Latest / The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson / How Democrats Abandoned Black & Hispanic Communities: One-on-One with Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson

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How Democrats Abandoned Black & Hispanic Communities: One-on-One with Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson · The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson

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  Speaker 1: That's Blackoutcoffee dot com slash Verdict twenty percent off your
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  Speaker 1: first order promo code Verdict. Welcome in this Verdict with
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  Speaker 1: Senator Ted Cruz Ben Ferguson with you on a really
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: fun live studio audience event a retreat weekend, Senator, and
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: you've brought a friend with you as well. Who is
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: going to be our special guest today?
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  Speaker 3: Well, I am incredibly proud to welcome onto the Verdict
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  Speaker 3: podcast a good friend of mine, the sixtieth mayor of
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  Speaker 3: the City of Dallas, the current sitting mayor, Eric Johnson.
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  Speaker 4: And I want to Eric welcome.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you so much. I'm glad to be here, Sona,
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  Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.
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  Speaker 3: Now, I want to tell our podcast listeners some of
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  Speaker 3: Eric's background, because many of you may know him, but
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  Speaker 3: some of you may not. Eric is the current mayor
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  Speaker 3: of Dallas. Eric was He went to Harvard College, I did.
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  Speaker 3: He went to University of Pennsylvania Law School. He got
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  Speaker 3: a master's from Mi alma Mater Princeton.
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  Speaker 2: It's true.
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  Speaker 3: He was elected to the Texas State Legislature, and he
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  Speaker 3: was an elected Democrat in the state legislature.
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  Speaker 4: And Eric is African American.
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  Speaker 2: I am.
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  Speaker 4: It's an audio show, so I saw, so one has to.
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  Speaker 2: Go to paint the picture.
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  Speaker 3: And then Eric was elected mayor of the City of Dallas,
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  Speaker 3: again as a Democrat. And then he was just recently
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  Speaker 3: re elected mayor of the City of Dallas. He was
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  Speaker 3: reelected with ninety three percent of the vote in the
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  Speaker 3: City of Dallas.
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  Speaker 2: Technically ninety eight point seven, but i'll take ninety three.
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  Speaker 2: We'll take nine three.
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  Speaker 3: And then after his reelection, Eric announced to the City
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  Speaker 3: of Dallas in the world that he was switching parties
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  Speaker 3: and he left the Democrat Party and he became a Republican.
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  Speaker 3: And it was it was a decision that those of
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  Speaker 3: us who knew him and had worked with him, I
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  Speaker 3: have to say I was not shocked or surprised, but
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  Speaker 3: it did shock and surprise a lot of people. And
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  Speaker 3: so Eric is I think, a very important leader in
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  Speaker 3: Texas and a very important leader in the country. And
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  Speaker 3: so Eric, I appreciate your coming and joining us this evening.
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  Speaker 3: And being a guest on verdict.
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  Speaker 2: I wouldn't want to be anywhere else. Thank you so much.
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  Speaker 2: This is a real honor to be here. Thank you
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  Speaker 2: for the invitation, and great to see all of you.
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  Speaker 3: All Right, So you go to the Texas State Legislature,
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  Speaker 3: you get elected mayor of Dallas. You get re elected
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  Speaker 3: mayor of Dallas. Now this entire time, you've been an
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  Speaker 3: elected Democrat, and as an elected Democrat, there's an ecosphere
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  Speaker 3: around you. You've got donors, you've got volunteers, you've got
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  Speaker 3: supporters walk us through your decision making, because switching party
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  Speaker 3: is a big deal. And and I know you didn't
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  Speaker 3: make that decision lightly. So so what what led you
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  Speaker 3: to change parties?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah? And you know, I don't know if how how
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  Speaker 2: deep we can dive into this, because I would.
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  Speaker 4: It's like the joy of a podcast. We can go
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  Speaker 4: as deep as you want.
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  Speaker 3: And that's that's actually what's fun That we're not on
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: TV with a six minute sound bite. We can actually
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  Speaker 3: get out what's really going on.
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  Speaker 2: That's exactly what I wanted to know, because unfortunately, because
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  Speaker 2: of the structure of the traditional media, you really have
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  Speaker 2: to sort of hit that question quick and then get
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  Speaker 2: out of it. And you don't really get to give
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  Speaker 2: a full answer to that because it's because it's way
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  Speaker 2: more complicated than you know. There was this one thing
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  Speaker 2: that happened and I just said, I'm out of here.
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  Speaker 2: It's it's an evolution for me and just kind of
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  Speaker 2: coming to accept who I have always been and why
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  Speaker 2: I've struggled as a Democrat the whole time.
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  Speaker 1: Was it the issues that made you think about becoming
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  Speaker 1: a Republican?
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  Speaker 2: The issues were a manifestation, a policy, manifestation of problems
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  Speaker 2: I had been having with the Democratic Party because of
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  Speaker 2: who I am as a person for a long time.
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  Speaker 2: So I'll I'll give you some idea what I'm talking about.
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  Speaker 2: I was born in West Dallas, very poor community, to
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  Speaker 2: working class parents who never went to college, but you know,
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  Speaker 2: got married right out of high school, still married to
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  Speaker 2: this day, raised four of us. And I was raised
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  Speaker 2: in a community that was very and in a family
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  Speaker 2: that was very, very faith oriented. The church was hugely
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  Speaker 2: important to us. I mean I grew up I spent
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  Speaker 2: more time in church than really any place else. I
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  Speaker 2: mean we'd go to church Sunday morning, stay almost all day,
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  Speaker 2: go home for just a couple hours and go back
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  Speaker 2: for Sunday evening. We'd go to Bible class. On Wednesday,
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  Speaker 2: we'd have you know, I wasn't in the choir, I
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  Speaker 2: couldn't sing, but you know, we had you know, song
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  Speaker 2: practice and things like that. So I spent a lot
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  Speaker 2: of time in the church, spent a lot of time
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  Speaker 2: with grandparents who were very, very very about the Church
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  Speaker 2: of Christ. And that's how that's the tradition I was
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  Speaker 2: raised in, and so we were sort of taught and
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  Speaker 2: it was separate apart from anything political. My family wasn't
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  Speaker 2: political at all. No politicians in the family. I'm not
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  Speaker 2: even sure we had a real awareness of what was
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  Speaker 2: going on around us politically, but a very strong sense
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  Speaker 2: of just right wrong. You know, this is how you
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  Speaker 2: treat people, this is how you behave you follow the law,
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  Speaker 2: you obey the law, you work hard, you you know,
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  Speaker 2: an honest day's work, honest day's pay. That is sort
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  Speaker 2: of that was just always in the background. And so
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  Speaker 2: I think I was always politically in a weird posture
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  Speaker 2: with the Democratic Party because at its core, and I
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  Speaker 2: didn't understand this at the very beginning, because and I
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  Speaker 2: hope we can actually get to this and talk about this.
