In a new opinion piece for the Wall
Street Journal, Senator Ted Cruz
pretended as though he wants to
hold corporations accountable.
But it's not due to
their mistreatment of workers or
the fact that they tend to severely
underpay the very people who make
revenue for them, it's because he's
worried about Woke culture and how
corporations are engaging in it.
It's titled Your Woke Money Is No
Good Here where Ted Cruz pretends
as if he's not going to
take corporate PAC money.
He argues the corporations have
taken advantage of Republicans for
too long.
I won't take their PAC
dollars anymore, says Cruz.
So first off, let's just
acknowledge and get out of the way
the fact that we don't believe him.
I personally don't believe him.
I think that in one way or
the other, he will take money from
corporations because otherwise,
how is he going to do what he does?
This is Ted Cruz's bread and
butter, and
the fact that he's pretending like
he's not going to take
corporate donations is ridiculous.
But moving aside or
moving to the other part that I
wanted to bring up.
He angrily writes about how these
corporations are speaking
out against Georgia's voter
suppression law.
And he believes that that qualifies
as engaging in Woke culture.
Now, to be clear, I do think that
the Democratic Party has a problem
with, quote unquote Wokeness.
And I'll get to that in a minute.
And I want people to understand
that it's actually a very
nuanced issue that is hurting
the Democratic party when it comes
to local elections,
when it comes to federal elections,
and we'll discuss it.
But Cruz argues, that had these
watch-me-woke-it-up CEOs actually
read the bill, instead of parroting
the radical left's talking points,
they'd have discovered they had no
idea what they were talking about.
A clutch of businesses or
business leaders try to win woke
Twitter points and
clowned themselves instead.
Now, obviously none of this
is true.
Corporations after being pressured
to speak out, actually did say that
these voter suppression law
in Georgia is a problem.
And it is a problem.
The voter suppression law
specifically expands voting in
areas that are typically voting
in favor of Republican candidates.
But when it comes to the more
urban areas where you
see a larger percentage of
the African-American vote, they've
actually limited voting, including
limiting the number of mail in or
drop boxes for mail in voting.
Now he also says, this is the point
in the drama when Republicans
usually shrug their shoulders,
call these companies job creators,
and start to cut their taxes.
Not this time.
This time he argues, we won't look
the other way on Coca-Cola's $12
billion in back taxes owed.
This time when Major League
Baseball lobbies to preserve its
multimillion-dollar antitrust
exception, we'll say no thank you.
This time, when Boeing asks for
billions in corporate welfare,
we'll simply let
the Export-Import Bank expire.
So, I really
want to emphasize that what gets
these Republican lawmakers upset is
when corporations and it's rare,
actually speak out against
the Republicans bad behavior.
And to be sure, in Georgia,
Republicans have engaged in bad
behavior because they
are trying to rig
their elections to their advantage.
After that state flipped from red
to blue and voted for
Biden as president in the last
general election.
But they don't care about how
workers are treated, they don't
care about inequality in America.
Those are things that they don't
care about at all.
They never have, they never will.
And so I don't want anyone to be
tricked into thinking
the Republican lawmakers
are looking out for you and trying
to hold corporations accountable.
That's not what this is about.
They're trying to,
in my opinion in a weak way,
retaliate against corporations for
honestly doing nothing more than
paying lip service to people
who are outraged justifiably over
Georgia suppression law.
>> Okay, this is actually one of
the most important stories
we'll do, because it has
two massive parts of it, okay?
One is the admission by Republicans
like Ted Cruz.
Marco Rubio wrote a very similar
op ed in the USA Today.
And Mitch McConnell alluded to this
in a different form a couple of
weeks ago on the filibuster fight.
Their admission that yeah, we used
to do whatever corporations wanted,
but nothing that our voters wanted.
But now,
we might not do that anymore.
It's amazing that the while we used
to give you let you off on your
taxes to the tune of $12 billion,
because you gave us
campaign donations, but
no well now we might not do that.
Why'd you do that in the first
place if it was wrong?
That's unbelievable.
>> It's amazing.
>> He's just admitting,
one, because he thinks there's
no real journalists in the country.
We've been doing this corruption
for decades and
no reporter ever talks about it.
They make it seem like our
campaign contributions,
they're perfectly normal.
No, they're bribes,
they're legalized bribes.
And here's Rubio, Cruz and
the rest gone, well, yeah,
we might not take your bribes
anymore, and then you'll see.
Yeah, that'd be great,
that'd be great.
Thank you for the admission.
So will anybody in
the press change?
Of course, not.
I want to come back to this because
it's so important.
The second part that is arguably as
important is the Republican and
Democratic parties are bringing
a flip on corporations.
And that's a giant deal, okay?
That's good news and bad news.
The bad news is,
Democrats are becoming the more
pro-corporate party.
Now the good news is the reason
corporations are switching their
allegiance more to
the Democratic Party, is because
the Democratic Party is more stable
and corporations need stability.
They're already on top,
they don't want anything to change.
So when a candidate says nothing
will fundamentally change,
they're like, yes, that's the guy,
that's Biden, okay?
