Latest / Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar / 3/4/26: James Talarico Defeats Crockett, Dan Crenshaw Goes Down In Texas

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3/4/26: James Talarico Defeats Crockett, Dan Crenshaw Goes Down In Texas · Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

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Speaker 3: Election results in North Carolina, Texas, and Arkansas very bad
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Speaker 3: So to discuss all this, we're joined by Dave Weigel
1:09
Speaker 3: of Semaphore, David Serota of lever News.
1:13
Speaker 4: Thank you, David, thank you.
1:14
Speaker 6: Thanks.
1:15
Speaker 4: I appreciate you guys being here.
1:17
Speaker 3: So let's start with and then we're going to do
1:20
Speaker 3: a second segment later on the Republican primary, but let's
1:23
Speaker 3: start with Tallo Rico and Crockett as Serota, So it
1:28
Speaker 3: seemed like this started out as a race that didn't
1:32
Speaker 3: have any kind of ideological content to it, that it
1:35
Speaker 3: was like different different styles, like different MSNBC styles really
1:41
Speaker 3: that seemed to evolve as taller Rico and while I
1:45
Speaker 3: want your take on this too, because I can follow
1:47
Speaker 3: this clothes as tall Ico started embracing this top bottom
1:51
Speaker 3: like we're taking on the billionaires, they're your real problem,
1:54
Speaker 3: and Crockets stuck with the whatever the MSNBC stuff is,
1:58
Speaker 3: whether what she was really.
2:00
Speaker 7: Running it right, I'm not like a brand, like a
2:04
Speaker 7: like a vibe.
2:04
Speaker 6: I mean, look, it's all vibes, right, it's all vibes.
2:07
Speaker 7: I think taller Ico clearly as the campaign went on,
2:10
Speaker 7: recognized the the I guess we could call it proxy wise,
2:17
Speaker 7: like the Bernie vibe, like if you call the anti
2:19
Speaker 7: billionaire stuff like the Bernie vibe. Right, Like, I think
2:23
Speaker 7: what I take away from this race is that people
2:27
Speaker 7: like him have realized that there is that is the
2:30
Speaker 7: normal middle center of the Democratic Party.
2:34
Speaker 4: Way, if people are getting the news from this show,
2:36
Speaker 4: he won, yes.
2:39
Speaker 7: One, right, Like, I think we've seen in a series
2:45
Speaker 7: of races that these candidates who are winning these primaries
2:47
Speaker 7: have recognized that while there's this debate going on between
2:52
Speaker 7: you know, Third Way and you know the so called
2:55
Speaker 7: left et cetera, et cetera, that actually there isn't really
2:59
Speaker 7: much of a debate going on at the kind of
3:01
Speaker 7: voter level over anti oligarch politics that is now the
3:06
Speaker 7: just sort of mainstream normal of the Democratic Party, which
3:10
Speaker 7: I you know, taking a.
3:11
Speaker 5: Long view now, I'm Crockett was running on that too,
3:13
Speaker 5: right yeah.
3:14
Speaker 7: Yeah, And like like I just turned fifty recently and
3:17
Speaker 7: you're about as old as I am, Right, Okay, Like
3:20
Speaker 7: that may seem like a just like not all that interesting. Course,
3:25
Speaker 7: like that has not been the way it's been up
3:28
Speaker 7: until now. And so I look at that race and
3:31
Speaker 7: I say, wow to think about how far we've come since,
3:37
Speaker 7: like just Bernie ten years ago, Bernie five years ago.
3:41
Speaker 7: That's my takeaway of a candidate who can kind of
3:44
Speaker 7: code moderate, you know, vibe wise, code moderate, but be
3:49
Speaker 7: the anti billionaire candidate.
3:52
Speaker 5: I want to run that past you, Dave, because one
3:53
Speaker 5: of the reasons I thought this was such an interesting
3:55
Speaker 5: primary is you have the stylistic, the stylistic Q to
4:00
Speaker 5: norms from Taller Rico, who's almost stylistically again like a
4:03
Speaker 5: Biden candidate who says We're going to restore decency to Canada.
4:06
Speaker 5: I like that exactly right, But then his policy prescription
4:10
Speaker 5: he was trying to sell populism. Really, Crockett was kind
4:13
Speaker 5: of the other way around. She had the style of
4:15
Speaker 5: post Trump politics, but the substance of almost corporate dem politics.
4:20
Speaker 5: It's hard to say because they're both kind of mixed.
4:23
Speaker 5: And you were on the you were on the trail,
4:24
Speaker 5: weren't like I was.
4:25
Speaker 8: I was last week and David's right, And I would
4:27
Speaker 8: start with Taller Rico picked and polarized enemies. The enemies
4:31
Speaker 8: were corporations that were working with Donald Trump to impoverish
4:36
Speaker 8: you the voter.
4:37
Speaker 5: This is a man who took money from mariam A
4:39
Speaker 5: on a gambling Yeah.
4:40
Speaker 8: I asked him, I think the opening interview asked him
4:42
Speaker 8: about that, and he had he had, he had an answer.
4:43
Speaker 8: It was it was like, I'm not pure. That was
4:46
Speaker 8: specific thing. I'm not going to do that in this race.
4:48
Speaker 8: It was Crockett did not run a very tight campaign,
4:52
Speaker 8: did not use that as effectively she could. She had
4:53
Speaker 8: lots of influence online calling him corrupt, but they got
4:56
Speaker 8: really sidetracked into identity where U his some speech was
5:01
Speaker 8: It's one of those in a boota judge way of
5:02
Speaker 8: some speech. It's very memorable because it doesn't change very much.
5:05
Speaker 8: He would talk about inauguration Day and the wealthy people
5:09
Speaker 8: sitting behind on Trump, talk about Elon Musk. The impact
5:12
Speaker 8: of the Stephen Colbert thing was him talking about the
5:17
Speaker 8: Trump administration opening the door for his supporters to own
5:20
Speaker 8: corporate media and control what you see. He called it
5:23
Speaker 8: the ultimate corporate cancel culture is the one thing he
5:25
Speaker 8: called it. But it was about the enemy is these
5:29
Speaker 8: people at the top who were dividing us. And it
5:30
Speaker 8: wasn't evading issues or pivoting. It was that She was
5:33
Speaker 8: less clear. She mentioned that a couple of times when
5:36
Speaker 8: I was covering her. She had some big events, some
5:40
Speaker 8: big conversations, but a lot more of what Democrats have
5:43
Speaker 8: not had any success with, which is, how dare some
5:47
Speaker 8: a felon, a thirty four thirty five count felon be
5:50
Speaker 8: allowed to serve in the governments like these? Get this
5:52
Speaker 8: guy's corrupt? It was like, okay, well, yeah, Trump's crupture,
5:55
Speaker 8: but who was behind him? And how are you being distracted?
5:57
Speaker 8: And every time you're watching a reaction to him, what
6:00
Speaker 8: are you missing? It's this, it's it's it's it's this policy,
6:03
Speaker 8: it's this diminition of medicaid funding. It was bad but
6:07
Speaker 8: enemy first, which is it's it's kind of obvious. But
6:09
Speaker 8: there have been lots of Democrats. I'll never get there,
6:11
Speaker 8: and they're very they're very loose, and they do not
6:13
Speaker 8: say here's the bad guy. I will take on the
6:15
Speaker 8: bad guy. You're going to prove your life's better for
6:17
Speaker 8: this reason. He did it all the time.
6:18
Speaker 7: So when I was writing speeches for Bernie Sanders, some
6:22
Speaker 7: people some people would would.
6:24
Speaker 6: Well, one I'd get raz how do you write a
6:26
Speaker 6: speech for Bernie Sanders? He says the same thing over.
6:28
Speaker 7: I mean, that's like a that's why I got all
6:30
Speaker 7: my hair trying to you know, put in new things.