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  Speaker 2: There are some you sort of inherit the Democratic Party
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  Speaker 2: as a cultural heirloom. When you're African American in this country,
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  Speaker 2: this sort of gets handed to you as part of
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  Speaker 2: who you are. I probably had more phone call I know,
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  Speaker 2: I had more phone calls with people distraught about this
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  Speaker 2: party switch than I ever would have gotten if I
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  Speaker 2: had told people that I was actually leaving the church.
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  Speaker 2: There's no question about it. Wow, there's no doubt about it.
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  Speaker 2: I will say that loudly and on the record. I
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  Speaker 2: had more panicked phone calls from people genuinely concerned about
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  Speaker 2: what I was doing and why I could do how
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  Speaker 2: I could do this then I would have gotten if
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  Speaker 2: I'd said, I just don't think I'm into this Jesus
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  Speaker 2: thing anymore. This don't think I'm not a Baptist, or
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  Speaker 2: I'm not a church christ or I don't think I
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  Speaker 2: would have had anywhere near the same rule. It's that cultural.
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  Speaker 2: How intense was that was it?
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  Speaker 1: Family?
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  Speaker 2: Was it friends?
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  Speaker 1: It was?
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  Speaker 2: It was a lot of consternation. The family and friends
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  Speaker 2: was well meaning, but I think a lot of other
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  Speaker 2: folks it was just, you know, we have to we
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  Speaker 2: have to take this guy down now, and it got
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  Speaker 2: it was it got to be pretty quickly, the traditional
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  Speaker 2: standard partisan warfare stuff. But kind of going back to
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  Speaker 2: what I was, and I said, I want to know
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  Speaker 2: how deep we could go, because this is actually pretty
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  Speaker 2: I haven't had a chance to talk about this with anybody.
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  Speaker 2: The fit was almost in some ways inevitable. It was
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  Speaker 2: going to there was gonna be a problem because at
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  Speaker 2: the Democratic Party's core, who I was saying is a
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  Speaker 2: belief that how things turn out for you in this
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  Speaker 2: country are largely determined by things that are outside of
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  Speaker 2: your control. The race you're born, the neighborhood you're born in.
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  Speaker 2: It just kind of it excuses away your failures and
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  Speaker 2: excuse the way your success is to something that's out
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  Speaker 2: of your control. If you're successful and you're white and males,
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  Speaker 2: because of course you are, and if you're unsuccessful as
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  Speaker 2: an African American, it's well, the deck was stacked against you.
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  Speaker 2: And I just wasn't a person who ever believed that,
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  Speaker 2: And that wasn't how I was raised and it's not
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  Speaker 2: how I was taught, but it was the overarching political
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  Speaker 2: philosophy of my party. And there was always just that
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  Speaker 2: tension between wanting to tell people, hey, this actually is
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  Speaker 2: a country where anything you want to do you can do.
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  Speaker 2: And I'm living proof of it, yep, because at every turn,
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  Speaker 2: if I put the work in, I was told repeatedly,
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  Speaker 2: over and over by people who didn't look like me,
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  Speaker 2: who didn't come from my community, were proud of you,
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  Speaker 2: and we'd like to give you more opportunity. I wasn't
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  Speaker 2: having doors slammed in my face. The harder I pushed,
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  Speaker 2: I was having more of them given to me. So
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  Speaker 2: the story of my life and then the rhetoric that
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  Speaker 2: my party wanted me to put out there as the
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  Speaker 2: just vocation for what we were doing politically just never
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  Speaker 2: really matched.
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  Speaker 3: I've always thought one of the most important differences between
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  Speaker 3: the parties is that the Republican Party believes in individual
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  Speaker 3: responsibility and believes in merit and a meritocracy. Now that's
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  Speaker 3: not to say that there aren't things that are unfair,
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  Speaker 3: but in the reason people come from all over the
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  Speaker 3: world to America is there's no country on Earth where
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  Speaker 3: people can achieve their dreams the way you can hear
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  Speaker 3: and you know, and I do think a lot of
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  Speaker 3: the a lot of the Democrat Party is there the
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  Speaker 3: ideology in today's Democrat party is about eliminating individual responsibility
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  Speaker 3: and eliminating merit. And I think about you're a black man,
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  Speaker 3: I'm an Hispanic man. I think about what my father
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  Speaker 3: said to me when I was a kid about racism.
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  Speaker 3: And my dad, you know, as you know, he came
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: from Cuba as an immigrant. And my dad said when
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  Speaker 3: he came out of University of Texas in nineteen sixty one,
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: and my father said, look, I'm obviously an immigrant. My
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: father had had and still has a very heavy Spanish accent,
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: you know my dad, and he said, listen, if I'm
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: applying for a job and I'm applying against an American
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  Speaker 3: and we're equally qualified, my dad said, you know what,
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: they'll hire the American. Now, my father wasn't particularly outraged
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  Speaker 3: at that. He said, you know what, in Cuba, they'd
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  Speaker 3: hire me. That's just kind of human nature. That's the
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: way people often behave. And my father's answer to that,
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  Speaker 3: he said, I'm just going to be three times as
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  Speaker 3: good as.
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  Speaker 2: The other guy.
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  Speaker 3: I'll make it so you'd have to be a blithering
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  Speaker 3: idiot to hire the other guy. And when you take
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  Speaker 3: individual responsibility, and it's not to say racism doesn't exist.
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  Speaker 3: Racism absolutely exists, but how you respond in the face
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  Speaker 3: of adversity, and I think the the principle of work harder, be.
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  Speaker 4: Better, be more excellent.
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  Speaker 3: I think that is a path that every one of
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  Speaker 3: us think about what you teach your kids.
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  Speaker 2: That's if you don't mind, please, I'll jump in here
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  Speaker 2: and say this, because there's so much that I could
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  Speaker 2: say about this, and again this is the slow burn
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: over a career. But there's the specific policy things that
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  Speaker 2: came about as the mayor that made this decision something
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  Speaker 2: that needed to happen and something that became much more
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: urgent for me. But while we're talking about sort of
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  Speaker 2: the underpinnings of this, and you talk about what you
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: teach your children, that's really kind of the point in
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: terms of the problem that I have with the Democratic
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: Party's philosophy on this particular issue is you have to
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  Speaker 2: decide one way or the other, what you're going to
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  Speaker 2: tell a generation of African American kids or kids who
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: are growing up in tough circumstances. Are you going to
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  Speaker 2: tell them that your country doesn't work for you. Doesn't
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  Speaker 2: really matter what you do, it doesn't work for you.
