Ric Grenell on ‘Verdict’ Podcast Discusses Intel with Sen. Ted Cruz

Richard “Ric” Grenell, former Ambassador to Germany, Acting Director of National Intelligence, Special Envoy for Serbia and Kosovo peace negotiations in the Trump Administration, just spent a hour on the Verdict with Ted Cruz podcast discussing U.S. Intelligence failures with Hamas and Russia.

They talked about California as well, noting that California has the most elected Republicans of any state. Cruz even said that without California’s Republican congressional delegation, Republicans would not have the majority in the U.S. House.

Ric Grenell discussed his Fix California, which is “doing the unsexy work of registering people to vote, “to get them off the sidelines. Mass irregularities in California’s registration and voting numbers continue to erode voter confidence, which is why Ric Grenell and his team at Fix California launched a statewide legal survey analyzing the current status of voter rolls throughout the state in 2021. They then invested in and completed a deep dive into California consumer and voter data. They contacted 26 of the largest counties in California, and put them on notice that they plan to inspect records related to county voter list maintenance obligations, through California Public Records Act requests.

Grenell told Cruz that some of the “Sacramento types are doing the hard work,” and Fix California is helping them. “If we can start changing the numbers every month, it will give them [California Republicans] hope,” Grenell said.

I’m a Verdict fan, and listen to each podcast as Senator Cruz gets into the weeds while remaining compelling and offers plenty of details, analysis and legal opinions on current issues.

Senator Cruz volunteered that even though Grenell was DNI a short amount of time, he had the most impact of any DNI, and said Grenell “did am extraordinary job at it.”

Cruz’s podcast with Grenell was particularly interesting as he and Verdict co-host Ben Ferguson peppered Grenell with questions of current import: Ukraine/Russia, U.S. Border crisis, Iran, China and the Hamas attack on Israel.

Ferguson asked Grenell how the U.S. and Israel missed the intelligence ahead of the Hamas attack.

“It was an intelligence failure,” Grenell said. “I don’t believe we didn’t know what Hamas and Iran up to.” He said that the U.S. has great intel people, but too much of the intel is over classified. He described the over classification as a public relations strategy by intel operatives when they didn’t want something to get out.

Sen. Cruz agreed and noted, “95% of what they tell you in a briefing isn’t classified  – they are just embarrassed” about something.

Grenell said another problem the intel community has is when they got to brief Congress, they are not getting enough of the raw intelligence. And the issue of being able to trust members of Congress came up.

He added that he believes intel officials had the Israeli intelligence.

In October, Sen. Cruz accused three individuals working in Joe Biden’s inner circle of being Iranian spies. Cruz brought up the three Iranian operatives in his discussion with Grenell: Nejwa Ali, hired in 2019, who worked for the PLO in 2016 and 2017 and was later employed by the DHS; Rob Malley, President Joe Biden’s chief negotiator for Iran and described as an Iran sympathizer.

“But we now know also that, among other things, three of Rob Malley’s top advisers, his inner circle that he relied on, were Iranian operatives,” Cruz added. “They were recruited by the government of Iran. They were directed by the Iranian foreign minister. They reported to the Iranian foreign minister,” American Insider reported.

Grenell pointed out that current Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines hasn’t made a statement about it, and the media isn’t pushing her to. “We were under constant scrutiny – she needs to answer ‘what did we know and why didn’t we act.'” She needs more media pressure – Avril Haines needs to be hounded. The media is copping out.”

Grenell said she wakes up every day realizing that she didn’t have to answer for this.

Sen. Cruz brought up the Biden Administration’s failed withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the lack of accountability for the disaster. He also said there is no accountability for the Ukraine War decisions. Grenell asked why the Secretary of State Antony Blinken didn’t get on a plane and go the Ukraine and Russia to find a peaceful solution.

“I believe they have shoved Blinken off the stage – he is diminished,” Grenell said. “Friends at State [Department] are horrified. They were pushed off the stage in Afghanistan.”

Sen. Cruz addressed that Ronald Reagan was President for 8 years, and only invaded Grenada.

You can listen to the entire interview with Ric Grenell:

Verdict with Ted Cruz | iHeart

‎Verdict with Ted Cruz on Apple Podcasts

Verdict with Ted Cruz | Podcast on Spotify

It’s well worth it.