6:36
Speaker 3: But the question of why do people show up to
6:38
Speaker 3: hear what they've already heard? It was like I feel
6:42
Speaker 3: like they a lot of people showed up on those
6:45
Speaker 3: campaigns because they liked hearing somebody recount and name the
6:51
Speaker 3: villains the enemies, because it felt like no one else
6:55
Speaker 3: was naming them. And so when you say, you know,
6:57
Speaker 3: when you point out that tall Rico was actually naming villains,
7:01
Speaker 3: naming the enemy, I feel like that's like become code
7:06
Speaker 3: for authenticity, code.
7:07
Speaker 6: For like I am willing to name villains.
7:10
Speaker 7: I am the people who don't want you to name villains,
7:13
Speaker 7: or the donors, like the money doesn't want you to
7:16
Speaker 7: name that. And I think this question about what is
7:19
Speaker 7: left and right? What is moderate? What is you know, liberal,
7:23
Speaker 7: et cetera, et cetera. I mean the Third Way conference
7:26
Speaker 7: this week right was all about how, you know, the
7:28
Speaker 7: Democrats need to be moderate, they need to like reject
7:31
Speaker 7: their left. I would ask a question like in this race,
7:35
Speaker 7: who does the average voter think in the Texas primary
7:39
Speaker 7: was the candidate on the left.
7:42
Speaker 6: Or who was the moderate right?
7:44
Speaker 7: I think those terms like don't mean anything anymore. That's
7:48
Speaker 7: why I say, you know, when I when I when
7:50
Speaker 7: I'm referring to you know, people ask where my politics,
7:53
Speaker 7: I'm like, I'm not even sure the word.
7:56
Speaker 6: Left or right or moderate or like. I don't think
7:59
Speaker 6: these terms mean anything anymore.
8:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, certainly not to regular people who are trying to
8:03
Speaker 3: follow this now. The Hispanic vote swung wildly to Democrats
8:07
Speaker 3: this time. Either one of you can take this, but
8:10
Speaker 3: Tom Bond, you're a Democratic data analysts, and we could
8:12
Speaker 3: put this.
8:13
Speaker 4: Up and post. He flagged that.
8:16
Speaker 3: He says, Zapota County turn out in the primary there
8:20
Speaker 3: yesterday was one and forty three percent the total number
8:24
Speaker 3: of votes that Kamala Harris won in the general election.
8:30
Speaker 3: Republican Republicans very in this high profile manner, went and
8:35
Speaker 3: redistricted Texas to try to add a couple of members.
8:40
Speaker 3: And I want to get your take on this. It
8:41
Speaker 3: may end up being an incredible own goal, shoot yourself
8:45
Speaker 3: in the foot kind of moment. So he flags four
8:48
Speaker 3: of the districts congressional districts, the ninth, twenty eighth, thirty fourth,
8:52
Speaker 3: and thirty fifth that were redistricted in order to be
8:56
Speaker 3: Republican districts in each one of them, Democratic primary turnout
9:02
Speaker 3: was higher than GOP primary turnout in some cases by
9:07
Speaker 3: like three or four thousand, other cases by twenty to
9:10
Speaker 3: thirty to forty thousand more votes.
9:12
Speaker 4: So these are in order to get.
9:13
Speaker 3: More districts, get more seats, you have to take a
9:18
Speaker 3: seat where you normally win by thirty and you take
9:20
Speaker 3: it down to like five or ten, and then you
9:22
Speaker 3: take those voters and you spread them out. But if
9:25
Speaker 3: it's a wave, all of a sudden, you've put all
9:27
Speaker 3: of these districts in range of Democrats, which one do
9:32
Speaker 3: you want to take.
9:34
Speaker 8: More in that direction than by sure back in Apkin analysis, Ben,
9:39
Speaker 8: if it's just like a twenty twenty Hispanic breakdown, than
9:42
Speaker 8: those seats are hard for Republicans to win.
9:43
Speaker 4: I've been to that region a lot.
9:45
Speaker 8: I'd say there's a long period where Democrats are just
9:46
Speaker 8: into denial that it could change because Donald Trump was
9:49
Speaker 8: the nominatee and listen to what he says and look
9:51
Speaker 8: at the numbers for Hillary Clinton. He destroyed. He got
9:55
Speaker 8: destroyed in that region. The Tallerka campaign. I think everyone
9:59
Speaker 8: knows Chuck Roaches writers, but he spent a lot of
10:01
Speaker 8: time in the district He was very clear on ice
10:04
Speaker 8: and making the argument that again Democrats I think are
10:07
Speaker 8: mostly comfortable making, even if they don't like saying abolish. Well,
10:11
Speaker 8: we agree with that immigration enforcement is good, but why
10:13
Speaker 8: are they flagging down Hispanic people and seeing if they
10:16
Speaker 8: have papers? That's popular there. Border patrol is very popular.
10:19
Speaker 8: If you've been to the South Texas, people have employers. Well, yeah,
10:22
Speaker 8: you know, you know the Blue Lives Matter flag. You'll
10:23
Speaker 8: see a green line in a flag that's the border.
10:26
Speaker 4: Patrol flag Myra Flora. Yeah, exactly.
10:29
Speaker 8: And he was careful about that, but it was it
10:34
Speaker 8: was spending time in that area. And also talking about religion.
10:36
Speaker 8: I think there are gonna be a lot of criticisms
10:39
Speaker 8: of how he talks about.
10:39
Speaker 6: Religion, many from me.
10:40
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a little more.
10:41
Speaker 8: Like gnostic than most Hispanic Catholics are comfortable with when
10:45
Speaker 8: it comes to like the divinity or God's gender, et cetera.
10:50
Speaker 5: Which, by the way, it's something that was hugely divisive
10:52
Speaker 5: in the real Grand Valley for Democrats, this question of
10:55
Speaker 5: like what's moderate what's not it's I agree, the labels
10:57
Speaker 5: are really hard to say because it's like he runs
11:00
Speaker 5: this is a kind of stylistic moderate. Where is he
11:02
Speaker 5: in some of these cultural issues Hispanic voters in the
11:04
Speaker 5: real Grand Valley independent type Hispanic voters, that might be
11:08
Speaker 5: an issue for them.
11:09
Speaker 8: It was, and I did meet Hispanic voters per saying
11:11
Speaker 8: their film family was Magga the last election. I very
11:14
Speaker 8: forgot right wing Catholic family who share memes on Facebook
11:17
Speaker 8: and they can't believe they're Democrat, but they can send
11:20
Speaker 8: them a Talla Rico video about something specific and say, well,
11:23
Speaker 8: this is what I believe, and it was.
11:25
Speaker 4: It's not going down the litmus.
11:27
Speaker 8: The litmus tests of a Catholic voter who's pro pro life,
11:30
Speaker 8: he's not going to match that. So a gender critical person,
11:33
Speaker 8: he's not going to match that. But just talking about
11:35
Speaker 8: faith in the way he did, quoting the Book of Matthew,
11:39
Speaker 8: quoting the Sermon on the Mount, just doing that versus
11:42
Speaker 8: the secularism they were used to from other Democrats. Beato
11:44
Speaker 8: or Work is not very comfortable doing that. A lot
11:46
Speaker 8: of Democrats are not. They don't go to church very much,
11:48
Speaker 8: they don't talk about it going to church. The fact
11:52
Speaker 8: that he was a seminarian and talked about God at all,
11:56
Speaker 8: I think I was maybe a little bit cynical about
11:58
Speaker 8: that because when going in where I.
12:00
Speaker 4: Went there, but people just they had not heard that.
12:02
Speaker 8: They were hearing democrats talking about shouting your abortion and
12:06
Speaker 8: talking about he would talk about Christian nationalism, which I
12:08
Speaker 8: think is more for the you know, John Oliver audience.
12:11
Speaker 8: But the part they were hearing was we at least
12:13
Speaker 8: quoting the Bible. I haven't heard a Democrat come hearing
12:15
Speaker 8: quote the Bible because he's not like Henry Quaihar who
12:17
Speaker 8: knows the region. He's at least trying, and he made
12:20
Speaker 8: some inroads that way. But that plus the ice thing.
