Senator Ted Cruz | The All-In Inauguration Series

**Jason** (0:05)
Hey, everybody, welcome back to the All-In Podcast. We're here at the inauguration of our 47th president, Donald J. Trump, and we have a very special guest joining us on our coverage, Senator Ted Cruz from the great state, now my great state, of Texas. Welcome to the All-In Podcast.

**Ted Cruz** (0:22)
And welcome to Texas.

**Jason** (0:23)
It's pretty great. Where'd you get the boots? Any chance I can get a recommendation here?

**Ted Cruz** (0:28)
That's easy. These are Lucchese. Lucchese, the factory is in El Paso. They're handmade there. They're beautiful. And these particular boots, the front of them have the senate seal on them.

**Jason** (0:39)
Oh, that's cool.

**Ted Cruz** (0:40)
That's strong. And the back of them have the Come and Take It flag.

**Jason** (0:46)
Whoa.

**Ted Cruz** (0:46)
Which, I don't know, do you know the history of the Come and Take It flag?

**Jason** (0:49)
I was about to ask you.

**Ted Cruz** (0:50)
Okay, since you're a new Texan, this is important.

**Chamath** (0:52)
And he started saying y'all, so he's adapting, but he needs to learn.

**Jason** (0:55)
Y'all gotta stop giving me a hard time about that.

**Ted Cruz** (0:58)
All right, so Texas in the 1820s and 1830s, we were part of Mexico. And the dictator of Mexico was General Santa Ana. And there's a little town in South Texas called the Town of Gonzalez. And General Ana sent an order to the Texians, which is what we were called back then, Texians, to hand over their guns. And there was a cannon that guarded the city. And General Santa Ana said, hand over the cannon. And the Texians responded by making a flag with an image of the cannon and underneath it the legend, Come and Take It.
Wow. And they flew it over the town and that was the beginning of the Texas Revolution. Now the epilogue is Santa Ana came in with about 6,000 soldiers and he did in fact take the cannon. I mean, Gonzales was a tiny little town. And the Texas Revolution was very much like the American Revolution. We lost every damn battle. The Alamo was a slaughter, Goliad was a slaughter, much like Washington, where every battle he lost and lost and lost. And then at San Jacinto, we won, defeated Santa Ana, General Sam Houston, and we became our own nation, the Republic of Texas, from 1836 to 1845

**Jason** (2:07)
Says something about resiliency, doesn't it?

**Ted Cruz** (2:08)
It does.

**Jason** (2:09)
Let me ask you a question. Having lived in New York and grown up there, and then done 20 years in California now, my second year in Texas, or starting my second year, it's amazing to me that you're allowed to build things in Texas, like homes or factories, and the price of homes has gone down two years in a row, and then the other two places I live, the price of homes go up every year, 10, 20 percent. Then you don't have state taxes. How is all this possible when you look at it just from first principles? How are you able to accomplish so much development in Texas? When in California, the NIMBYism, like literally if you want to build a cancer ward for children, they'll stop you because it throws shade on a protected species of flower.

**Ted Cruz** (3:00)
So California used to know the answer to this. Fifty years ago, California was the economic engine of the country.
Unfortunately, you're cursed by idiot politicians who were destroying this mighty economic engine. None of this is rocket science. In Texas, we believe in freedom. We believe in low taxes and low regulations. To understand the state, Texas was basically founded by a bunch of wildcatters who were guys with fourth grade educations that began drilling holes in the ground. And one after the other became the richest man on earth. And the ethos of Texas, you know, it was interesting. A number of years ago, I was visiting with a CEO and an executive team of a company that had moved from California to Texas. And they didn't have any Texas ties, but they were just fed up with California. They moved to Texas. So I was asking them, they've only been in Texas for a couple of months. I said, all right, what's the biggest difference? And I thought maybe they'd say taxes or maybe regulations or maybe lawsuits. Those were the three things I was going to guess. Their answer blew me away. They said the biggest difference is the culture. And what they said is in California, if you're in business, you're a pariah. They said, look, there's an exception for tech and an exception for Hollywood.