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  Speaker 2: It's not built for you. It's not designed for you.
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  Speaker 2: The system is stacked against you. And just hope that
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  Speaker 2: they don't you turn to crime or turn to other
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  Speaker 2: things because you've told them that essentially that's fine, that's okay,
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: because there's no way you could do the things you'd
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: like to do legitimately. You can't get where you want
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  Speaker 2: to go legitimately anyway, the deck stacked against you. Or
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  Speaker 2: do you want to tell them the truth, which is
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: the system that we have is the best on earth
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: for translating people's hard work and effort into tangible increases
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: and improvements in their life's circumstances. It just is. And
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  Speaker 2: I've told my liberal friends for many years, even before
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  Speaker 2: I switch parties, I said, for the ones who go
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: around sort of bashing the country, I say, guys, if
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: there was a place on earth where they did it better,
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: where they really did convert your effort and your work
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: into benefits better, why don't you live and raise your
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: Don't you owe it to your children to raise them there?
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: If you really believe there's a place that's doing it better,
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  Speaker 2: and they don't believe that. It's it's rhetoric, but it's rhetoric.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: With the purpose. And this is kind of where being
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  Speaker 2: a part of the party for so long and understanding
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: sort of the you know, the thought behind the strategy.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: Really it's strategy. How do you how do you convince
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: large swaths of people, large groups that are just really
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: holding themselves together by identity, politics and race, or how
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: do you convince them to give their loyalty so completely
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: to a political party if you can't convince them first
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: that they really need this political party to help them
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: overcome these horrible flaws in this system. So basically there's a.
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: Democratic party I think is is vested in selling dependency.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: Correct, And there's no question.
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  Speaker 3: Example I've used also in my family, you know, with
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: my dad in nineteen fifty seven when he showed up
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: in Austin, Texas.
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  Speaker 4: He couldn't speak English.
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: And so the first job he had was washing dishes,
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: and he made fifty cents an hour. And I've said
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: a lot of times, thank god some well meaning liberal
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: didn't come along and put his arm around him and say, Ralphiel,
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: let me take care of you, Let me give you
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: a government check, let me make you dependent on the government.
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: You don't need to work anymore, you don't need to
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: be responsible for your life. I'm going to take care
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: of you. That would have been utterly destructive. It would
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: have been the worst thing you could have done to him.
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  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: And it's you know, we're talking about what you teach
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: your kids. You know, you think about it. If you
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: have a kid in kindergartener first grade who's struggling with math,
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: how many of us will do your kid's homework. None
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: of us will, because doing your kid's homework is not
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: helping the kid. Now, you may work with the kid,
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: you may get a tutor with the kid, you may
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: walk through and say that you're having problems with But
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: you understand, you know, you and I are both fathers,
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: uh Ben, You're a father. You understand when you're when
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: you're raising your kids, they need to learn those skills
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: and if someone else does it for them, it doesn't
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: help our children. That same thing is true for all of.
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  Speaker 2: Us, Absolutely true. I had a conversation with one of
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: your colleagues, Senator Scott, when he was through Dallas a
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: few months ago, and we had a private lunch and
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: one of the things that we talked about and I
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: said to him that resonated with him because he also,
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: you know, believes this is absolutely the case, and it's right.
• 16:41
  Speaker 4: Jim's a great guy.
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: It's right in line with what we're talking about right now.
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: I said, Tim, do you agree that there's really nobody
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: in our community who's achieved a high degree of success
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: who actually did it using anything other than conservative principles
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: as a player to their life. I go, but why
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: do so many of us, when we get to that
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: level of success with these principles, pretend like it's something
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: else that got us there. It was working hard, staying
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: out of trouble, persevering when other people had given up,
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: and basically playing by the rules that we called it
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: that got you there. But you get there and then
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: you pretend like you know, those aren't essential values and success.
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: And I told him, I said, here's why I think
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: that happens, because there's a price to pay socially in
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: terms of being accepted if you don't pretend like you
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: don't know what you know and you don't sort of
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: excuse the things that we were talking about. In other words,
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: long story short, is every successful African American in this
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: country basically got to be successful by working hard and
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: doing what they were supposed to do, but they don't
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: want to be once they've achieved that level of success
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  Speaker 2: accepted by the community at large, and appear to be
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: out of touch, and so they pretend like they don't
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: know the formula. They don't know the winning formula. I
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: just think we need to be more honest about what
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: the winning formula is. And the winning formula ends up
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: being exactly what the conservative ideology would tell you. It
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: has to do with taking upon yourself the responsibility for
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: yourself and not believing that the Democratic Party or any
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: party is there to save you. And the Democratic Party
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: wants you to believe they do. They want you to
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: believe you can't get there without them, which you.
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: Know, there's an old saying that that that that every
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: time I see luck luck, it looks amazingly like hard work.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: Yep, it's very true. It's very true. So now to
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: the policy things. So this is you know, so I'm
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: bumping if anybody who's I don't presume that anyone in
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: this room has followed my you know, my relatively insignificant
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: legislative career, but it was marked with just fighting with
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: Democrat Party about various issues. We're just bumping heads the whole.
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: Way well as mayor, you showed enormous courage. So there
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: were Democrats on the city Council pushing with the radical
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: left movement to defund or to abolish the police, and
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: you were a fellow Democrat at the time, and you
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: stood up and fought them. And that that's when you
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: and I first got to know each Other's when you
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: were newly elected and I came by your office. I
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: wanted to meet you, and we worked together closely. But
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: the courage you showed fighting for the people of Dallas
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: really stood out early on in.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: Your tam Well, I appreciate you saying that, and I
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: was going to get to that eventually about how we
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: met and about the you know, what we've been doing
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: for the past five years. I've been mayor, but in
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: the legislature, even when I was part of a partisan caucus,
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: I was a terrible by the Democratic Party's own. Once
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: I left the party, they were honest. Their statements are
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: very interesting. If you read the statements with the State Party,
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: they all say some pretty interesting like he was always
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: a terrible Democrat. Good riddens, were glad he's gone. It's like,
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure they understood what they were admitting to.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: It's like, you know, but they acknowledged that it was
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: always a bad fit. But what they're really talking about
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: is when I would be honest about voter fraud. Well,
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: the voter fraud that happens in our large cities in
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: Texas that I'm aware of because I've seen it happening
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: to me in my own raisins. I'm like these there
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: are people who are outright stealing the votes of the elderly.
