All in all, Red is pushing an extreme liberal vision for America. Boys and girls, locker rooms, boys and girls bathrooms, boys and girls sports. And he's just getting started. I'm Ted Cruz, and I approve this message. You might have noticed that the Ted Cruz political ad that we just played [00:00:18] had a portion where individuals had their faces blurred out. We did that. Ted Cruz and his campaign did not do that. We blurred their images because their images of minors and those images of those minors were used without their permission, [00:00:34] and they were identified as transgender students when they're in fact not transgender at all. So it turns out that because of the fact that they were exploited for this political ad, the Oregon school district where the girls or one of the girls is a student [00:00:53] is asking Ted Cruz to, you know, pull the ad you didn't ask for for permission. You're using images of minors and you're misidentifying who they are. So again, we blurred their faces. But this is the moment in question in the ad. [00:01:09] I get that it's a quick shot, but it doesn't matter. They're in the ad. They didn't ask to be in the ad. They didn't give permission. This is insane. This is insane. It's insane. Look, look, I don't know how parents do it, man. I don't know how parents do it because I. I'm so loyal and I love so deeply that, [00:01:29] like, if this was my kid, I. I do not advocate for violence. I'm just going to put it out there. It'd be very difficult for me to not act in a way that I would condemn. Okay, I would certainly condemn. But when it comes to my loved ones, I mean, how. [00:01:46] Yeah. Knowing what is likely to come to those kids. - Yes, yes. - The right wing piranha descend on them. Yeah. If it was my kid, Ted Cruz. Better flee to Cancun. Yeah, is what I would say. Agreed. Somewhere he'd be more comfortable. So the Beaverton School District sent a letter to the Cruz campaign demanding [00:02:03] that the ad be pulled down immediately. Officials wrote in their letter the two athletes pictured are minors. The one on the left in the Westview hoodie is our student, the family, nor the school or school district ever gave permission for this photo to be used. [00:02:22] In addition, the ad implies that at least one of the athletes in this photo is transgender. Please know that both of these athletes were born female and identify as female. They are not transgender. It is alarming that your campaign would have produced, distributed promoted this [00:02:41] ad with false information, especially with minor children involved, the letter said. It asks that the ad be pulled from any and all distribution platforms immediately. So I'm going to pause for a second because it's important to know the double standard in advertising regulations. [00:02:58] I don't know if the lack of Regulations pertaining to political ads would basically protect Ted Cruz here. But generally speaking, generally speaking, they can lie to you [00:03:14] in political ads all they want. False advertising is allowed in political ads, which I'm sure you already know, because you've seen political ads that are full of lies when it comes to companies advertising their products. There are regulations preventing false advertising. [00:03:31] So again, I don't know if there are any regulations in place to go after what Ted Cruz's campaign is doing here. But there are minors involved, and this is so deplorable and disgusting. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, I think it's actually I think it's important also to identify, I think [00:03:48] the three levels of how messed up it is. So the ad that they released is, I guess, especially messed up because they decided, hey, we just need some kids. Who the hell cares if they're even trans? I mean, we don't really care about this issue. We're just using it for a political point. Points to throw whatever kids you want, and you're implying [00:04:05] that they're trans when they're not. So that's especially messed up, by the way. If they were trans, it would also be super, super messed up to take two random kids school kids and use them to attack your political opponents. So even if they hadn't gotten that wrong or cared enough to look into it, [00:04:22] that would still be messed up. Also, if they hadn't used any photo and they hadn't shown any kid but the ad otherwise had been the same, it would be super, super messed up because Texas is a state that has a lot of people in it. It's got a lot going on, it's got a lot of problems. [00:04:41] And the idea that you and the closing days of your campaign need to be doing what so many Republicans are doing right now, especially the Trump campaign, where they're putting more money into ads specifically about trans people than like literally anything else. The idea that that's one of the top 250 biggest issues facing Texas is absurd. [00:05:00] I lived in Texas for half a decade. I know they've got other stuff