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See terms. With us right now is Senator Ted Cruz. Not only is it always great to have the Senator Arns, Chairman of Commerce, you know. Know he's working on a reform bill when it comes to college sports, doing great bipartisan work there. He's got a new book out, and I downloaded it last night.
I could not put it down. Going further, the incomparable Clarence Thomas, who he clerked for. Senator Cruz, welcome to Brian Kilmey Chow. Welcome back. Brian, good morning.
Great to be with you. Thanks for having me. Hey, first off, about what's going on with college sports. As I talked to Drew Rosenhaus on Sunday night, he told me I don't want to see any reforms. And he kind of laughed afterwards because he's actually recruiting high school players now.
Because high school players are earning NIL. And they know they're going to get million dollar contracts going to college.
So, what you've been working hard on is bring some type of semblance of order. When you guys come back to work, Where is the college sports reform bill at?
Well, we're going to vote on it either the second or third week of September.
So it is locked in to be voted on. I think we're going to get it passed, and I think we need to. What's happening in college sports right now is just chaos. There are no rules. All the rules have been thrown out.
So right now what you have is you have athletes going into the transfer portal. They transfer two, three, four times. you have essentially zero eligibility rules.
So you have athletes playing six, seven, eight years. You have twenty seven, twenty eight year olds competing against seventeen year olds. And you've also got, and we're seeing this right now, Pros, NFL players going back and playing college football, NBA players going back and playing college basketball, and the entire system. is trapped in this cost spiral where the costs are spiraling up and up and up. And almost every program in the country is losing tens of millions of dollars.
And the result is every week You see another program being canceled. You see women's sports being canceled. You see Olympic sports being canceled. And if Congress doesn't act, within five years we're going to see maybe thirty to fifty competitive college football programs remaining, and everyone else is going to go out of business.
So the programs are going to end. And when football ends, all of the rest of the programs end because it's football that pays for every other sport. That outcome would be a disaster because college sports is something amazing that we have in America. It is something unique we have in America. Every year, About 500,000 college athletes go to college because of sports.
And if we sit by and let that go away, we'll see those opportunities take away. We'll see hundreds of thousands of athletes have the chance to go to school and get an education and get the skills that put them on a path to success. We'll see those opportunities go away. We can't do that. And so I've authored the Protecting College Sports Act.
As you noted, it's bipartisan legislation. I authored it with Maria Cantwell, Democrat from Washington State. We voted it out of the Commerce Committee, which I chair. It was a big bipartisan vote. It was nineteen percent to nine percent.
So seventy percent of the members of the committee voted for it. We're going to be on the floor second or third week of September. And what this bill does is it brings order to the chaos. It sets simple rules.
So for example, Every athlete gets one free transfer, not unlimited transfers, one transfer. It sets eligibility. Five years for eligibility. It ends at age 24. It gives the ability to have basic rules, such that, for example, if you're gambling, You can lose your eligibility.
We've had with the Brendan Sorsby case, what we have right now is governance by injunction. One trial lawyer finds a friendly local judge, and it doesn't matter that the player has gambled on his own games for years. The judge says he can play. That doesn't make any sense. And so, this is a bill that is designed to protect college sports, to protect it for the student athletes, to protect it for the colleges, and to protect it ultimately for the fans.
Have you been in contact with the House leadership? Are they going to adopt this? And I know they have a different version, right? Uh they do and and look, what I believe will happen is in September, the Senate's going to pass this, and I think we're going to get a big bipartisan vote, right? We have to get at least sixty to pass it out of the Senate.
I think we're going to get a lot more than sixty. And in my view, what will happen then is it will go to the House, and the House will take it up and pass it. President Trump is. Enthusiastically supports this bill. He and I talk about it every few days, and he very much wants it to pass.
He is leading in. The House has their own version, but they haven't been able to pass their own version. And so I like their version, but it has the support of no Democrats. The version that they have is not going to become law. This bill, particularly with the support we've got behind it, We have twenty four conferences that have endorsed this bill.
We have three hundred sixty colleges and universities that have endorsed this bill. The historically black colleges and universities have endorsed this bill. We have the support of the NBA, The NFL, Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League. We have the support of the NBA Players Association, the NFL Players Association. We have the support of the U.S.
Olympic and Paralympic Committee. And we also have the support of coaches like Nick Saban and John Calapari and hundreds of coaches across the country who've endorsed this as the only and best hope to save the incredible institution that we have that's college sports. How can we help make stronger communities happen?