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: As a period elaborate on that a little bit.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: I came out very vocally and upset the party by
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: saying that there is a systematic in the large urban
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: cities like Dallas, Absentee or you know, ballad harvesting operation
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: where people are going to old folks' homes and taking
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: ballots out of their mailboxes and voting these ballots for
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: these people, or going and collecting ballots from these folks,
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: and if they don't like the way the vote was
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: already cast, it goes into garbage. And I said that
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: that that kind of thing is wrong, and it upset people.
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: It upset people in the party when I spoke out
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: against you know, corruption in the party, and so I
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: started off in a posture with the party that was
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: already a little bit antagonistic, and it's got worse and worse.
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: So this is the slow burn. Well, now I become
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: the mayor and my whole job changes. I'm not a
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: part of some legislative caucus where I'm just sort of,
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: you know, having to be a good team player. I'm
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: responsible for people's lives, like I'm responsible for making the
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: call to keep people alive and make sure that my
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: city is you know, people are safe there, and so
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: it's supposed to it should. Once you've been given that
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: kind of responsibility, it should change you like you should
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: you should look at things differently. And sure enough, I
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: get tested pretty early on with this to fund the police. Ye,
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: And I'm just going to break it down for ABO,
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: the choice became very simple.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: I want to tell you about something that is really cool.
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• 23:59
  Speaker 1: that listening around the country, because I think it's important point.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: The defund the police movement that was rolled out nationwide,
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: they wanted it to be successful in big cities.
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: Dallas was one of them.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: This was a lot of outside pressure as well, from
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: coming from outside of Dallas where they were organizing.
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: What happened I've never seen since they didn't even live
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: in I don't even know where. They don't even show.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: It was a national It was a national campaign with
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: people who were, you know, rent a protester types, I guess.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: But here's my point. It's absolutely true there was a
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: national movement, but the choice was pretty clear. If you
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: were a mayor of a major American city, and more
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: than likely you were a Democrat then, because I think
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: the number is roughly seventy five percent of the top
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: one hundred seas in America are run by Democrats, and
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: every mayor in the top ten before me it was
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: a Democrat. You really had two choices go along with
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: to defund the police idea, because that's where the left was,
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: that's where the activists were, that's where the pressure was
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: was to defund, and defund meant anything from like what
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: they did here in Austin, a forty percent across the
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: board cut to your police department for no reason, not
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: based on any fact, just because some activists decided that
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: sound like a good number. The proposal in Dallas was
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: sixty That's what they wanted in Dallas, sixty percent. You
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: can either do that and be a good Democrat and
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: people to leave you alone, or you could be a
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: sellout and a bad Democrat and not do it and
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: incur the ire. You're looking at the one Democratic mayor
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: that I'm aware of in the United States who said
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: I'm not doing that, and the result and this is,
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: like I said, when we started to get close closer,
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: I mean the result was protests for weeks on end
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: at night against Dallas City ordinances with amplification and bull
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: horns and all stuff against Dallas City ordinances, standing on
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: my private property, not on the street in an acceptable
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: protest perimeter, but like on the grass, looking in the
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: windows with two little children and a wife, like intentionally
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: trying to intimidate me into changing my position to defund
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: the police. And I never caved, even though it was horrible, horrible,
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: horrible for my family. And that is when I really
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: start to understand this isn't the fringe anymore of the
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: Democratic Party. This is the Democratic Party. Like this is
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: where we are on public safety as the Democratic Party now.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: And if you actually believe in law and order and
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: making sure that people are safe, then there is no
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: more part of the Democratic Party that is with you
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: on that. Because I'm looking for those people. I'm waiting
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: for the phone calls from just one, for just one
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: Democratic congress person or one Democratic officeholder to say we're
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: with you. You know you're doing the right thing, and
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: here's the truth. And I've never said this public, but
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: all say it now. The only calls I got during
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: that entire time saying hold the line, keep your people safe,
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: you're doing a good job. We're from Republicans and I
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: was a Democrat as far as they knew, and there
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: was no you know, there's no there was no reason
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: other than it's the right thing to do what you're doing,
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: and we won't let you know that. There was nothing
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: to be gained politically from you standing with me publicly
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: and saying this is the right thing to do. Greg
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: Abbott did it, You did it, Dan Patrick did it.
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: A lot of people just said that mayor's doing the
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: right thing. And so Democrats, I saw at that point
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: were pretty lost on the public safety issue. But then
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: on top of that, I started to see and I
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: didn't have this responsibility as a legislator, and I got
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: it as the mayor. I have to protect people's incomes
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: and make sure people can actually afford to live in
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: this city because we are bleeding residents to lower tax jurisdictions.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: So I started to really dig into our tax policy
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: and saying, you know, what are we doing to help
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: our residents be able to live here, have businesses here,
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: and be competitive with our local you know, our competitors.
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: And it turns out that we were doing a pretty
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: bad job of actually even making an attempt to protect
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: our taxpayers. We had the highest tax rate in Dallas
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: of any of the cities in the area, and we
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: have the second highest of any major city in the state,
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: and so I really wanted to change that. The resistance
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: that I got from the left leaning members of our
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: council was incredible, and the way the argument was couched
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: in the way the strategy is to couch any effort
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: to rein in spending at all, even to hold it
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: steady from your to year, is being heartless and not
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: caring about people. That resonated with me, because I realized
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: now that's actually been what the Democratic Party has been
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: about all along, and what I've sort of been an
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: unwitting accessory to, which is painting people who just want
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: to leave people alone, or leave people with more of
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: their income to people to do what they want to
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: do for their family, supposed to taking it from them
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: and spending it on things they'd never asked for in
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: the first place, primarily so that politicians can have something
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: to campaign on. They perfected the art of making anyone
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: who was opposed to that seem like they were against
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: the people they were trying to help, or.
• 29:35
  Speaker 4: That they demonized you, they attack you.
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: Personally, and so I became heartless. I became someone who
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: didn't care about people. I'll give you an example from
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: just last week. I'm in a I'm in the minority.
