Welcome in as Vertical Center.

Ted Cruz Ben Ferguson with you and Senator, It's nice to talk about a really important issue tonight that many Americans have become much more concerned about.

That's flying.

You fly a lot, I fly a lot, and you have introduced new legislation that's going to deal with what happened with that helicopter crash into the airplane right there at Reagan.

Your wife was flying in that night.

I remember that night.

Well, in six months to the day, you've introduced this.

Well, that's exactly right.

You and I are sitting here.

It is Tuesday night, six months ago to the day, on January twenty ninth, is when the horrific accident occurred over Ronald Reagan National Airport.

Sixty seven souls were killed in that accident.

And this week today, actually I introduced legislation to dramatically improve air safety to protect the flying public.

We're going to talk about that, talk about the need to avoid any accident like that going forward.

We're also going to talk about stunning evidence that's come forward that the FBI was complicit in the Russia Russia Russia hoax.

The FBI knew what they were doing, and they played an active role.

We're gonna lay out with the head of the CIA laid out this week all of that.

On today's Verdict, I.

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All right, So center, let's go back six months in time.

And remind people.

I remember that night.

It was a night where we had that helicopter that went right into that plane that was coming down at Reagan National and it killed so many people.

It also, I think, really shook a lot of travelers to their core.

And the question that was asked was like, how does this even happen?

How is this possible?

And now there's real legislation to keep our family safe.

As a fly, you fly a lot, your family flies a lot.

It's something that's on a lot of people's minds.

Well, this happened on January twenty ninth.

It was the ninth day of the Trump presidency.

And actually the night had happened, I was having dinner with Mike Waltz.

Mike Waltz was at the time President Trump's national security advisor.

The two of us were talking about the national security threats of the country, having a great dinner, and then at the very end of the dinner, we were wrapping up and he got a text over his phone.

He's like, oh crap.

He said, there was just a major crash over Reagan Airport, And so Mike rushed off to the situation room to deal with it.

From the White House, as I got up that night, it so happened.

Heidie was flying into DC and she was landing at Reagan, and I will say, my body man came up to me and Trent, and you know Trent is a great guy.

Yeah, Trent came up to me and he said, Heidie's okay, but there was a plane crash at Reagan.

I got to say, Trent did a very good job starting with Heidie's okay, because I get you know, when your wife's in the air like that, if you reverse those statements that that causes you to freak out.

So I was very grateful.

Heidie's plane was scheduled to land about a half hour after the crash, so they diverted her to BWI Airport, which is, you know, about an hour away.

Heidie got home that night to our apartment.

We normally live in Houston, but she was coming up that night to be with me.

I got to tell you, I just held her.

I mean, you know, your wife is on a plane.

It could as easily been her plane as the plane that crashed.

And it was a plane, an American Airlines plane that was flying from Wichita to d C.

As it was landing at DCA Reagan Airport.

An Army Blackhawk helicopter came across the landing path and collided and there were three soldiers on the Army helicopter.

There were sixty four people, sixty one passengers and three crew member on the plane, and in an instant they were incinerated.

It was a horrific accident, I will tell you.

In the wake of the accident, I went to the NTSB site where they'd pulled all the wreckage out and the wreckage, the damage.

Here's the good news, I asked.

I said, look, did anyone drown because the plane in the helicopter went down in the Potomac.

And I suppose the good news is they said nobody drowned.

That They said, the helicopter rotor struck the wing.

The wing is filled with jet fuel and it immediately exploded and it is essentially incinerated everyone.

So they died instantly, which I've got to say, if you're going to die in a plane crash, you'd rather die instantly than slowly and painfully.

So I suppose there's a blessing in that.

But I will say, standing at the NTSB site with the wreckage of the plane, the wreckage of the helicopter and you see just charge sheet seats, you see just pieces of the plane and helicopter, and you also saw you know, children's backpacks and toys and luggage and and all of the all of the wreckage of sixty seven people who died instantly, and it was horrific.

It was show and look what was frustrating is it should not have happened.

It was avoidable.

And so in the six months that have followed, I've shared multiple hearings.

I've had multiple roundtable discussions with the NTSB, the National Traffic Safety Board, with the FAA, with the Department Transportation to say what went wrong and there are multiple pieces of what went wrong that that should never have happened.

One of the things that went wrong is the Army helicopter did not have functioning adsb out.

Now what does that mean?

Adsb out An adsb IN is advanced technology to locate where a plane is, where a helicopter is, and adsb out broadcast to everyone so you can get it precise.

