Latest / KSEV Mornings with Craig and Wayne / Jim Geraghty on Paxton vs. Talarico, Katie Zacharia's Debut, Josh Duhamel on Politics

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Jim Geraghty on Paxton vs. Talarico, Katie Zacharia's Debut, Josh Duhamel on Politics · KSEV Mornings with Craig and Wayne

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And now, the mob guys Craig Coglianese and Wayne Dolcefino,
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On KSEV Radio.
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This is the Mob Guys, or today it is Mob Guy on KSEV Radio.
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Thrilled to be with you.
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So much stuff out there to talk about.
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Stephen A. Smith did a whole thing where he ranted about the Clintons that I thought was
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amazing.
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I'll probably get to that at some point.
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Even though I know a lot of people, myself included, no longer really like Mike, Megyn Kelly.
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I think we liked Megyn Kelly at some point, although honestly that's been like an up and down road.
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Because there was the time when she was really upset with President Trump and then he said the one shot,
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the only Rosie O'Donnell shot to one of her questions that seemed to be a reason that he won, she lost, whatever.
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And I think she even said that to him when he was running in 2024 and she seemed to be a fan of him again.
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She hates the guy now, of course, so it's another weird reason to watch her up and down
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But she had a good guest on in Josh Duhamel the actor who crapped all over actors having political opinions
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Which I love that so we'll probably get to that at some point during the show
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Finally gas prices. I was a big conversation
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I think on CNN again, and I thought that once again, it's Scott Jennings doing a really great job
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Crapping all over some of the narrative that exists in that world
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There's a lot of things out there, as I said, to get to, and I plan to do a lot of it.
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Ilhan Omar, though, to me, feels like one of the more valuable discussions in general
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right now.
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The biggest reason why, and I put up, I think, a little video on social media on X, at Radio
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Craig Z, everywhere, on any of the social, I think it's on TikTok, too, which has like
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20 followers, but any of the social media platforms that you want to follow us on, it's
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Craig and Wayne as we're branded on all of them now,
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but my old social media account,
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because Wayne's got way too fancy of a social media one
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for us to redo.
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It's his whole company,
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Dolcefino Consulting.
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So you can check that too.
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I think some stuff comes up there.
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But anyway, I put a little clip up
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about the Ilhan Omar thing and what I said yesterday.
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And what I said yesterday was pretty simple that,
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and I think Wayne was actually the one that said
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that it's a revenge defense,
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essentially meaning that Ilhan might be guilty of stuff
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and she'll claim that it's just a revenge rating of her house because they raided Trump's house,
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and that's the only reason they did it. And here's the thing that I find fascinating about that.
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If Republicans right now were to choose a home to raid out of spite alone,
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like if that's actually what they were doing, if the judge didn't sign off and the raid didn't make any kind of legal sense whatsoever,
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which of course it did,
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But if we were, if the conservative party was like, let's get somebody, it wouldn't be Ilhan Omar.
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That wouldn't be the top of my list. Yes, she's annoying. Yes, I think she's deeply tied to the Somali stuff that's going on in Minnesota
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that all seems like a bunch of messy fraud that goes a whole bunch of different layers. Yeah, I think all those things.
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But if it was just spite, if it was just revenge, if I wasn't after any real information,
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There are higher profile people on said list that I might actually rate.
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Chuck Schumer might be pretty high on the list just because that'd be fun, especially
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for people like Trump from the East Coast.
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But there's just a bunch of names that I think would go before her.
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So the problem with saying that this is the same thing, and honestly, you know what's
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funny about it, even allowing that discussion to happen, even allowing it to be a thing
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that's accepted in public opinion essentially means Democrats are tipping
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their hand and saying we rated Trump because but the difference is that Trump
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was the leading candidate on the opposing side for the office of
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president he was already running when they rated Mar-a-Lago he was already
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gaining enough traction to be easily thought of as the more likely person to
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win the election like everything about that raid was the highest profile most
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disgusting version of what you could potentially do in the world of they're not in power we
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are right now.
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And Ilhan Omar doesn't remotely compare to that.
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It just doesn't.
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So I do think it's kind of funny, the more that I see it out there, even some of the
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reactions to some of the videos that I posted that were like, this is of course, obviously,
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a tit for tat sort of thing.
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Like we're going to do what you did and we're going to get you back for it sort of thing,
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which is just hilarious to me.
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Another thing out there that people are talking about a lot,
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and I thought about playing audio,
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I don't know if I will play audio,
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the brand new speaker of the,
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or excuse me, the brand new White House press secretary
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made her debut, and people are crapping all over it.
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And I'll say this about it,
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about the first appearance of our new press secretary.
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It wasn't great.