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: I'm in a twelve to three minority vote that I
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: lost on my city council last week because I voted
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: against us appropriating almost what three quarters of a million
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: dollars to make sure that anybody in Dallas who needs
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: tampons or other femin hygiene products could have them from
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: the City of Dallas. I said, I don't know why
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: on earth we think that is something that we ought
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: to be doing as a city with people's tax dollars. Well,
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: there's three hundred more programs just like that, and when
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: we add them all together, that's how you end up
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: with a budget that grows year after year after year.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: We've gotten into more and more things that we don't
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: need to be into. And so I said, I'm in
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: the wrong party on public safety, for sure, but I'm
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: also not really into this hole. Just tax people to
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: death so you can do all this liberal experimentation and
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: so on the matter, on the issues that were most
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: important as a mayor, and that we're most important in
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: my family. The Democratic Parties was battened a goose egg
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: on those issues, and I started to think there really
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: is very little reason why a person who is a
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: common sense, fiscally responsible person ought to be voting Democrats,
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: particularly at the local level, unless there's some sort of
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: social reason that you just can't give up where you
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: need to be accepted by your friends and family, and
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: I just don't have that. I don't have that need.
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: Well, let's talk about that a little more. But I
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: will say one of the greatest ironies is the rhetoric
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: that the left uses in support of their policies I
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: think is one hundred and eighty degrees opposite reality. So,
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: for example, the effort to defund the police is advanced
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: by movements and activists and billionaire donors who are embracing
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: the slogan black Lives Matter. Now as a statement, black
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: lives matter is unequivocally, absolutely true, But the undeniable fact
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: is that when you defund the police, inevitably, more African
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: Americans are murdered, more Black lives are lost. Because for
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: a great many of our African American citizens and our
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: Hispanic citizens. They live in in more low income neighbor
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: neighborhoods that are that are more subject to crime. And
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: when you pull law enforcement out, you know, we're we're
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: at a dinner right now. I guarantee you anyone here
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: if we told you, hey, we're going to pull the
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: cops out of your neighborhood, everyone here would say no, no,
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: that's a terrible idea. But yet we see these left
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: wing activists, in the name of a slogan Black Lives Matter,
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: removing police protections from vulnerable black families, and the result
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: is far more African American murders. And yet they continue
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: to embrace that same rheter.
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: So I don't have to guess about it, because not
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: only do I have the knowledge of being the mayor
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: and knowing the crime statistics from my city, but I
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: also have the experience, the lived experience of growing up
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: African American in Dallas, in the very communities that we're
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: talking about. So I am familiar with this issue is
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: intimately as you can possibly be, both from sort of
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: the policy making standpoint and just the life experience. And
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: I can tell you I'm going to end the suspense
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: for folks I'm not guessing about it. I can speak
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: on it with authority. And that's why the people I'm
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: left don't even they don't even challenge me on this
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: because they know that I'm not only am I right,
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: but that I have the credibility on that I got
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: the street credit to speak on this. The Black Lives
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: Matter thing in the defund the police thing are kind
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: of issues that have been conflated. But the truth of
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: the matter is is defund the police, for sure, was
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: a construct of frankly white liberals who don't live in
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: those communities at all yep, and was never asked for
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: irrespective of their partipulation by African Americans who lived in
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: crime ridden neighborhoods. Never African Americans never at any point
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: said we want the police out of our communities. They said,
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: we want more police in our community. We want them
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: to be well trained, we want them to know we
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: want we want to live in a safe community, and
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: we believe the police are part of that. So it
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: was never true to begin with. It was a political
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: thing to begin with.
• 34:13
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  Speaker 1: slash verdict. What was the reaction of police officers.
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: When this was going down. I mean, we.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: Saw a lot of them were trying to, you know,
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: be quiet, say the politics. But you were a Democrat.
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: You have a large police force with a lot of
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: minorities in it. What were they saying to you privately
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: during that time?
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: Well, I'll just I'll answer that one really quickly. Everybody
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: I believe in law enforcement could not believe and was
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: so relieved that they had the one person who in
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: this role everywhere else in the country was caving, who
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: was standing up. They were very grateful and it's what
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: earned me the just enduring support of law enforcement for
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: my entire mayoralty because I stood by them. But I
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: wasn't standing by them just to send a message. I
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: was saying because it was absolutely what the city needed.
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: Law enforcement hadn't done anything wrong where they deserved for
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: that rhetoric to be thrown out around them, and having
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: cutting sixty percent from a police department that's not trimming
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: around the edges. That's salary and benefit, that's recruitment, that's
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's a real that's putting them in more
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: danger doing already a dangerous job. And so they really
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: appreciated that. But I want to put a fine point
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: in this issue with African American community when as it
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: relates to public safety, because it relates to what I
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: believe is part of why I think that this party
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: switch of mind is not important because I switched part.
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: It's a that's almost insignificant, but what it represents for
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: the potentiality for this group of people who I honestly
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: believe just have not had anybody come to them in
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: a spirit of love and concern. Who's operating from within
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: the community, not saying I sort of exist outside of it,
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: and let me lecture you about what you should a
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: acknowledged and accepted and proud member of it, saying, let
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: me explain to you why we've been duped a little
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: bit here and why what was once maybe a good
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: idea or sounded like one has now actually been categorically
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: proven to be a failed strategy.
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: Well, and let me drill down on that a little bit.
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: And this is just something that that.
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: Strong about this one. This is a this is a
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: bigger way, bigger than one guy switching. This ought to
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: be about people going, why am I still a Democrat?
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: If this is what I care about it?
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: You know, well, and this is a theme you have
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: referenced several times that I think is really important. I
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: emphatically believe and I think you do as well, that
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: the policies of the left, the policies of liberal Democrats,
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: have been deeply harmful to the African American community, to
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: the Hispanic community. That they exacerbate poverty, they exacerbate crime,
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: they they have that they throttle educational excellence and opportunity.
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: And yet we still have in Texas at across the
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: country an overwhelming majority of African Americans voting Democrat. And
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: so I guess I want to ask two things. One,
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: you made reference to it before about how kind of
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: culturally you're essentially told you're a Democrat. That's what it
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: means to be black I'd like you to kind of
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: explain a little bit why you think that is. And
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: then the second part of it is, Look, we're seeing,
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: especially in Texas, but other parts of the country, we're
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: seeing the Hispanic community is getting more and more Republican
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: every day, and we're seeing the African American community. I
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: think there's some movement, but we've got a lot further
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: to go in the African American community. What do you think,
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: what do you think is persuasive? What should Republicans do
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: to earn more support in the African American community going forward?
