Good Friday morning.

Nice to have you with us on Verdict with Center Ted Cruz and if you are listening right now, we are giving you a update of where we are and what's happening.

So Center, I'm in Jerusalem right now.

I am going to be flying back to the Estatus Ainos in several hours.

This is all happening while the government shutdown is being negotiated as we're recording this.

And so what we decide to do is let you know the audience that hey, we're seeing some movement on the government shutdown.

And then when as soon as I land on Friday back in America, flying back in time, we're going to get together and give you an update on where we are on the actual government shutdown.

But for people that are listening right now, let's timestamp to this center.

Say know when we're doing this, this is I'm in Thursday, are you?

And Wednesday?

Right now, I'm in Wednesday.

That's the in the future.

I am finally smarter than you.

Let's just make that moment clear.

I know more than you, Senator, for the first time ever.

This feels very good.

You know, like Socrates, the one thing I know is how little I know so I'm happy to concede that, my friend.

So it is right now eleven twenty two pm Wednesday, DC time, and at this point we were actually sitting down to record Friday's podcast because Ben is going to be on an airplane all day tomorrow when we would actually normally record it.

And we realize the problem, which is the government is shutdown right now and we don't know if and when the government is going to open.

Now.

I'll tell you, as of lunch today, Republican leadership in the Senate thought there was a very good chance Senate Democrats would open the government in the next twenty four or forty eight hours.

It takes.

We've got to get at least seven Democrats agreeing enough is enough.

Let this never ending, the longest shutdown in history end.

But as I sit here Wednesday night, I don't know if that will happen.

I told Ben, look, we'll know probably sometime Thursday.

There's a chance the government opens on Thursday.

It's Wednesday night.

I don't know if that's going to happen.

There's a chance the government opens on Friday.

And there's a chance if you have the sort of left lane extreme and the Democrats subject that the government opens on Saturday.

They can delay the vote until Saturday to reopen the government.

There's also a chance that Democrats look at the election results from Tuesday night they say, the crazies are resurgent.

To hell with it, let's keep it shut down even longer.

So we could be facing a government shutdown that extends into next week rather than have a show where if the government has just opened up and Ben and I are not talking about it, you guys would think, what the heck is wrong with these people?

How are you not discussing that obvious news.

We're going to give you this little teaser.

Ben will be on an airplane, so I can't record the show while he's on an airplane.

He will land mid morning Friday.

We will record it on Friday.

We will put the show out later on Friday, and hopefully then we will know.

My hope is that the Friday show will begin.

Hallelujah, hallelujah.

The government is open again.

The Democrats have surrendered.

I don't know if that will happen, but sure would be a good result.

It would be great.

I have one question that people are gonna go nuts.

If I don't ask you, you said we need seven Democrats on TV.

We've been hearing the number six.

Why did you say the number seven?

Democrats need to pass this so they understand the logistics.

So we actually need eight.

We need fifty.

Okay, so we need eight.

So explain, they're fifty three Republicans.

To open the government, you need sixty votes.

Fifty three plus seven is sixty.

However, Rand Paul is voting with the Democrats over and over and over again to keep the government shut down.

So if you assume Rand is a no, and he almost surely is, then we have fifty two Republicans and we got to have eight Democrats.

That's the math.

We may end up with ten or twelve Democrats, but we need a minimum of eight.

If we don't have eight, the government stays shut down.

So there's the math for you.

So look, check back here.

We will be back with a episode when I land.

We get together and hopefully we have good news that the crazies and the Democratic Party have decided that the United States government should be open.

And we'll keep you up down that say, well, prayer for a long flight across the pond, as they say, I'll be travels from Jerusalem.

Thank you, sir, and we'll see you back here.

If you're listening, just keep looking for updates.

We'll put it out also on X as soon as the episode goes live, Center Cruz will put on X I will as well on social media, so you guys know.

But check back this afternoon and we'll see you then.