Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Full Episode - Trump Is Destroying The World Order That Made America Great + Red State, Blue Opportunity: How School Choice Could Flip Texas

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Full Episode - Trump Is Destroying The World Order That Made America Great + Red State, Blue Opportunity: How School Choice Could Flip Texas · The Chuck ToddCast

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Speaker 1: is a sponsor I absolutely embrace, so use that code. Hello,
1:51
Speaker 1: They're happy Wednesday and welcome to another episode of the
1:53
Speaker 1: Chuck Toodcast. So I will. I don't want to call
1:57
Speaker 1: it jet lag, but I have been quite a bit
2:01
Speaker 1: of course, have been on my own little fun emotional
2:05
Speaker 1: roller coaster, being a Miami Hurricanes fan. Was at the
2:09
Speaker 1: National title game. I have a lot more to share,
2:13
Speaker 1: a lot more to say on it, and I will
2:16
Speaker 1: save it for the end. There's also have a diverse
2:19
Speaker 1: you know, I know some of you are saying, Okay,
2:21
Speaker 1: college football, we get it. You love your Hurricanes. You
2:24
Speaker 1: know at some point, you know, we like you doing
2:26
Speaker 1: a little bit of sports. Can you do some other sports? Well,
2:29
Speaker 1: I'm sorry the Hurricanes made it all the way to
2:31
Speaker 1: the title game. I'm sorry I had to take it
2:33
Speaker 1: all the way to the last day of the year.
2:35
Speaker 1: I promise I will not do weekly portal updates on
2:39
Speaker 1: who's been signed and who's shown up in spring practice.
2:41
Speaker 1: But today also happens to be we last night we
2:45
Speaker 1: got to find out about who's the newest members of
2:47
Speaker 1: the Baseball Hall of Fame. And you know, I'm a
2:50
Speaker 1: guy of a certain age, which means I have definitive
2:52
Speaker 1: hot takes on Baseball Hall of famers. But all of
2:56
Speaker 1: that I will put to the end. Let me give
2:59
Speaker 1: you a quick little table of contents for today's episode.
3:04
Speaker 1: We got more fallout from what we discussed on Monday
3:07
Speaker 1: and this sort of destabilizing moment that we have with
3:10
Speaker 1: the world order. Uh, and that is this is a
3:15
Speaker 1: we're we're no to say we're in a weird place
3:17
Speaker 1: as an understatement, which we've we've been discussed for quite
3:22
Speaker 1: a bit. My interview today is with a gubernatorial candidate
3:25
Speaker 1: out of the state of Texas. As I've told you California, Texas, Florida,
3:29
Speaker 1: the big states. I think those governorships are always important
3:34
Speaker 1: to keep track of follow and you know, we're gonna
3:38
Speaker 1: get a new governor in California, a new governor in Florida,
3:40
Speaker 1: and one of the longest serving governors in America continues
3:43
Speaker 1: to run for reelection. It's Greg Abbott in Texas. Well,
3:46
Speaker 1: I've got the potential Democratic nominee Gina. You know, it's
3:49
Speaker 1: an Austin area politician who appears to be the you know,
3:55
Speaker 1: right now, appears to be the leading Democrat. A lot
3:58
Speaker 1: of the attention in Texas pol sixes all in the
4:01
Speaker 1: Senate race. But as you know, and I've brought this
4:05
Speaker 1: up before, I think what's happening in our public education system.
4:09
Speaker 1: Everybody's angry. People on the right are angry, people on
4:12
Speaker 1: the left are angry. We've had a voucherization movement that
4:16
Speaker 1: was attempt, an attempt to appease the right those that
4:19
Speaker 1: were upset conservative upset. But guess what a lot of
4:21
Speaker 1: rural Americans who culturally are conservative, school choice idea, you know,
4:27
Speaker 1: sounds good in theory doesn't really work in practice. Ultimately,
4:31
Speaker 1: whether you're a liberal or a conservative, you want a
4:34
Speaker 1: good public school system. And I think some of these
4:39
Speaker 1: states that have gone a bit voucher crazy, a little
4:43
Speaker 1: too aggressive on the privatization, the voters have backtracked on that.
4:47
Speaker 1: You know, Trump voters that may vote a certain way
4:50
Speaker 1: in a federal election don't necessarily like to see their
4:53
Speaker 1: public dollars use that way. On a state level, we've
4:56
Speaker 1: seen we've seen that in the places like asas the
5:00
Speaker 1: Iowa governor's racist heere if Democrats win, I promise you
5:03
Speaker 1: it is because of that issue, that issue alone, and
5:05
Speaker 1: if this race is competitive, and some polling in Texas
5:08
Speaker 1: has indicated surprising competitiveness here, and I've always thought, look,
5:12
Speaker 1: I have made it clear I thought Democrats focusing more
5:16
Speaker 1: on that Senate race in Texas.
5:19
Speaker 2: Well.
5:19
Speaker 1: I understand the the the initial appeal Cornan may not
5:23
Speaker 1: be the nominee. An ethically and morally challenged attorney general
5:28
Speaker 1: named Ken Paxton might be the nominee. Suddenly he's very beatable,
5:32
Speaker 1: you know, and we've we've seen how competitive Texas Senate
5:36
Speaker 1: races have gotten. These are single digit affairs. So if
5:39
Speaker 1: you have a truly morally an ethically challenged nominee, which
5:44
Speaker 1: many Republicans have said about Ken Paxton, and not just
5:48
Speaker 1: never Trumper's have said this. Many Republicans that are very
5:52
Speaker 1: supportive of Trump have said this about Paxton. I understand
5:55
Speaker 1: the appeal and why a guy like James tallerco a
5:58
Speaker 1: rising star of the party, thinks oh, that might be
6:00
Speaker 1: the easier path. But I think he missed an opportunity
6:03
Speaker 1: but not running for governor, and I think I wouldn't
6:07
Speaker 1: be sleeping on whoever the Democratic nominee is could very
6:10
Speaker 1: well be Gina you knowsa. So that is why I
6:14
Speaker 1: thought it was worth everybody's time to take a listen
6:17
Speaker 1: to what she has to say. Very much. We're focused
6:19
Speaker 1: on education policy on this front because I do think
6:23
Speaker 1: that this is again it is sleeper issue, is not
6:27
Speaker 1: the right way to treat it. We saw, particularly right
6:29
Speaker 1: after COVID, a lot of parental frustration at the public
6:33
Speaker 1: school system across the board. Count me as one of them,
6:37
Speaker 1: as somebody as a parent that had kids in the
6:39
Speaker 1: public school system where you felt as if they just
6:42
Speaker 1: were overwhelmed by the COVID moment. On this front, there's
6:48
Speaker 1: a desperation out there for some reform, and I think, look,
6:51
Speaker 1: we essentially have the same model for our public school
6:54
Speaker 1: system that we came up with over one hundred years ago.
6:56
Speaker 1: We haven't modernized it. We don't have a public school
6:58
Speaker 1: system that meets the moment of the twenty first century.
7:01
Speaker 1: And we haven't had some good leadership here to sort
7:04
Speaker 1: of see what everybody's been a bit in their corners.
7:07
Speaker 1: Cultural conservatives in one place, teachers' unions in another, and
7:11
Speaker 1: it's gotten overly politicized sort of too much in the
7:15
Speaker 1: culture wars. When when when really what we really want
7:18
Speaker 1: is a reliable public school system to take care of
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Speaker 1: our kids and to help give them the skills that
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Speaker 1: they need. There it is a it is a It
7:27
Speaker 1: is a Wednesday, which means I owe you a top
7:29
Speaker 1: five lists, and we've got some senate races. I think
7:33
Speaker 1: to recalibrate a bit, so we will do a top
7:36
Speaker 1: five list on that. I'll take a few questions. But
7:40
Speaker 1: before we get into that, look, I I made a
7:45
Speaker 1: pretty strong case that you know what is happening right
7:49
Speaker 1: now with Donald Trump, and that he is potentially stumbled
7:54
Speaker 1: stumbling into a war where he's going to get we're
7:59
Speaker 1: going to be less safe and secure than we've ever
8:01
Speaker 1: been before. And it makes doing political analysis here quite challenging,
8:08
Speaker 1: right because look, it's it's obvious to anybody that has
8:14
Speaker 1: been a practitioner of campaign politics, of campaign messaging, anybody
8:19
Speaker 1: with a just a minute interest and understanding of American
8:24
Speaker 1: political history knows that what Donald Trump is doing right
8:29
Speaker 1: now is not good politics, at least if you're judging
8:33
Speaker 1: him by any conventional measure that we've relied on over
8:37
Speaker 1: the last half century. And before anybody starts screaming, wow,
8:42
Speaker 1: we know Trump, conventional politics doesn't apply to Trump. Yeah,
8:46
Speaker 1: of course, but let me becauve this isn't some clever,
8:49
Speaker 1: disruptive strategy either. It's erratic, it's destabilizing, and it's increasingly
8:55
Speaker 1: detached from the basic assumption that have governed American leadership
8:59
Speaker 1: for generations. And you know, look, I did my Monday
9:04
Speaker 1: monologue before we saw this nonsense of a one year
9:08
Speaker 1: presser or whatever you want to call the two hour
9:11
Speaker 1: diatribe that he had before he left for Davos on Tuesday.
