A Look Inside Senator Tim Scott's Voicemail Box | Ep. 35

Major tensions around the country on the police, on criminal justice, on race. Some anarchists are talking about defunding the police, abolish the police, ginning up racial tensions. Well, we have a serious person here who can speak with great authority on real criminal justice reform and on real racial experiences in America. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz. Welcome back to Verdict with Ted Cruz. I'm Michael Knowles. We will get to our special guest in just one second. But first, I have to thank you so much. We've now got over 10 million downloads on this podcast, and it's all thanks to you. It really exceeded our expectations, and we're so glad to be able to continue to do it. Please head over on Apple Podcasts, leave a five-star review if you would like to. And if you want to leave less, then don't leave anything at all. Thank you very much. And please go subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. All right. Because the senator is the greatest booking producer in the history of podcasts, I'm joined by Senator Tim Scott. He is really good at what he does, not just in podcast world, but in all worlds. I am so glad. First of all, Senator Cruz, thank you for bringing Senator Scott on. Senator Scott, you are behind, you are the author behind probably the most significant piece of legislation that the Senate is considering right now. That would be the Justice Act. Yes. Listen, I'm excited about the Justice Act. I wish our Democrat colleagues were more excited about not the Justice Act only, but about actually serving the community that has been wed to the Democrat Party for generations. And they continue to under deliver while over promising. Instead of taking 80% today, giving them an opportunity to say to the people and the communities across the country, we hear you, we see you, we are fighting for you. We could have gotten 80% delivered today. They gave the community zero. They decided to make it an election year issue, an election in November issue, presidential election issue. And that's just so unfortunate for so many kids living in underserved communities, worried about making it from their house to the school, always having in the back of their consciousness whether or not an interaction will end poorly for them. We could have said, we see you today. I think what would be helpful to podcast listeners and viewers is knowing some of your personal story. This is a faith journey and a life journey. And so you grew up, you had a pretty tough upbringing. Absolutely. I grew up in a single parent household, mired in poverty. My mother and father got divorced when I was about seven years old. I felt like this nation, my community had nothing to offer me. So from seven years old, when you come to that decision at seven, it's a bad thing. You drift and all drifting leads in the wrong direction. So by seven, from seven to 14, I was completely a drifter. I flunked out of high school as a freshman. I failed world geography and civics. Now civics is the study of politics. So God has a sense of humor. I'm a United States Senator. Failing civics and then arriving in the body, the most deliberative body in history. I also realized that after being here seven years, I'm not the only one failing civics in the US Senate. I also failed Spanish and English that year. When you fail Spanish and English, two languages, no one considers you bilingual. They all call you bilingual because you can't speak in any language. But I had two major blessings, a mother who believed that the power of prayer would deliver her child and a mentor, a white guy who said, you haven't yet discovered what's in you. You're looking around at your circumstances. He said, that's the wrong view. Your end vision has to be bigger than the vision you see on the outside. And he said, if you look in the mirror and you start blaming yourself, don't blame your dad because he's not around. Do not blame your mother because she's working 16 hours, three days a week and eight hours, two more days a week to put food on the table. He said, blame yourself. He said, the beauty of it is, if you're the problem, the promise is in here. If you see the opportunities from the inside, the obstacles from the inside, the opportunities manifest on the outside. And yet, what do you make of seeing churches now going up in flames? There's a prominent BLM activist on Twitter, he said that people need to smash stained glass windows at churches. That doesn't seem productive to me. Well, it's also the opposite of productive. I would say that that person, I wonder what Martin Luther King Jr. would say to that person. I wonder what John Lewis, who was beaten within an inch of his life and never struck back. What would he say at the Pettus Bridge when he's nearly bleeding out? He would say this, because he said it to me, don't get bitter. Get better. Embrace your nation. Know that if you continue on your journey, it will happen. We took a 5,000 year leap in the last 50 years, mostly because of nonviolent protesters who believed in America. Frederick Douglass did the exact same thing. He said, I'm not fighting against the Constitution, I'm fighting on the Constitution. I'm going to make the nation live up to what it says in the Constitution. Last week, we had a number of senators who went to the floor and read Dr. Martin Luther King's letter from a Birmingham jail, which I did last week as well. Tim and I both participated. It's bipartisan, Democrats and Republicans. It's so powerful. We've all read it in school, but it's different when you hear it. Frankly, it's different when you read it out loud. To read it on the Senate floor is incredibly important, particularly now. One of the points people forget is Dr. King wasn't just Dr. King, he was Reverend King. The letter from the Birmingham jail was written to my fellow clergymen. It was a call to the church. One of the things