The air traffic controllers can get a precise image, and other aircraft can get a precise image of exactly where.

That aircraft is.

Adsb IN is the ability to receive the signals from all the other aircrafts.

So ideally you need both.

You need adsb out so you're broadcasting the whole world, and you need ADSB in where you can see the images of the other aircraft.

Now, for twenty years twenty the NTSB, the National Traffic Safety Board, has been recommending that every aircraft have ADSBN and adsb out.

That is not the law, and the Army Blackhawk helicopter did not have adsb OUT that was functioning that night, so that meant the American Airlines plane could not see it until the two collided and everyone died.

This week I introduced legislation.

I called it the Roador Act, and it mandates that every aircraft, a jet, a helicopter, or any other aircraft that is in commercial airspace, that is in the airspace where planes are flying, where the flying public is must have both adsb out and ADSB in.

I think this is common sense legislation.

I think we're going to get it passed, and I think when we get it passed, it is going to make the flying public significantly safer.

Why did it take so long?

I mean, I know there was a lot of people that said, well, it was just a cost issue, and it was a cost add on to the price of a plane.

It was cost out onto small planes and different things, and that people were frustrated.

They're like, this is another one of those regulations.

Is it was as simple as that, and that's the reason why it was always basically not made a all.

So they're different pieces of it.

The FAA required adsb out so it required aircraft to broadcast their location so the air traffic controllers could get it and other aircraft that had ADSBN could get it.

However, there was an MoU a memoranda of understanding with the army that exempted a lot of army flights.

This was a training flight.

This was not a vital national security flight.

This was not like they were transporting nuclear secrets.

This was a training flight.

But they did not have functioning adsb out on in a way that anyone could see.

I think that exemption makes no sense, and so part of the Rotor Act is ending that exemption and saying, look, if you're flying commercial airspace, you need to have adsb out on.

That was one component.

The second component is adsb in, which is the ability to see the other signals.

Now it varies many Many large airline flights typically have adsb in, but a lot of other flights do not.

And the impediment, as you noted, it was cost that twenty years ago, it was fairly expensive to put this on.

It's not that expensive anymore.

And one of the things I've done over the last six months is that I've met with a lot of the stakeholders.

I've met with the airlines, I've met with general Aviation, I've met with a lot of the folks that are flying, and you can actually get adsb in with an eyepad and fairly inexpensive technology.

So it's not you're not talking like one hundred thousand dollars upgrade on a plane.

You're talking for relatively low cost, maybe a couple hundred or couple thousand dollars.

You can have an iPad and the technology to have ADSPN, so it doesn't cost a lot, but it makes the flying public a lot safer.

And I want you to listen right now.

I want you to listen first of all, to what I had said about the roator Act, and that I want you to listen to Secretary Duffy, the Transportation Secretary so start with what I said at the press conference today.

Well, good morning.

Today is an auspicious day for aviation safety, a day marked, I hope, by a revived spirit of hope and a shared determination act in the face of an unforgettable tragedy.

American skies must be as safe as possible, and our duty as lawmakers is to ensure that they are.

I would like to start by thanking the individuals who are joining me for the introduction of the Rotorcraft Operations Transparency and Oversight Reform or the rot Act.

Secretary Duffy, Chairwoman Hammandy, Tim and Sherry, Lily, Doug Lane, and my colleagues have all worked hard to make the American skies safer.

Tim, Sherry, Doug, thank you for your courage and your advocacy.

Your presence reminds us of what is at stake.

You've turned your grief into purpose.

We are here today because of your efforts and the memory of Tim and Sherry, your son, Doug, your son, Doug, your wife and son, and all of the loved ones that were lost.

Over the Potomac.

The Rotor Act represents a common sense step forward in aviation safety reform.

Most important parts of this bill is the requirement that all aircraft, military and civilian use both ADSB OUT and ADSB in.

ADSB is critical for aviation safety.

This technology allows aircraft to broadcast their positions and to receive positions of others in real time, faster than other technology in use today.

It gives pilots and air traffic control a clear view of what is happening in the skies.

The NTSB first recommended ADSB in nearly twenty years ago.

We are going to make that happen this year.

Make no mistake, there cannot be a double standard in aviation safety.

We should not tolerate special exceptions for military training flights operating in congested airspace.

No matter the circumstances, any aircraft flying near commercial traffic must fully adhere to safety standards.

Given the communications breakdown that led to the accident, it is also important to address helicopter routes in congested commercial airspace.

