Welcome. It is verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you. And Senator, it is always fun to be able to do this show and talk to people that are experts in certain areas. And a dear friend of ours is going to be with us for this show. And it's so important, the timing. When we're dealing with such major issues on national security, we're dealing with what

happened with Hamas and Israel, what's happening now between Russia and Ukraine, and also

the intelligence failures that seem to be happening on a daily basis at our southern border

with terrorists coming across our southern border.

And I want you to introduce to the audience our special guests.

Well, it is Thursday night.

It is 9.38 p.m. Pacific time.

And I am out on the West Coast.

I'm in L.A.

Just landed not too long ago.

Tomorrow I'm going on Bill Maher.

So that's going to be wild and woolly and should be fun.

And so we are doing a special podcast here tonight that'll come out tomorrow morning with

your and my mutual friend, Rick Grinnell. Now, Rick, Rick has had a storied career. He was

ambassador to Germany under Donald Trump.

He was the special presidential envoy for Serbia and Kosovo for the peace negotiations, again under Trump.

And then he was also the acting director of national intelligence under Trump, which is an incredibly important and difficult job. And I think

he did an extraordinary job at it. And so we're going to talk a lot of foreign policy. We're

going to talk a lot of challenges facing the world. And Rick is a California native. So we are

in La La Land together. Rick, welcome to verdict.

Welcome to Los Angeles, Senator. Thank you for coming all the way out here. It's a long way,

I flew from Dallas straight out here, and that is a long flight. It is longer than an iPad charge.

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