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I think that people would be able to easily admit
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that it wasn't great,
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But I think she was probably just nervous and you know the funniest part about that
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Even if she's somebody who's been in the spotlight before is I saw the White House shared like a walking up video
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Like when they do the talk and walk in like a doctor show
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Like house where they're walking from one spot to another and they're talking the whole time
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They just watched the White House press secretary like walking through hallways toward the podium
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I mean they built this up to a large degree
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And if you've ever been in a situation where people built you up right before you were asked to perform
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Sometimes it's harder
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Sometimes you all of a sudden get the additional expectation of man
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Everybody's expecting this to go very well
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And she seemed like she was even struggling a little bit to read
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I which I'll also tell you as a broadcaster myself in a moment where you think you're screwing up the eyes get tighter
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It's harder to read things and screw-ups happen more like if it gets to you
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They say that a lot about the world of broadcasting in general or any kind of I think media in
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general is if you screw up you have to ignore it because the more you think about it the
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more you snowball it into something worse and worse.
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So do I think that kind of happened?
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Yeah, I do think that happened.
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There was still a newsworthy moment when she said that the ambassador to Greece, Kimberly
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Guilfoyle, who Wayne and I were talking about yesterday has been asked to resign because
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they're not so happy with her anymore.
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So that was a noteworthy moment.
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But I think the value of the press secretary,
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as weird as it is to say it this way,
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but as obvious as it is to say it this way,
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will go far beyond a single day.
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If she struggles in week two, in month two,
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then probably she won't be in the job for very long
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because that's a fairly easy job to replace somebody
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and compared to a lot of other government jobs,
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it's not as hard to flip over to the next press secretary
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on a day-to-day basis.
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But we'll see, she might be great.
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Was yesterday great?
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It was not.
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But it wasn't as bad as people are saying.
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I saw some people crap all over her in social media in sort of ridiculous ways.
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And a part of it, to me, shoot the messenger if you want, is that she's an attractive blonde
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lady.
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There are some people that don't like attractive blonde ladies and enjoy watching attractive
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blonde ladies fail.
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That's the thing that exists.
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and it's I think mostly coming from not as attractive ladies.
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They're the ones doing it because I don't know,
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I didn't see as many dudes making fun of this woman
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as I saw ladies, women making fun of this woman,
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which is a bad, I thought that was like, you know,
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frowned upon.
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I thought you were all supposed to stand up for each,
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anyway, we'll see how it goes beyond day one,
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because if she's struggling to the same extent
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that she did yesterday, two weeks from now,
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in the back and forth with press and reading
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of any sort of statement she has in front of her,
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she'll be fired and they'll move on to somebody else
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and that'll be it.
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But I'm not saying I think that'll happen at all.
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I actually don't think it will
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because I've been in situations.
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I did a public speaking, I'll say this really quick
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and then I'll take a break.
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I did a public speaking engagement
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for a veteran organization.
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I did it for free.
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I feel like Wayne would ask me if it cost any money.
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It was free.
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And I remember they like built me up so much.
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They talked about all the work I had done in veteran spaces as far as like radio show
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and interviewing stuff that I'd done.
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And I've never really thought that that was that important.
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Like I'm talking to the heroes who did crazy amazing things and all I'm doing is saying
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words.
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I don't think we should treat it like it's amazing.
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But I remember that people were talking about me being there and then they built it up on
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stage and then one of the veterans who was like a war hero introduced me.
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And I did, there's a moment of nerves.
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Because it's like, I'm not going to live up to any of this.
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Any of what you guys are saying is not at all going to, and I didn't go as bad as the
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White House press secretary yesterday, but nonetheless, like I felt that moment and I
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bet she felt it too.
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And I also can't imagine the pressure of that role for anybody that does it.
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It's got to be a unique thing to be given that level of, you're now the main vocal person,
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and the main arbiter of our information,
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our narratives, our talking points,
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whatever you want to call them, to everybody on a daily basis.
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It's you.
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You're the connection point to us and media
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and the contentious relationship
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that the Trump administration has had
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and President Trump himself has had with media for a long time,
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even more so.
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Stressful, because you can misstep in her world.
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Without misstepping with the press. You can misstep as far as the president is concerned if you don't handle a mean or nasty question from the press in a valuable way.
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We'll see. Anyway, I got a lot of audio to play. A lot of stuff to get to. I'm thrilled to be here with you by myself today.
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It is KSEV Mornings. We'll take a break. For the mob guys, I am Craig Coglianese, as I think the introduction says.
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And he is Wayne Dolcefino, but he's not here. He's on special assignment. So again, we'll take a quick break.
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We'll come back in just a bit on the voice of Texas
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can't see the radio
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Is the voice of Texas?
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700 a.m. The mob guys. I am Craig Coglianese. He is Wayne dulcifino, but he is not here today
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Lots and lots of stuff to get to I'm gonna play some audio off of the 360
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Which is me just communicating with the producer with Russell and I'm not sure though
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Is it sound level because I'm gonna play it a little bit funky?
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So let's see if this actually works
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because this is usually how I'm talking to Wayne,
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but he's not here, so let's see if this works.
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You get to preach to everybody.
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Is that loud?
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Is that quiet?
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How does that feel?
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And it's turn it down a little bit more.
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Oh, it's low, okay.