9:16
Speaker 1: But it is you know, this is why I am
9:20
Speaker 1: dubbing this a man who may have the Yolo virus,
9:24
Speaker 1: which I will get into that in a minute. But
9:27
Speaker 1: I think what's most unsettling and striking about this moment
9:30
Speaker 1: is how none of the usual political penalties seem to
9:34
Speaker 1: apply to Trump. And I think this is why we've
9:37
Speaker 1: had such paralysis and responding to what I think is
9:39
Speaker 1: a absolute international and national emergency right now if we
9:44
Speaker 1: want to prevent the entire free world order from completely cracking.
9:50
Speaker 1: I mean, when you listen to what Mark Carney, the
9:52
Speaker 1: Prime Minister of Canada, had to say in Davos, you
9:54
Speaker 1: know this is a country that is preparing and worrying
9:58
Speaker 1: that it's neighbor to the south could invade, right And
10:02
Speaker 1: that seemed like ridiculous and silliness even saying that six
10:07
Speaker 1: months ago, six weeks ago, maybe even six days ago.
10:09
Speaker 1: But given the situation we're in, I think everybody is
10:14
Speaker 1: recalculating how they handle Trump. The appeasement of Donald Trump
10:18
Speaker 1: of the last year by Europe and the Western world
10:21
Speaker 1: is coming to an end, and the question is who
10:24
Speaker 1: is he going to get angry at and punished for it?
10:27
Speaker 1: So far, he continues to attack American taxpayers when he
10:30
Speaker 1: gets angry at a European response to what he wants
10:33
Speaker 1: to do with Greenland, he threatens tariffs or increases tariffs.
10:37
Speaker 1: The irony to this is it does not punish France
10:40
Speaker 1: and it does not punish the UK the way he
10:42
Speaker 1: thinks it does. It punishes all of us. All it is,
10:47
Speaker 1: all of these tariffs are paid for by us. Again,
10:49
Speaker 1: the magical math that he keeps trying to claim it
10:52
Speaker 1: is amazing to me how excited the Secretary of Treasury
10:56
Speaker 1: in the President of the United States are on how
10:58
Speaker 1: much they've taxed the American people over the last six
11:00
Speaker 1: months and how much more taxes the American people are
11:03
Speaker 1: going to be paying over the next year. And they
11:05
Speaker 1: think this is good politics. But here we are and
11:09
Speaker 1: the conventional ways that politicians get punished have disappeared. So
11:15
Speaker 1: it raises an uncomfortable question. What's keeping people who call
11:18
Speaker 1: themselves Trump supporters, especially elected Republicans who know what's happening
11:23
Speaker 1: here is wrong, from speaking out. Well, we know that
11:26
Speaker 1: part of the answer sphere. That's always been the case,
11:29
Speaker 1: not fear of voters, but fear of what happens inside
11:31
Speaker 1: the Republican party when dissent becomes visible. We've seen this
11:35
Speaker 1: movie before. Go back to the first term remember Bob Corker,
11:39
Speaker 1: then a senator from Tennessee. He had want to hear
11:42
Speaker 1: he's a great Tennessee, East Tennessee accent, and I used
11:45
Speaker 1: to try to impersonate a little bit. But you know,
11:49
Speaker 1: you know, Chuck, I just I don't want to have
11:51
Speaker 1: to talk about Trump. But he used to say he
11:55
Speaker 1: was the one that used that expression that the White
11:57
Speaker 1: House had become an adult. And of course, right Trump explodes,
12:03
Speaker 1: Bob Corker's political career is over. And you haven't even
12:06
Speaker 1: heard from Bob Corker. While I understand why he is
12:09
Speaker 1: just out right, he is out a lot of that
12:12
Speaker 1: sort of the Tennessee Republicans of ten years ago, Lamar Alexander,
12:17
Speaker 1: Bob corkor Bill Frist, none of them have been wanted
12:20
Speaker 1: to get near the Trump era, and it is and
12:26
Speaker 1: in some ways they've been ostracized themselves a little bit.
12:29
Speaker 1: So we know why there's so much silence. Right, silence
12:35
Speaker 1: for many of them feels like self preservation in the
12:37
Speaker 1: moment that we're in, but it comes with a huge cost,
12:40
Speaker 1: because if you believe what Trump is doing is reckless,
12:43
Speaker 1: even dangerous, staying silent doesn't make you neutral. It makes
12:47
Speaker 1: you complicit with voters. Eventually, voters are going to ask
12:51
Speaker 1: the most basic question, where were the guardrails? And in
12:54
Speaker 1: this case, there is one guardrail, Congress. It's the only
12:59
Speaker 1: one that's going to work, okay, And that's really the
13:02
Speaker 1: heart of the problem. The guardrails that the founders gave us,
13:05
Speaker 1: the Constitution, the separation of powers, institutional norms. They don't
13:10
Speaker 1: activate themselves, right, You got to have human beings to
13:14
Speaker 1: do it. Institutions are just paper without people willing to
13:17
Speaker 1: defend them. And paper does not restrain power. Certainly, paper
13:22
Speaker 1: does not restrain Donald John Trump. People will And one
13:26
Speaker 1: of my biggest fears right now is that, well, it's
13:29
Speaker 1: how numb we've become to all this and see and
13:34
Speaker 1: you see it even in the reaction that I've gotten
13:37
Speaker 1: from you know, the crowd that just wants to tune
13:40
Speaker 1: it all out. Right. Oh, you know, politics has just
13:43
Speaker 1: gotten crazy, and Trump's just the lead crazy guy. You're like, no, no, no, no,
13:47
Speaker 1: this is different and dangerous. Trump's norm breaking, unfortunately, is
13:52
Speaker 1: barely registering right now. My new favorite was sort of
13:58
Speaker 1: instead of Trump derangements, and we have Trump exhaustion syndrome,
14:04
Speaker 1: as I think is what the Atlantic dubbed it, and
14:06
Speaker 1: there is this exhaustion is almost as bad as appeasement,
14:12
Speaker 1: because in some way to deal with exhaustion, you end
14:15
Speaker 1: up appeasing and that is not a healthy reaction either.
14:20
Speaker 1: But that's where we are because each one of these
14:22
Speaker 1: violations that Trump makes, gets absorbed, gets rationalized, gets dismissed,
14:27
Speaker 1: is just another Trump era headline. He now operates in
14:31
Speaker 1: an environment where the consequences frankly feel optional, and from
14:36
Speaker 1: his perspective, why wouldn't they. I mean, he incited right
14:40
Speaker 1: on January sixth and almost overturned an election, He was impeached,
14:47
Speaker 1: he wasn't convicted, and then he was elected president again.
14:52
Speaker 1: So what political lesson do you take from that? If
14:54
Speaker 1: you're Donald Trump? Probably the following, the more radical, the better.
15:00
Speaker 1: Never give in, never give up. What feels impossible today
15:04
Speaker 1: becomes someone else's capitulation tomorrow. And that's what he's counting
15:08
Speaker 1: on with Greenland here. And it's interesting we're watching and
15:12
Speaker 1: I don't know what we're seeing with the European and
15:14
Speaker 1: Western leaders right now, whether we're seeing the Bob Corkers
15:18
Speaker 1: of Europe speaking out like many Republicans spoke out during
15:23
Speaker 1: the crazy of the first term, and you had you
15:25
Speaker 1: had more erected guardrails around him, whether it was John
15:28
Speaker 1: Kelly or Ryank's previous or Rex Tillerson or even Jared
15:31
Speaker 1: Kushner at times, Gary Kohane, you had a siri, you know,
15:36
Speaker 1: in that cabinet, which in Mike Pence. Of course, I'm
15:43
Speaker 1: of two minds on this, right, is this is Europe now? Finally?
15:46
Speaker 1: Is this is Europe one point zero? And it just
15:48
Speaker 1: like with Trump one point zero? Or are they serious?
15:52
Speaker 1: And if they're serious, we all have to be both
15:55
Speaker 1: nervous and at the same time. The more serious Europeans get,
16:01
Speaker 1: does it actually strengthen the spine of nervous Republicans who
16:08
Speaker 1: have been afraid but so far right. That's why he's
16:16
Speaker 1: behaving the way he is. So even those of us
16:18
Speaker 1: in the media and in politics who've warned for years
16:21
Speaker 1: that this behavior is dangerous, we've become numbed by the repetition.
16:26
Speaker 1: Many of the worst case scenarios so far haven't fully materialized,
16:32
Speaker 1: but damage doesn't have to be immediate to be real.
16:35
Speaker 1: Trump has steadily weakened American credibility abroad in ways that
16:40
Speaker 1: are subtle, cumulative, and now harder to reverse than ever before.