he says in that letter is for the church to be a thermostat and not a thermometer. Don't just reflect the bigotry of your community, change it, speak up. It's a call to action. You look at these riots and vandals and tearing down George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, because you know Abraham Lincoln was such a confederate. He's presented on ground. Dr. King and Frederick Douglass, they made explicit appeals to the founding principles of our country. They said, we haven't reached it yet. But as Dr. King said, the arc of history bends towards justice. Well, speaking of this justice, I do want to get to this on this exact point. Senator, you have an admirer, I guess, in the audience. This is from Trey, who said, other than Republican senators like Cruz and Scott and Cotton, where is the rest of the Senate GOP on justice as we have, and the phrase that they used is, anarcho-communist insurrectionists tearing down our country's culture and history. Well, listen, that must be a fan of Ted, just as Trey Gowdy. I'm sure Trey Gowdy is a fan of Ted Cruz. Trey G. I did tell him to call, so I'm glad he called. No, just joking. Yeah, listen, I think our conference is, I think we're coming closer and closer to the plate. I think on many issues, we were almost shy in our response to some of the challenges that we saw in the streets, but we just didn't know what to do. One of the things that causes that kind of paralysis is when you think you have to make a choice between law enforcement and communities of color. That is not the binary choice on the table today. The binary choice is for America or against America. In order to have that as the actual choice, we have to say, I am for law enforcement and I'm for communities of color. No conjunction called or, it's and. When that happens, I think we all rise up. And I've been thankful to see the conference coming closer and closer, not only to the microphone, but to the plate. We had 53 Republicans say, let's start debating. I can't imagine that five years ago, because five years ago, I couldn't get Democrats to come to the debate. Well, and Tim's point about and is really important. Protecting civil rights, that doesn't just protect American citizens, that protects police officers, because police officers to do their jobs, they've got to have the trust of the community. And I've heard from so many cops right now who are right now they're demoralized. I mean, they're painted as the demon. And I think Tim's Justice Act was an effort to help the police officers. Listen, I have called every time there has been a shooting in South Carolina where the officer loses his life. I try to make sure that I'm the first person to call the spouse or the parent. Greg Aaliyah, outside of Columbia, South Carolina, lost his life because someone murdered him. The suspect that he was pursuing killed him, left a 18 month old little boy and a beautiful wife, Cassie. I showed up at the wake, the viewing, and had a conversation with her and her parents, and they were surprised to see me. I didn't want any cameras around. I didn't want anybody there. I just wanted to say, I'm so sorry that someone killed your husband. Several months later, she called my office, and she started a nonprofit organization for police officers. I've contributed. We've helped. We stay in touch. She's a blessing to our community. Here's the point. So many officers lose their lives not because they're making $30,000 a year and they're getting rich. It's because when you look at Romans 13, there's this notion of mission, that there are government officials who can be ministers of the gospel carrying a sword, a weapon. For what purpose? For a righteous purpose. Her husband lost his life for a righteous purpose. We should celebrate law enforcement. When I had a major car accident, it was law enforcement that showed up and said to me, son, I was laying on the side of the road. I went through the windshield, came back in my car, fell asleep on the interstate 26, literally on interstate, rolling through traffic in my car. I'm laying there with glass in my backside and my back. And he looks down at me and says, son, your mom is going to be so happy you're alive. And I looked up at him and said, sir, you don't know my mama. She's going to kill me. But what he was trying to tell me, I didn't hear what he was trying to tell me. What he was trying to tell me was that your mother values you more than this car. He was saying to me as he bent down and said, son, you're so much more valuable. You have intrinsic worth far beyond any material possession. He was speaking words of affirmation to who I was. Well, speaking of words of affirmation, I'm glad to hear that you got a nice phone call at your office because I understand you get many phone calls that are not very nice at your office. You know, I unfortunately get a lot of phone calls that are not that nice. And unfortunately, I have learned to deal with it, but they're not always words of encouragement. You know, this is kind of a, this is a safe space. We like to think about it. I mean, this is, we, we try to keep this pretty personal. Yes. Seriously. Could we listen? Yeah. Uncle Tim, this is your Uncle Willie. You, you, I hope you choking your tongue tonight. I don't wish that good. You are the lowest this country ever produced. You sell out. Your mom ain't no good. Your sperm donor is even worse. He should have shot you in your mama face that kitchen. Once again, thank you. This is from the sunshine state. Also, where's the gram? You, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, Marco Ruben's a little bitch. He turns on people and Rick Scott's a goddamn crook. So all of you is going to burn the hell together. So take your ticket one way straight to hell. Have a great day and enjoy your evening. Bye. That's just one. Imagine being, uh, this next one, uh, by new staff assistant, just graduated from college. First job gets to hear this. So