12:22
Speaker 8: This is and I've heard that from Arizona and from
12:24
Speaker 8: other places too, that look, they're not saying abolish ice.
12:27
Speaker 8: They're saying there has to be some goldilocks bull in
12:31
Speaker 8: the middle. That is that is protecting the border and
12:33
Speaker 8: not chasing my friend down because he has a Mexican
12:36
Speaker 8: flag on his truck because he's fifth generation.
12:38
Speaker 4: He just has a Mexican flag.
12:39
Speaker 5: Well, last point before we go to a needle, Alam
12:41
Speaker 5: and you may have something to ads Rohoda. It's just
12:43
Speaker 5: Crockett was flirting with like just dragging this out last night,
12:48
Speaker 5: was saying, looks like there's cheating in Dallas, Jowny, and
12:50
Speaker 5: this is what Republicans did. It was unclear what she
12:52
Speaker 5: totally meant by that just a half an hour ago. Yes,
12:55
Speaker 5: so she really was going full.
12:56
Speaker 4: Stop the steal.
12:57
Speaker 5: Last night pulled back from that, and so she has
13:00
Speaker 5: conceded as of this morning, but she was going in
13:03
Speaker 5: that direction. I don't know, if you get anyone wants
13:04
Speaker 5: to jump.
13:05
Speaker 7: I just wonder if all of this is actually something
13:08
Speaker 7: like more simple that it is an anti system vote. Yeah, right,
13:15
Speaker 7: like that. I mean, I'm just thinking through the last
13:19
Speaker 7: many elections. The last time the party that was perceived
13:23
Speaker 7: to be in power was re elected was twenty twelve,
13:28
Speaker 7: right like, think about it, like Obama winning re election
13:31
Speaker 7: and then like every election seems like a referendum on
13:35
Speaker 7: who is perceived to be in power. And so I think,
13:39
Speaker 7: you know, when it comes to dicing different voting segments,
13:44
Speaker 7: I think the larger question.
13:46
Speaker 6: Is maybe it's as simple as the whoever is perceived to.
13:50
Speaker 7: Be the anti system candidate is going to be the
13:53
Speaker 7: one to get that swing. Like we like our swing
13:57
Speaker 7: voters Latino voters, are they working class voters? Maybe this
14:00
Speaker 7: wing voter is like none of those categories, and it's
14:03
Speaker 7: the anti system voter who feels like they keep voting
14:06
Speaker 7: for change and not getting any.
14:08
Speaker 4: Change, which is in all of those voted for it.
14:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly so in Arkansas, will we don't even have
14:14
Speaker 3: you go deep into this, but they had a Supreme
14:16
Speaker 3: Court election. Kamala Harris lost Arkansas by thirty one points.
14:21
Speaker 3: The Republican seems to have won it by about ten.
14:25
Speaker 3: So a twenty one point swing in Arkansas not great
14:28
Speaker 3: now a race that we covered a lot.
14:31
Speaker 4: In North North Carolina four.
14:33
Speaker 3: Valerie Fushi elected in twenty twenty two with an enormous
14:36
Speaker 3: amount of crypto money and a PAC money. She evolved
14:40
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty six to a PAC money and AI money.
14:44
Speaker 4: So better or worse, I don't quite a path on it,
14:47
Speaker 4: wherever you can get it.
14:48
Speaker 3: She vowed that she wouldn't take any A pack money,
14:50
Speaker 3: so it got ended up getting rooted through this this
14:52
Speaker 3: other pack. She raised very little herself, and so two
14:56
Speaker 3: plus million dollars kind of rained down on her alam
15:01
Speaker 3: in the last like week and a half two weeks
15:04
Speaker 3: of the race. We can put up the results there
15:07
Speaker 3: has not been called yet. The Fushi is up by
15:11
Speaker 3: one thousand and twenty point twenty votes or something like that.
15:15
Speaker 3: That's a little under one roughly one percent. Doesn't seem
15:19
Speaker 3: like there are enough votes for ni Alam to come back.
15:22
Speaker 3: But what it does suggest is that absent this two
15:25
Speaker 3: million plus dollars and ni Alam had her own kind
15:28
Speaker 3: of anti or pro Palestine super pac linked to Bernie
15:33
Speaker 3: Hanna verdict old Bernie.
15:35
Speaker 4: Can't beat them them. It's kind of organized.
15:39
Speaker 3: Muslim money is finally kind of breaking onto the scene.
15:44
Speaker 3: So she had some sport, nothing approaching what what Fushi had.
15:48
Speaker 3: It does seem like that was decisive, Like without that
15:50
Speaker 3: two plus million in the last couple of weeks, she
15:54
Speaker 3: ends up. You know, food this incombent would have gone down.
15:57
Speaker 3: What was was? What was your raid on this race?
15:59
Speaker 7: I mean, my question coming out of this race is
16:01
Speaker 7: how much is this going to change how all of
16:03
Speaker 7: the other House Democratic incumbent campaign.
16:07
Speaker 4: Nobody wants to win by it?
16:09
Speaker 3: Right, you'd rather win by a thousand, Ye lose by
16:11
Speaker 3: a thousand, but you'd like to like you You don't.
16:14
Speaker 6: Like to have to work that hard, right? I mean?
16:16
Speaker 6: And there was that, I think there was.
16:18
Speaker 7: It was an Axios piece earlier this week that it
16:20
Speaker 7: was thirty House Democrats now have primary challengers who've raised
16:25
Speaker 7: more than.
16:25
Speaker 6: One hundred thousand dollars.
16:26
Speaker 3: Now one hundred thousand dollars not going to when you
16:28
Speaker 3: a Democratic primary.
16:29
Speaker 6: But it makes you nervous, right, I mean.
16:33
Speaker 7: And I thought what was funny was it was like that,
16:36
Speaker 7: you know, unnamed sources, the House Democratic leadership are like.
16:39
Speaker 6: Enraged that there's so much money being.
16:41
Speaker 7: Spent on And what my takeaway from it is they've
16:45
Speaker 7: gotten so used to never having to fight at all
16:49
Speaker 7: for their's party, for their parties nomination.
16:52
Speaker 6: And again I go back to party exactly.
16:55
Speaker 7: And the thing is, I wrote a book back in
16:58
Speaker 7: two thousand and seven saying like this was going to
17:01
Speaker 7: be a moment all the way back then.
17:03
Speaker 6: That's how old we all are now, Okay, President, right, Okay,
17:07
Speaker 6: we I there, you go. Okay. That the rage of.
17:15
Speaker 7: That moment was going to be channeled in one direction
17:17
Speaker 7: or the other. And I think what happened on the
17:20
Speaker 7: left end of that spectrum was it was channeled into
17:22
Speaker 7: the Democratic Party through through the Hope and Change brand,
17:25
Speaker 7: and it was on the right it was channeled into
17:27
Speaker 7: the Tea Party. And I think now the difference in
17:32
Speaker 7: this moment is it's the same, if not more level
17:34
Speaker 7: of rage.
17:36
Speaker 6: But the polls that show that the.
17:37
Speaker 7: Democratic base is annoyed and angry and frustrated with its
17:42
Speaker 7: own leadership was not a condition that existed back then,
17:46
Speaker 7: And so I think that is what the current Democratic
17:50
Speaker 7: Party leadership is just not used to and is sort
17:54
Speaker 7: of scandalized by right because on the right in the
17:58
Speaker 7: Republican Party, the idea of Republican primaries against incumbents, that's
18:04
Speaker 7: become somewhat more normalized than in a like the idea
18:08
Speaker 7: that like a Democrat like I live in Colorado, the
18:11
Speaker 7: idea that John Hickenlooper might have and he does have
18:14
Speaker 7: a primary, Yeah, he's got a challenge, right, the whole idea,
18:18
Speaker 7: Like you talk to people in Democratic circles in Colorado,
18:21
Speaker 7: it's like no one could possibly it's a blue state.