16:45
Speaker 1: And because you know it was one thing to reverse
16:47
Speaker 1: it after one term, it's much harder after two. And
16:50
Speaker 1: because there's no single moment when the bill comes due,
16:54
Speaker 1: the reckoning may arrive too late to stop. Now here's
16:57
Speaker 1: the paradox. One year into Trump too point zero. Periodically, politically,
17:02
Speaker 1: he's in terrible shape, just terrible shape. And under normal circumstances,
17:06
Speaker 1: this would matter because when public sentiment turns through polls, elections,
17:10
Speaker 1: or pressure. All of this has happened. Right. He got
17:13
Speaker 1: a disastrous twenty twenty five election result. Every special election
17:17
Speaker 1: has gone against him. His numbers are as low as
17:20
Speaker 1: they've ever been normally under those circumstances. When it happened
17:24
Speaker 1: at George W. Bush, he decided to fade a bit
17:26
Speaker 1: in the background. Barack Obama fade a bit in the background.
17:29
Speaker 1: What happened to the party in power? Party in power
17:32
Speaker 1: sought a little distance from the president. Right, you're not
17:34
Speaker 1: seeing that happen at the moment. Trump has remade the
17:37
Speaker 1: Republican Party in his image. There are no Bob Corkers.
17:40
Speaker 1: They're not as many Corkers, right. Some of his biggest
17:43
Speaker 1: critics from Trump one point zero have become surrogates, Ted Cruz,
17:47
Speaker 1: Marco Rubio. Some just simply headed for the exits, are
17:50
Speaker 1: heading for the exits, Tom Tillis, Mitch McConnell. And then
17:53
Speaker 1: there is a couple that just survive on political islands.
17:56
Speaker 1: They're visible, but they're powerless. Think Lisa Murkowski or Thomas Manny.
18:01
Speaker 1: So what's left to be a check on the damage
18:05
Speaker 1: that he's inflicting. Well, we did get a little clue
18:09
Speaker 1: on Tuesday morning, and on Tuesday it's the markets, it's
18:13
Speaker 1: the economy in general. Right when foreign policy guardrails fail,
18:17
Speaker 1: the only one that reliably moves voters is the guardrail
18:20
Speaker 1: of the wallet. But even that has its limits. Most
18:23
Speaker 1: Americans don't connect alliance erosion overseas to higher prices or
18:29
Speaker 1: diminished security until it's unavoidable. But the stock market can
18:33
Speaker 1: put a big spotlight on this issue. And the stock
18:36
Speaker 1: market just cratered Tuesday. And we'll see if that changes
18:40
Speaker 1: his tune when he actually heads to Davos to talk
18:43
Speaker 1: Greenland later this week. Because what the markets understand and
18:49
Speaker 1: what equity understands is that trade wars turn into security
18:52
Speaker 1: nightmares much faster than we'd like to admit we are
18:56
Speaker 1: not a long view political culture which brings us to us.
19:02
Speaker 1: You know, one of the things about so called the
19:04
Speaker 1: American consensus is actually how narrow the consensus ends up being,
19:10
Speaker 1: even as it sort of ends up being representative of
19:12
Speaker 1: all of us at some point. So the point being
19:15
Speaker 1: is this, it's usually fifty two or fifty five percent
19:17
Speaker 1: of the population that help us with our quote American consensus.
19:21
Speaker 1: It's not like a seventy percent landslide. An example of
19:25
Speaker 1: this in nineteen fifty two, when Republicans finally rejected isolationism
19:30
Speaker 1: and American first protectionism by nominating Dwight Eisenhower over where
19:35
Speaker 1: the base of the party wanted to be right. They
19:37
Speaker 1: didn't do that out of purity, and they didn't do
19:40
Speaker 1: that out of a total rejection of isolationism. They actually
19:43
Speaker 1: just did it out of desperation because they were tired
19:45
Speaker 1: of losing the presidency after twenty four years. Remember when
19:48
Speaker 1: Eisenhower gets elected in fifty two, Republicans hadn't won a
19:50
Speaker 1: presidential election since nineteen twenty eight. Let me repeat fifty two.
19:56
Speaker 1: They elect Eisenhower, they hadn't elected president in twenty eight,
19:59
Speaker 1: So that Republican Party a generation to realize isolationism and
20:06
Speaker 1: protectionism is terrible politics and more importantly, terrible for the country.
20:10
Speaker 1: Is it going to take another twenty four years first
20:12
Speaker 1: to learn this time? And what's the country going to
20:14
Speaker 1: look like after twenty four years of having to learn
20:17
Speaker 1: that lesson? We'll see. But the point was it was
20:24
Speaker 1: a narrow vote, right, It wasn't really a huge consensus. Right.
20:29
Speaker 1: Republicans rallied around Eisenhower, not out of some sort of
20:32
Speaker 1: ideological agreement, but just out of a desperation to win.
20:37
Speaker 1: I point out that history because that actually is what
20:39
Speaker 1: I use to give myself optimism. You know that. I
20:41
Speaker 1: always go back into history and say, well, that was
20:45
Speaker 1: something similar, and we eventually figured it out, and YadA
20:47
Speaker 1: YadA ya. This episode of The Chuck Podcast is brought
20:53
Speaker 1: to you by Quints, and I love me some Quints.
20:55
Speaker 1: New Year, Colder Days. This is the moment your winter
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22:36
Speaker 1: But it does raise a more urgent question, how do
22:39
Speaker 1: we get from here to there in one piece? Because
22:42
Speaker 1: the truth is the only institution capable of restraining the
22:46
Speaker 1: damage Trump is doing to America's role in the world
22:48
Speaker 1: is Congress. And Congress is failing. We've pointed this out
22:52
Speaker 1: numerous times. And when Congress and the courts choose not
22:55
Speaker 1: to act, I mean the courts also are failing. They
22:57
Speaker 1: are still not going to come out with their terar fouling.
23:00
Speaker 1: Another month. We have another month where you've got Scott
23:03
Speaker 1: Bessett trying to trying to make the tariff compare the
23:08
Speaker 1: illegal tariffs that Trump has been like that are likely
23:13
Speaker 1: illegal if you read the letter of the law and
23:14
Speaker 1: the Constitution that somehow it's comparable to Obamacare, and it
23:20
Speaker 1: was Obama's signature initiative. No way the Spring Court would
23:22
Speaker 1: overturn it. This is Trump's signature initiative. First of all,
23:26
Speaker 1: Scott Bessett, you want to make raising taxes on the
23:29
Speaker 1: American people ten to twenty five percent a signature accomplishment
23:33
Speaker 1: of Donald Trump. That is some messaging you got there, brother.
23:38
Speaker 1: I don't know if I would want to make tax
23:39
Speaker 1: sikes my signature signature thing, but it is that is
23:47
Speaker 1: an interesting spin. But the courts are delaying yet another
23:50
Speaker 1: month before they're going to rule, and the longer they delay,
23:52
Speaker 1: the harder it is to unwind these things, and the
23:54
Speaker 1: more chaos following the constitution may create. And then if
23:59
Speaker 1: you start art making, you decide, well, boy, the toothpaste
24:04
Speaker 1: is out of the tube. So even though we should
24:07
Speaker 1: rule it as unconstitutional, we're not because we don't want
24:11
Speaker 1: to create chaos that would be That would be one
24:16
Speaker 1: of the first signs that the republic is failing if
24:21
Speaker 1: we have a judiciary that is behaving behaving that way.
24:26
Speaker 1: But the fact is, when Congress chooses not to act,
24:31
Speaker 1: it's not the democracy who's going to collapse overnight. It doesn't,
24:34
Speaker 1: but it does hollow it out, and that's when citizens
24:37
Speaker 1: begin to feel powerless. Right, and all that's left are elections,
24:40
Speaker 1: and hopefully citizens will use elections to do this and
24:44
Speaker 1: not try to take matters into their own hands. And
24:47
Speaker 1: you know, that's that's another fear I have understandable fear,
24:51
Speaker 1: but it's one. So maybe the midterms become a revolt
24:54
Speaker 1: something like nineteen seventy four, and that's possible, and maybe
24:58
Speaker 1: that sobers up the party. It sobered up Republicans post Nixon.
25:03
Speaker 1: But there's a lot of time between now and November
25:05
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty six, and if a president feels untouchable,
25:08
Speaker 1: if he's infected. But what I can only described as
25:12
Speaker 1: the political Yolo virus, because I really think a few
25:17
Speaker 1: things here. He feels untouchable because of what he got
25:20
Speaker 1: away with on January sixth, and he just he beat
25:22
Speaker 1: back this whole thing, right, it all worked. He shot
25:26
Speaker 1: somebody on Fifth Avenue. Basically he did it, and he
25:29
Speaker 1: was more than forgiven. He was re elected. So he
25:33
Speaker 1: seems untouchable, and we've seen him he does all the
25:37
Speaker 1: only thing he seems truly concerned about his mortality, which
25:43
Speaker 1: I think creates the wrong focus for him and puts
25:47
Speaker 1: him in a mindset of he's just desperate for that.
