National Police Association Podcast with Guest, Ted Cruz, U.S. Sen. from Texas, Attorney, & Podcast Host
Hi. This is Betsy Brantner Smith at the National Police Association, and this is the National Police Association podcast. You know, it's National Police Memorial Week, and that's always a very, it's a busy week for everyone in law enforcement. It's a somber week. It's also a celebratory week, and this year we're putting three forty five additional names on the wall in Washington, DC.
Betsy Smith:We're going to have about 25,000 police officers on that wall by the end of this year. It's heartbreaking. And I wanna talk a little bit about what we have been seeing in Washington DC this week, as well as since the beginning of the year. There is a lot of pro police legislation that is being proposed, the Thin Blue Line Act, the Agent Raul Gonzales, Officer Safety Act, which is quite a big deal here in Arizona. We have the Restoring Law and Order Act, the Protect and Serve Act, and we have put forward legislation, the Police Officer Self Protection Act, to try to get some federal relief and federal assistance for police officers like Salvador Aldradi in New Jersey, Brad Lunsford in New Mexico, police officers who have been prosecuted simply for doing their jobs.
Betsy Smith:We had the opportunity this week to meet with multiple pro police legislators, including Senator Ted Cruz. And after that meeting, he was able to give me a little bit of time just to talk about how and why he supports the American law enforcement officer. So here is my interview with Senator Ted Cruz. I have such a special guest with me today. As you all know, it's National Police Memorial Week and we have now one of the most pro law enforcement administrations that we have had, I think in my lifetime.
Betsy Smith:And we're very blessed today to have a really special guest, fellow podcaster, senator, litigator, Texan. Senator Ted Cruz, welcome to the show.
Sen. Ted Cruz:Betsy, thank you for having me. I'm thrilled to be with you.
Betsy Smith:So I have to ask you as I ask everybody this when we start. Why'd you get into politics?
Sen. Ted Cruz:To be honest, it's all I've ever wanted to do since since I was a little kid. You know, my father is from Cuba, and and he grew up in Cuba and as a teenager he fought in the Cuban revolution and and and my dad was imprisoned and tortured in Cuba as a teenager and and he came to America when he was 18, he was penniless, had couldn't speak English, had $100 sewn into his underwear and he was admitted to the University of Texas, so he showed up in Austin, Texas, he got a job washing dishes making 50¢ an hour and and Betsy I grew up listening to my father tell tell stories of being a freedom fighter and and it inspired me from when I was a little kid if you asked me five six seven years old what do you want to do in life? I I would have told you I I want to fight to defend freedom and and and so I literally jump out of bed every morning because I get to represent 31,000,000 Texans and and fight to defend their freedom and defend their constitutional rights every day in the senate.
Betsy Smith:You know, Texas is, a very special place, especially when it comes to law enforcement. Trained there all around the state for decades and you have such a robust and sometimes unusual system of law enforcement. Law enforcement in Texas is so very decentralized. It's one of the most constitutional law enforcement systems in this country. Now you were a litigator, you were a solicitor general.
Betsy Smith:What do you think about when you think about law enforcement at home?
Sen. Ted Cruz:Well, listen, Texas, we love our law enforcement. We we have their backs. We stand with them. We appreciate them. It it it's a place look, law enforcement and military, we love our military, active duty military, and our veterans, and we love our law enforcement, and and we're grateful for them.
Sen. Ted Cruz:I try a % of the time when I encounter police officers just to stop and say thank you, and I feel I have an obligation on behalf of 31,000,000 Texans to say thank you, and and I'll tell you it's striking, Betsy, as I travel, I travel all over the country, but when I go into some bright blue cities, it is a very different experience. I'll tell you when I when I land in a city like Chicago, numerous times in Chicago, I've landed and I'll be greeted by a half dozen or even a dozen police officers who are there and they'll all give me their patches, and I gotta say that they almost feel like a like a starving man in the desert. They're they're look, a place like Chicago is tough because they get officers are demonized. They're they're devalued. They're attacked.
Sen. Ted Cruz:And, you know, I don't know that I can solve the problems in Chicago, but I tell them I'll come to Texas. We love our cops in Texas. And and that's just that that that's who Texas is.
Betsy Smith:I'm a Chicago girl, and that's one of the things that I tell all my friends there that still on the job. Go to Texas, take your pension and go to Texas because truly there are so many states now that have fought for the last four years against the vilification of law enforcement, against defunding the police. And Texas has successfully done that with the exception of the state capital. Not to digress, what are your thoughts on what's happened in Austin, One of the most beautiful cities in Travis County with a rogue prosecutor who seems more interested in putting cops in jail than bad guys?