if you hang up me, I'll get you. You're probably you're nasty too. Oh, your public is nasty. I'm going to keep on calling. I'm going to start with my first you. And then later on, uh, another one calls. So let's say he's got me in the crosshairs. That's pretty explicit, threatening language. Absolutely. And there's a level of hate that gets directed at Tim that, that frankly is different from other members of Congress. Why is that? I think I know the answer, but I'd like to hear your thoughts. Unfortunately, you know, being, uh, obviously the, the racial, uh, if the, the, the, the racial overtones, uh, the, the racial words, the slurs, the challenges are, you know, being a black conservative where you are out of sync with the, with the heat, what he thinks is the black cause it, it, it, it, it, it incites the kind of rage and anger that, that, that could lead to violent outcomes in a way that very few things I've seen in my life has ever done. And you know, when you get 16 of these, you, you, your, your staff assistants, your, your frontline folks start wondering what in the world, right? To 2011, we literally shut our phones down because the number of racial slurs we were getting from around the country, South Carolina, all from someplace else. It would seem to be common sense. Everyone is clamoring for criminal justice reform. You've offered a bill on this Senator. I started this journey five years ago because of the Walter Scott murder in North Charleston, South Carolina, my hometown, where I grew up. And frankly, Walter Scott was running away from the police. He was shot five times, shot at eight times, but shot five times in the back. The officer falsified the police report and said that he took his taser. When the video came out, which was a few weeks, a few weeks later, literally no one, there was not even a conversation about what happened in the incident because we had an incident report. Right. Had it not been for some guy literally walking by at the exact right moment, the exact right street with his phone out capturing the actual interaction, the engagement. Without that video, we would not have known Walter Scott's name at all. Well, I think the Walter Scott one for a lot of us, sometimes these are complex situations. Sometimes the officer's use of force is justified. The Walter Scott one, everyone looked at that and said, this is outrageous. It's just so clear. And I know there are some people in this debate who say that we need to abolish the police. The police are hopelessly corrupt. And we got to, well, I don't know, they're the anarchists in Seattle right now. And then there are some people who say the police don't need any kind of reform at all. You, you do have an interesting perspective here because you're one of the most prominent black politicians in the country and you're the author of this criminal justice reform bill. Yeah. And one of the reasons why I think I have credibility on the topic is not just because I'm an African-American and that's helpful, especially when so many of these incidents are African-American men having challenges with law enforcement. I'm the guy that got stopped seven times as an elected official, just driving while black. Stopped nine times, I believe that year, seven times for doing nothing, two times for speeding. So he got speeding tickets. But the other seven times for nothing, 18 unnecessary stops in the last two decades. I like to just put a pause there for a moment because I actually didn't know that. Yes. This is a, this is a personal experience of an elected U.S. Senator. Well, this year, this U.S. Senator was stopped by police for failing to use my turn signal early enough in the lane change. I didn't know that was a thing. Yeah. I didn't know turn signals were a thing most of the time. But literally pulled over. I got a warning ticket thankfully, but how do you pull over it? I called the police chief at another department and they said, basically what they're trying to do is get your windows down so they can see if they smell any weed or anything in the air, get a look inside your car. He said, this is what we call racial profiling. I said, I should have dawned on me that the reason for the stop was to take a look inside. It just didn't, it didn't occur to me, even though that was my 18th stop. The 17th stop was last year for having my blinkers on while helping someone find their telephone. And you know, this, you can't make this up. And so fortunately for me, I've walked away from each one of those unscathed. I mean, I've got some scar tissue emotionally, but none physically. Because it's a sort of preposterous thing and you can laugh about it. Okay. They pulled you over for the blinker, but this is a real harassment that you have personally experienced. 100%. Walter Scott was pulled over for a busted taillight. There's a video, at least there's a scene, I think it was in Las Vegas, Nevada, where the guy was riding his bicycle and was pulled over. So what we're talking about is real, but what you said is so important. And I think that you focused on it, the importance of the body camera. One of the reasons why five years ago, I started talking about increasing funding for body cameras by a hundred million dollars per year for five years is because if a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video should be worth a thousand pictures. Because we have an opportunity not only to see it, but to watch it unfold. That is really important. And I think that dynamic, had it just been a picture of the law enforcement officer on George Floyd's neck, you could debate how long. Yeah. You don't know if he's fighting, if it's a violent situation. Without the video, you don't understand the context of what it is. You don't appreciate it. But eight minutes and 46 seconds left later, no one had a question. And you can hear him gasping for his breath, saying, I can't breathe, pleading for his life. I mean, it makes a real