25:49
Speaker 1: He's constantly thinking about a legacy that he thinks he
25:52
Speaker 1: might be leaving sooner than he wants to. So the
25:56
Speaker 1: point is elections alone may not be enough in the
25:58
Speaker 1: short term. So we've been here before. Senate Republicans choked
26:03
Speaker 1: after the second impeachment. We now know this. Mitch McConnell
26:06
Speaker 1: now says the right things when it comes to Greenland
26:09
Speaker 1: and what's happening to NATO. But he once had the
26:12
Speaker 1: chance to change the trajectory of his party and change
26:17
Speaker 1: but instead he chose the path of least resistance. I've
26:22
Speaker 1: said it before. I assume I don't know if you know.
26:26
Speaker 1: He's tough as nails, Mitch McConnell, and I say that
26:29
Speaker 1: as a compliment and being a congressional leader, you got
26:31
Speaker 1: to have the thickest mick skins, and he has it.
26:35
Speaker 1: But if anything haunts him, I gotta think that decision
26:40
Speaker 1: he made has got to haunt him. Maybe it doesn't,
26:45
Speaker 1: and maybe that I'll let you guys decide what that means,
26:47
Speaker 1: but I gotta think it does. And that choice that
26:51
Speaker 1: he made explains a lot about how we got here.
26:55
Speaker 1: And I don't want to dance around this. Trump has
26:56
Speaker 1: made America more vulnerable than it's been in decades. We
27:00
Speaker 1: are more isolated than at any point since before World
27:03
Speaker 1: War Two. And we don't fully grasp what that means, because,
27:07
Speaker 1: let's be honest, none of us alive today have lived
27:10
Speaker 1: through that kind of vulnerability. The Trump era has been
27:14
Speaker 1: filled with near missed disasters of his own making, week
27:17
Speaker 1: after week and month after month, right, and it is
27:21
Speaker 1: created a bit of the chicken little mindset, Oh my god,
27:24
Speaker 1: what is he doing now? This could be it, this
27:26
Speaker 1: could be it, And we've just you know, we've gotten
27:29
Speaker 1: lucky sometimes, but at some points luck runs out, and
27:33
Speaker 1: the only real question is whether he can be restrained
27:37
Speaker 1: by Congress, the courts, or the voters before our luck
27:44
Speaker 1: runs out. And I will say this, the clock is ticking.
27:49
Speaker 1: And I'll tell you this, judging by what Mark Carney
27:54
Speaker 1: has said, and I want to repeat a few things.
27:57
Speaker 1: His speech in Davo in some ways feels as if
28:03
Speaker 1: it was clearly aimed directly at Donald Trump and the Americans.
28:09
Speaker 1: And I really hope that John Thune reads this word
28:13
Speaker 1: for word. Roger Wicker, these are sort of the Republicans
28:19
Speaker 1: that know what he's doing is bad, but are afraid
28:23
Speaker 1: of speaking out. So Carney argued the following He said
28:31
Speaker 1: that the global order hasn't just transitioned. It's broken to
28:35
Speaker 1: quote him today, I will talk about a rupture in
28:38
Speaker 1: the world order, the end of a pleasant fiction and
28:41
Speaker 1: the beginning of a harsh reality where major geopolitical powers
28:44
Speaker 1: operate with few limits and constraints. The old order is
28:48
Speaker 1: not coming back, and we should not mourn it. Nostalgia
28:51
Speaker 1: is not a strategy. So then he addressed the weaponization
28:55
Speaker 1: of trade and regarding specific regarding Greenland right where Trump
29:01
Speaker 1: wants to punish Europe for not acceding to his wishes there,
29:06
Speaker 1: and he said this, great powers have begun using economic
29:09
Speaker 1: integration as weapons, Tariffs as leverage, Financial infrastructure is coercion,
29:15
Speaker 1: supply changes, vulnerabilities to be exploited. You cannot live within
29:19
Speaker 1: the lie of mutual benefit through integration when integration becomes
29:23
Speaker 1: the source of your subordination. So this gets it to
29:27
Speaker 1: what I've been warning about. When we decide to be
29:31
Speaker 1: isolationists in America first and raise up our barriers, what
29:35
Speaker 1: do you think everybody else is going to do? And
29:38
Speaker 1: that's essentially what Mark Carney is saying, we have no choice.
29:44
Speaker 1: And then he talked about that there's a choice now
29:46
Speaker 1: for what he called the Middle Powers. The Middle Powers
29:49
Speaker 1: are basically everybody in the first world that isn't China,
29:52
Speaker 1: Russia or the United States. Here's what he Here's what
29:58
Speaker 1: he said. He said middle powers must act because if
30:00
Speaker 1: you are not at the table, you are on the menu.
30:04
Speaker 1: When we only negotiate bilaterally with one of these superpowers,
30:07
Speaker 1: we negotiate from weakness. We accept what is offered. He goes,
30:12
Speaker 1: this is not sovereignty, it is the performance of sovereignty
30:15
Speaker 1: while accepting subordination. So then he outlined what he called
30:21
Speaker 1: Canada's third path, and he basically said that Canada has
30:26
Speaker 1: shifted towards strategic autonomy. Our closest ally north of the border.
30:32
Speaker 1: Is basically said, we're tired of the United States treating
30:35
Speaker 1: us like shit, and we're going it alone and we're
30:39
Speaker 1: going to have strategic autonomy. So how did he define that? One?
30:43
Speaker 1: Trade diversification. So he's got new Canadian partnerships with or
30:48
Speaker 1: without the Americans, with the EU, with China, and with
30:53
Speaker 1: katar and I promise you more are coming with the
30:56
Speaker 1: Gulf States, with India, with you know, Boboli, Brazil, maybe
31:01
Speaker 1: even some African countries. How about on defense, Canada is
31:08
Speaker 1: a huge part of norrad. I mean, let's be honest,
31:13
Speaker 1: the Canadian military was in some way seen as sort
31:16
Speaker 1: of just part of the North American security system. Now
31:24
Speaker 1: he's got to join what he calls the European Safe
31:26
Speaker 1: Defense Procurement arrangements, and he's doubling defense spending, and they're
31:30
Speaker 1: fast tracking their own investments in AI, critical minerals and energy.
31:35
Speaker 1: We out to scare the United States? Is that Carney
31:37
Speaker 1: basically saying, all right, we can't rely in the United States.
31:40
Speaker 1: We're not you know, And normally the Canadian posture has
31:43
Speaker 1: been you know, they're the mouse sleeping next to the elephant,
31:46
Speaker 1: and you know, they got to be careful the elephant
31:48
Speaker 1: doesn't acidentally roll over on them. But now they're taking
31:51
Speaker 1: all of this, they're taking these threats more seriously. Whatever
31:53
Speaker 1: he plans to do in Greenland, like I said, they're
31:57
Speaker 1: having to increase their own defense spending, their war gaming.
32:04
Speaker 1: What would happen if the United States invaded from the
32:07
Speaker 1: south again, that sounds insane except for the rhetoric that
32:15
Speaker 1: our president has been using. But he wants to develop
32:20
Speaker 1: and here's the thing, it's going to leave. So he
32:23
Speaker 1: wants to develop essentially what he calls bridges, right, you know,
32:30
Speaker 1: essentially a diversification of a trading block of these middle countries.
32:36
Speaker 1: So he envisions a trading block that would essentially be
32:41
Speaker 1: very similar to the trans Specific Partnership TPP. Right. That
32:45
Speaker 1: the thing that Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump blew up
32:49
Speaker 1: both on the left and the right during the twenty
32:51
Speaker 1: sixteen campaign. It was a it was the idea was
32:54
Speaker 1: to create essentially a check on China. It's going to
32:56
Speaker 1: be led by the United States and Japan and India,
32:59
Speaker 1: and was you know, it all got sort of, you know,
33:04
Speaker 1: swept away by the fear of globalization, the popular stuprising
33:09
Speaker 1: on the right, the popular stup rising on the left,
33:11
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden everybody backed away from it. Right,
33:15
Speaker 1: mainstream chamber of commerce Republicans backed away from it, and
33:18
Speaker 1: mainstream sort of center left business democrats like Hillary Clinton
33:23
Speaker 1: walked away from it, even though she was the initial
33:25
Speaker 1: champion of this. So he wants to do something similar
33:29
Speaker 1: and essentially create different sort of middle power trading blocks
33:33
Speaker 1: so that if they collaborate together, then they can be
33:38
Speaker 1: essentially on a more equal footing when having to negotiate
33:43
Speaker 1: with a Russia, a China, or the United States. But
33:46
Speaker 1: they see themselves as independent, right, they see themselves as
33:51
Speaker 1: not having to They do not want to be suckered
33:54
Speaker 1: into these binary relationships with these bigger countries because the
33:58
Speaker 1: terms always suck for these middle powers. And there was
34:01
Speaker 1: a time where the United States was not seen as
34:05
Speaker 1: somebody that was just going to take advantage of any
34:07
Speaker 1: of these middle powers who agreed to be part of
34:09
Speaker 1: our trading blocks. But we were actually using this to
34:13
Speaker 1: create a rules based order. Now, of course we have
34:18
Speaker 1: a president that's trying to get rid of the rules
34:21
Speaker 1: based order. He also said something else that was quite striking.