Sen. Ted Cruz:It it it is a huge problem, and the problem of of of George Soros prosecutors across prosecutors across the country. And sadly, we we have one in Austin. You know, Soros has put millions of dollars into electing radicals as as DAs. And and and actually, I I I've I've written about it. I so I've written four books.
Sen. Ted Cruz:One of the books was Justice Corrupted, How the Left Has Weaponized the Legal System, and and and I detailed how these Soros prosecutors began, and I go through chapter and verse in sadly, in cities all over the country, Mil Milwaukee, Philadelphia, San Francisco, LA. And listen, there are two ways to abolish the police. One is go directly at officers and shut down police departments. Look, the NYPD, they cut over a billion dollars from the NYPD. Austin, they they cut over a hundred million dollars from from the Austin Police Department.
Sen. Ted Cruz:So that's one way to do it is directly attack cops. There's a second way to abolish the police, which is you just put a prosecutor in place who won't prosecute crime, and and you've you're effectively doing the same thing by by saying we stand with the criminals and not not the law abiding citizens of our community. And I gotta admit, I do not understand any benign explanation for why someone who would put millions of dollars behind prosecutors that are there to let murderers go, to let rapists go, to let child molesters go. I don't understand the reasoning that says, you know what our community needs more of? We need more rapists and murderers.
Sen. Ted Cruz:We'd be better off with with more criminals, and and we're saying it's a real problem. And and I'll tell you in the senate, I have been fighting it. I've been calling it out. I've been shining a light on it. And and and I'll tell you, Betsy, it is my job to have your back, and I take that responsibility incredibly seriously.
Betsy Smith:And we appreciate that. You are I hope you know it. You are legendary in law enforcement and and have been for decades, because of, your very consistent stance on protecting law enforcement officers. But before we get into the legislature, I gotta ask you one more question. What's the end game with these folks, these activists, these politicians who truly want more criminals, less cops.
Betsy Smith:I mean, Kamala Harris famously said, you know, if you have less cops, you'll have less crime. We know that's not true. But what is the end game for these people?
Sen. Ted Cruz:So, look, they are radicals. I think some of them genuinely wanna destroy society, and and and we're seeing that unfolding. We're seeing them waging war, on on basic law and order. You know, my wife, Heidi, is from California, and and and my mother-in-law set I I sent this video of criminals just ransacking a store and robbing them blind, which sadly we know is happening over and over and over again. And my mother-in-law commented to me.
Sen. Ted Cruz:She said it it it it's really a shame. There's nothing we can do about it. I'm like, what are you talking about? There is something you can do about it. Throw their ass in jail, arrest them, put them in handcuffs.
Sen. Ted Cruz:And if they're in a jail cell, you don't do that in Texas. You come into a store and you rob the store in Texas, and you will find yourself in a concrete room with walls on with with bars on the door. Like like, it's not complicated, but it is a conscious decision. You know, I was I was at a conference in LA last week and and I talked to a woman who went shopping at Neiman Marcus in Beverly Hills. You know what they told her in Beverly Hills?
Sen. Ted Cruz:Do not walk out the door with a bag from Neiman Marcus. You will be robbed on the street in Beverly Hills. That fundamentally is a failure of politicians refusing to protect their citizens, refusing to enforce the law.
Betsy Smith:Absolutely. And they they do spend a lot of time in California trying to prosecute their cops, trying to vilify their cops. And now their governor, I think is gonna run for president. So it's gonna be very it's gonna be very interesting to watch. Senator Ted Cruz, where can people find you, the podcast, your books?
Betsy Smith:And we wanna thank you for being with us today.
Sen. Ted Cruz:Thank you. My podcast is verdict with Ted Cruz. You can download it wherever you get podcasts. Our website is tedcruz.org. You can find that too.
Sen. Ted Cruz:And and my my official website is Cruz.senate.gov. And thank you to every police officer. God bless you. Thank you for keeping us safe.
Betsy Smith:That was such an exciting interview. Senator Ted Cruz, of course he has his own podcast, one of the most popular in the nation. He's always such a terrific interview. Law enforcement loves him in Texas. And of course, enforcement, we love him here nationally.