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That might be as loud as I can play it
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unless I mess something up over here.
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But we'll save that for a bit then, but we'll see.
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But I have some Josh Duhamel audio.
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I have, all right, let's try this one.
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This is Stephen A. Smith.
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I do like this.
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I'll confess something to y'all.
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Clinton was a lawyer in Arkansas, grew up poor, relatively broke.
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How the hell him and the Clinton Foundation is worth hundreds of millions of dollars beats
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me?
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Barack Obama was a community organizer who became the president of the United States
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and last time I checked that salary ain't over $450,000 if I remember correctly.
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I got to double check that.
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I can tell you.
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How the hell you depart from office?
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You work over 200 million hours?
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How's that happen?
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It's amazing to me how these politicians go into office and you're sworn to serve the
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American people.
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It's called service, but somehow, someway, they always depart exponentially richer than
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when they arrived.
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Yes.
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Amen, Steven A. Smith.
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I love the way that he delivers stuff.
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To be honest, I kind of want to play that again because I think it's amazing.
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And he went after Barack Obama and Clinton.
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And that's the funny thing about Trump is Trump went into office rich.
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So even if he came out richer, I feel like that's a very big difference from he had access
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to avenues to gain wealth that's different than the rest of us.
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And he gained more wealth while in the office of president than someone like in Obama or
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Clinton who goes in worth one amount of money and comes out worth a staggeringly different
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amount of like changes their life forever.
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And I think that Rush Limbaugh used to talk about this all the time before he had play
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on this again, like the book deals and the speaking engagements and all the ways that
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just money gets thrown at you and all the sweetheart deals that maybe you did along
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the way that make those book deals and speaking engagements something that's a quid pro quo,
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whether they ever admit it or not, which of course they don't because that would be illegal.
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But it feels like a whole system that's built around this, but it's also insider training.
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Also the biggest thing that politicians seem to be very good at and uniquely so in the
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sense that, and I've talked about this on the show before, if they made a rule and it
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could be a Republican or a Democrat that came forward and said this, that the
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politicians themselves are not allowed to trade, it would not stop the people in
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Washington from enriching themselves via their insider information because they
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would just let a family member close to them as close as necessary based on any
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sort of rule. It's like, you know, your immediate family can't do it fine. Let me
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find somebody a little bit further out, but they'd find someone to trade for
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them and split the money.
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That's how they do it now in order to try to avoid being held responsible for trading
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it.
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And of course the argument, if they ever got to a point where they're passing those laws,
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how could you restrict the rights of someone that's not even elected?
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Meaning the spouse or the children or the cousin or the uncle, all people in the case
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of Joe Biden who seemed to make a whole bunch of money when he was in both the vice president's
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and president's office.
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But here, I want to play this one more time because I really like it.
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I'll confess something to y'all.
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Go ahead, Stephen A.
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Clinton was a lawyer in Arkansas.
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He was.
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Grew up poor, relatively broke.
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How the hell him and the Clinton Foundation is worth hundreds of millions of dollars beats
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me?
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Barack Obama was a community organizer who became the president of the United States
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and last time I checked that salary ain't over $450,000 if I remember correctly.
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I got to double check that.
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How the hell you depart from office?
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You work over 200 million hours?
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It's amazing to me how these politicians go in the office and you're sworn to serve the
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American people.
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It's called service.
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Called service.
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But somehow, someway, they always depart exponentially richer than-
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Look, you know what's really crazy about Stephen A. Smith is I'm sure he's still got a lot
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of Democratic thoughts that I'm going to agree with because I've heard them from time to
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time, although they happen less now.
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I think Stephen A. has noticed that there's some level of appetite for him in a political
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role. I don't think it's president. I think that if you're only a certain type of person, maybe
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Stephen A. is that type of guy that thinks that you're so amazing that you could run for any race
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and win, including president of the United States. I don't think that's a calling, but I do think
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there's a chance that he could get elected to something. And part of the reason I think that
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is because of the way he continues to talk when he does a lot of this. There are those moments
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when you say to yourself, man, he's saying something that at least is more engaging and
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usually saying it to the side of the aisle that doesn't want to hear it.
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Because Stephen A. has a lot of fans that would not necessarily be, I would assume,
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That's not really where it's built, as far as the people and what they think or what
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they believe.
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And so again, I just kind of find it fascinating that when you're going this road and you're
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noticing maybe some value in response to you, that you start saying, all right, man, let
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me keep going.
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Let me keep doing more of this and see if it gets better and better if I was a political consultant
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I guess this is the right way to say it then I was working closely with Stephen a at all
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I would be encouraging him to run for something
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Because I think that he's got a decent shot at winning something and that's all you really care about as a consultant is you want
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Somebody to win the thing you tell them to try to win and he's he's in that world
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I also did like this and I think we talked about it yesterday as far as all other audio goes
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This is Chip Roy.
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He does say the things that I think Wayne and I,
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and more Wayne is leading that conversation,
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I wanna give him credit for it,
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have been talking about as far as these talking points
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aren't landing as well as they did eight years ago,
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as well as they did six years ago.