34:28
Speaker 1: He said Canada is fully committed to NATO's Article five
34:33
Speaker 1: and he said it's unwavering. And he said that Canada
34:35
Speaker 1: stands firmly with Denmark if they get if they are
34:40
Speaker 1: a piece of land that they control, think Greenland comes
34:43
Speaker 1: under military threat. This is what Donald Trump has done.
34:50
Speaker 1: He has taken our allies and they are actively looking
34:54
Speaker 1: for new defense, new trade partners in order to confront
35:00
Speaker 1: and aggressive United States. I understand a lot of people
35:05
Speaker 1: don't like this, don't like globalization, think somehow that America
35:09
Speaker 1: is subsidizing other countries, whether it's subsidizing by being the
35:13
Speaker 1: beat cop. I'm sorry that we do such a poor
35:17
Speaker 1: job of teaching trade and economics that people don't understand
35:21
Speaker 1: how much we've benefited. The fact that Mississippi, which is
35:27
Speaker 1: considered supposedly one of our poorer states in the Union,
35:34
Speaker 1: has a higher standard of living than I think Japan,
35:39
Speaker 1: and I don't think many Americans would would that might
35:42
Speaker 1: shock many Americans. The point is we have thrived being
35:48
Speaker 1: at the top of the heat of this rules based
35:50
Speaker 1: order of global trade. It has benefited other countries, it
35:57
Speaker 1: has raised the standard of living all over the world.
36:00
Speaker 1: But we've benefited a lot. We've benefited in security, we've
36:05
Speaker 1: benefited financially, and now Donald Trump is putting all of
36:10
Speaker 1: that at risk, either because he believes in a failed
36:15
Speaker 1: economic model that was such a failure that it cost
36:17
Speaker 1: the Republican Party twenty four years of being in the
36:22
Speaker 1: wilderness and the presidency, and it's certainly making us less secure.
36:26
Speaker 1: So it is a we'll see what happens to Davos,
36:31
Speaker 1: But this is a very fired up europe I you know,
36:35
Speaker 1: I think European leaders, I think you you know, we'll
36:38
Speaker 1: see if Donald Trump exploits this. There's definitely a divide
36:43
Speaker 1: among European leaders. Some are trying to find ways Is
36:46
Speaker 1: there a way to work with him? I ran into
36:48
Speaker 1: a Republican member of Congress during my travels over the
36:51
Speaker 1: last couple of days, and I I, you know, who says,
36:54
Speaker 1: you know, I'm doing my best to do this or
36:56
Speaker 1: this in Greenland, and and he goes, you know, I,
37:04
Speaker 1: you know, I think there's you know, he's got to
37:05
Speaker 1: be satisfied with a treaty that allows for you know,
37:09
Speaker 1: to access to critical minerals and more robust defense spending
37:14
Speaker 1: that we can do via NATO. It's thinking too logically.
37:18
Speaker 1: And the problem we have right now is Trump's not
37:21
Speaker 1: behaving very logically, and there's a group of people around
37:25
Speaker 1: him that aren't interested in restraining him enough, or he's
37:30
Speaker 1: got something else going on. Now. I know there's a
37:34
Speaker 1: whole bunch of people out there with you know, chit
37:36
Speaker 1: chat about the twenty fifth Amendment all this stuff. I
37:40
Speaker 1: actually I view the twenty fifth Amendment as true incapacitation.
37:43
Speaker 1: Think Woodrow Wilson and the stroke. Think James Garfield, you know,
37:47
Speaker 1: essentially alive for about four months as he was dying
37:51
Speaker 1: from the bullet wound. And it was an amendment that
37:54
Speaker 1: was passed when there was when you know, after the
37:57
Speaker 1: Kennedy assassination, you know it's possible he could have been
38:01
Speaker 1: kept alive but have been a vegetable. Well, what would
38:04
Speaker 1: we have done in that situation? And so that you know,
38:08
Speaker 1: that was the intent of the of the amendment. So
38:10
Speaker 1: I'm not sure I would use it. And I think
38:12
Speaker 1: using it because you think he's just erratic and all that.
38:19
Speaker 1: I mean, this has been who he's run as. So
38:23
Speaker 1: ultimately it has to come from the small deed. Democracy
38:26
Speaker 1: has to come from the voters, has come from the
38:28
Speaker 1: elected officials. And there is only one way to restrain
38:32
Speaker 1: him that will keep the republic that we like, and
38:39
Speaker 1: that is for Congress to do its job, for the
38:43
Speaker 1: for the for these guys to go back and realize
38:46
Speaker 1: what the founders intended when it came to the executive branch,
38:50
Speaker 1: and to do their job and to assert their authority here,
38:54
Speaker 1: assert their authority on taxing Americans with these tariffs, and
38:58
Speaker 1: assert their authority when it comes to military escapades. But
39:04
Speaker 1: if they don't, then maybe the Republic is crumbling right
39:09
Speaker 1: before our eyes. So on that dour negative note. I
39:14
Speaker 1: did have a few other campaign things that I wanted
39:15
Speaker 1: to get to. I'm gonna save those since I have
39:18
Speaker 1: another podcast on Thursday. I've got a few thoughts on
39:23
Speaker 1: Josh Shapiro versus Kamala Harris. What do we got going
39:25
Speaker 1: on here? And is is anybody gonna win this little No?
39:30
Speaker 1: She said this, no, he said this, and she all
39:32
Speaker 1: of that. I kind of feeling everybody's losing their one two.
39:39
Speaker 1: There's an interesting David pluff op ed in the New
39:41
Speaker 1: York Times that didn't get the traction that I thought
39:45
Speaker 1: it would, and I think part of it is that,
39:46
Speaker 1: you know, Donald Trump sort of threatening the end of
39:49
Speaker 1: the of the of George H. W's New World Order
39:52
Speaker 1: is clearly more front and center than this. But essentially
39:58
Speaker 1: he was saying that while the party may be in
40:00
Speaker 1: good shape for the midterms, it is nowhere near ready
40:03
Speaker 1: to win the presidential in twenty eight And I think
40:05
Speaker 1: it's an important op ed to deal with. But I
40:08
Speaker 1: want to put a pin in that, take a break,
40:12
Speaker 1: bring in get to the other conversation that I did
40:16
Speaker 1: want to spark today with public education, and I want
40:19
Speaker 1: to hear from you guys on this of different ideas
40:25
Speaker 1: and thoughts about sort of reimagining our public school system,
40:29
Speaker 1: because I think there's definitely needs some reimagining, definitely need
40:33
Speaker 1: some remodeling for the twenty first century. And I don't
40:37
Speaker 1: think we have near enough innovators and people running for
40:41
Speaker 1: office thinking about this enough. But you'll hear from Gena
40:45
Speaker 1: and Osa, who is somebody who is trying to make
40:47
Speaker 1: this a signature issue of a good natorial campaign. So
40:50
Speaker 1: sneaking a break and when we come back Gena and Osa.
40:56
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40:59
Speaker 1: personal experience. I was sixteen when my father passed away.
41:03
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42:40
Speaker 1: there were going to be some cases where I wanted
42:41
Speaker 1: to be spending time interviewing governor in the big States.
42:46
Speaker 1: Just got done with one of the candidates in California.
42:49
Speaker 1: You've heard from some Florida candidates. Well, let's talk Texas. Right,
42:55
Speaker 1: State Representative Gina Heinosa is the leading day Democratic candidate
43:00
Speaker 1: for governor in Texas. You've heard me say, you know,
43:03
Speaker 1: there's all this focus on on that Senate race, and
43:07
Speaker 1: yet I kind of think if Texas Democrats are ever
43:10
Speaker 1: going to sort of break through, it may be on
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Speaker 1: state issues that particularly the issue of education, which is
43:19
Speaker 1: exactly how Democrats broke through in Kansas. It's exactly likely
43:24
Speaker 1: why what we'll explain if Democrats win the governor's mansion
43:28
Speaker 1: in Iowa. The sort of this national move towards privatization, voucherization,
43:34
Speaker 1: whatever you want to call it, is one of those
43:37
Speaker 1: that there's a lot of rural conservatives who are like, yeah,
43:43
Speaker 1: school choice sounds great, the next school to choose from
43:47
Speaker 1: is thirty miles away type of mindset. So it is
43:51
Speaker 1: the idea and the reality. It is that nexus that
43:55
Speaker 1: has really opened the door in many of these red
43:58
Speaker 1: states for inal upsets on the Democratic side of the isle,
44:03
Speaker 1: and the issue of education is going to be front
44:05
Speaker 1: and center in this campaign. And Gina, you know so,
44:09
Speaker 1: state representative who has been sort of I'm going to
44:12
Speaker 1: let her tell her origin story, but educate the education issue,
44:16
Speaker 1: the school choice issue, in many ways her political origin story.
44:20
Speaker 1: And she joins me, Now, state representative, you know so,
44:23
Speaker 1: welcome to the podcast.
44:25
Speaker 2: Thank you check, it's great to be here. And please
44:27
Speaker 2: just call me Gina.