We cannot have commercial airplanes and helicopters on a collision course ever.

Again, this bill is based on two core principles, technological transparency.

And institutional responsibility.

While American skies are among the safest globally, this safety is not always assured.

I want to be clear.

The Senate will lead this effort.

We will not wait for another accident to happen before we act decisively.

To protect the American skies.

We have made it abundantly clear that when American lives are at risk, excuses are not acceptable.

However, this is about more than policy.

It's about people.

The family standing here.

They didn't ask to be a part of the story.

However they stand with the courage to ensure that it has a better ending for others.

This is the kind of legacy we should all aspire to build.

Thank you, and I now recognize the Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy to give his remarks.

Sean, you know that the night that this plane crash happened was the night he was actually sworn in, and that was the first day on the job for him.

First I know the job.

Yeah, I mean that evening.

I remember seeing his family heading into where his office was going to be and then apparently he's there and then immediately has to deal with this, and obviously that impact him in a major way.

You know him well, I know Sean, well.

I can't imagine your first time in the job this is what you were dealing with, this type of tragedy, and it seems to be a realis point for him.

Sewn is a really good man.

He's become a good friend.

He's doing a great job as President Trump's Secretary of Transportation.

But this was baptism by fire.

He had not been on the job twenty four hours when this accident occurred, and he doped right in the middle of it.

And he's been dealing with the aftermath.

And I want you to listen to him now at the press conference today about our legislation.

Here's Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy.

This is not partisan.

Safety is not partisan.

It is Democrats and Republicans, House, Senate, dot FAA, the President's administration, all of us want to make sure we're safe and so Center, I commend you for this bold effort and rallying the forces in this body to make sure we lead and make sure our s guys continue to be the safest in the world.

And this is one giant leap.

This is going to help make that happen, and I look forward to working with you and your colleagues to advance this cause.

So thank you for for driving again twenty two years ago, the NTSP recommended this.

By the way, sometimes people get concerned about cost, and I don't think we should be concerned about costs when it comes to safety.

But I was talking to the administrator of the FAA.

The cost to deploy this technology is not that great for commercial aircraft or for the military.

We can drive safety way higher and also at a very affordable cost.

That's the benefit of the advancement of technology over the course of the last twenty two years.

And so this is doable.

And I think the American people expect this from this body, this administration to keep them safe.

Yeah.

I mean, you wrap this up and you talk about the family members that we're there for this.

They want to make sure this trategy never ever happens to another family again, that seems to be clear, Sean.

So the big question becomes, is this going to be a bipartisan thinking can you get it done?

So?

I believe we will.

And listen, they're sixty seven families who lost a loved one that night, and those families are grieving that they're in agony, and yet they're using their agony to be advocates, and they're trying to use that horrific tragedy to change the law to protect the flying public so that there's not another family, so it's not your family or my family that sometime in the future loses a loved one on an air flight.

And I want you to listen right now to Tim Lily.

Tim is the father of the American Eagle co pilot Sam Lily, and he was flying the American plane that crashed in to the black Hawk helicopter.

And actually Tim himself was a black Hawk pilot, so he had flown those exact roots right along Reagan Airport, so we had a lot of experience with it, and yet tragically he and his wife lost their son that night.

Give a listen to Tim Lily.

This is not gonna be Sam's legacy to die in Vain sixty seven.

Really great people lost their lives that night, and there's no reason for that.

What we have here is legislation, if it's past, is going to close some very important safety loopholes so that this never has to happen again.

It's simple, right, We're going to close these loopholes.

Yeah, and and look to see the families standing together.

So I actually this evening, I had drinks with the Secretary of the Army.

And the Secretary of the Army met today with the families of those whose lives were lost, and he said it was a rough meeting.

Look there, they're pissed off.

If your if your family was killed that night, you'd be pissed off.

You'd be pissed off at the Army flight that crashed into the plane.

You'd be angry, you'd be saying what to change, and it was apparently.

Look, it was not an easy meeting.

And I respect the Secretary for going and listening and hearing their pain.

I respect the families for channeling that pain into something productive.

It's easy to just if you lose.

A loved one, to mourn, to get angry, to be angry at God, to be angry at the world.

I mean, that's a perfectly natural reaction.

And yet I really admire these families that they are.

They feeling those sentiments, of course, but they've made the conscious decision I'm going to channel that anger into trying to make a difference and change the laws.

Now, now you asked, is this going to happen?

It needs to be bipartisan.

Now, the bill I introduced today is not bipartisan.