18:24
Speaker 6: No one's going to put primary a sitting a senator.
18:28
Speaker 7: I'm not sure what's going to happen in that race,
18:30
Speaker 7: but I guess the point is it's a long way
18:33
Speaker 7: of saying the presumption for so long has been that
18:35
Speaker 7: there will not be a challenge, that the people who
18:38
Speaker 7: are in power are scandalized, and I think to come
18:40
Speaker 7: back to this primary. I think every House Democrat is
18:44
Speaker 7: going to look at that and be like, I don't
18:45
Speaker 7: want to have to run for just my party's nomination
18:49
Speaker 7: and have to deal.
18:50
Speaker 6: With something like that.
18:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, and Dave, not every Democrat can get the kind
18:53
Speaker 3: of help that she got from and particularly from Hakim Jeffreyes.
18:56
Speaker 4: So he put her within days of.
19:01
Speaker 3: In days of Niitlam launching her campaign, he put her
19:05
Speaker 3: on this three person Democratic task force to write AI policy.
19:10
Speaker 3: And what that is is that is a giant signal
19:13
Speaker 3: to the AI industry that you need to shower money
19:16
Speaker 3: on this person. The others are Ted lew and Josh Gotttheimer,
19:19
Speaker 3: like both voracious fundraisers, Gottheimer in particular, and so they did.
19:24
Speaker 3: They came in one point six million at last counting.
19:27
Speaker 3: I bet when we get the final numbers it'll be
19:29
Speaker 3: it'll be higher as anthropics Coalition of AI.
19:31
Speaker 4: So it's the AI safety people, the good guys.
19:35
Speaker 3: But so he did that, and then then there was
19:36
Speaker 3: also this pack that he's connected to that raised money
19:40
Speaker 3: from a pack, moved it through a separate pack so
19:44
Speaker 3: that it could called Article one pack, so that she
19:49
Speaker 3: could abide by her promise to not take any more
19:52
Speaker 3: a pac moneies. But Jefferies can't do that for everybody.
19:55
Speaker 3: I mean maybe he can't, can he? So how are
19:58
Speaker 3: to throw this question? How are how are House Democrats
20:01
Speaker 3: responding to this? And you have any other thoughts from
20:03
Speaker 3: covering this race?
20:05
Speaker 8: Yeah, I covered more close of the twenty twenty two
20:07
Speaker 8: race when it was an open seat, and at that
20:11
Speaker 8: point it was a more fair map. But anyway, it
20:13
Speaker 8: was a safe Democratic seat. And in that race which
20:17
Speaker 8: you've been setting up, it was very clear that Fouchet
20:20
Speaker 8: was the pro Israel candidate. She got the APEC support,
20:23
Speaker 8: it just was not in the democratic conversation as a
20:25
Speaker 8: top issue very Then how did she what did she
20:28
Speaker 8: do in the advance of this race? She disclaimed the
20:31
Speaker 8: APEC money. Now it helped her in the in the end,
20:34
Speaker 8: but she made it very splashy at a town hall
20:37
Speaker 8: announcement that she was not gonna take their support anymore.
20:39
Speaker 4: She co signed block the bombs.
20:41
Speaker 8: She when the Iran war started, Nita was very quickly
20:45
Speaker 8: as she went to her her house and couldn't add
20:46
Speaker 8: at what she was against the wharf for. She didn't
20:48
Speaker 8: do that, just a less energetic candidate in general, but
20:51
Speaker 8: she was opposed to the war too. So would she
20:54
Speaker 8: have won had she not done that, I don't think so.
20:55
Speaker 8: I don't think with that money. If she was running
20:57
Speaker 8: as Dan Goldman that in that district she would she
20:59
Speaker 8: would have lost. She needed to be critical of Israel.
21:01
Speaker 4: Some things, she needed the pro Israel money, and she
21:03
Speaker 4: needed to be answered.
21:04
Speaker 8: Some memorable okay, well on voting for this person, and
21:07
Speaker 8: she's moving in the right direction. In twenty twenty two,
21:09
Speaker 8: and this is I interviewed the then CEO of APAC
21:12
Speaker 8: and twenty twenty two about how they run ads and
21:14
Speaker 8: what works. But in twenty tway two it was this
21:17
Speaker 8: is good politics, but maybe we're going to do the
21:18
Speaker 8: issue that's but we're not going to say this is
21:19
Speaker 8: the best canon on Israel, going to say something else.
21:21
Speaker 8: And now it's they're giving them a little bit of
21:23
Speaker 8: permission structure to denounce pro Israel politics just because maybe
21:28
Speaker 8: they'll get there and they they don't want more voices
21:31
Speaker 8: in Congress that are criticizing them.
21:34
Speaker 4: So I think that is one lesson for all these candidates.
21:36
Speaker 8: And there's Illinois primaries in the next week, but for
21:39
Speaker 8: all these races, if you have a progressive challenger, what
21:42
Speaker 8: do you say on Israel? It's important that the permission
21:44
Speaker 8: structure has been created for you to, you know, denounce
21:47
Speaker 8: them three times and then and then and then get
21:50
Speaker 8: elected anyway. But what does that say about their their
21:53
Speaker 8: the power of their issue. We could look at the polling,
21:57
Speaker 8: but I think this is even more more powerful to
21:58
Speaker 8: say that you cannot in order to survive a primary.
22:01
Speaker 8: By one point, she had to very performatively say and also,
22:05
Speaker 8: I'm against the I don't she said genocide to the end,
22:08
Speaker 8: but I mean against what Israel's doing. I'm against the war, etcetera, etcetera.
22:11
Speaker 8: You need two million dollars and that that's new.
22:13
Speaker 6: I think.
22:14
Speaker 7: And just one other point, I think that it's interesting
22:16
Speaker 7: to think about the A pack issue and the AI issue.
22:20
Speaker 7: The A pack issue, for a long time had been
22:23
Speaker 7: an issue where there wasn't as organized and motivated an
22:29
Speaker 7: anti constituency, so the money could go to candidates and
22:33
Speaker 7: the candidates didn't have to worry about organized popular opposition
22:38
Speaker 7: in a democratic primary.
22:40
Speaker 8: They were kind of helping moderate or you're moderate and
22:42
Speaker 8: you're going to get the APEC money.
22:43
Speaker 7: To right, and the voters don't really care now the
22:47
Speaker 7: voters really care. Where I think I'm terrified about, like
22:52
Speaker 7: is the world going to survive? Are we going to
22:54
Speaker 7: go into like sky net world? Is that the AI
22:58
Speaker 7: money assume that there isn't a similarly organized voting block
23:04
Speaker 7: against them. In other words, the AI money presumes for
23:08
Speaker 7: now that we can give a lot of money to
23:10
Speaker 7: democrats get them to be pro AI, because they don't
23:15
Speaker 7: have to worry that in taking the money and in
23:18
Speaker 7: being pro AI, they're going to prompt an organized popular
23:22
Speaker 7: resistance with political consequences when they run for election. You
23:26
Speaker 7: see that what you saw it with crypto too, right like,
23:29
Speaker 7: and you think about these dynamics where where you want
23:33
Speaker 7: a candidate to go out you know, if you're a progressive,
23:35
Speaker 7: maybe you want your candidate to go out there and
23:37
Speaker 7: say Crypto's terrible, or go out there and say AI
23:39
Speaker 7: is terrible.
23:40
Speaker 6: Why aren't they doing that? Well?
23:42
Speaker 7: The answer is is because I think at a candidate
23:45
Speaker 7: by candidate level, they fear that if they speak up,
23:48
Speaker 7: even if they sort of in their heart agree with
23:52
Speaker 7: speaking up and against you know, deregulation of the financial
23:56
Speaker 7: sector or AI et cetera, et cetera, that not enough
23:59
Speaker 7: vote will care and all that will do is prompt
24:03
Speaker 7: a flood of money again, They'll become the next Katie
24:05
Speaker 7: Porter and.