44:28
Speaker 1: Fair enough, Well, Gina, let me just look. I don't
44:32
Speaker 1: I could tell your story, but you know, you tell
44:34
Speaker 1: me what you know? What got you active in politics? Is?
44:37
Speaker 1: I love school board origin stories when it comes to politics.
44:41
Speaker 1: It's been one of my favorite I've interviewed. I've done
44:43
Speaker 1: all I used. I love to do exit interviews when
44:45
Speaker 1: people to choose to retire. And you know, I remember
44:48
Speaker 1: I interviewed this one member of Congress, republican member of
44:51
Speaker 1: Congress from California, and I said, so, what got you
44:53
Speaker 1: into politics? He says, well, I didn't like that they
44:56
Speaker 1: read threw the boundaries and I was really upset about it.
44:58
Speaker 1: So I ran, I won, and then I found out
45:00
Speaker 1: the school board had nothing to do with the boundaries.
45:02
Speaker 1: It was like the funniest story, but it was sort
45:04
Speaker 1: of like that's what made me get active in politics.
45:06
Speaker 1: And that's it is for a lot of people. It's
45:08
Speaker 1: your kids.
45:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's your first.
45:10
Speaker 1: Time that you really interact with government. So tell the
45:12
Speaker 1: origin story.
45:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I can sent in you just from everything
45:19
Speaker 2: you said. An education nerd like me, and I love it, Chuck.
45:24
Speaker 2: So I am an accidental education nerd. I just I'm
45:29
Speaker 2: a parent, right, and I'm a parent with kids who
45:33
Speaker 2: had kids in public schools. I still have a son
45:36
Speaker 2: in public school. But when my first child was in kindergarten,
45:41
Speaker 2: his school was threatened for closure. And this school was
45:45
Speaker 2: the longest continually operating in the whole state of Texas.
45:50
Speaker 2: P's Elementary, a stone's throw from the state's capital, a
45:55
Speaker 2: beloved school in this community. And so when his school
45:59
Speaker 2: was foreclosure, along with many others, I just got mad.
46:03
Speaker 2: And this is how much I never wanted to run
46:06
Speaker 2: for office. So before I got married, I made my
46:10
Speaker 2: husband promise to never run for office, because he had
46:14
Speaker 2: been working for a senator in law school and so
46:18
Speaker 2: we'd like to talk about it, but he said, like, no,
46:22
Speaker 2: just make this promise, and so he did. So that's
46:26
Speaker 2: how much I didn't want to be part of You.
46:29
Speaker 1: Weren't going to marry somebody who was interested in politics.
46:33
Speaker 2: That's right. So anyway, I ran and I won, and
46:36
Speaker 2: it was part of this grassroots effort in the community
46:40
Speaker 2: to save our schools and we did. We flipped the
46:42
Speaker 2: school board and none of the schools were closed and
46:47
Speaker 2: there and I loved being on the school board. I
46:50
Speaker 2: recommend it to people who want to serve and who
46:54
Speaker 2: have an interest in we all in the education of
46:58
Speaker 2: our kids, but they never understood that the reason why
47:01
Speaker 2: our schools are threaten for closures because the state under
47:04
Speaker 2: Greg Abbott's leadership, takes our money and then doesn't put
47:07
Speaker 2: it back into our community needs and schools are the
47:13
Speaker 2: school issue demonstrates better, I think than almost any other
47:17
Speaker 2: issue how that is working. I ran for the Texas
47:20
Speaker 2: House one and this was almost ten years ago, so
47:24
Speaker 2: this is my first my fifth term in the Texas House,
47:29
Speaker 2: and I've mostly focused on public schools. Though when you
47:31
Speaker 2: are a House member, you have to know about everything
47:34
Speaker 2: right kind of everything under the sun you have to
47:36
Speaker 2: vote on. But what I have found after almost ten
47:41
Speaker 2: years in the Texas House is that the bigger, biggest
47:44
Speaker 2: driver of policy in Texas is corruption and it's not
47:49
Speaker 2: necessarily illegal corruption. It's just a friend of the governor
47:55
Speaker 2: as hire as a former lobbyist to get at our
47:59
Speaker 2: taxpayer dollar and most of the big bills we've out
48:03
Speaker 2: on our vendor contracts that go to friends of Greg Abbott, right,
48:07
Speaker 2: And it's really gross, and especially when it comes to
48:11
Speaker 2: our public school.
48:12
Speaker 1: I to sound this cynical. You know, you're describing pretty
48:14
Speaker 1: much every part time legislator legislature situation in the country.
48:20
Speaker 1: This is why I'm very much a skeptic of part
48:22
Speaker 1: time legislature in general. But you're describing very you know.
48:25
Speaker 1: I just it's funny. And more people are getting or
48:29
Speaker 1: noticing this. Columbia, South Carolina has got a huge sort
48:33
Speaker 1: of there. More of these stories are coming out about
48:35
Speaker 1: how all of this has been political consultants and vendors
48:38
Speaker 1: using the legislative process to essentially make money off of
48:41
Speaker 1: the government. Yeah.
48:44
Speaker 2: We I had a former legislator sum it up this way.
48:48
Speaker 2: Most legislators in Texas are either independently wealthy, they're supported
48:53
Speaker 2: by their spouse, or they're on the take. And I
48:57
Speaker 2: find that too.
48:59
Speaker 1: It's pressing.
49:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, is depressing. So anyway, well we digress, go, yes,
49:04
Speaker 2: we digress. So, and it's especially gros when you think
49:09
Speaker 2: about our schools right because we've been an exodus of
49:12
Speaker 2: teachers leaving the classroom. They're not paid and up they're
49:14
Speaker 2: not respected. We've had in my community now there are
49:18
Speaker 2: ten schools slated foreclosure. Two days ago, I was in
49:21
Speaker 2: Corpus CHRISTI they've got seven schools slated for closure.
49:25
Speaker 1: Is this due to low enrollment? What is the reasoning
49:28
Speaker 1: for Is there an enrollment? Is it low enrollment? Is this?
49:31
Speaker 1: Is it basically because people are using the state vouchers.
49:34
Speaker 2: To move to private The biggest reason is budget cuts.
49:38
Speaker 2: So Greg Abbott first rolled out his voucher scam in
49:43
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three. And you should know about Texas that
49:49
Speaker 2: public schools are very much a part of who we
49:52
Speaker 2: are as Texans. They are our identity. It is about
49:56
Speaker 2: Friday night lights and many of our rural communities. It's
49:59
Speaker 2: the same as bigger, biggest employer. Think of it almost
50:02
Speaker 2: like the Chamber of Commerce in these rules, will.
50:05
Speaker 1: Can I just make one observation? It seems like any
50:08
Speaker 1: community can declare itself an independent school district, right like it? Yeah,
50:14
Speaker 1: there's sort of a it's it's a weird I will
50:17
Speaker 1: be it does you know, it doesn't feel like it
50:19
Speaker 1: breaks on county lines, right, it's suddenly right, suddenly, Oh
50:23
Speaker 1: there's a new housing development. Welcome to the independent school
50:27
Speaker 1: district of Frisco, you know, or something like that.
50:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is true. We do have a lot of
50:33
Speaker 2: school districts. But what has happened since in twenty twenty
50:36
Speaker 2: three the governor held hostage school funding in exchange to
50:42
Speaker 2: try to get his voucher scam passed. It didn't work,
50:46
Speaker 2: but meanwhile our schools went without funding. And this was
50:50
Speaker 2: at a time of record inflation. So fast forward to today,
50:54
Speaker 2: our schools have about ten billion dollars less in buying
51:00
Speaker 2: power than they did in twenty nineteen because of inflation
51:05
Speaker 2: and because we're so far behind and funding our schools.
51:08
Speaker 2: We're one of the bottom funded states when it comes
51:12
Speaker 2: to public education in the whole country. I think bottom
51:15
Speaker 2: last I knew it was bottom three. So that's why
51:20
Speaker 2: that is the biggest reason why our schools are shutting down.
51:23
Speaker 2: And so to think that where a lot of our
51:26
Speaker 2: money is going is these vendor contracts for nonsense that
51:31
Speaker 2: we don't need, is really insulting. And this is an
51:36
Speaker 2: observation that goes beyond partisanship. I had a press conference
51:43
Speaker 2: for a bill that I filed this year to do well,
51:46
Speaker 2: and I think, check, maybe you know this, but help
51:50
Speaker 2: me remember if you can to do zero based budgeting.
51:53
Speaker 2: That was associated with the big maybe in the nineties,
51:56
Speaker 2: maybe it was New Gingridge, I don't remember who, but
51:58
Speaker 2: it was a big Republican policy approach to wipe the
52:04
Speaker 2: slate clean in spending and then build what's important prioritized.
52:10
Speaker 1: Oh, it was back when trying to like they were
52:12
Speaker 1: pushing for balanced budget amendment nationally and they were, of course,
52:15
Speaker 1: I mean that debt was a huge issue to them
52:17
Speaker 1: at that time.