No Democrats had joined it, and I will say the Democrats, they filed their own legislation that is partisan legislation that they decided they wanted to tee off on President Trump and doze and have a bunch of elements in the bill that have nothing to do with safety but have everything to do with scoring partisans and points.

I think that's not very productive.

This bill is designed to be bipartisan, and it is one of the advantages of chairing the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

I'm going to see up this bill.

We are going to mark up this spill.

Every member of the Commerce Committee is going to vote on this bill.

I think we're going to get overwhelming bipartisan support for this bill.

It needs to be bipartisan.

There's nothing in this bill that from a Republican side, is partisan.

There's nothing that I put that is a crazy right wing priority.

This is designed to keep the flying public safer.

This is a common sense provision.

So I believe we will get bipartisan support.

I believe it will be passed into law, and my prediction, Ben this will be signed into law this year and it will make everyone who flies safer.

I want to move to the other topic that we mentioned earlier, and that deals with the FBI right now and new intel that's coming out, and I got to say a lot of people are going to be shocked by it.

I'm not surprised at all by this.

And I want to get your take on now what we're learning about the FBI with the Russia Russia Russia hoax and the controversial Trump Russia actions predicted with alarming accuracy by foreign actors.

I mean, you look at this coming out now, and it's just a joke.

How incredible this whole I call it a play.

It was a movie.

It's a script, and everybody was playing on the script that they knew was a lie.

That's right.

But I want to take a minute and sort of pull the curtain back for our listeners.

So we do this podcast, and we do this podcast sometimes late at night, so it is twelve to fifty five am.

So look, men is half asleep.

To be honest, he's been asleep for two hours and we woke him to do this.

So the headline of this story says that it was predicted with alarming specificity.

Yes, that's true, And I want sheld to Doe.

We recorded this, and this is one of the advantages doing a podcast.

When you record it and screw it up, you can just stop and rewind and do it again.

We recorded it, and twice Benjamin was unable to say the words specificity.

He tried a tough one specific I can't say it now, see.

And I will confess I kept making it harder because I kept saying fescipicity and.

I can say that word, no problem, right, That one's easy.

So finally, after after twice crashing and burning on saying specificity, he just said with alarming accuracy.

By the way, the quote is not accuracy, it's specificity.

But I didn't say quote unquote.

See, I covered myself there.

You didn't say the word quote.

But I just wanted our listeners to know that that that like the specificity.

With real at one am, that is accurate, not one am.

It's twelve fifty seven.

You got three minutes till one am.

All right, so let's cover the under But but this is the important stuff to understand.

Look, these these are real human beings.

I'm in my DC apartment, you're in a hotel room.

I think, is that right now?

I'm in I'm in a house in Pinehurst, North Carolina.

So that's where the World Championships is.

Look that that that that's pretty fancy and sheishi And you've got to be up at like six thirty is tea time?

Is that right?

It's it's a six eighteen or something absurd.

Six eighteen all right, Benjamin.

While you're at tea time, I will be fast asleep.

I believe you.

I believe, and you'll be dreaming about the alarming specifificity the word I can you still can't say it.

Come on specificity, Just say it once specificity.

There we go, there we go.

Look at that.

By the way, you know what I did Monday on the on the flight to DC.

Wait, say that again?

Do you know what I did Monday in the flight to DC?

What did you do?

I watched Happy Gilmore two have you?

It's so good?

It is.

I love when they don't screw when they don't screw up a sequel like Top Gun Maverick.

They killed it right, Happy Gilmore.

It's been not happy.

Maybe better than Happy Gilmore, like you know, a really.

Good and and by the way, did you see it coming?

Because I did not whin hold on spoiler word if you haven't been watched it yet, turned down for five seconds.

When that when he killed his wife with the golf ball?

Did I did not see that coming?

Did you?

I did not see that coming either.

I.

I will say, by the way, as a complete aside, I've gotten to know Adam Sandler's producer.

You know, he's a big hoops player.

I gotta tell you, I'm told that Sandler.

I've invited him come play hoops with with me and he said yes, so hadn't happened yet.

But I'm actually really psyched because Sandler and I are almost exactly the same age, and he's a serious ballplayer.

And as you know, I play hoops twice a week.

Do I say, count me in for that game.

I'd like to be there for that game.

Okay, don't injure Adam Sandler like he is a national comedic treasure.

And I will say, I played hoops with you.

The last time I played hoops with you broke your finger.

You're a large I'm not worried about him, worried about me.

And you throw your body around pretty physically, which I admire.

Like I'm like, screw it.