24:05
Speaker 4: That set round exactly.
24:07
Speaker 8: Yeah, they very bragged about that, bragged about that. That's
24:10
Speaker 8: our example. That's like here shared Brown's head, Do you
24:12
Speaker 8: want to be him?
24:13
Speaker 6: Yeah, It's like it's like the money is organized on
24:16
Speaker 6: those issues, but the people aren't.
24:19
Speaker 7: A pack was exploiting that in the sense of the
24:21
Speaker 7: money was organized, but the anti Apack people weren't organized.
24:26
Speaker 7: Now that's an organized constituency in a way that that
24:30
Speaker 7: does what happened.
24:31
Speaker 8: One very small point is that a lom and the
24:33
Speaker 8: ad I mentioned she did try to tie that to
24:35
Speaker 8: Bochet by saying, and she's supported by the sort of
24:37
Speaker 8: AI companies that are giving intelligent that are helping prosecute
24:41
Speaker 8: this war, and the ones that are building the data centers.
24:44
Speaker 8: And it was I think maybe she was a couple
24:46
Speaker 8: of weeks early for that or a couple who knows
24:47
Speaker 8: how long the data started to make that argument, but
24:49
Speaker 8: it wasn't it wasn't there yet. That's where she took it.
24:51
Speaker 8: I think that's where people you're talking about will take it.
24:53
Speaker 7: Yeah, and I think the data the local data center
24:55
Speaker 7: stuff will has the chance to actually create organized politically.
25:01
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, it's already been happening.
25:02
Speaker 3: I would if I were her, I would have yeah,
25:04
Speaker 3: she said, you know, it's it's the AI used by
25:07
Speaker 3: Ice and used by for the Venezuela and for the
25:09
Speaker 3: and then iron lateran here. But yeah, I think, yeah,
25:13
Speaker 3: it's the day the data because.
25:15
Speaker 7: There is water and the energy of my electricity bills
25:19
Speaker 7: against it, and they're coming in right really yeah, because
25:22
Speaker 7: otherwise it's like Crypto and AR.
25:24
Speaker 3: It's like a bank shot. It's a hard sell because
25:26
Speaker 3: a lot of people like crypto and a Yes.
25:28
Speaker 5: And also we're looking at monster turnout in Texas, by
25:31
Speaker 5: the way, I think that's something worth adding. It looks
25:32
Speaker 5: like right now that it's roughly double what it was
25:35
Speaker 5: for Beto's not a hugely contested primary. In Bettle's case,
25:39
Speaker 5: I think he won with like ninety percent of the vote,
25:40
Speaker 5: So you can understand why you would have a higher
25:43
Speaker 5: turnout this time around. But that's a signal the DEM
25:46
Speaker 5: base is organized and energized and ready to go in November.
25:50
Speaker 8: Yeah, if you told somebody a month ago, Crockett's going
25:52
Speaker 8: to be a million votes and say, oh, she's gonna win. Like,
25:54
Speaker 8: nobody gets a million votes in Texas Democratic primer.
25:56
Speaker 5: That's usually the total. It's usually around a million. This
25:59
Speaker 5: it looks like it's going north of two million.
26:00
Speaker 7: Can I also say that, like, as somebody who has
26:03
Speaker 7: worked on campaigns, I do appreciate that if you know,
26:10
Speaker 7: in broad strokes here that tall Rico seemed to run,
26:13
Speaker 7: as we were discussing before this run like a quote
26:16
Speaker 7: unquote a real campaign.
26:18
Speaker 6: Like organizers like.
26:22
Speaker 7: The ads had a message sort of much more of
26:26
Speaker 7: a grassroots footprint than Crockett Crockett sort of, you know,
26:30
Speaker 7: I think basically ran as like like an influencer campaign,
26:33
Speaker 7: like a purely influencer campaign, not like not as much
26:36
Speaker 7: of a real campaign.
26:37
Speaker 4: And I think.
26:40
Speaker 7: I worry about turning campaigns into just I am with
26:45
Speaker 7: my iPhone, you know, making TikTok videos, not really out
26:49
Speaker 7: in the community, and that being validated by voters. Like
26:52
Speaker 7: I think there's something good about the person who was
26:56
Speaker 7: whose campaign was more grassroots, more in the community, more
27:01
Speaker 7: of a traditional campaign, was actually validated by voters and.
27:05
Speaker 3: Still used TikTok and Instagram in the service of that
27:08
Speaker 3: rather than as a thing, right.
27:10
Speaker 4: In itself.
27:10
Speaker 5: Interestingly, he got more money from K Street Political had
27:13
Speaker 5: an analysis.
27:14
Speaker 6: But they both did.
27:19
Speaker 3: Let's move to the Republican results in Texas. We'll talk
27:23
Speaker 3: about Ken Paxson and Corny who are going to go
27:25
Speaker 3: to a runoff in a moment, but let's start with
27:27
Speaker 3: Dan Crenshaw. So this is a very well known Republican.
27:34
Speaker 6: You might have thought it very kind of reviled Republican.
27:38
Speaker 4: It's such a case.
27:39
Speaker 3: Why do actually, I want to ask Emily, why do
27:42
Speaker 3: people hate this guy?
27:42
Speaker 5: Why say that he got absolutely obliterated by the way,
27:45
Speaker 5: it was fifty as of right now with ninety five
27:48
Speaker 5: percent of the votes in, it's fifty five point eight
27:50
Speaker 5: percent to forty point six percent. Crenshaw I believe got elected.
27:54
Speaker 5: I mean, this is he got trounced.
27:56
Speaker 3: And Emily's very happy, and we're like, he seems like
28:00
Speaker 3: the other Republicans. Tell us from Colorado where we have
28:04
Speaker 3: like Lauren Bobert, and that would never happen to Lauren Bobert.
28:07
Speaker 6: I don't think hate each other.
28:10
Speaker 4: What's there. I'm sure they hate each other.
28:12
Speaker 5: He's I mean, he hates anybody who is aligned with
28:16
Speaker 5: Tucker Carlson, but he also very high profile, had picked
28:19
Speaker 5: high profile fights with Sean Ryan, who was really popular
28:22
Speaker 5: with conservative podcast listeners. But you know, just on a
28:26
Speaker 5: substance of level, he was out of touch with the
28:28
Speaker 5: base on foreign policy. He's an insider trading, Maven. He
28:33
Speaker 5: loves to trade on inside he trades. Now that he's
28:36
Speaker 5: losing accents, well, he was a he wouldn't call it,
28:40
Speaker 5: he wouldn't call it insider trading. But of course he's
28:42
Speaker 5: in Congress and he's trade, which is actually, interestingly enough,
28:47
Speaker 5: one of the things that this White House has zeroed
28:49
Speaker 5: in on being an important part of the Trump agenda
28:52
Speaker 5: for the midterm cycle. That's what they were at Capitol Hill,
28:55
Speaker 5: cub talking about. That's what they're They're saying that Trump
28:58
Speaker 5: is going to run Republican candidates twenty twenty six on
29:01
Speaker 5: stopping congressional insider trading.
29:03
Speaker 4: So do it, because the.
29:04
Speaker 6: Insider trading should happen only in the White House.
29:06
Speaker 5: It only happens on it's only in market trading people,
29:11
Speaker 5: and it is a sacred task.
29:14
Speaker 6: But anyway, so.
29:17
Speaker 8: The can't create their own coins and have people buy
29:20
Speaker 8: them for access.
29:21
Speaker 5: Amazing, But he was his his self a grant listening
29:23
Speaker 5: he's just my perspective, and he's self aggrandizing, uh anti
29:27
Speaker 5: populist in ways that were wildly out of touch with
29:30
Speaker 5: the moment and just made him a really bad guy
29:33
Speaker 5: from my perspective. I think voters probably had a similar perspective.