52:18
Speaker 2: And here the issue and here it fits so well,
52:21
Speaker 2: I believe, because we've had thirty years of one party
52:25
Speaker 2: in control and so there's been no accountability when it
52:28
Speaker 2: comes to our spending. There is so much grift that
52:32
Speaker 2: is now baked into the system that we just need
52:34
Speaker 2: a fresh start. So I filed a bill to do
52:36
Speaker 2: that with our education dollars at the state level, and
52:40
Speaker 2: I was surrounded only by mothers who had voted for Trump. Right.
52:48
Speaker 2: They were maga moms who understand that our money is
52:53
Speaker 2: being wasted because of these vendor contracts with Greg Abbott's friends,
53:00
Speaker 2: and they stood side by side with me at a
53:02
Speaker 2: press conference at the Capitol and support. These were also
53:06
Speaker 2: allies that I had made in this voucher fight, which
53:09
Speaker 2: is one big grift, right. Greg Abbott in twenty twenty
53:16
Speaker 2: three ended up pursuing vouchers for the first time ever.
53:20
Speaker 2: It was a big shock to put the people who
53:23
Speaker 2: have been observing politics and Texas for a long time
53:26
Speaker 2: because it's so anti text and then so deeply unpopular.
53:30
Speaker 2: But he got a six million dollar check from jeff
53:34
Speaker 2: yaz an At, a state billionaire from Pennsylvania who was
53:39
Speaker 2: pushing vouchers and so and now like, and we've already
53:44
Speaker 2: had stories about grift happening in this voutuer program that
53:47
Speaker 2: hasn't even started, right, So that's what this is. It's
53:51
Speaker 2: taking our taxpayer dollars and spending them in a way
53:55
Speaker 2: where there's no transparency, no accountability, and a lot of
54:00
Speaker 2: Republicans are against it. To your point about how education
54:04
Speaker 2: vouchers can be the issue that cuts through partisanship, I
54:09
Speaker 2: saw it here in Texas in a big way.
54:12
Speaker 1: I think the difficulty with the education issue is twofold.
54:15
Speaker 1: One is we're all experts, right, because either we have
54:19
Speaker 1: a kid in school, I'm an expert. Right. It's the
54:21
Speaker 1: same with healthcare. Right. Why is it so hard to
54:23
Speaker 1: get sort of big ideas to sort of both lower
54:28
Speaker 1: the cost of healthcare and expand coverage Because it's such
54:32
Speaker 1: a personal issue, right, just like education is so personal.
54:35
Speaker 1: So take the school funding issue. Look, you got on
54:39
Speaker 1: you were fighting. You were upset that money from Austin
54:42
Speaker 1: was not staying in Austin. Now one could argue that
54:47
Speaker 1: you want to make sure everybody has got an equal
54:49
Speaker 1: you know, has an equal access to good education. How
54:53
Speaker 1: do you feel about that recapture system that Texas uses
54:56
Speaker 1: in general? Are you in favor of it or are
54:59
Speaker 1: you not? Like at right now because of how it's
55:01
Speaker 1: currently being managed.
55:03
Speaker 2: You are an education nerd, aren't you.
55:07
Speaker 1: Well it's because these are well it is. Look, I'll
55:09
Speaker 1: just be honest, I think it's one of these. You know,
55:12
Speaker 1: sometimes when we look at a we talk about our
55:15
Speaker 1: national problems, like what should be our focus, Like we
55:18
Speaker 1: have the same public school funding model and public school
55:22
Speaker 1: model that was first developed right at the beginning of
55:25
Speaker 1: the industrial age, and we have not modernized. You know
55:28
Speaker 1: the reason, Like I am empathetic to people that are
55:31
Speaker 1: pro voucher because they just have given up. They're like, well,
55:34
Speaker 1: the system's not going to fix this, So can I
55:36
Speaker 1: at least how can I help my kid? Now? Right? Right?
55:40
Speaker 1: So I get it right, I understand this isn't working.
55:43
Speaker 1: I want this now. You know, when you look at
55:46
Speaker 1: it from a big picture, you realize, you know, if
55:48
Speaker 1: we voucherize everything, then we're just going to have this.
55:51
Speaker 1: You know, we're going to gut the middle class, We're
55:53
Speaker 1: going to gut the working class because they can't all
55:55
Speaker 1: afford to just go find a perfect education for their kid.
55:59
Speaker 1: So this is always why it's such I think, you know,
56:04
Speaker 1: extraordinarily hard, and you know and and all that. So
56:08
Speaker 1: I guess the what's a what's ah, We've got to
56:12
Speaker 1: remodel this system. So what are your thoughts of remodeling
56:15
Speaker 1: this system?
56:16
Speaker 2: Okay, well let me answer it, because I don't. I
56:19
Speaker 2: didn't mean through seven questions in there. Let's do recapture first, Okay, recapture.
56:24
Speaker 2: So I'm originally from South Texas, from the Rio Grande
56:26
Speaker 2: Valley where there is a lot of poverty. I grew
56:28
Speaker 2: up and I went to public school in Brownsville, right
56:31
Speaker 2: the southernmost tip of Texas, and yeah, we went without
56:37
Speaker 2: right and that shouldn't happen. So I do believe conceptually
56:41
Speaker 2: in the recaptures this equal everybody should get a good education,
56:45
Speaker 2: regardless of the wealth of your community. I think that
56:49
Speaker 2: is right. Well we have now, and so I have
56:52
Speaker 2: this jar. Can you see this star? Yes, jar, I'm
56:55
Speaker 2: going to make my point with this star. Usually have
56:57
Speaker 2: a water bottle, but I just have crap all over
57:00
Speaker 2: this computer right now, and right now I have a jar.
57:04
Speaker 2: So this is what's happening. Though with that recapture system.
57:07
Speaker 2: The state is saying, this is only how much you
57:11
Speaker 2: can spend on public education, so they are suppressing and
57:17
Speaker 2: the amount we can spend on our students. And this
57:20
Speaker 2: big jar, that's all the money that is coming from
57:24
Speaker 2: our property taxes, so you pour it into what can
57:29
Speaker 2: be spent on education for everybody, regardless whether they're a
57:32
Speaker 2: property wealthy or property poor school district, and most of
57:36
Speaker 2: it falls out and all that money is being spent
57:40
Speaker 2: on nonsense, and it is not education. It's spent on
57:43
Speaker 2: all sorts of other things. Because now I'm getting really
57:47
Speaker 2: nerdy and into the weeds, which I should not do
57:49
Speaker 2: in which my team's going to get mad ut before.
57:51
Speaker 2: But it is state dollars are fungible, right, so they
57:57
Speaker 2: just don't put in the state dollars they would otherwise
58:00
Speaker 2: put into education, and they use our property taxes instead.
58:05
Speaker 2: And what we have is everybody is struggling when it
58:09
Speaker 2: comes to our neighborhood public schools, and schools are shutting
58:12
Speaker 2: down and teachers are leaving.
58:16
Speaker 1: There's a conundrum here. The Texas is very low in funding,
58:23
Speaker 1: as you've pointed out, very low in teacher salaries, but
58:27
Speaker 1: student outcomes are good. What's your explanation. Why do you
58:33
Speaker 1: think that is?
58:34
Speaker 2: Well, I think it depends how you look at it, right.
58:38
Speaker 2: I will say that when we have looked at the
58:40
Speaker 2: only comparitor that I know on outcomes are NAPE scores,
58:47
Speaker 2: And I don't know that I can tell you what
58:49
Speaker 2: NAPE stands for right now, the National Assessment I'm making
58:53
Speaker 2: that up, so we refer to it as NAPE scores,
58:57
Speaker 2: and it is a kind of snapshot of different schools
59:00
Speaker 2: in different states, and they compare them all together. Our
59:04
Speaker 2: NAPE scores have either been have mostly been decreasing. When
59:08
Speaker 2: you look at Texas okay, so so I would I
59:14
Speaker 2: will say, you know, there we have some some schools
59:18
Speaker 2: where they're achieving there at a very high level. They
59:22
Speaker 2: make some top one hundred lists. I think that happened recently.
59:26
Speaker 2: But when you look overall at our out at our outcomes,
59:31
Speaker 2: they're not better, and in fact, in many areas they
59:34
Speaker 2: are worse. And I and I think we just have
59:37
Speaker 2: to get back to the basics. And that is something
59:40
Speaker 2: where I have found agreement with Republicans, kind of getting
59:43
Speaker 2: back to basics. What do we know as our rocket science.
59:45
Speaker 2: What's the best thing we can do for our kids' education?
59:48
Speaker 2: A great teacher in the classroom, right, But to pay
59:51
Speaker 2: their teachers their worth, we have to treat them like professionals.