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: I think it's an amazingly important question, and I appreciate
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: you asking it. And it's complicated, yeah, but I think
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: if we're going to start that conversation tonight a little bit,
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: and I really appreciate you having this conversation with me.
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: I've not ever had an opportunity to talk about This
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: is stuff that I've been thinking about my whole life. Yeah,
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: and I had really any opportunity to really do anything
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: about it. And I feel like I'm at this because
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: at this point in my life now where maybe we
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: can actually see the numbers of African Americans change to
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: support the Republican Party. I think this. I think it's
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: perfectly understandable in a limited resource environment, which is what
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: any political campaign is, or any political party is, like
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: resources are infinite, to say to any group that at
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: any point in time is only throwing you ten percent
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: of their support, they're against you ninety percent of the time,
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: that that's not where we ought to be investing. I
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: think that's a perfectly rational decision. Well, that the perfectly
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: rational decision in a lot of ways to not play
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: the game at all because it's not perceived to be
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: a particularly fruitful game plays very easily into a narrative
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: that and therefore that party doesn't care at all. Right,
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: So you got one party that may be able to
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: be criticized for being inefficient and ineffective, but they're telling
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: you they care, and you got another party they might
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: not be telling you they hate you, but they're just
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: sort of focused on groups that produce more efficiently support.
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's a it's a tough slog when you're
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: talking about ninety ten and so it's understandable, but it's
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: coming a cost. What I'm saying and what I'm feeling
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: instinctively politically right now, is that there's a there's been
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: a maturation that was inevitable in African Americans position in
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: this country. We are better off than we've ever been.
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: Are we as well off as we'd like to be? No,
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: but we we are better off. We're better educated, we're
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: better everything. There's anybody who says we're not better off
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: today than we were, you know, in the immediate aftermath
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: of the Civil War or during the Civil rights era
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: is just playing a game. They're playing a retort game.
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: Yes we are, We're not where we'd like to be,
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: but we are better than We're further than we've ever been.
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: What that means, though, is that people maybe have more
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: of an opportunity now to sit back and look at
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: things and ask that question of how has this approach
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: of making everything about the community in terms of everything
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: I do is written off to societal factors? Right, we
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: can't hold we can't even hold a criminal accountable because
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: it's society's fault. Everything In the Democratic Party, my experience
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: was anything you tried to actually pin on an individual
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: was written off to society. So as a mayor, for example,
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: I am really deeply concerned about the victims of crime
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: because they did nothing wrong. The law enforcement folks who
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: are out there risking their lives to prevent crime and
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: to address crime. And then the would be victims of
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: crime that we're trying to protect. Right, That's why I
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: care about victims, would be victims, cops. The Democratic Party
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: really seems, I mean, legitimately seems to care more about
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: the perpetrators of crimes than the victims of crimes or
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: the would be victims or the police. And I tell
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: you what my evidence of that is is whenever somebody
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: does anything, the finger gets pointed at the rest of
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: us and we get told, how if we just had
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: built another recreation center, or you know, if we had
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: put more money into the schools, this person may not
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: have murdered that person, or this person may not have
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: raped that person. I grew up as poor and as
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: black as you can grow up, and I can tell
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: you in every poor black community in this country, eighty
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: percent of the people, like in any other group, are
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: making the decision every single day to follow the law
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: and do it by the rules. It's twenty percent like
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: in any group.
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: Well, look, the whole country saw the image just a
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: couple of weeks ago of the six illegal immigrants in
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: New York City who beat up to New York cups.
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: They get arrested and within hours they get released no bail,
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: and they walk out and with both hands they're flipping
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: the bird at everyone. And that that to me, that
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: image of those angry illegal immigrants flipping the bird, I
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: think sums up the absolute depravity of the view of
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: the left. And we're seeing, Look, we're seeing great American
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: cities being destroyed. As you know, Heidi, my wife is
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: a native California, and you look at California, look at
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: a city like San Francisco. San Francisco is an iconic
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: American city. In the last couple of years, twenty two
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: major retailers have shut down downtown because the crime has
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: gotten so bad. And I remember Heidi's family lives in California,
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: called and they just said on the phone. Door said, well, gosh,
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: you know, what can we do. People just go into
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: stores and and you know, just take stuff. There's nothing
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: we can do about it. I remember I'm listening to that,
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: and I said, yes, there is. You throw their ass
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: in jail, like put them in handcuffs, or arrest them.
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: It's worse than that. But if it's worse than that center,
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: and this is what I'm getting at too, it's worse
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: than that. It's it's quite predictable when you when you
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: literally change the policies in the prosecutor's office and you
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: say we won't prosecute theft of any amount underneath one
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: thousand dollars, and then you don't just make that some
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: sort of and it would still be bad internal memorandum.
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: You go on the news and publicize you let every
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: criminal know, is really.
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: A surprise that you have an uptick, not even an uptick,
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: a sharp increase in smash and grab jobs and and
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: shoplifting again in an effort to do some of these
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: things that sound good on paper. Because society is at fault,
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: not individuals, we do crazy things, these das and things.
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: Stop prosecuting crimes because it's not fair, you know what,
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: back to the eighty twenty split, which is just sort
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: of the metaphorical split in any group of people who
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: are doing the right thing. People aren't. That twenty percent
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: just needs to be held accountable for making an individual
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: choice to break the law and kill someone or rape
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: someone or terrorize the community. And we need to stop
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: pretending like everything can be attributed to some societal factor.
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: It's just not the way it actually is.
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: All Right, we need to wrap up soon, but I
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: want to ask two questions to close.
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: One.
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: In your view, part of what you answered in terms
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: of how Republicans can do a better job in the
• 46:52
  Speaker 3: African American community is just showing up and demonstrating that
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: they give a damn.
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: And I think that absolutely is I didn't really say
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: all I need to say on that because it's not
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: just about it's not about emoting and showing up into
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: saying we care. It's I think having an alternative to
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: the liberal approach.
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: Well, and that's where my question was going to go,
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: which is what issues do you think resonate most powerfully
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: in the African American community that by focusing on those issues,
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: have a potential to earn their support by saying, look,
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: this is an issue that is going to make a
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: difference in your life and your family.
• 47:34
  Speaker 4: I am deeply.
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: Passionate on school choice.
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: I think school choice is the most fundamental civil rights
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: issue in the entire country.
• 47:42
  Speaker 4: But I'm interested in.
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: Your thoughts of what issues actually will resonate and cause
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: voters who have voted Democrat their whole life to reconsider. Gosh,
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: maybe that maybe the policies that they're they're foisting upon
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: me are not working.