they can deal with the fact that needlessly, people die of heat in the summers, die of cold in the winters, and no politician there seems to give a damn about it, or is going to do anything to stop it. The fact that he's campaigning on this, that spineless little weenie Ted Cruz, [00:05:19] when he's been also presenting himself as some sort of moderate and bipartisan all that is just grotesque. So what they did, even how they could have been a little bit less inaccurate and that they did it at all, all messed up. 100% agree with you on this. Now, the ad did run during football games in Dallas and Houston earlier this month. [00:05:39] A spokesperson for Cruz's campaign said the ads are no longer on air, on the air, but also, both are, but both of them are still available on YouTube, which is worse, right? Like videos on demand are sure easily accessible. [00:05:56] I assume less people will see it now that it's not, you know, being shoved in their faces on TV. Yeah, you'd have to look for it. And that's that's a fair point. The spokesperson also said that the picture features a female athlete who spoke out against boys playing in girls sports after participating in [00:06:13] a track meet where a biological male beat. We all know it was implied by the image. Let's put the image, obviously the censored image back up. Okay, what was implied here is that one of them is a transgender athlete who's far bigger and is kicking the female athletes asses. [00:06:32] Like. And it's unfair. Like that's the that's the whole point of this image. Even though both are biological females, even if. That's not what they were trying to do, the mere fact that that a kid said something means, oh, they're part of our campaign now, that's it's a kid. [00:06:47] - No, it's a kid. - Okay. The photo was also featured in a Central Oregon Daily News story about outrage over a transgender athlete competing in a track meet. One of the girls in the photo is quoted in the story saying she hopes people are realizing that it's not fair to the girls who are running. [00:07:07] But when the news outlet pressed them on using the photo of minors without context because remember, it's a political ad, no one's going to know the context behind the photo. They're going to just look at what's being implied by the use of that photo in the ad. [00:07:23] So when they were pressed on that the Cruz campaign didn't respond, and the school district says that the district also hasn't received any response from the Cruz campaign. And as for the actual substance of the ad, Cruz's opponent, Colin Allred, [00:07:38] responded saying, quote, let me be clear. I don't want boys playing girls sports or any of this ridiculous stuff. Ted Cruz is saying. So, so, so an added level of the ad isn't even accurate as to what Colin Allred would do or says. [00:07:56] What his views are. On the also kind of sucks that if you're trans in Texas, you apparently can't turn to either of them to show you even basic decency so that also sucks on top of everything else. But it's also super inaccurate. Colin Allred is not some radical commie or anything like that. [00:08:12] - That's not him at all. - I just, I wonder if we're ever going to experience a day in American politics where people running for public office address actual, important bread and butter issues that are impacting, you know, [00:08:30] wide swaths of of the American population. The dirty tricks, the divisiveness, the toxicity, the defamation, the libel, all of it. I'm so sick of it. I'm so disgusted by it. And I just I'm in. [00:08:46] I'm amazed at how much collateral damage there is with this form of politics and how little they care, even when it involves actual human beings, even when it involves actual minors. I mean, the they cannot, like Ted Cruz, cannot run on what he actually believes [00:09:05] and who he's actually there to serve because he would literally never get elected. And also there is a downside to one side or both sides being super divisive and attacking each other. It drives down turnout. Not everybody cares about that. Do you think Ted Cruz is like, oh no, not as many Texans [00:09:22] will participate in the system? That's such a that's what the laws are designed to do is to drive down turnout. Yeah. I mean, if you don't hear any politician addressing what you care about, like, why would you be engaged in the electoral process, in the political system? [00:09:39] Some do. Like you pointed out in the first hour about Harris's speech, like there are some people trying to run on that. And Biden also, you know, back in the day when he could speak a little bit more, he tried to do that quite a bit. I think Harris handled it perfectly. And anyway, I'm upset about that whole situation, [00:09:55] and I think it's incredibly unfair to her. - But here we are. - Thanks for watching. If you become a member, you get to watch all this ad free. Except for, of course, this ad still hit the join button below.