29:36
Speaker 5: But Figo, you've I think I've only ever talked to
29:38
Speaker 5: him like once, and in that conversation, he was talking
29:41
Speaker 5: to me about Tucker Carlson unprompted, so.
29:44
Speaker 4: You set it up very well.
29:45
Speaker 8: He also the the remap of the state gave him
29:49
Speaker 8: areas he had not represented. They had not seen his
29:52
Speaker 8: campaign as, and he stopped doing these. But are you
29:55
Speaker 8: are you aware of his action movie ads the Michael
29:58
Speaker 8: Lace for he would he would pair shoot into people's
30:00
Speaker 8: districts to save them. That they hadn't seen those, but
30:05
Speaker 8: they had seen Tucker. Steve Toath who won Tucker had
30:08
Speaker 8: a long interview with him four months ago. Didn't make
30:10
Speaker 8: a lot of news because that's who outside of Southeast
30:14
Speaker 8: Texas knows who Steve Toath is. But everything you said,
30:18
Speaker 8: he was a interventionist, anti populist who was believed that
30:24
Speaker 8: the not the part of the American First Movement, not
30:27
Speaker 8: all of it was going to wreck the Republican Party,
30:29
Speaker 8: and that if that is the people who are voting,
30:32
Speaker 8: they might take objection to that.
30:33
Speaker 4: It's really that simple.
30:34
Speaker 8: And I was a little surprised that you were saying
30:38
Speaker 8: you were surprised, but it wasn't on more people people's
30:40
Speaker 8: radars because this is a project for years to get
30:42
Speaker 8: rid of that guy. I don't know who first coined
30:44
Speaker 8: ipatch McCain, but that was the way he was seeing
30:47
Speaker 8: this is a long run. It might have been it
30:49
Speaker 8: probably him, Yeah, but he did not cultivate support from
30:54
Speaker 8: people who who didn't like him. In twenty eighteen, I
30:58
Speaker 8: was I was also strugg chip Roy in the middle
31:00
Speaker 8: of the basically he was doing that and.
31:01
Speaker 4: Chip Roy is running for AG.
31:03
Speaker 8: He had TEDFI I finally say ted Crews endorsed to
31:07
Speaker 8: endorse his opponent. A lot of Republicans wanted him gone,
31:09
Speaker 8: so part of his personal but it wouldn't have been
31:12
Speaker 8: possible if he wasn't.
31:13
Speaker 4: So alienated from America first.
31:15
Speaker 8: But I was gonna say, chip Roy running for AG
31:17
Speaker 8: came in second to a Maggot candidate, and that was
31:21
Speaker 8: more about Trump, but it was also sort of the heterodots.
31:23
Speaker 8: Can we trust this guy. His instincts are not the
31:25
Speaker 8: same as those of us who want to just keep
31:27
Speaker 8: resources in the country who have questions.
31:29
Speaker 4: About the twenty twenty election.
31:31
Speaker 8: And these are both guys who I think had bigger,
31:33
Speaker 8: big profiles in DC because.
31:34
Speaker 4: How media works.
31:35
Speaker 8: You know, we're you're more interesting to the media if
31:38
Speaker 8: you'll criticize your party for them.
31:39
Speaker 4: Sometimes no interest in that.
31:41
Speaker 8: In Texas, very a lot of love and confidence that
31:44
Speaker 8: Donald Trump is doing the right thing. So if your
31:46
Speaker 8: brand is trashing not just Trump but influential speak conservative
31:51
Speaker 8: thinkers and speakers, you've alienated more people than you'd alienate by,
31:55
Speaker 8: you know, going to the rotary club and insulting. They
31:58
Speaker 8: hear about that, and media diet has changed in ways
32:01
Speaker 8: that clearly Crenshaw I think also has or had a
32:04
Speaker 8: podcast he was trying to get the space. Yes that
32:06
Speaker 8: they that was not as popular it's as it was.
32:10
Speaker 7: I also wonder if in a race like this, how
32:13
Speaker 7: much somebody like Crenshaw is hurt by the fact that
32:19
Speaker 7: independent voters in an open price and open.
32:22
Speaker 4: Primary, Yeah, you just pull a ballot.
32:23
Speaker 6: Right, so but you have to choose.
32:25
Speaker 7: In other words, how many independent voters were animated by
32:28
Speaker 7: voting for Tallarico and didn't come into a race, couldn't
32:33
Speaker 7: pull up for somebody like Crenshaw, Right, Like, I mean
32:37
Speaker 7: that in open primary states, you can be a candidate
32:43
Speaker 7: in a primary and think you're going to be rescued
32:46
Speaker 7: by or helped by independent voters. But if there's a
32:49
Speaker 7: race higher on the ticket where most of the independent
32:52
Speaker 7: voters are going to be voted, they can't come help you.
32:55
Speaker 3: Right, that should be able to pick you want to
32:57
Speaker 3: vote right race by race.
32:59
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's not how.
33:00
Speaker 5: Granted, this is a pretty decisive margin so far, who
33:03
Speaker 5: knows where. Yeah, I think that is.
33:04
Speaker 4: A great point.
33:04
Speaker 8: Definitely bigger than the surprise is definitely that bit that
33:07
Speaker 8: Texas knew he was at risk, but not that he
33:09
Speaker 8: was just walking in with white.
33:11
Speaker 5: Yeah, and he's someone who came in with a lot
33:13
Speaker 5: of momentum because people might remember he got made fun
33:15
Speaker 5: of as looking like a porn star by Pete Davidson
33:18
Speaker 5: on SNL and everyone was like, he's a veteran. So
33:20
Speaker 5: they brought him back on SNL and he was on
33:22
Speaker 5: Weekend Update and everyone was like, this is the way
33:24
Speaker 5: Republicans will win young voters. Dan Crenshaw knows how to
33:28
Speaker 5: use new medium pop culture. So he had youth summits
33:31
Speaker 5: Frenshaw youth summits of his own where conservative organizations. He
33:37
Speaker 5: was trying to do like a mini seapack for young
33:39
Speaker 5: people in Texas where conservative organizations would like by booths,
33:43
Speaker 5: and it never really got off the ground. But he
33:45
Speaker 5: saw himself as a light for the Republican Party. And
33:49
Speaker 5: this is a really decisive refutation of that. Let's talk
33:53
Speaker 5: about Ken Paxton. Ken Paxton, like Chip Roy, headed to
33:57
Speaker 5: a runoff with John Cornyn. We can put F three
33:59
Speaker 5: up on screen. This is the results, very very interesting
34:02
Speaker 5: results in this race. Cornyn overperformed what a lot of
34:06
Speaker 5: people expected. He's not quite a Crenshaw style figure. He's
34:10
Speaker 5: been around Texas for a long time. He's obviously a senator,
34:13
Speaker 5: so he has probably more built in goodwill, but is
34:16
Speaker 5: definitely friendly with leadership. He's a member of the GOP establishment,
34:20
Speaker 5: no question about that. Lots of people in Texas angry
34:22
Speaker 5: about that post Ubaldi gun bill that Cornyn got behind.
34:25
Speaker 5: That's definitely been a problem for him. Wesley Hunt pulls
34:28
Speaker 5: in through thirteen point five percent Senate Leadership Fund aligned
34:33
Speaker 5: with Cornin, then lashes out at Wesley Hunt as he's defeated,
34:37
Speaker 5: and it's basically like, well, we could have avoided a
34:39
Speaker 5: runoff if you hadn't even gotten into this.
34:41
Speaker 4: Corn votes Wellesley Hunt. Let's what do you think, Migel
34:45
Speaker 4: by the end.
34:45
Speaker 8: I don't think they are because the last two weeks
34:49
Speaker 8: in Texas you'd see the ads. The last two weeks
34:51
Speaker 8: was as Left going after Hunt. They wanted this number.