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: I think if a report publican candidate for president, candidate
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: for governor, candidate for mayor, candidate of anybody who's actually
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: perceived to be running for an executive type position in
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: charge went to an African American community, I'm talking of
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: people who are members of the community who are going
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: to vote and participate in the process. You know, people
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: who are invested in their community and said, I'm the
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: person who's going to come in here and I'm going
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: to make this a safe community for you, because no
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: one before me has done that, no one either side
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: this community is you deserve a safer neighborhood than you're
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: living in. I want you to be able to walk
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: from your house to the end of the block and
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: back home without being worried about being mugged or robbed
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: or killed out and you don't you feel safe doing
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: that right now? I want your grandson to feel safe
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: walking from the school bus home, and he doesn't feel
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: safe doing that right now. I want to restore a
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: genuine sense of safety to this community. That's number one.
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: Number two, I understand that the burden of high taxes
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: falls disproportionately on you. I have polling from my mayoral
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: campaigns that shows in Dallas, Texas, the groups of voters
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: who most want their taxes lowered are African Americans, followed
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: by Latinos. Whites are in third place because they're paying
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: a higher percentage of their income and the taxes it
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: hits them the hardest. They are the most worked up
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: about their property tax bill. Would most like to see.
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: I'm going to take it.
• 49:35
  Speaker 4: It's a barrier entry.
• 49:36
  Speaker 3: If you're climbing the economic ladder, it hits you the
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: hardest on the earliest round.
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: This is supported by polling data. It will show you
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: that poorer folks actually are most crippled by reckless tax
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: policy at the local level, in particular, because there's no
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: there's no game, there's no play a game around that.
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: There's no tax credit for this and figure that out,
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: like the tax bills just do or they foreclose on
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: the house and you just gotta find a way to
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: pay it. And that's just all there is to that.
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: So high property taxes is a horrible thing for poor folks.
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: You come in and you tell them we're gonna we're
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: gonna deal with this these tax burdens that you're facing,
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: We're gonna deal with the safety in these communities, and
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: we're gonna give your kids viable choices for schooling. We're
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: gonna make sure that you actually have a shot at
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: a decent education. I think at that point people are like,
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: I don't care, I don't know what party you said
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: you're with, but I'm ready to sign I'm ready to
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: sign up for that. And you say, well, actually, everything
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: I have just describe to you is right dead down
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: the center of the fairway Republican policy. Yep, everything I
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: just told that's Republican policy. I think I think people
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: will literally say, then I don't know why I've been
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: voting Democrat this whole time.
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: All Right, there's gonna be a lot of people that
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: are listening, and they're gonna want to ask this questions.
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna ask it.
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: If you are up for reelection right now running is
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: a Republican for mayor?
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: Yes, your policies haven't changed. The only change is they
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: d went to an R. Correct. Could you win? I'd
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: win overwhelmingly. I don't have any doubt about it, no
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: doubt about it. And I'll tell you why I believe that.
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: I'll tell you why I'm glad someone finally asked me
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: that on the record. That's sort of the chatter as well,
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: that's why I asked.
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: And the other going to say, oh, well, this guy
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: I could never win, that's why he waited till the
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: end of his serve and then switch parties.
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: So here here's the reality that people have to ignore
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: to even make that argument. But I understand why people
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: need to make it. I mean I told someone, I said,
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: you know, you don't switch parties in the two parties
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: form one of the other and think the other party
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: is going to say, well, you know, we wish him
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: the best. He was great and it's our loss. You know,
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: they got to come up with something and that kind
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: of These are the kinds of arguments they've come up with.
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: But here's the reality I won my last election with.
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: It wasn't ninety three percent. Dallas City, you know, has
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: ordinances about how right and candidates get on the ballot,
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: and if you write in a name other than the
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: actual right in candidate's name, that's there. You just essentially
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: didn't vote. You threw your vote, your bout in the
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: trash of the cast votes which we were canvassed by
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: the city and are the official records of the city.
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: Ninety eight point seven percent of the vote. That's Democrats
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: and Republicans in that group. That's a pretty hearty endorsement
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: of the incumbent mayor. And I didn't run with a
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: D or an R behind my name. I ran just
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: with you, know, as Eric Johnson, because you don't run
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: in Texas, in any city with a D or for
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: folks who aren't from Texas, we don't actually have partisan
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: elections in Texas for mayor. You just run, and you
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: don't run with a party support. Now, what do I
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: think would have actually happened if I had just come
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: out and said six months before the election, I'm actually
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: a Republican. Here's what would have happened. Some Democrats would
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: have gotten together and said, well, this is an opportunity
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: for us to run an ostensibly just overtly partisan candidate.
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: We're going to do something that's never been done in dallasmore,
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: which is to just make it partisan, like to say, Okay,
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: we got an are running and now we're going to
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: run a D against him. The problem is that the
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: are you're talking about for four years well enough to
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: clear the field and win with ninety eight four seven
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: percent of the vote. But that didn't happen yet. So
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: let's just go back and say a Republican has been
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: that effective who happens to also be African American and
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: supported by the African American community. We think that that
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: person would lose simply by saying I've become a Republican.
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: I think what happens is is I won the first
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: race in a contested nine person field that it went
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: to a runoff with twelve percent of the vote. I won,
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: you know, fifty six forty four. I think that goes
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: down to the normal, you know, pretty solid win of
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: a you know, fifty four fifty three percent win. But
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: I still win. There's still question I still win that
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: race because I'm the incumbent at that point. No incumbent mayor,
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: if we've had Republican and Democrat mayors before. By the way,
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: no incumbent mayor seeking re election Dallas has ever lost ever.
• 54:01
  Speaker 3: All Right, so let me ask a final question, which
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: is you have started now a national organization, Yes, a
• 54:07
  Speaker 3: Republican Mayor's Association, and you have been out articulating that
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: Republicans need to have an agenda for the cities, that
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: we can't just write off big cities where an awful
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: lot of Americans live.
• 54:20
  Speaker 4: And I think that's a.
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: Very important message.
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: It's something and I want to ask you what's your
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: vision for the message Republicans should have in the cities
• 54:31
  Speaker 3: and how do we end up with a lot more
• 54:35
  Speaker 3: Republican mayors the big cities. What's the path forward there?
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: I said this in the Wall Street journale, and I
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: meant it. It's a two way benefit for America and
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: for our party. America needs the leadership that Republicans provide
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: at the local level because of the things we talked
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: about just a few minutes ago. A Republican mayor is
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: going to is going to because it's a part of
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: the DNA. The party is going to be right on
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: law and order issues, going to be right on public safety.
