CLAY: Senator Cruz, first of all, it was good hanging out with you this past weekend. We got the Olympics starting today, and we already have American media and global media helping to whitewash the situation in China. I know you’re a sports fan like me. What is your perception of how you’re going to watch the Winter Olympics?

Do you think American sports spans should boycott this to try to send a message? What’s the appropriate response if you don’t agree with bending the knee to China and allowing Beijing to host these games, but you’re also a fan of sports? I think that’s a tough dynamic for a lot of people to figure out.

SEN. CRUZ: Well, it is a tough dynamic, and by far the best option would have been to move the Olympics out of Beijing. That’s what should have happened.

CLAY: Yes.

SEN. CRUZ: I think it was a serious mistake of the International Olympic Committee not moving it. Given that they didn’t, we faced a choice, and there are really three things we could have done. We could have boycotted the Olympics altogether. We could have kept our athletes home, and there was a strong argument for that. The problem with that is that ends up really hurting the athletes, hurting young men and women, Americans when you’ve spent years, often decades training for this moment.

And it’s not very effective. We saw Jimmy Carter do that, boycott the Olympics, and all it did was hurt a generation of American athletes. It didn’t accomplish what was trying to be accomplished. The second option, which seems to be the option that we’re doing, is to go and have the American press and American companies basically be apologists for the Chinese communists and praise China. I think that’s a disgraceful outcome, and it certainly seems to be the path we’re on right now.

Option three, which is the one that I think makes sense, is to allow our athletes to compete and to cheer them on to win, but at the same time use this moment of the eyes of the world on China to shine a spotlight on their atrocities — to shine a spotlight on their murder, on their torture, on their genocide. One million Uyghurs in concentration camps!

To shine a spotlight on China’s direct culpability for covid-19, which the evidence overwhelmingly suggests escaped from a Chinese government lab in Wuhan, China. Use this opportunity to speak the truth to power — and at least so far, NBC is failing the test badly. And I think every American who has a microphone should use this moment to shine the light of truth and justice on the Chinese human rights atrocities.

BUCK: Senator Cruz, it’s Buck. There was that video that was leaked from last week of some members of Border Patrol down in Laredo, Texas, and they were just upset, understandably, at the fact that the Biden administration just keeps making it effectively not only impossible for them to do their jobs, but undermines their jobs by not having any interior enforcement after people have crossed illegally into the country.

Everyone I talk to — including some folks who live down at the border — says that this year we’re just gonna see a replay of last year, which was the all-time high, at least for the last 20 years. Some are saying all time since they’ve been able to bring these numbers together for illegal crossings. Is that your expectation for 2022? And do you think that the Biden administration — do you think the Democrats more generally — are gonna pay a political price for this as long as we can get people to focus on we have effectively a de facto open border?

SEN. CRUZ: Well, tragically, I do think we’re gonna continue to see it rise, and the reason for the rise is as the direct consequence of political decisions made by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Rewind the clock 13 months. Let’s go back to the end of 2020. At the end of 2020, the end of the Trump presidency we had the lowest rate of illegal immigration in 45 years. We’ve enacted policies that were working, and we were making major progress toward solving this problem.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris came in in January of 2021, and they immediately implemented three policy decisions. They immediately halted construction of the border wall, number one. They immediately reinstituted the failed policy of catch-and-release, number two. And they ended the incredibly successful Remain in Mexico international agreement.

The consequences of those three decisions were that we immediately saw this explosion of illegal immigrants — so much so that last year, in 2021, we had more than two million people cross illegally. We had the highest rate of illegal immigration in 61 years. So we went in a year from the lowest rate in 45 years to the highest rate in 61 years.

It is because of political decisions made by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. And I gotta tell you, those Border Patrol agents? I know a lot of the agents. I spent a lot of time on the border, a lot of time with those agents. “Frustrated” doesn’t begin to capture where they are. They are furious. They’re out of their minds because they’re risking their lives trying to protect this country.

They’re risking their lives apprehending human traffickers, drug traffickers, dangerous criminals. They bring them in and their political superiors in the Biden administration turn around and let them go again — and they do it over and over and over again. It is wrong, and it is producing incredible chaos, incredible crime, incredible risk to our national security. And it’s a health risk on top of all of that.

CLAY: Senator Cruz, I know you’ve got a couple of daughters. I’ve got three young kids myself. When you see the mayor of L.A., the mayor of San Francisco, and the governor of California all flouting California’s mask rule to attend a 49ers-Rams football game in an 80,000-seat or such stadium — and then they’re making every kid in California wear masks all day long, even outdoors — how furious would you be at that if that were your kids and that was the hypocrisy of your state?

And what do you think those parents in California should be doing as a result of what I think is massively ratcheted-up pressure on those California officials after that photo, including the mayor of L.A. saying, Well, he was “holding his breath,” so there’s no real danger.

SEN. CRUZ: Well, you know, he was clearly following Bill Clinton’s talking points —

CLAY: (laughing)

SEN. CRUZ: — when, you know, Bill Clinton said he smoked pot, he just didn’t inhale. So, you know, Garcetti, he just didn’t breathe. He was there but no breathing was allowed so it was all fine. What a load of crap! I mean, it is these Democrat covid totalitarians — these petty tyrants — are complete and utter hypocrites. They know what they’re saying is garbage. They ignore it routinely.

Remember the governor of California before had seen swanky fundraiser at the French Laundry where he’s there with rich Democrats. They’re all crowded indoors, they have no masks, they’re hugging. Look, Barack Obama’s birthday party, 60th birthday party at Martha’s Vineyard. Rich Democrats dancing, boogying on the dance floor. No masks anywhere!

They know it’s a crock. In the United States Senate, Democratic Senators solemnly put on their masks when they walk outside, when they’re near reporters, when they’re in public sight. When they get behind closed doors, they take their damn masks off. They know it’s garbage! It’s purely… Well, actually they may be right. There is scientific evidence that suggests that the covid virus reacts to TV cameras.

CLAY: (laughing)

SEN. CRUZ: It’s apparently much more dangerous when you turn a TV camera on. When you turn it off, it has no danger. But there’s something about microwaves. All right, I’m sorry. I’m gonna get your show banned because they’re gonna say that’s fake news —

CLAY: (laughing)

SEN. CRUZ: — because satire and irony is not understandable in today’s world anymore.

BUCK: Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. Sir, thanks for hanging out with us on Clay and Buck. Always illuminating.

SEN. CRUZ: Thank you guys. Thank you for speaking the truth in a time of madness. The good news is people’s eyes are opening up all over the country, and November is going to be a red, red wave. We’re gonna turn the country around.

CLAY: Amen.

BUCK: Love it. Get out the surfboards. Thanks so much, Senator.