34:54
Speaker 8: So what is their theory of this race. It is
34:57
Speaker 8: get Cornyn above Packs by any margin at all. If
35:00
Speaker 8: it was a if it was like the polls were
35:01
Speaker 8: a month ago and it was Paxton forty three Cornyn
35:06
Speaker 8: thirty three, Hunt better than he did, then Trump would
35:09
Speaker 8: look at that and say, this guy's a loser. I'm
35:10
Speaker 8: not going to endorse him. They just want Trump to
35:13
Speaker 8: endorse John Cornan. Forget any other issue in the race,
35:15
Speaker 8: just endorse him. And right now, in other rooms, I
35:19
Speaker 8: am sure they're saying they got we got Tallerico, not Crockett.
35:22
Speaker 8: There's no runoff on their side, so we're not sure
35:25
Speaker 8: Paxton could win. Texas Republicans are not that worried. I mean,
35:29
Speaker 8: they voted for this was the start I covered in
35:31
Speaker 8: twenty twenty two running it for ag after all of
35:34
Speaker 8: his indictments.
35:35
Speaker 4: George P.
35:35
Speaker 8: Bush was running as the savior who would save the
35:37
Speaker 8: ag seed, and Paxton was fine. So it's tough to
35:40
Speaker 8: consence Republican voter. The people in DC who make these donations,
35:44
Speaker 8: we're pretty well convinced that Paxton would blow it to Tallerriico,
35:47
Speaker 8: So they're going to do that today. We're not talking
35:49
Speaker 8: about any ideological differences. They're really weren't any of the campaign.
35:52
Speaker 8: The entire argument against Hunt was that he was a
35:54
Speaker 8: show voter, never showed up for votes. It was not
35:56
Speaker 8: he voted wrong on something, it was just that and
36:00
Speaker 8: packs were just kind of he wasn't raising as much money,
36:02
Speaker 8: but he was kind of holding his powder because he
36:05
Speaker 8: knew he had this locked in.
36:06
Speaker 4: He had.
36:07
Speaker 8: I mean, this is similar what he got I think
36:08
Speaker 8: in the his A Jube primary because he had two challengers.
36:11
Speaker 8: I think he did a little bit better. But that's
36:13
Speaker 8: that's the story. It's just there to the extent there
36:18
Speaker 8: is a big Republican establishment. This has been their thing
36:21
Speaker 8: for years. Is just we can't really make a positive
36:24
Speaker 8: argument for our guy's individual record. We can say that
36:27
Speaker 8: Trump loves them, So let's just like, wait this out
36:29
Speaker 8: and see if we can get Tumpet in the race.
36:31
Speaker 8: And the Hunt thing, the Hunt theory was Cordon's so
36:34
Speaker 8: weak that I can leap frog in and I'd easily win.
36:37
Speaker 4: That's true.
36:38
Speaker 8: And if Republicans blow this at some point, they'll say,
36:40
Speaker 8: why did we invest so much when we could have
36:43
Speaker 8: just easily held the seat with Wesley Hunt, who would
36:45
Speaker 8: not have any any problem, no scandals. That was kind
36:47
Speaker 8: of the premises of a campaign. I'm a family man,
36:49
Speaker 8: I'm a Christian, I'm a veteran. Look at this resume.
36:51
Speaker 8: It's incredible. I'll just hold the seat, no problem. You know,
36:55
Speaker 8: you dance with them that brung you, and they knew Cornyn,
36:57
Speaker 8: they wanted him back. So it almost depressing talk of
37:01
Speaker 8: these races. But literally know any logical difference, it is
37:03
Speaker 8: just we know this guy, let's help him out.
37:06
Speaker 4: Screw this guy for opposing him.
37:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, Now, the ban and the ban and wing will
37:09
Speaker 3: argue that that's not the case. You know, they described
37:12
Speaker 3: Cornyn as a rhino, a liberal.
37:15
Speaker 4: Yeah, he voted for that gun will seriously well some
37:20
Speaker 4: of it.
37:20
Speaker 5: His vibes right, that he's friendly with McConnell world and
37:23
Speaker 5: fune world, and that he'll you know, throw Republicans under
37:26
Speaker 5: the bus if he has to at any point, like
37:28
Speaker 5: some of it's just like this guy's been around.
37:30
Speaker 3: Also point yeah, he's probably not running for reelection. He's
37:32
Speaker 3: like seventy seven or something, so he'd be eighty at
37:35
Speaker 3: the end of this, so he would be beholden only
37:36
Speaker 3: to people who are going to pay for his retirement. Paxton,
37:40
Speaker 3: you know, was the first Republican AG to join Trump
37:43
Speaker 3: and trying to overturn the twenty twenty election. Paston has
37:46
Speaker 3: gone after big tech all over the place.
37:50
Speaker 8: To the Supreme Court back, He'll he'll file these lawsuits
37:54
Speaker 8: on on social issues that no other Republican. He'll get
37:58
Speaker 8: to the head of the pack. I think him Andrew
37:59
Speaker 8: Bailey in So that's an that if you are a
38:02
Speaker 8: religious conservative, he is the one fighting for you.
38:04
Speaker 4: And what's corn done.
38:05
Speaker 5: On that even though he's a you know, yah, I'm
38:06
Speaker 5: an aulterer.
38:07
Speaker 6: Well, it's always going around.
38:09
Speaker 7: It's almost like who these It's always like who these
38:12
Speaker 7: politicians think they owe, right. I understand why Bannon and
38:16
Speaker 7: Maga wants Paxton and not Cornyn because it's not I mean,
38:21
Speaker 7: you're right, maybe you go down like bill by bill,
38:23
Speaker 7: issue by issue, it's pretty similar, but it's it's the
38:26
Speaker 7: perception of who they think they answer to, right the
38:32
Speaker 7: I think the perception probably among the MAGA folks is
38:36
Speaker 7: John Cornyn doesn't think he answers to us, yes, right, well, yeah,
38:39
Speaker 7: he answers to that, yeah, yeah right. And Ken Paxon
38:42
Speaker 7: clearly does answer to us. Ken Paxson sees that his
38:44
Speaker 7: political formula is by aligning with us all the time,
38:49
Speaker 7: and that's what they want.
38:51
Speaker 5: Well, last point that I was going to make is
38:53
Speaker 5: so run off May twenty six, got a couple months
38:56
Speaker 5: for that now. But also what the thread between our
38:59
Speaker 5: first segment on and Republicans I think that's interesting is
39:02
Speaker 5: this is one of the first midterm cycles post twenty
39:04
Speaker 5: twenty four. It's the first midterm cycle post twenty twenty four,
39:07
Speaker 5: but it's also the independent media midterm cycle. Yeah right, Like,
39:12
Speaker 5: are we pass the point of critical mass on independent
39:15
Speaker 5: media changing these narratives in a way that does really
39:18
Speaker 5: hurt incumbents and herts establishment candidates. Where Anita Alam can
39:22
Speaker 5: make a race uncomfortable, where Dan Crenshaw can get trounced,
39:26
Speaker 5: and I mean, I don't know I think that's that
39:28
Speaker 5: Tallarico can run ads on top versus bottom.
39:32
Speaker 3: And it's up against huge money on the Republican side
39:35
Speaker 3: if you count the uncounted like C four and C
39:39
Speaker 3: three money.
39:39
Speaker 4: I'm curious if you would think this is correct.
39:41
Speaker 3: I've seen the like Paxton crowd and backs and supporters
39:44
Speaker 3: saying it probably approaches one hundred million if you factor
39:49
Speaker 3: mail and everything in that we don't know about yet.
39:51
Speaker 8: And they made buy the last quarters yeah, yeah, they
39:53
Speaker 8: bought every point yeah, and then behind tax in four
39:56
Speaker 8: or five six million, like a lot of money, but
39:59
Speaker 8: nowhere near one hundred million dollars.
40:01
Speaker 3: They're now looking at potentially if if Trump can't figure
40:04
Speaker 3: out a way to like nuke this primary, another one
40:07
Speaker 3: hundred or two million spent over is it two months
40:10
Speaker 3: or three months?