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: People who've asked me about that, I've said, let me
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: just quiz you very quickly. Every bad idea you can
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: think of about public safety came from one side of
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: the aisle. There's not even a mixed bag on this issue.
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: If it's a bad idea when it comes to public safety,
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: you know, defund the police, don't prosecute, shop with whatever.
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: Republicans don't propose ideas that undermine law and order. They
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: not every Democrat believes them, but they only emanate from
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: the Democrat. That's just a factual statement. So a Republican
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: is going to be right on law and order in
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: public safety, a Republican mayor is going to be right
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: on taxes. A Republican mayor ought to be right on
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: infrastructure spending and investing prudently. And there's studies that show,
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: I mean been they have proven that you actually have
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: lower debt levels and you issue less debt when you
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: have a Republican mayor versus a Democrat when they've mit
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: professor actually studied this and concluded that it is a
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: statistically significant different level of debt associated with a city
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: when there's a Republican in charge and a Democrat in charge.
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: So we actually need Republicans running our major cities because
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: eighty percent of Americans live in cities. By twenty fifty,
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: that number is going to be ninety percent. So the
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: country actually needs the leadership. But I'm actually telling you,
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: as a group of partisans. We actually have to pay
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: attention to this, and I think we have to pay
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: attention to it because I, in my heart of hearts,
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: believe that by being competitive in the cities, by basically
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: re engaging, because we were once engaged. There was a
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: Republican Majors Association at one time. It had a similar name.
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: It was like the Republican Conference. It was during the
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: Ford administration. And at some point we just lost interest
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: in competing at that level and it sort of just
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: faded away. But it was very active at one time,
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: and we were more competitive in our cities at one time.
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: We need to get more competitive there again, because the
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: margin of victory at the state level and states like Wisconsin,
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: in states like Michigan, states like Pennsylvania, is the difference
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: between performing at the city level in You're ready, Madison,
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: Green Bay, and in Detroit and in Philadelphi and Pittsburgh
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: by just five or ten percent points better. So, in
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: other words, engaging in the cities in a more significant
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: way and having the GOP brand associated with the things
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: we're talking about at the local level. It doesn't take
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: that many votes and now all of a sudden, the
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: whole state is no longer lockstock and barrel going one
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: direction because of the advantage has been run up in
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: the city. You've cut into the advantage that the cities have.
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: You know, Eric, I'll tell you on that point.
• 57:55
  Speaker 3: So, Heidi and I met twenty five years ago when
• 57:58
  Speaker 3: we were both working on the George W. Bush campaign
• 58:00
  Speaker 3: in two thousand presidential campaigns. And actually in that campaign,
• 58:04
  Speaker 3: you know, I was a young twenty nine year old staffer,
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: but I wrote a memo urging that the campaign consider
• 58:12
  Speaker 3: at the time Condolliza Rice as a VP nominee. And
• 58:18
  Speaker 3: in the course of the memo, I laid out all
• 58:20
  Speaker 3: sorts of reasons why I thought this was worth considering carefully.
• 58:24
  Speaker 3: But one of the things I did is I did
• 58:26
  Speaker 3: an electoral analysis. I looked at the three preceding presidential elections,
• 58:31
  Speaker 3: and I posited a series of hypotheticals. I said, what
• 58:35
  Speaker 3: would have happened if Republicans had gotten five percent more,
• 58:40
  Speaker 3: ten percent more, or fifteen percent more of the African
• 58:44
  Speaker 3: American and Hispanic book. So I didn't posit what if
• 58:48
  Speaker 3: we get fifty percent more? I did five, ten or
• 58:50
  Speaker 3: fifteen so goals that were achievable, I believe, and I
• 58:56
  Speaker 3: ran through the numbers, and the one that was most
• 58:59
  Speaker 3: that stood out the most was if Republicans had gotten
• 59:03
  Speaker 3: an additional fifteen percent of the African American and Hispanic
• 59:06
  Speaker 3: vote in nineteen ninety six, Republicans would have won an
• 59:09
  Speaker 3: additional ninety six electoral votes. I mean, it flips the
• 59:16
  Speaker 3: election dramatically. But to do that, we've got to compete.
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: It's a whole different national conversation about the competitiveness of
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: this party if we are a factor at the city level, yep,
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: because it's just where so many people are concentrated. It's
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: getting harder and harder to figure out how to win
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: elections where we're just not even playing there and it's
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: just not even we ought to be competing in every
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: major city where we're currently just st of saying, you know,
• 59:50
  Speaker 2: a Democrat hasn't won. I mean repoklic had won there
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: a long time, so let's not try. We just flipped.
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: Just in this last cycle, the mayor, current mayor of
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: I believe it's Charleston, South Carolina, is now a Republican.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 2: They hadn't elected a Republican mayor in Charleston in like
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: one hundred and seventy five years, so it can happen.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: It can be done. You have to run the right candy.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: He was a former legislator like I was, and he
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: ran a great campaign. Now they've got a Republican mayor.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: So what's gonna happen next is he's gonna do a
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: good job. And when he does a good job, these
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: people who've been voting for Democrat mayor for one hundred
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: and seventy five years are gonna say, you know, when
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: Republicans are in charge, the city just seems to be
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: it's safer, We hire more cops, and crime goes down,
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 2: and you know what, the taxes go down, and you know,
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: things are just better. The brand means something to them
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: at the local level, and not just the brand will
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: always have a federal aspect to it, It will always
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: have a state aspect to it. But right now in
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: this party, we're missing a brand at the local level.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: It doesn't mean anything right now at the local level.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: And we get to decide what it means. And I'm
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: saying we should be running solid conservatives at the local level,
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: winning elections, running cities well. And then that makes people
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: at the local level go, yeah, I'm actually a Republican.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: I love my Republican mayor, and so I'm a Republican,
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: and that has benefits for people running for US Senate,
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: running for president, running for governor. But we are right
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: now just aren't doing anything. I mean, I was shocked
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: to find that there was no one even in this lane.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: I wasn't even stepping on anybody's pose by doing this.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 3: Well, let me say, Eric, I appreciate you. I appreciate
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 3: your friendship, I appreciate your leadership, and I appreciate your
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 3: joining us on the Verdict podcast.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: Appreciate that. Man.
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: Give a big round of a paults from Mayor of Dallas.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: Thank you for coming on Verdic. Don't forget We do
• 1:01:40
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• 1:01:42
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• 1:01:49
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