was like he was worse than Trump was at the at the debate with interruptions and putting you down and picking a fight and then claiming the moral high ground. And you two really got into it over COVID. I mean, the whole interview with Cuomo was, I mean, it was a mudfest and he was attacking and screaming and yelling. And actually, I mentioned during the interview, he was behaving like the debaters in Tuesday's debate and not wanting to have an actual conversation and a civil conversation.

And I think it's somewhat indicative of the sort of angry screaming time we find ourselves in. What are you doing? Why are you going on that show? Because I want to reach a broader audience. The book, One Vote Away, I think addresses a lot of important issues. And I made the case on that show also that, listen, I recognize addresses a lot of important issues. And, you know, I made the case on that show also that, listen, I recognize that a lot of your viewers may come from a different spot politically than I am. But if you want to understand why so many millions of people are deeply concerned about the Supreme Court or deeply concerned and want to protect free speech and religious liberty in the Second Amendment, I encourage you to read the book because it gives you the inside story of what's going on. And it may help you get a perspective on on a very large chunk of the country. And I don't know if that message resonated with anyone or not, but I went on there and look, I anticipated that he would come at me I didn't think he would be as personal

and nasty as he was uh but but I was perfectly fine you know I mean I've done done lots of shows I've done uh you know I've done Chris Matthews I've done Chris Hayes you know I mean I I will will do you know I did Jake Tapper just recently do Chuck Todd all the time and I'm used to having more respectful Jake Tapper would never ask a question like that. Never. I mean, he would not. And I've known Jake since he was a young reporter at Slate covering the George W. Bush 2000 campaign. And he, you know, Cuomo behaved. I thought it was over the top. You know, there is an interesting reaction. So lefties, they're they're standard. And this is true on Twitter. You know, I mean, I read a lot of the terrible things people say on Twitter. But the first place lefties go is Trump insulted your wife and your dad.

Trump insulted like it's the number one attack. And they, you know, look, Cuomo was reveling and repeating it over and over again and kind of it's sort of an excuse to stick the knife in. And listen, 2016 was bare knuckled. Trump said things I didn't like and I popped back hard and we had a hell of a fight. And then it's over. We put it beyond us. And by the way, Heidi and my dad have put it beyond them, too. They both care about the country. And, you know, the view of some on the left is given that fight that I don't know, I guess I should have, what, taken my marbles and gone home and said, I'm not going to work with the president and I'm not going to fight for good Supreme Court justices and I'm not going to fight for tax cuts or jobs that that that to me doesn't make any sense. I've got a job to do. So I'm going to work with a man. Well, I mean, they were quick

to overlook it when Kamala Harris became the vice presidential nominee of a man she said was a racist and may have committed a sexual assault. I mean, politics is ugly and it's true on both sides that mean things get said during the primary. And there are many reasons why you might be willing to overlook it when time goes on. All right. I got to let you go. But I have to ask you what you that is this volatile. I think it depends what happens over the next month. I think the biggest thing it depends on is if people are going back to work, if people are feeling optimistic about the future, if people are hopeful, I think it could be a very good election. I think Trump could get reelected. I think we could grow our majority in the Senate. I think Republicans could even take the House back. On the flip side, if we have more shutdowns, if more people are out of work, if people are home and broken, unemployed and pissed off, I think it could be a devastating election where Democrats could win across the board. And I think a Biden, Pelosi, Schumer federal government would do more damage than Obama did in eight years. And so I've never seen an election that

has such wildly disparate outcomes that I think are entirely possible. It's one of the reasons I wrote this book, One Vote Away, why I wrote it this summer is because in thinking about the stakes, I think preserving the Bill of Rights and our constitutional liberties, preserving free speech, preserving religious liberty, preserving the Second Amendment is incredibly important. I actually think it's the most important issue in the race. And so I wrote the book to coincide with the election because I hope people read it. That's why I went on CNN. I hope someone reads it and says, you know what, even if I may not personally care for Donald Trump, and I understand why people have that reaction, I care about free speech. I care about religious liberty.

I don't want to see a Supreme Court that undermines my rights. And I hope that that helps produce a good election outcome and helps people also understand the stakes in the epic gladiatorial battle we have right now with Judge Barrett. Yeah. Any chance we're going to see you on the presidential ticket or vying to get on it in 2024? Oh, sure. Sure. Look, I've made no secret about that, that I hope to run again. And I love doing it last time. And I hope the president is reelected. I'm working hard to help him get reelected. But whether he is or not, these battles aren't going away. Our country is deeply divided. You know, I also, I think we need to do much more, those on the right, conservatives, to win people's hearts and minds. I think we spend too much time just

talking to, preaching to the choir, talking to the people watching Fox News each night, and not talking to young people and Hispanics and African-Americans and suburban moms. And so the book is one step trying to do that. You know, I launched a podcast earlier this year, Verdict with Ted Cruz. It ended up becoming the number one ranked podcast in the world. And it's designed, what's interesting is the people who listen to it, we've had over 15 million downloads, and the people who listen to it are a very different demographic than the folks Republicans generally talk to. And so I'm very committed. Well, the audience on Fox News tends to be older, and the podcast audience tends to be younger.

And look, you're only 49 years old, which I think I can speak to is very, very young. It's really the new 39. So you got plenty of runway ahead of you. And it's going to be fun to watch you. Senator Cruz, thanks for being here. Well, thanks for having me. And congrats again on the podcast. All the best. Our thanks to Senator Ted Cruz and our thanks to you for listening.

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