Well, at JPMorgan Chase, we invest in what's working, in businesses that create more jobs, in hospitals delivering care where it's needed the most, in workers building new buildings, bridges, and roads, connecting what we need to where we live. Make the green grass grow all around, all around, make the green grass grow all around. Make momentum happen. Learn more at jpmorganchase.com slash impact. Hey, it's Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile.
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C-terms.
So Senator Ted Cruz, our guest, working on that. And the other thing was: at the last minute, I heard when you guys tried to pass this this summer, is that there was a big thing. It doesn't protect against men playing in women's sports, that trans thing. Have you added anything to that to make sure it's biological? The gender you were born?
So the language is explicit that it does not touch the laws in states like Texas and West Virginia and 27 states across the country that have acted to protect women's sports. Men should not be playing in women's sports. Boys should not be playing in girls' sports. And states that that are not Haven't lost their minds, have acted and passed legislation to protect that. The language in the bill unequivocally protects.
those laws and we've got to protect those laws.
So, I want to talk about your book now. The day was October 11, 1991. Clarence Thomas, in his last day of his hearing, one of his last days of his hearing, spoke out against the Anita Hill and the attacks against him. Cut 45. This is a circus.
It's a national disgrace. It is a high-tech lynching. for uppity blacks. who in any way deign to think for themselves. And it is a message.
that unless you kowtow to an old order. You will be lynched. destroyed caricatured. by a committee of the U.S. U.S.
Senate. rather than hung from a tree.
So that was Clarence Thomas, fed up and speaking out. And that is all in the book going further, the incomparable Clarence Thomas. Senator, how much did that hearing and the turbulence around the country play into Clarence Thomas, who he is today, and how he acts on the Supreme Court? Yeah.
Well, I think he went through fire in the confirmation hearing. And what the Democrats did, that committee was chaired by Joe Biden. And what they did, it was wrong. They smeared him. They blindsided him.
They had accusations, which they just sat on throughout the entire hearing. And then they leaked on the eve of his confirmation to just attack him. And what happened there, and I cover the confirmation hearing in full detail. What happened there is the committee convened a new hearing. And the American people listened to Anita Hill, they listened to her allegations, and then they listened to Clarence Thomas.
And more than two-thirds of Americans watching those hearings, they looked in their eyes and they believed Clarence Thomas, and they did not believe Anita Hill's allegations. That's why he got confirmed to the court. But I'll tell you, that experience going through that searing attack when other men, when lesser men would have quit, would have stepped down. Part of the reason they did this. And it's the same thing they did to Brett Kavanaugh.
The Democrats followed the exact same playbook where they had the allegations against Brett Kavanaugh for weeks, did nothing with it, didn't ask him about it, did nothing. And on the eve of the vote, they leaked it to the press to try to smear him. And actually, I cover this in the book as well. We had to do the exact same thing in the Senate Judiciary Committee for Brett Kavanaugh, which is give both of them an opportunity to be heard. And again, the American people believe Brett Kavanaugh.
You know, I'll tell you, Brian, that this book, what I've tried to do. Is tell the story of Clarence Thomas. Justice Thomas is someone I've known for over 30 years. I think he is. an American hero.
He's an extraordinary person. He was born in abject poverty. He was born in Pinpoint, Georgia, tiny rural town in Georgia. He lived in extreme poverty. He was raised by his grandfather, who was a very difficult man, a very disciplinarian, but was the most important man in Clarence Thomas' life because he worked and taught him discipline.
And he taught him, he would work him, get Clarence and his brother up at three and four in the morning. They would go deliver fuel oil, which was his grandfather's job, and the boys would deliver it with him. in the bitter cold He would not let the boys wear gloves because he would say, you know, gloves are for the week. And he made Clarence Thomas tough. And he worked him from early in the morning till late, late at night.
And the one exception Was school a reading? And so young Clarence would go to the library and he would read for hours and hours on end. It's how he could get out of hard physical labor. And he grew to love learning. He became an excellent student.
Clarence Thomas then decided that his calling in life He wanted to be a priest, and so he went to seminary. And the world, instead of Justice Thomas, Almost got Father Thomas. But in seminary He was deeply troubled. It was the 1960s. He was deeply troubled.
