Bonus: Democrats’ Approval Hits 35-Year Low | Cruz’s $1 Trillion Spending Cut Plan | Poker Tax Fix
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
iHeartPodcasts
4.3 • 11.1K Ratings
🗓️ 29 July 2025
⏱️ 32 minutes
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Summary
Democrats’ Approval Hits 35-Year Low | Cruz’s $1 Trillion Spending Cut Plan | Poker Tax Fix
In this episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz, Senator Ted Cruz and co-host Ben Ferguson break down the latest Wall Street Journal poll showing the Democratic Party’s approval rating at its lowest point in 35 years—just 33% favorable and 63% unfavorable. Cruz attributes this dramatic decline to the party’s alignment with far-left policies on:
- Open borders
- Defunding the police
- Support for controversial protests
- Gender and youth medical interventions
Cruz warns Republicans not to grow complacent, despite the favorable polling numbers.
💰 Plus: A Bold Plan to Save $1 Trillion in Federal Spending
Cruz unveils a proposal to end the Federal Reserve’s interest payments on bank reserves, a policy that cost taxpayers $168 billion in 2024—nearly half of which went to foreign banks. He argues this change could:
- Encourage more bank lending
- Lower interest rates
- Reduce the federal deficit
♠️ Fixing Unfair Tax Laws for Professional Poker Players
Cruz also tackles a little-known tax change affecting professional gamblers. A recent provision now limits gambling loss deductions to 90%, meaning players are taxed on income they never actually earned. Cruz is working across the aisle to reverse this policy and protect U.S.-based poker professionals.
👉 Subscribe now to Verdict with Ted Cruz for more hard-hitting political analysis. And don’t miss the 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson and the Ben Ferguson Show Podcast—available wherever you get your podcasts.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:05.3 | Welcome, it is verdict with Senator Ted Cruz. Ben Ferguson with you as always. And, Senator, |
| 0:10.6 | it's nice to be with you as we've got a couple of big things to chat about today, |
| 0:15.5 | including the Democrats getting the lowest rating from voters in 35 years. |
| 0:22.6 | Well, that's right. The Wall Street Journal just did a poll and found that the Democrats' |
| 0:26.6 | approval rating has plummeted. It is at the lowest level in 35 years. It turns out being angry, |
| 0:32.6 | filled with rage, and being a party that stands for nothing but hating Donald Trump is not actually a popular |
| 0:38.7 | platform. We're going to break that down and talk about what that means for elections coming up |
| 0:43.3 | in 26 and going forward. Secondly, we're going to talk about a proposal that I've been championing |
| 0:49.2 | to cut spending and to cut spending dramatically. And that is for the Federal Reserve to stop paying |
| 0:57.0 | interest on bank reserves. This is a proposal that could save over a trillion dollars over 10 years. |
| 1:03.7 | I've made this case directly to the president in the Oval Office. I've introduced legislation to |
| 1:08.2 | make this happen. We're going to talk about exactly what it would mean and why it makes a difference. And finally, we're going to talk about an element of the one big |
| 1:15.8 | beautiful bill that was an unintended mistake, which is the one big beautiful bill changed how gambling |
| 1:23.9 | losses are counted in taxes. and what it did for people like |
| 1:29.7 | professional poker players is it ended up putting in place a rule that is |
| 1:33.8 | wildly unfair that punishes them that taxes them on income they didn't earn |
| 1:39.0 | and and so I've joined with some Democrats in terms of trying to fix this I |
| 1:42.2 | hope we can fix it because we ought to have a tax system that's fair. We're going to explain that issue to you also. Yeah, it's also really interesting because it goes back to part of what the president did with no tax on tips, and he's like looking out for little guys and their jobs. It matters. We're going to break that down. It'll be very interesting. I want to tell you real quick about our friends over at Patriot Mobile. |
| 2:01.6 | If you're like me and you've made a commitment that, hey, you're going to spend money with companies that are aligned with your values, then you're going to love Patriot Mobile. |
| 2:13.1 | There are a lot of choices when it comes to cell phone service, but there's one that I have been with for years, and they've been doing it now for more than 12 years. |
| 2:22.9 | They've been on the front lines as a company fighting for our God-given rights and freedoms, and it's really awesome how this works. |
... |
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