If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen.

But I'm just saying, don't injure Adam Sandler.

There you go.

That'd be one heck of a headline, right, all.

Right, let's get back.

We actually had a story to do, but I just had to I had to call you out because you like magically edited out.

You're screwing up the word and yeah, so I just had to like bring our listeners in and say, you know, sometimes the magic of podcast is not exactly what you think.

All right, yeah, you know, I'm ready go for it.

I'm ready, good, go ahead, say what you're gonna say.

No, no, I was gonna say.

So this is the part that laugh when you when you do radio like I did three three hours a day.

My producer Diaz, who does this show as well, when that would happen.

The worst part is he's just laughing at me through the glass on the other side of the wall because it's live and there's nothing you can do to fix it, and so he just laughs in my face.

So now this is like my weird revenge because for how many years we worked here Diez twelve, thirteen, fourteen, I don't even know how many it is.

He just used to just laugh at me, and now he actually has to go back and fix it.

So I'm like, the joke's on you, buddy, the joke's on you.

So yeah, when it's live, there's nothing you can do about it.

So with all that specificity, the word I can't say is still the night for some reason.

Let's get back to the event.

I still reported on this story with alarming fesipicity.

And let me read from the Fox News story quote.

US intelligence has credible foreign sources indicating that the FBI would play a role in spreading the salacious Trump Russia collusion narrative before the bureau ever launched it's controversial crossfire Hurricane probe, sources familiar with the intel told Fox News Digital see I director John Ratcliffe is expected to decline classify the underlying intelligence, including a classified annex related to former Special Counsel John Durham's investigation into the origins of the Trump Russia probe.

A source familiar with the contents of the classified annex told Fox News Digital that while it may not have been exactly clear in the moment what the intelligent collection meant, with the benefit of hindsight, it predicted the FBI's move with alarming specificity, and it goes on to.

Say, there's your quote, there you go quote.

Ultimately, the release of the classified annex will lend more credibility to the assertion that there was a coordinated plan inside the US government to help the Clinton campaign stir up controversy connecting Trump to Russia.

The source who was granted anonymity to discussed the sense of intelligence matters that have not yet been made public, told Fox News Digital, quote, mere days after this intelligence was collected, the FBI launched Crossfire Hurricane.

The source said, quote, it is really hard to see how Brennan, Clapper and Comy are going to be able to explain this away.

You put that in perspective, and I think it's fair to say at this point, everything we were hearing during the back of the day on this it was all just straight up government propaganda and the media was one hundred percent in on it.

Well, it was not just government propaganda.

It was driven by the Hillary Clinton campaign.

It was opposition research that they paid for and then they gave to the Obama administration to launder it.

They laundered it through the FBI, They laundered it through the Department of Justice, and in it was the federal government attacking Donald Trump because they did not want Donald Donald Trump to be president.

And the degree to which the government was complicit in partisan politics, but not just partisan politics, partisan politics.

That was false.

That was a lie.

This was made up.

The Russia hoax was a hoax.

It was concocted through the Hillary Clinton campaign.

It was laundered through the FBI and the Department of Justice, and it was a lie.

That was a political attack job.

And I want to commend John Ratcliffe, the head of the CIA, a good friend of mine, for making this public, for drawing accountability and truth to what occurred.

What do you think is going to come from this because there's so many I think just gruntled and frustrated Americans that hear those things and like, all right, we're now getting more and more confirmation this happened.

Will there be any real accountability?

And does this move us closer to that?

So?

I hope so that there needs to be accountability.

And I will say, you have Telsey Gabbard who released her bombshell information about the degree of the complicity of the administration, and if you didn't hear our podcast last week on this.

You should listen to the podcast on Tulsi Gabbert's bombshell information.

I hope there is accountability I call on on the Department of Justice.

I also had when I was having drinks with the Army Secretary, I also had drinks with the Deputy Attorney General of the United States, and so I was urging DOJ follow the facts and prosecute anyone who is complicit.

There are challenges because some of the people who were involved in this, their criminal conduct was before the statute of limitations expired, and so it is harder to prosecute someone who committed criminal conduct after the statute limitations has expired.

Andrew McCabe, who was the deputy director of the FBI, he testified before Congress.

He testified falsely, and the statute of limitations has not yet expired on his testimony.

So if I were to predict the single most likely person in the Obama administration of face prosecution, it would be Andrew mc because there's still a window where he lied to Congress and it's within the statute limitations.

Really incredible.

We're gonna keep you updated on all this.

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