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You pick the amount of time that we go back
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and say, wait a minute, this was working better than
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10 years ago than it is now.
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But in his writing, Chip Roy, who's persona non grata for a lot of people, myself included,
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I wasn't sad to see him not wind up being a person that's going to stay in politics.
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But what I think is really interesting about it is, as you say the stuff that we've heard
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before, you write in the text of your post on social media, that the other big problem
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with Talarico is his voting record is atrocious, because it is.
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He wants to divest in Texas energy.
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He wants to attack law enforcement.
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He sides with the left on every issue on their agenda.
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He wants to swing the border open.
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He's gotten a bismol voting record on you name it stuff.
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His war on Texas energy might be the biggest one
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that would push a lot of, I think, people in fancy jobs
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to say 100% no to Talarico or any kind of job
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working in energy in a great sector in this state.
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But here, here's a little bit of Chip Roy in Fox Business.
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And again, I think more of what he wrote on social media
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is probably better than what he's saying, but he's saying the stuff that people on the
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right at least care about.
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I think I've been on the campaign trail.
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That's probably too quiet.
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We'll probably have to lift that audio later.
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But yeah, Chip Roy again is saying he's been on the campaign trail.
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He's been talking to Texans, trying to help get Paxton and others elected.
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And in doing so, he is finding out that a whole lot of people think a certain thing
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about Talarico that maybe isn't getting talked about as much in his voting record
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is trash. All right, let's try to play the Duhamel audio actually before we take a break
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because we can we can air that. This is Josh Duhamel talking about spending a lot of time
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in the Midwest.
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Because you have a platform, does it mean that you get to preach to everybody?
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Oh, thank you. Tell that to the Oscars.
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I honestly believe that, you know, we're very fortunate to be in this position. And I spent
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a lot of time in the Midwest, so I get to see what they actually think about, you know,
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us. And they're not afraid to tell me.
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I love that he said the Midwest,
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cause it's not California.
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Cause I think he can come down to Texas.
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I think he can go a lot of places
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and find out what they actually think of actors.
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You know, I had this, I'll never forget this.
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I was going to play golf with a buddy in Georgia
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about 10 years ago.
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And he meets me at the airport with a T-shirt that says,
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nobody cares what actors think.
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Yeah, and that's true.
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And actually Duhamel goes on to say
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that he actually thinks it's pretty funny.
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That's really funny. That's really good. And that always stuck with me because it's true.
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I mean, my job, and that's why I don't really take, I don't really, I have real strong opinions
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about things, but I don't really talk about it because it's like, why?
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Yeah. Keep it yourself. Amen. I love everything of what Josh Duhamel is saying there because
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it's true.
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true because actors get this head of they think they're so amazing.
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They think they're so great.
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And all of a sudden they do whatever the hell they want and they say whatever the
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hell they want.
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And then they're also surprised when that doesn't work out for them.
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When they go the road of let me share all of my political opinions and then
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people don't show up at some of the movies that they make.
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Disney is learning this over and over again, that if you hire people,
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people, excuse me, that are politically outspoken and you allow them to be the
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face of a movie that's not about politics, but they say political things, guess what
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happens? They don't wind up being successful because the political push ruined the live
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action Buzz Lightyear movie as an example. And a bunch of other ones, I think one of
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the live action, like Snow White and the Seven Dwarves did awful at the box office because
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those individuals that they hired to be the faces of those things couldn't shut up about
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politics and you wonder to yourself why as Duhamel says because it seems to be
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More hurtful than helpful to dive into that road.
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You're going to make some people mad.
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And the old Michael Jordan cliche of everybody buys shoes or Republicans
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buy shoes too, needs to be followed by more individuals.
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All right.
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We'll take a quick break.
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A lot coming up.
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This is Craig Coglianese on KSEV, Craig Coglianese, I can still give my
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fake name occasionally, on The Voice of Texas, on The Mob Guys, Wayne
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Dolcefino on special assignment.
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KSEV radio.
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It is The Mob Guys on The Voice of Texas.
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I am thrilled to be with you. I am Craig Coglianese. Wayne Dolcefino is on special assignment.
21:28
A politician made a legend of herself yesterday. I love the way I just introduced that. That
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was a joke for me. You'll get it in a second. Her name is Jaime West. She is a Democrat
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running for office, I think near Indianapolis in Indiana, and she was hammered, just so
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intoxicated. When she went on, I think this is like a public access TV thing, to do an
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interview. She's running for office. She's a Democrat. She
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obviously seems to think that either her race is already
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completely won or it's already completely lost. I'm not sure
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which one. Indiana is a conservative state. Fayette
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County, I think is a conservative county. But who
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knows for what but she just showed up like just blitz to
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the to the nines and I'll say something first, because I
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should put this out there. A friend of mine who passed away
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I struggled with alcohol abuse. So I'm not laughing at an illness. I'm laughing at the
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arrogance of a person to do this interview if you're in this state of mind. Because I can't
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excuse you as a politician for making a decision to be public and interviewed. If you struggle in
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private, that's to me different. And that's something that deserves treatment and all the
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things that I hope would get you better. But when you choose to run for office, then you choose to
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get completely hammered before doing an interview and then you still do the interview, you have
22:51
to hold people accountable.