When you have the Republicans go
out and I will do anything, man so
what when maybe we'll nuke
a hurricane, maybe
we'll inject ourselves with bleach.
Maybe we'll let
the racist takeover, maybe we'll go
to fascism, is that a democracy?
Corporations are like, no, that is
not the kind of instability we
like, that threatens our existence,
our revenue, etc.
The second reason why corporations
are going to Democrats, is because
Progressives won the culture war.
So now what is the implication of
that?
Well, companies don't want to anger
African-Americans, and Latinos, and
young people, and LGBTQ folks, etc.
Why?
because they're customers and
now there's a lot of us.
And since we won the culture wars
in essence, now companies
are saying okay, before we couldn't
make up our minds,
should cops shoot Black people that
are innocent or shouldn't they?
I don't know.
Should gay people have
the same rights as straight people?
I don't know, I'm neutral.
And that was called brand safe.
I'm brand safe because I'm not
alienating Democrats or
Republicans.
Now, there's so many customers on
our side that they're going,
us being neutral to Black people
being murdered is not brand safe.
Us being neutral to gay people
being discriminated against and
not having equal rights is not
brand safe.
If I want to sell more Coke and
I want to sell more jeans and
burgers, I've gotta go towards
where the customers are and
the clients are.
And so we won the country, we won
the idea wars, and the Republicans
are furious about it.
And that is why they constantly
talk about Dr.
Seuss and woke culture, etc.
>> Yeah.
>> because that's slipping away
from them and hence,
their corporate money is also
slipping away from them.
So this is Ted Cruz as
the corporations are withdrawing
their money from him,
go I didn't want it anyway.
>> Yeah.
>> So I want to come back to that
and what it means because
that's also a trick.
>> So I have a slightly
different take.
I don't believe that corporate
money will stop flowing
to the Republican Party.
I believe that corporate money will
continue to flow to the Republican
Party and the Democratic Party.
I do want to touch on a point that
you made that I think it's accurate
regarding the Democratic Party now
turning into the party that's more
protective over corporate interest.
And that actually does have
something to do with what I've
personally noticed with woke
culture.
Woke culture is a problem.
And it's a problem when
the Democratic Party specifically
engages in lieu of policy that
actually fundamentally improves
the lives of the very people that
they claim to be concerned about.
So the incredibly superficial
shallow nonsense coming from
the Democratic Party these days,
where all they do is engage
in the culture war by paying
lip service to the their genuine
problems, right?
They'll talk
about Black Lives Matter.
They'll paint Black Lives Matter in
front of Trump Tower in New York,
but that's where it stops.
That's where it ends,
they don't go further than that.
They don't actually champion policy
that fundamentally improves
the lives of the very people
they're pretending to care about.
And yes,
I'm using the word pretend.
Because much like the GOP,
which dives in to the culture war
in order to deflect and avoid
talking about economic policies
that improve people's lives,
Democrats do the same thing.
They've got their own flavor and
we need to be real about it.
So, they not only do that,
they provide an opportunity for
GOP lawmakers to attack them,
sometimes attack them legitimately.
When they decide that they
just want to go doing the PC finger
wagging as opposed to doing things
that again,
would fundamentally improve
the lives of the people that they
claim to care about, right?
So that's my take on woke culture.
I know that people get real
uncomfortable with it,
because it's easy to pass it off as
she just doesn't care about these
disenfranchised groups of people.
No, I do, I'm just sick
of Democrats pretending they care.
They don't pass policies that
improve people's lives.
They don't fight for policies that
improve people's lives.
Instead, they spend all day
on Twitter tweeting about what they
would like to do to protect people
or what they would like to do to
make people's lives better.
Well, then go out there and do it.
I don't want to hear your tweets
about cisgender this or
the right wording to use for
that like, no, I'm not interested.
Do your jobs, I'm tired of
the nonsense posturing and
theater on social media >> Yeah,
okay, so on that note, look,
part of the white identity politics
that Democrats play.
And yes, we're the most honest new
show in America.
We tell you exactly what's wrong
with both the Republican and
Democratic parties.
The identity politics they play is,
hey, I have a Black person,
I have a gay, LGBTQ person, I have,
you name it, a Muslim person, etc.
I've got all my identities covered.
And they're all telling you
the corporations are awesome.
No, that doesn't do it, who cares?
I don't care that you found seven
people to use as fronts, right?
Fox News does that, that's
the oldest trick in the book.
If those people then fought for
police reform, and
actually got police reform,
then I love it,
then I'm all here for woke culture,
right?
But they don't, they never do
anything about police reform.
Right now Biden is in charge,
the Democrats have the House and
the Senate.
What are they doing
about police reform?
Nothing, right?
Show me increasing people's wages,
I mean, the bare minimum is $15
hour on minimum wage, nothing.
Show me something about health
care, not only is Biden not doing
Medicare for all, he was supposed
to public option and
lowered eligibility for Medicare,
he dropped it.
He didn't even mention it in his
address to Congress.