40:10
Speaker 4: Is it June?
40:11
Speaker 3: It's Almo almost three months March April May of Republicans
40:17
Speaker 3: like savagely attacking each other. So to spend one hundred
40:23
Speaker 3: million dollars and to have a guy who's been in
40:26
Speaker 3: office for decades and before that was attorney general attacks
40:32
Speaker 3: like they know who this guy is, and still he
40:34
Speaker 3: gets forty one point nine percent.
40:38
Speaker 4: Is it crazy to think that.
40:41
Speaker 3: If corn spends another hundred million dollars the next three
40:44
Speaker 3: months against Paxton and Packston beats him, that then he's
40:48
Speaker 3: wounded enough that it's actually a toss up in Texas.
40:52
Speaker 4: Or should we not pay.
40:53
Speaker 3: Attention to Texas because we've been fooled so many times.
40:57
Speaker 4: It's like fly this right. No, and Tallarico then loses
41:01
Speaker 4: by eight or something.
41:01
Speaker 8: Well, and it would be unlike twenty twenty two twenty
41:05
Speaker 8: eighteen with Cruz. Kruz has his enemies in Texas, but
41:09
Speaker 8: better at raising money, has no scan whatever you think
41:12
Speaker 8: of him, does not have any personal scandals.
41:14
Speaker 4: Family man.
41:15
Speaker 8: It would be a weaker can it they had in
41:16
Speaker 8: twenty eighteen a stronger Democrat? No, not not impossible. It
41:20
Speaker 8: just what's happened. It's that Latino vote shift. If that's
41:22
Speaker 8: what Ken Paxton's betting on, that the Rio Grand Valley's
41:25
Speaker 8: point is going to lock in the race for him.
41:27
Speaker 4: No, would it would be a tough race.
41:29
Speaker 8: I don't think they're full of it when they say
41:30
Speaker 8: that Paxton makes them spend money and Cornyn doesn't. It
41:35
Speaker 8: would be a he's part of the establishment race, But
41:37
Speaker 8: it wouldn't be He would again have the money, and
41:40
Speaker 8: they're just Paxton has not cultivated the sort of people
41:44
Speaker 8: who can just keep dipping in. There are a lot
41:46
Speaker 8: of in Texas and pax was very successful in twenty
41:49
Speaker 8: twenty four and getting rid of in primaries. Republicans can
41:52
Speaker 8: vote to impeach him in the state legislatives, but that's
41:55
Speaker 8: a smaller investment.
41:56
Speaker 4: That's two hundred thousand dollars. You can take a guy out.
41:58
Speaker 8: It's not if tall Rico becomes a phenom as he
42:01
Speaker 8: already kind of is and spends one hundred does Paxon
42:04
Speaker 8: have one hundred? From the nerity s see no, And
42:06
Speaker 8: you've seen turning point in groups that are still angry
42:09
Speaker 8: that there wasn't that money for Blake Masters in Arizona,
42:12
Speaker 8: but there was money to save Lucia Rakowski in Alaska.
42:15
Speaker 8: It would be a continuing sore point for why should
42:18
Speaker 8: grassroots people get to it now? Stant leadership funds the
42:21
Speaker 8: opposite of grass roots. They don't don't they don't care
42:23
Speaker 8: about that. But that is the sort of thing the
42:25
Speaker 8: tellery we can talk about. My DC wants this this
42:29
Speaker 8: to happen. I have some donors and that are in DC.
42:34
Speaker 8: Sure we all do, but I but this this guy,
42:36
Speaker 8: this guy, this guy owes people. And I don't the
42:39
Speaker 8: elements of an argument there. And but yeah, pat Packs
42:42
Speaker 8: is just uh, I do think it's underage. Just he's
42:46
Speaker 8: the guy if if a social conservative wants to sue
42:49
Speaker 8: abortion clinics or to investigate clinics that do gender medicine
42:54
Speaker 8: for minders, he will do it. He is a But
42:56
Speaker 8: Texans Texas Republicans have not sent one of those guys
42:59
Speaker 8: to the Senate. They've sent more talented politicians who have
43:02
Speaker 8: some appeal be on the conservative base. This would be
43:04
Speaker 8: new for them if they try in Paxton.
43:06
Speaker 3: Now, everybody, everybody says Paxson is the more vulnerable candidate,
43:10
Speaker 3: the Paxton crowd that his defenders, They say the opposite.
43:13
Speaker 4: I'm curious for your take off. This is cop or
43:15
Speaker 4: if anything real to this.
43:16
Speaker 3: Their argument is Cornan has spent one hundred million dollars
43:20
Speaker 3: attacking our boy.
43:21
Speaker 4: We love Ken Paxton.
43:22
Speaker 3: We are so mad that how vicious you have been
43:26
Speaker 3: to our guy. That if Cornyn wins effort, we're staying home,
43:31
Speaker 3: and and that and that a chunk of Paxson voters
43:34
Speaker 3: won't even vote at all.
43:37
Speaker 6: I don't, I don't think I'm buying that.
43:38
Speaker 7: I think what I what I The one grain of
43:42
Speaker 7: truth I think is that there's an argument that John
43:46
Speaker 7: Cornyn being the nominee makes it easier for Tallarico to
43:49
Speaker 7: be the anti system candidate, right the the there in Washington,
43:54
Speaker 7: I'm I'm and and you can imagine the exactly and
44:00
Speaker 7: and and and tall Ico can do the whole. It's
44:04
Speaker 7: both parties in Washington, like it's Washington is the problem,
44:08
Speaker 7: whether Republican or Democrat, and and Paxson makes that harder, definitely.
44:13
Speaker 6: Right, Paxton.
44:15
Speaker 7: I think that then what Tallerico probably has to do
44:18
Speaker 7: is it's more of an anti Trump campaign or an
44:22
Speaker 7: anti base of the like sort of the the extremist
44:25
Speaker 7: base of the that that's how it would be portrayed.
44:28
Speaker 8: The Republican Yeah exactly, they they want to run against Paxston.
44:31
Speaker 8: That's true.
44:32
Speaker 7: Yeah, right, But I but I do think that like
44:35
Speaker 7: Cornyn being that the old establishment, I guess, which is
44:41
Speaker 7: kind of crazy, but can be portrayed as the like
44:43
Speaker 7: country club Republican news right, Like that's a whole different
44:48
Speaker 7: campaign that I'm not convinced is like not.
44:51
Speaker 6: Effective, like I think it can be. Next to a
44:53
Speaker 6: picture of Biden exactly exactly.
44:55
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, I did see corner to sleep on a
44:58
Speaker 5: plane recently with his path anyway to sleep on a plane.
45:04
Speaker 5: But it was it was almost like Biden ask right,
45:06
Speaker 5: except he was on a flight, so he should be.
45:08
Speaker 4: Sleeping on a flight.
45:09
Speaker 5: God bless anyone who could sleep on a plane. All Right,
45:11
Speaker 5: we'll have to leave it there, everyone, Dave and Dave,
45:15
Speaker 5: thank you so much.
45:15
Speaker 6: Thank you, thanks for having me here.
45:16
Speaker 4: This is a lot of fun.
45:17
Speaker 5: We appreciate it. Go check out obviously some offore and
45:19
Speaker 5: lever News. That's going to do it for us today.
45:21
Speaker 3: Ryan, Yeah, and so again bringingpoints dot com. We got
45:24
Speaker 3: that month free, so BP free twenty six. Yeah, people
45:29
Speaker 3: share that with anybody else.
45:30
Speaker 4: That's just for people who watch this segment.
45:33
Speaker 6: No, this is for everybody.
45:34
Speaker 4: Share it with a friend, with your friends, but not
45:37
Speaker 4: just not like people.
45:39
Speaker 5: You don't do not share it with John Cornyon under
45:41
Speaker 5: any circumstance.
45:42
Speaker 4: To have you just burned a hundred million dollars. Thanks guys,
45:45
Speaker 4: thank you appreciate it.