difference. Yes. Right. And that united our country. This tells me something that's really important. Our country is the most remarkable country on earth. All the racial divisions we've had in the last several years, we saw that picture. And because there's something in our instinct that says, that's just wrong. We are a nation built on fairness. We've always been a nation that was going to progress. We've been making progress for the entire time. We saw that and we said, wait a second. That cannot be. People were shocked, stunned. They said, that's not actually happening. And once they understood that it was, the entire conversation around police reform became real. I'm afraid that our friends who are playing presidential politics, they're willing to waste the moment hoping for an outcome. So they'd rather, I could be wrong, but I think they're willing to run campaign on police brutality, maybe more than solve it. We just saw Senate Democrats filibuster the Justice Act. And they did it. I think it's exactly what Tim said. They want a political issue. They want to set campaign in November rather than actually make meaningful progress towards addressing the problem, doing it responsibly. Look, one of the things Tim did a very good job of also is understanding the objective here is not to tear down cops. It's not to destroy, the police officers are keeping vulnerable communities safe. That's the job, yeah. Well, and frankly, Ted, as you just alluded to, there's no doubt in my mind that the people who want character-driven law enforcement the most are communities of color. Sure. The people who are saying, when I dial 911, I want someone coming immediately are communities of color. Why? Not because they're always crime-ridden neighborhoods. It's because your grandmother who may not be able to move out of a bad neighborhood economically should always be in a good neighborhood from a social perspective. They want, I want our family members, our loved ones, ourselves to always have a responsive law enforcement department. And so this defund police and this autonomous zone concept is antithetical to everything that we believe is dear in the communities of color. You know, one of the frustrating things, I mean, race, slavery is our country's original sin. Yes. And race is an issue a lot of people demagogue on. A lot of Republicans are uncomfortable talking about it. Shy away from it too much. We see Democrats this week in the Judiciary Committee, there were several Democrats who said, we haven't moved one inch since the 1960s on race. And what utter garbage. Right. They made enormous strides. Tremendous. You had Jim Crow laws, you had segregated schools. We're making a journey. Now we've still got a long way to go. Yes. You know, I, and I think understanding the perspective so many people have of why they feel the justice system isn't treating them fairly. I think that's important. And Tim has spoken up a lot, particularly in the last couple of weeks in the conference, sharing his perspectives. But one thing that I thought was particularly powerful, people were asking, all right, what do we do with the Confederate statues and renaming and all of this controversy? And your answer, which almost immediately was echoed by just about every Republican senator, I thought was really powerful. Well, thank you. You can repeat it for me since I don't remember it, but this could be it. Yeah. I also think the country's better off trying to create the future than reframe the past. Yeah. We spend almost too much time in the rear view mirror and not enough time in the windshield. It's hard not to get in an accident when all your focus is on yesterday. You're right. So for us to reframe the past doesn't benefit almost anyone. So if we want to reframe the past, however, put up more statues, put up a statue, not of just Martin Luther King, Jr., but about Rosa Parks or Booker T. Washington, Washington Carver. There's a lot of folks that we can celebrate. But tearing something down does not necessarily build you up, number one. Number two, why aren't we spending the time on economic mobility? Why are we not spending the time on educational outcomes and the poor zip codes in America? Why are we not spending the time on creating financial literacy and, frankly, literacy to break the pipeline between education and incarceration? If you want to spend all the money in the world on something, please let it not be on tearing down a statue. Let us spend the dollars and the resources on building the future where every single American says, yes, that's my country. We have just seconds left, but I have to know. Yes. After that, I have to know, with all these terrible things in the news and with particularly awful things being directed at you, how do you stay so cheery? Why do you keep doing it? Why would you sign up for this job? I don't think I signed up for this job. I think I was called into this job. I think when I became a Christian, born-again believer in 1983, the Lord had a plan for my life. Jeremiah 1.5 talks about before you were in your mother's womb, He had a plan for us. I think I was hardwired for public service. Why? I don't know. The fact that I find great joy in serving others is something that I think I'm hardwired to do. Frankly, if you think about Matthew 22, 37 through 39, loving the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, the second commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself. How better do we do that by making sacrificial offerings of our time, our talent, or our treasure? I was a poor kid, no treasure. Time, time. Talent, not enough. So I went into the one area where I knew I could make a difference and hopefully make my mama proud. Senator, you mentioned a frustrated preacher. I think maybe a not-so-frustrated preacher. I think just an honest-to-God inspiring preacher. I can't beat that. Thank you, Senator. I'm Michael Knowles. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.