So, the reason we're mad about
the so-called woke culture of
the Democrats, is not because it's
wrong to represent Black people,
and Latinos, and
all these other groups.
It's because we want you to
actually represent them instead
of pretending to represent them and
putting a good face on it.
>> Yeah.
>> And then tricking
everybody into voting for
you and then doing nothing.
>> The fight for
a minimum wage hike to $15 an hour
is actually a perfect example.
Because when you look at
the demographic that's
overrepresented in the minimum wage
jobs, it's women of color.
So the Democratic Party will claim
that they care about equality for
women, there's a wage gap,
there's a wage gap.
They'll claim that they care about
ensuring that there's actual
equality earning power for
black people, for Latinos, for
brown people.
But then when push comes to shove,
when they have the opportunity to
implement the very policies that
would significantly improve these
people's lives, they back out.
They go on Twitter and
talk about how they need to do it,
but then they don't do it.
And so no cookies for you.
You don't get cookies by talking
about how you know what you need to
do to improve people's lives.
You only get the cookies when you
actually do it and
they haven't done it.
>> Yeah, and it's all
a trick, guys.
I mean,
look, Reverend William Barber is
just a moral giant in this country.
He's out in North Carolina,
he's a wonderful preacher, and
he has access to politicians, etc.
And the minute Biden got in office,
he did what everybody promised to
do, he held him accountable.
He said, you said $15 minimum wage,
you're not doing it.
Kamala Harris I love you, and
they talk, but you said you do
$15 minimum hour wage.
And you have the power to do that,
you have the power to
overrule the parliamentarian and
you're not doing it.
See, that's what a person who's
a moral leader does, who actually
cares about the community.
People who don't actually care put
out other folks that look like
people that they care about or
claim to care about.
And they say good enough, I'm not
actually doing the substance.
All right, but
I've gotta tell you the other part
of it as quickly as I can.
So when Ted Cruz says he's not
taking corporate PAC money,
that's a good development.
But the number one litmus test we
had to just Democrats was not
taking the corporate PAC money and
it made a giant difference.
Now understand though,
that's the beginning,
that's not the end.
So how do they get around
that rule?
And Democrats do this a lot too,
not just Democrats, but
other corporate Democrats they'll
say, I'm not taking corporate PAC
money anymore.
And by the way, the people who did
the Kamala Harris did this big time
Cory Booker did it, etc, right?
Then they'll go, and take tonnes of
money from corporate executives.
So that's a runaround.
The second thing they'll do is
they'll go to a dark money PACs,and
you can't tell if Coke or Chamber
of Commerce etc put the money in.
>> Yes.
>> They go I don't take
the corporate PAC money but
I think the dark money,
that's the same thing, okay?
And that's an even bigger problem
in the corporate executives.
And then finally,
there's the individuals.
The Sheldon Adelson used to give
$100 million at a time the Coke,
the Mercer's, etc.
And I want to give you one quote
from the Washington Post about that
because it ties it all the way back
to Ted Cruz.
So Rebekah Mercer and
Robert Mercer and their dad in
the Mercer family is the one that
made his money on Wall Street.
And his daughter, Rebekah,
also helps drive the donations.
They gave over $13 million
to Ted Cruz in the 2016 elections,
okay, in the primaries.
And now I want to tell
you the rest of the story from
the Washington Post.
After giving $13.5 million to
a super PAC that backed Cruz in
the primaries, billionaire hedge
fund executive Robert Mercer and
his middle daughter, Rebekah,
remade the group into
an anti-Hillary Clinton vehicle and
urged other conservatives to rally
around Trump.
They even publicly castigated Cruz
after he declined to endorse his
former rival at the Republican
convention.
In recent weeks,
the Mercers played a role behind
the scenes encouraging a detente.
This is back in 2016.
Efforts that carried weight because
the family is highly regarded by
both camps, according to a person
familiar with the situation.
So, Ted Cruz says I'm not taking
corporate PAC money anymore.
Meanwhile, a hedge fund executive
is giving him $13.5 million at
a time.
And so Ted Cruz who yelled at Trump
famously when Trump called his wife
ugly, said I'm not going to let him
get away with it.
And at the convention he didn't
endorse Trump.
These same Mercers slammed the door
in his face, literally,
at that convention when he went up
after his speech.
And then Ted Cruz, very famously
had that sad Ted picture where he
was phone banking for Donald Trump.
There it is.
Now, why did he go from just
a couple months earlier say you
will not endorse Trump to begging
people to vote for Trump.
Because the Mercers said no
more money for you.
He said, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.
I don't know if he brought his wife
in so the Mercers could call her
ugly too.
I don't know if he also let them
call his dad a criminal and
a murder.
But he said anything for the money,
anything for the money.
That's who Ted Cruz is.
So Ted, don't try to pretend you're
a populist now.
That ship has sailed, and
this promise is very empty.
And you tell me you're
not going to take
any more money from the Mercers.
You tell me and prove to me that
you're not taking money from dark
money PACs, then we got a deal.
Until then, you're now and
have always been a fraud.