22:52
This is one of those moments and she is every bit the stupid individual that you think she's
22:57
going to sound like when she makes herself struggle even more mentally than she probably
23:01
already does as someone who's, it seems insane, maybe sober, but she made a legend out of
23:07
herself because she's all over television, all over social media and I imagine eventually
23:13
going to suspend her campaign because I don't think you can come back from this but here I'll
23:18
play some of the audio. All right hold on actually I gotta make sure this is this is a me problem not
23:21
a Russell problem I want him to not freak out because we're just testing the audio off air
23:25
and then I routed it the wrong way but there we go now it's back and here we go. And that's what I
23:30
have to say about that. Okay and our last question first okay look there's a whole lot to play I don't
23:36
mean to overreact but that I love that as far as the end of the last question. And that's what I
23:41
have to say about that. Okay. We're fine. And our last question of the night is, if
23:46
elected, what is one decision that you expect to make that may be unpopular
23:51
with some voters but you believe ultimately would be in the best interest
23:55
of Fayette County? I wouldn't raise your taxes. Okay, I like that. That's fine. What is the one
24:02
decision that I would make? By the way, I bet you would raise the taxes. Hmm.
24:25
I don't even talk to him.
24:29
I don't like him.
24:30
I mean, they voted against our state representative who voted against her own state representative.
24:37
did what now? Oh my god. Look, I'll say one other thing too actually about this. I kind
24:42
of feel like the person doing the interview at some point should have addressed this.
24:46
Like you don't let them leave or you don't suggest that they leave. If they want to leave
24:50
on their own, they can. But if you have a politician who's willing to show up for an
24:54
interview and behave this way and demonstrate this, they're definitely someone you can't
24:59
have hold in office. Because obviously they don't think that this is important. The interview,
25:04
I don't know what other moments they would disregard and put themselves in a position
25:07
Herself in a position where she can't she literally can't function. Either way. She should but continue
25:13
What do you want me to say? I don't like being around them
25:16
I mean, okay y'all did this to us you all voted for us you made this happen this ice
25:23
coming into our communities
25:26
stealing people's jobs, I mean
25:28
What?
25:31
Ugh.
25:32
I've been threatened so many times to my face.
25:35
Uh-huh.
25:36
By.
25:37
I just get emotional.
25:38
MAGA, we'll call them.
25:39
Because there's Republicans who...
25:43
Oh my God.
25:44
Actually get it, you know?
25:46
There are good Republicans out there.
25:48
Thank you, that's nice of you to say.
25:49
They didn't use MAGA's.
25:50
Yeah.
25:50
Who are just racist.
25:51
Oh, terrible people.
25:52
And...
25:53
Horrible.
25:54
Aren't very intelligent at all.
25:56
They call you names.
25:59
They, but, you know, sheriff's nephew trying to blow my head off.
26:04
Yeah, that's not at all true.
26:05
I can't even imagine that's remotely true, but that's her.
26:08
She is trashed and on TV and trying to make an argument to voters in Fayette County in
26:15
Indiana to vote for her.
26:17
And it's public access.
26:18
So I imagine she also thought maybe a lot of people weren't going to watch it.
26:21
Like, I don't know what decisions went into this.
26:23
I don't even know what time this interview happened.
26:25
I'm assuming it's in the evening, although who knows?
26:28
Maybe it's the middle of the day.
26:29
But I'll say one other thing about the individual that did this is,
26:34
obviously, whoever is on her team, however many people Jaime West has
26:37
as members of her election, her campaign, they don't care about her.
26:42
They actively don't like her, actually, I would imagine,
26:45
because you can't possibly let somebody that you work for
26:49
do this interview in this shape.
26:52
Like if you if you're around them at all before they walk into those doors and do a
26:57
However many minutes this was because I think this was a pretty long sit-down, but there's so much of it Benny Johnson shared this
27:02
I just work here is one of the best memes that I think was put up with the woman throwing her hands in the air
27:07
Which you will see later if I put this in a clip on social media
27:11
But it's just it's amazing and honestly like the biggest focus I have on it
27:17
outside of the the the easy shots is the arrogance of
27:22
it. Like what I really couldn't get over because I saw this yesterday trend, I think just after our
27:26
show, our morning show, you know, yesterday morning, it wasn't, I probably was out there
27:32
in the world of media, but no one really knew about it until yesterday in the middle of the day.
27:37
And I kept thinking about how arrogant people are in political places, because she's running a race
27:43
and people have donated to her. Like even if she doesn't think she's gonna win, and again, I don't
27:47
know, I'd have to look up the exact county she's running in and how likely she is to win.
27:52
But we'll see. I think she might already be a representative, so she probably has a chance to get reelected.