Betsy Smith:I want to just give you a few details about some of the legislation that is being proposed by some of the very pro law enforcement elected officials. First, we have the Thin Blue Line Act, which would expand the federal death penalty eligibility for the murder or attempted murder of a state or local police officer. This expands the protections that are often afforded federal law enforcement officers, but not state or federal. We also have the Agent Raul Gonzalez Officer Safety Act, which is primarily to protect border patrol agents. One of the things that we see, especially in the Southern United States and courts up on the Northern border too, is these illegal immigrants that flee from the border patrol, and they get into these extremely dangerous pursuits.
Betsy Smith:We've had civilians killed. We've had police officers killed. So if you intentionally flee from law enforcement at the border because of the Agent Raul Gonzalez Officer Safety Act, the punishments will be enhanced. We also have the Restoring Law and Order Act that's been introduced by Senator Marsha Blackburn. She is such a friend of law enforcement and a friend of the National Police Association.
Betsy Smith:She wants to increase law enforcement's funding for all law enforcement agencies. That seems like a very simple thing, especially after nearly five years of the abhorrent Defund the Police movement. We also have the Protect and Serve Act of 2025 introduced by Senator Tom Tillis. This would create a new federal crime for knowingly targeting a federal, a state, or a local police officer with violence. When it comes to violence against a police officer, very often on a local or a state level, there are far left prosecutors who won't properly prosecute those cases.
Betsy Smith:So this law, the Protect and Serve Act of 2025, would give a federal nexus to those kinds of crimes so that if a state or a local prosecutor won't get involved, the federal justice system can get involved so that we can get some relief and some justice for police officers who are viciously attacked in the line of duty. We also have the Qualified Immunity Act of 2025. This was introduced by Senator Jim Banks. This would codify existing qualified immunity protections and be recognized and implemented by federal legislators. I mean, qualified immunity has already been recognized by the Supreme Court since 1967, but we hear a lot of talk about removing qualified immunity from police officers, which frankly would destroy the law enforcement system in The United States, and it would destroy this nation.
Betsy Smith:If you have police officers who are constantly subject to frivolous lawsuits and losing their homes and things like that, no one is going to want to become a police officer. So we really appreciate Senator Jim Banks for bringing that forward. We also have the Fighting Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Act of 2025 that was introduced by Senator Chuck Grassley. This is a terrific piece of legislation because as we know, police officers die at least twice as often by our own hand as we do by felonious assaults, and this is often because we really don't properly deal with the emotional stresses and the mental issues that police officers have and that we develop over time. So Senator Chuck Grassley introduced this legislation that would mandate the Department of Justice to propose a post traumatic stress program for police officers and other first responders.
Betsy Smith:And this is similar to what is already available to our military members. This would codify it, and it would make it statutorily required for police officers and other first responders. And of course, this is a bill that the National Police Association has proposed called the Police Officers Self Defense Protection Act. We talked very briefly about that with Senator Cruz, and our team also talked to him privately about this piece of legislation before my interview with him. And what this would do would help provide federal protections to police officers who are simply doing their jobs, who have followed policy, who have followed state law.
Betsy Smith:So, you know, it's really been a heartening Police Memorial Week. It's been a difficult week. I didn't go, but members of our team went this year, and I have so many friends that are there for the tenth, the fifteenth, the twentieth, some time being there, being at the Candlelight Vigil, being at Tent City. You know, there was a terrific reception put on by Vice President J. D.
Betsy Smith:Vance, and he just made incredible heartfelt remarks. So, you know, it's really been quite a week, we at the National Police Association are very grateful to be a part of Police Memorial Week twenty twenty five. And if you'd like more information about us, you can go to nationalpolice.org, and we encourage you to take a look at everything that we are doing, not only for the American law enforcement officer, but for you, the public. If you can, hit that donate button, help us out, and help us assist the 750,000 American peace officers in this country who are doing their job for you.
Speaker 3:Every day, the brave men and women of law enforcement put their lives on the line to keep us safe. But they need our help to continue their mission. Activist politicians, progressive prosecutors, the ACLU, and the rest of the anti police forces receive millions in donations from extremist pro criminal elements like George Soros and woke corporations. The National Police Association is fighting them in courts around the country, including the United States Supreme Court, defending officers who are being attacked for doing their jobs. Additionally, the National Police Association works year round to pass tough on crime legislation to put and keep criminals behind bars.
Speaker 3:Consider going to nationalpolice.org and donating to keep us in the fight. Together, we can win. That is nationalpolice.org.