He became disillusioned with the church because he felt that the church. Was not acting vigorously enough against racial discrimination, against racial bigotry. And so he left the seminary and he went to Holy Cross and then Yale Law School. And Brian, it's an amazing thing. When he was in college and law school, young Clarence Thomas was a radical left-wing activist.
He wore camo pants and combat boots. He had a poster of Malcolm X on the wall. He would go to Black Panther rallies. He participated in a riot in Harvard Square. He was an angry young man as he describes.
And so what I try to do in this book is number one, Tell the journey, no justice in history has gone from such abject poverty. To the absolute pinnacle of American law. But I also try to chronicle the intellectual journey. of going from an angry left wing radical to one of the most important conservative thinkers has ever lived. And finally, Clarence Thomas has been is the second longest serving Supreme Court justice in history.
He's been on the court over thirty years. In two years, he will become the longest serving Supreme Court justice in the history of our country. What I try to do in this book Is take 30 years of jurisprudence and explain it in ways that are real and that are understandable. You don't have to be a lawyer, you don't have to be an expert. This is designed for a smart high school kid to be able to read it and understand it and know who is Clarence Thomas.
Also, I want to bring in what happened. This is how optimistic people were, how different it was. Congressman Democrat James Clyburn on C-SPAN testifying in favor of Clarence Thomas in 1991 in September, Cut 48. It's a pleasure for me to Be here today to present testimony in favor of my good friend Clarence Thomas. I've known clients for 10 years.
And I consider him to be a personal and professional friend. In spite of the fact that he shares a conservative Republican philosophy. But this is what he said Sunday. About that support, Cut 49. Do you stand by your decision to make the case for Clarence Thomas's confirmation?
Absolutely not. You know, I have made mistakes in my life. And that's one uh that I made. And I will own up to that mistake. Uh the fact of the matter is I had faith and confidence.
In the fact that his background and experiences would instruct him. And it's professionalism, especially sitting on the bench.
So he feels the opposite of you. Your thoughts about James Clyburn. I hear that.
Well, I saw that on Sunday and I thought that was unfortunate, but it also wasn't surprising. Look, look, James Claiborne is responding to the Democrat Party of today, and their base is so angry, it's so extreme. And they hate Clarence Thomas. That's one of the things I talk about in the book a great deal. The level of contempt and hatred directed at Clarence Thomas is unlike any other justice.
You know, Anthony and Scalia. was every bit as conservative as Thomas. But they didn't hate him the same way because Clarence Thomas is a black man, and the view of the left. is that no black man Has a right to think the way he does. You know, here's how the book opens.
It opens as follows. Imagine a man who came from nothing. who endured bleak poverty. Who stood up to crushing racism, who is right now on track to become the longest-serving Supreme Court justice in American history? You don't have to imagine.
That man, of course, is the incomparable Clarence Thomas. There is nobody else quite like it.
Somebody so extraordinary, you would think, would be venerated. And if he were politically liberal, he would be. Change that one small fact, and dozens of law schools would have given him an honorary degree. Elementary schools would be named after him. Late night hosts would invite him on adoringly in chic t-shirts.
Think notorious RBG. would be aggressively marketed to young people. Instead, the response is silence. and hate. It's time for that silence to end.
That's why I wrote this book, because you know. We have such a divided time, there's so much hate, there's so much anger, that there's a shortage of role models. And I think Clarence Thomas is an extraordinary person. He agreed to sit for nine and a half hours of one-on-one exclusive interviews with me for this book. And I want to tell his story because I want people, I think if you're looking for a role model who could not do better than Clarence Commons, I just want to encourage your listeners to go to Amazon and buy the book.
You'll enjoy it. It's a fun read. And buy an extra copy for your family. Buy one for your kids or grandkids. But don't expect to go to the African American Museum and see much on him, which is insane.
True. Real quick, I only got 30 seconds. Senator Cruz, do you think he stays past the Trump term? I do. I think he is not going anywhere.
He is going to stay, I think, at a minimum until the spring of 2028 when he becomes the longest-serving justice in history. And I think as long as his health is good, he's going to stay there. He is at the pinnacle of his game, and he is fighting for the Constitution in a way that is changing the world. And that's what this book explains: why it matters for your life. Senator Ted Cruz, the name of the book is Going Further, The Incomparable, Clarence Thomas.
Thanks, Senator. Great to talk to you. Thanks, Brian. Hey, it's Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile.
Now, I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited premium wireless for $15 a month is back.
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