27:58
But that's just the thing that I feel like we need a fix on.
28:02
And I feel like I'll be a broken record on saying that.
28:05
And I think that when you look at here in Harris County, the amount of people who just assume they're gonna have jobs,
28:11
no matter what they've done,
28:13
the amount of things that Letitia Plummer is accused of
28:17
in her dental practice, stuff that I think she's even been found guilty of,
28:22
in some cases, would make most people not hire her for a regular job. And yet she wants to defeat
28:29
Orlando Sanchez and take over Lena Hildago's job and probably do horrible additional things
28:34
the same way that the Jaime West lady is trying to do terrible things in Indiana. And there's
28:39
such an arrogance in like assuming you don't really have to do anything. Actually, I'll use
28:45
that as a better example. And Orlando Sanchez said that when he did the show, when he did an
28:51
interview with us like a week or so ago, that they had one of
28:53
their debates remotely, and that plumbers campaign didn't try at
28:59
all to troubleshoot it and then blamed Orlando Sanchez for it
29:02
when it didn't work when like the camera kept breaking or the
29:05
computer kept crapping out. And I'll tell you as somebody that
29:08
does a lot of this, and you've seen mistakes happen on this
29:11
show, test, test, test is what they say, you got to get people
29:15
set up beforehand, you got to run through it like it's live,
29:18
Make sure everything's working. It takes time and sometimes it's not capable in certain
29:25
environments that aren't necessarily a political campaign
29:28
But in the case of a political campaign, you just got to do it, man
29:30
You just got to make sure that everything's going and ready to go or ready to behave correctly
29:36
The way that Orlando Sanchez seemed obviously secure that things are gonna work out for him and he did a great job
29:41
He was there for a debate that Plummer wound up dropping out of and I just I continue to find that
29:48
As fascinating as anything else.
29:50
And I do, I will say this, I do understand some of the stuff I see in Podcastistan,
29:57
which is the place where everybody makes a podcast now.
30:01
But I do understand some of that, some of the push and the rhetoric and the anger and the other stuff
30:06
that comes out in that world because of how dumb it is to think that more of these people deserve jobs
30:13
when constantly these people don't really deserve jobs.
30:16
I think I got to take a break a little bit early actually because I totally forgot we have a another guest set up
30:22
we're going to talk to one of the guests of
30:25
Three Martini lunch, which is an awesome podcast from Radio America
30:28
His name is Jim Geraghty of National Review kind of a famous guy, too
30:32
And I'd set up an interview with him because I'm filling in on that show that podcast and I think I screwed up the time
30:38
We were supposed to call him at so we'll take a break and we'll try to get Jim on the line
30:41
Hopefully I'll get that to work out on
30:44
KSEV Radio, 700 AM, The Voice of Texas.
30:48
KSEV Radio, this is The Voice of Texas.
30:51
My name is Craig Coglianese, Wayne Dolcefino, the co-host of the show is on special assignment,
30:55
but I brought in a guy that I know that I actually sub on his show, and so for this
31:00
segment I'm going to make him sub on mine, Jim Geraghty of National Review.
31:03
How you doing, buddy?
31:05
Craig, it is great to be with you this morning for what will be one of two conversations
31:09
we have today.
31:10
Yeah.
31:11
The other one later on my podcast.
31:13
But how are you doing this morning?
31:15
I am surprised as I was waiting in the ad break that there were not a million ads for
31:19
either Paxton or Talarico.
31:23
My understanding is that all ads...
31:26
We lost them a little.
31:28
Go ahead.
31:28
3 AM, they're still having to do that.
31:30
I think you just got the wrong spot break, Jim.
31:33
I got to be honest, if we get to the next one, it's probably half of that because yes,
31:36
that is all it is.
31:37
And actually, why don't we start there?
31:38
So Three Martini Lunch, an incredible podcast that you do that's got, I think, a lot of listeners and traction and reviews.
31:45
People want just five or four star reviews.
31:48
It's something you mentioned at the end of it all the time.
31:50
So if people want to go there and do that.
31:51
But how often do you guys talk about the Texas race on a national level?
31:56
Oh, pretty regularly.
31:58
It's a very high look.
32:01
It's intriguing because every two years we hear, this is the year Democrats are going to win Texas.
32:06
Yeah.
32:06
If you've studied history, you're like, well, it hasn't happened in a generation, but all
32:10
streaks come to an end, even Cal Ripken.
32:14
And when Talarico won the primary, I was looking at this as saying, huh, okay, Paxton
32:22
is the, you look at the past statewide election, Paxton generally ran well behind Greg Abbott.
32:31
So on paper, he's a weaker Republican candidate than usual.
32:34
Yeah, uh, Talarico, I figured though he was gonna have to do better than beta or work did back in 2018
32:40
Oh work came within about three percentage points. So you needed Paxton to do astonishingly bad
32:46
You tell a recode to do astonishingly well, and then you need you know, and then maybe you know, there's a shot of it happening
32:53
Well, you look at it, you know, I put this in a Washington Post column about two weeks ago
32:59
Talarico needed like five things to go his way and I think he's up to about six or seven. So
33:05
Yeah, yeah, like we needed, you know, Trump to be very unpopular, right, even in Texas,
33:10
and that appears to be the case.
33:11
He needed the national mood to be anti Republican.
33:14
That usually happens in a midterm year for the incumbent party.
33:17
He needed Abbott.
33:19
I still think Abbott is going to win, but you look at the polling is closer than usual.
33:24
And Abbott is usually the top of the ticket and can kind of, you know, his coattails
33:28
can carry over lower Republicans.
33:31
That doesn't appear to be the case.
33:33
He needed, you know, lots of other races to be competitive so that Republicans, like by
33:39
the way, Republican outside groups have spent like well more than $200 million in these
33:44
ads that we're talking about.
33:45
Yeah.
33:46
And usually if you're a national group, you don't have to spend anything on Texas because
33:49
it's a done deal.
33:50
So again, it's, you know, it's not over.
33:53
It would not stun me if Paxton won, but it does feel like you're kind of in the neighborhood
33:58
of that perfect storm of conditions that could have a Democrat win in Texas.
34:02
Well, and you know what's really interesting about that? I often dismiss polling as,
34:05
as I think a lot of people do, as being completely unreliable. I think polls themselves admit they
34:10
only get things right like 30% of the time up until a couple weeks before an election. Like,
34:14
they're not, they're not really sure of what they're saying, but I do follow money. And you just
34:19
pointed out how much money has been flooding into Texas. Obviously the belief is that Paxton is not
34:25
the candidate people wanted him to be. And even Trump, I don't know if you saw that weeks ago.
34:29
Yeah, right. Even Trump said it. Like he's not as eloquent as we wanted to be. He doesn't look as
34:33
good as we want him to look. It's weird to throw that out there on that stage. And Paxton seemed
34:38
to laugh it off. But it's somewhat true that Paxton, and I'll say this, I was very anti John
34:45
Cornyn, the person who Paxton wound up defeating in the runoff election, because he doesn't stand
34:51
with conservatives at the moments that matter most. He did wilt, but it didn't mean that I thought
34:55
Paxton was a better candidate than Cornyn. I actually thought the other guy who was running
35:00
in that race before he lost, before the runoff was the best candidate for the role. And I think
35:05
we are seeing the remnants of, there was baggage that came with this person. There are people that
35:11
seem like they're likely to just sit out this election, and that is the perfect storm you're
35:16
talking about. And I wonder what you do to mobilize those individuals who can't possibly
35:21
punch a ticket for Talarico in Texas, but would allow him to win by staying at home.
35:28
Well, I will point out the ad with the what I assumed to be will be soon to be ex-wife.
35:34
She didn't say his name, she just sent a voting spirit Republican ticket. But, you know, this,
35:39
the fact that it's Mrs. Tell the fact that Mrs. Paxton is an indication that like, look, if she
35:44
can hold her nose and bring herself to vote for this guy. You Texas Republican or a person
35:49
who usually votes Republican, what's your excuse? I was going to say, I'm thinking about
35:54
back in 2013, one of the few races, one of the most memorable races I ever covered, Mark
35:59
Sanford, at that point, former governor of South Carolina who had been hiking the Appalachian
36:06
Trail and actually hooking up with some woman in Argentina, ran in a special house election
36:11
down in South Carolina where my parents left. And he won the primary, won the runoff, and
36:17
there was kind of this sense of like, oh, he's got this giant scandal hanging over his
36:21
head. He was up against Stephen Colbert's sister. Democrats thought, oh good, we've
36:26
got kind of a celebrity candidate and good fundraising. We really like our odds. And
36:31
it's one of the few reasons the first thing about one candidate, Mark Sanford just out
36:36
hustles her and was doing like 10 events a day.
36:40
He was also doing total Q&A.
36:42
He was like almost unnervingly eager to talk about how much he had screwed up his marriage
36:48
and how dumb he had been.
36:50
And you could just kind of tell voters were like, okay, that's great.
36:53
Thanks.
36:53
Stop talking about this.
36:54
You know, there was something like there was no sense of him hiding.
36:58
There was no sense of him downplaying his contrition scene.
37:01
He's like, I'm just trying to do what's best for my sons.
37:03
You know, I'm trying to be like, so like it just.
37:05
you know after people like okay that's great let's let's talk about the
37:08
deficit but talk about really sure here is this stop telling us
37:12
anyone but like nine point it was not that close to the over-the-bar by
37:16
contrast
37:17
uh... gold of colbert bush was doing like one event today not taking question
37:22
reading from prepared remarks it was a very
37:25
buttoned-up campaign
37:27
and so look sometimes their circumstances you can overcome yeah
37:31
but i do believe that you know how off how we've got a mentor you doing how
37:34
much are you meeting with voters? Now look, Texas is a big state, no getting around that.
37:39
There's probably a limit to how much you can do that, but I've heard people like Mark Halperin
37:43
saying, Paxton's always been a lazy campaigner, he's always been a lousy fundraiser. Look,
37:49
this is not the time to phone it in. This is the time when you need to be doing twice
37:52
as many ... It sounds like Talarico, when he's not dying of swine flu or whatever it
37:57
was he had last week, does a lot of events.
38:00
Do you believe that was actually the flu, yes or no?
38:06
I believe it was the flu.
38:08
My understanding is he has type 1 diabetes which can make recovering from illnesses slower.
38:14
But with that said, look, the polling indicates that the Puerto Rican is narrowly ahead.
38:19
If you're a Puerto Rican, you want the race to end.
38:22
You get people voting, you don't want to have a last minute gaffe, you don't want a last
38:30
answer to some question or something. So I think like if he had an excuse to stay off the trail,
38:36
he was going to take that excuse. And I suspect, as I said, he was out hustling. He may be at a
38:42
point where he kind of dwindles down those public appearances between now and election day,
38:47
because it's kind of like a deck of cards. It's like a Jenga Tower. Don't touch anything. Don't
38:54
do anything. Well, I would say this about a gym, because I do think it's true that right now,
38:59
because of the money that is flooded into Paxton without Paxton having to go get it.
39:04
Like a lot of people are throwing money at the Texas race.
39:07
I think right now financially, Paxton is probably in a stronger place than Talarico because
39:11
Talarico spent a lot of the money that he's made.
39:13
So I do think this last couple weeks, which many people criticized Paxton for right here
39:20
in Texas on one of our marquee shows that has a state senator is one of the hosts, the
39:24
three amigos said Paxton should have been hustling sooner, but the money didn't come
39:28
in soon enough to do it.
39:29
But now I think you will see a big push at the end. Will it be enough? Will it be too late?
39:34
Are some of the biggest questions people are asking and I think they're they're worth asking
39:38
I still believe that too many things that Talarico said are too far away from what a average Texan believes
39:46
That eventually that message will land and he won't win
39:50
But I don't know if that'll be the case
39:51
I do want to ask you only have like three minutes left about Hillary Clinton returning to the podcast space
39:55
It was on three martini lunch yesterday
39:59
great topic. What are your thoughts in about two or three minutes on that?
40:03
Sure. So she's doing a weekly podcast between now and the election, which is an entire like
40:09
two, three weeks. I guess it's going to do till mid November. So for four podcasts. You
40:15
know, that's like one or two days for me. No, with Kara Swisher, who's this fairly popular
40:21
cover to the tech industry out in Silicon Valley for a long time. I think if you're
40:26
a Democrat, look, I'd be curious about what appetite there is for this. If you're a Democrat
40:31
I think Hillary Clinton's feel like ancient history.
40:36
I think I mentioned, Craig, you and I, we're used to – I saw Bill Clinton speaking at the Democratic Convention in Chicago back in 2024.
40:44
And we're used to the Phil Hartman impression of, hey, baby, how you doing? Like this – and he looks gaunt.
40:50
He looks old. And so it's a little bit like, I don't know, you call it a baseball old-timers' day or something.
40:56
Yeah.
40:57
Or what, you know, in all likelihood, Democrats are going to have a good midterm year.
41:02
And if you're Hillary Clinton, you probably just want to be out there.
41:05
You want to have something to do, and it looks like a good day for Democrats.
41:08
Right.
41:09
So she can say, well, you know, do you see that podcast I was doing with Karen Swisher?
41:12
Clearly, that was a big factor that helped out.
41:14
Right.
41:14
That really had to tip the scales.
41:15
What's funny about that is I think it'll actually do the opposite.
41:17
I think, as you said, if Clinton is not a forgot, like someone you've forgotten about
41:22
But on the Democratic side of the party, you feel similarly to her to how many conservatives
41:26
do, which is you hate her.
41:27
You think she's absolutely someone.
41:30
That's the last person you want to hear from on a lot of this stuff.
41:32
So I think if she does anything at all, it is damaged.
41:35
The Democratic Party, and I'm here for that, Jim.
41:38
I am applauding and excited about that.
41:40
Thank you for making some time, a few minutes this morning.
41:43
Sorry about the screw up on my end.
41:45
No problem.
41:45
Okay.
41:46
But thank you so much for doing it.
41:48
Three Martini lunches out there every single day at about noon, one o'clock, I think, or
41:52
So anything else we should be on the lookout for you from National Review?
41:57
No, I write the morning jolt every morning.
41:59
Today's will be about Trump, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.
42:04
And the fact that we have three fairly elderly men who all have hands on the
42:08
button of nuclear arsenals. Hey, nothing to worry about.
42:12
We're doing great.
42:12
I'll be fine. Thank you so much, Jim.
42:14
He is Jim Geraghty of the National Review and the three martini lunch.
42:17
This is KSEV mornings on the voice of Texas.
42:20
Craig Coglianese Wayne Dolcefino on special assignment.
42:24
More in the next hour.