59:55
Speaker 2: We just passed legislation I hated about two years ago
1:00:00
Speaker 2: to create this can curriculum where teachers are timed, their
1:00:05
Speaker 2: lesson plans are sequenced and timed, and there's very little
1:00:09
Speaker 2: freedom for them to be the professionals that we expect
1:00:14
Speaker 2: them to be. Where they assess where my kids, how
1:00:17
Speaker 2: do I differentiate, Where do I slow down? Where do
1:00:20
Speaker 2: I press on the gas? Like we're throwing that out
1:00:22
Speaker 2: the window. It was an almost billion dollar bill a
1:00:25
Speaker 2: big grift in my opinion. But if we gave teachers
1:00:30
Speaker 2: the respect they deserve, the professional treat them as the professionals,
1:00:33
Speaker 2: and the pay, that's the single best improvement we can
1:00:36
Speaker 2: have in our classroom and smaller classes. Right now, class
1:00:41
Speaker 2: sizes are too big in many of our schools, and
1:00:46
Speaker 2: that makes it harder just to teach these kids.
1:00:57
Speaker 1: Do you think any tax dollars should be used for
1:01:00
Speaker 1: private or parochial schools? No, I do not.
1:01:05
Speaker 2: With one exception that is already that already exists in
1:01:09
Speaker 2: federal law and a lot of people don't know about it.
1:01:13
Speaker 2: There are some times when the child has some kind
1:01:16
Speaker 2: of disability where the public school cannot meet the need,
1:01:21
Speaker 2: and federal law requires that the school district interview that family,
1:01:31
Speaker 2: understand those needs, and help place that family in a
1:01:35
Speaker 2: private school and funding those to that private school. Usually
1:01:38
Speaker 2: the state will flop the bill for that.
1:01:41
Speaker 1: But this is if public school system can't can't deal
1:01:45
Speaker 1: with it, maybe maybe you've got a learning challenge or
1:01:50
Speaker 1: you know whatever, it is a behavioral issue or something
1:01:53
Speaker 1: like that and you need special sort of special attention.
1:01:57
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, So that I think is something probably that
1:02:01
Speaker 2: we should be doing more of in Texas. I will
1:02:05
Speaker 2: say that a lot of frustration when it comes to
1:02:09
Speaker 2: our public schools, and especially in the past when it
1:02:13
Speaker 2: was less clear that it was about funding, is that
1:02:17
Speaker 2: special education is very expensive, and I think too often
1:02:24
Speaker 2: kids aren't getting what they need because the systems are
1:02:28
Speaker 2: just trying to sustain themselves and so their requests for
1:02:34
Speaker 2: accommodations or their requests for help are being or not
1:02:38
Speaker 2: being met.
1:02:40
Speaker 1: Well, this is where the federal this is the one
1:02:41
Speaker 1: place where federal government has tried to be involved in
1:02:44
Speaker 1: the public schools, is that in theory they were to
1:02:47
Speaker 1: try to at least share the burden. If you've got
1:02:49
Speaker 1: a severely autistic student who just you know, I've got
1:02:55
Speaker 1: this in my family. You know, they just need five
1:02:57
Speaker 1: extra years in the school system, five or six extra years,
1:03:00
Speaker 1: and then over time they you know, I think what
1:03:02
Speaker 1: we're learning the good news is the more we learn
1:03:05
Speaker 1: about these bout autism, the more is that, you know,
1:03:08
Speaker 1: you just need longer to process. Sometimes you need not
1:03:12
Speaker 1: everybody is going to get through the system in twelve years.
1:03:16
Speaker 1: But that's where the federal government was supposed to backstop
1:03:19
Speaker 1: with the Department of Education.
1:03:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I agree with that. And in Texas it
1:03:24
Speaker 2: got so bad. The special education system was so bad
1:03:28
Speaker 2: that even Betsy Devas had to step in and hold
1:03:32
Speaker 2: Texas accountable under Greg Abbott because we were cutting The
1:03:37
Speaker 2: state under Abbot, under his tea commissioner was cutting corners
1:03:42
Speaker 2: and not identifying kids who deserved more legally entitled to
1:03:49
Speaker 2: a special education because it's expensive. Right. So when Betsy
1:03:52
Speaker 2: Devas has to come into your state and say your
1:03:56
Speaker 2: special education system is broken, I mean a real problem.
1:04:00
Speaker 2: And there still are big problems.
1:04:02
Speaker 1: Where are you on charters?
1:04:04
Speaker 2: Uh?
1:04:04
Speaker 1: In magnets? And I say this, I grew up in
1:04:07
Speaker 1: Miami and I hate what's happened to the Miami Dade
1:04:11
Speaker 1: school system. It is now a four tiered system. There's
1:04:15
Speaker 1: there's privates, There's those that can navigate to find out
1:04:19
Speaker 1: if their kid belongs in a magnet, you know, a
1:04:21
Speaker 1: specialization program. There's your charters, and then there's those that
1:04:25
Speaker 1: can't figure out the system. And you go to your
1:04:27
Speaker 1: local school and you and you hope you've hit the
1:04:30
Speaker 1: the geographic lottery, and it's a mess. It's really hard
1:04:35
Speaker 1: to navigate. But all these charter schools are most of
1:04:38
Speaker 1: them are started with in good faith. Right there there
1:04:42
Speaker 1: there are good you know, and they're kind of quasi public.
1:04:46
Speaker 1: Where are you on that system? And I think Houston
1:04:49
Speaker 1: has done a lot of this right.
1:04:52
Speaker 2: Right, And you know, the Houston Independent School District was
1:04:54
Speaker 2: taken over by Greg Abbott and that's other another can
1:04:58
Speaker 2: of worms conreisation and serious. So probably nobody has been
1:05:04
Speaker 2: a grade at our champion of holding charter schools accountable
1:05:09
Speaker 2: than I have in the legislature, but I wouldn't. But
1:05:13
Speaker 2: this is what my concern is. But my concern is
1:05:16
Speaker 2: to your point, it is a parallel school system that
1:05:22
Speaker 2: is taking resources from our neighborhood public schools, but it
1:05:26
Speaker 2: doesn't take all kids. Is the problem?
1:05:28
Speaker 1: Right and.
1:05:30
Speaker 2: Right? And so what happened, what has been happening in
1:05:33
Speaker 2: Texas is that the charter schools will take the kids
1:05:37
Speaker 2: who don't have disciplinary problems. They take the easier who
1:05:43
Speaker 2: don't need a special education, the kids who are easier
1:05:45
Speaker 2: to educate. Right. Well, I'll tell you that both of
1:05:49
Speaker 2: my sons have been to the principal's office because I
1:05:51
Speaker 2: am their mother and I had it coming. And so
1:05:55
Speaker 2: there are charter schools that would not take these kids
1:05:59
Speaker 2: who had been even just going to the principal's office
1:06:02
Speaker 2: and they were denied admission. I got past this year
1:06:06
Speaker 2: legislation that I said, you cannot discriminate against kids because
1:06:10
Speaker 2: of their disciplinary records. But that's just one example. There's
1:06:14
Speaker 2: also we need to make sure there is that same
1:06:17
Speaker 2: accountability when it comes to transparency for decision making, when
1:06:22
Speaker 2: it comes to parents' rights, when it comes to spending,
1:06:25
Speaker 2: when it comes to nepotism we've had we have had
1:06:28
Speaker 2: a nepotism problem in charter schools that I don't think
1:06:31
Speaker 2: tax pay dollars should be a part of. So it's
1:06:34
Speaker 2: these kind of accountability measures. I will say overall, big picture,
1:06:39
Speaker 2: we have had just a boom in charter school growth
1:06:44
Speaker 2: in Texas and there's no strategic plan as to why.
1:06:48
Speaker 2: It is just the spending of more taxpayer dollars. And
1:06:51
Speaker 2: I think we need a time out. Let's assess the
1:06:54
Speaker 2: big picture, what it is the plan here.
1:06:57
Speaker 1: Let me put a pin in this and let's move
1:06:59
Speaker 1: on another. Issues with it this way? Is the education
1:07:04
Speaker 1: problem in Texas a funding issue or more of an
1:07:08
Speaker 1: allocation issue?
1:07:11
Speaker 2: Allocation?
1:07:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you're not sitting here saying we need more
1:07:15
Speaker 1: dollars yet, got to maybe raise revenue here or something
1:07:18
Speaker 1: like that. Right now, you view it as this is
1:07:21
Speaker 1: an allocation challenge. Maybe there's a funding challenge down the road,
1:07:25
Speaker 1: but right now it's an allocation issue.
1:07:28
Speaker 2: So education is paid for in large part by our
1:07:32
Speaker 2: property taxes. Our property taxes have skyrocketed Undergrad Abbot. I mean,
1:07:38
Speaker 2: everybody's angry, rightfully.
1:07:39
Speaker 1: So if you don't want state income taxes and.
1:07:42
Speaker 2: You're well, that's high taxes, that's another conversation. But we pay.
1:07:48
Speaker 2: We are a high tax state because our property and
1:07:51
Speaker 2: taxes are so high, and so I do believe the
1:07:56
Speaker 2: money is there to deliver the solid education that are
1:08:00
Speaker 2: kids need. But the way I refer to it is
1:08:03
Speaker 2: we are all paying the Greg Abbot corruption tax. And
1:08:07
Speaker 2: I mentioned the vendor contracts. This governor is so out
1:08:11
Speaker 2: of control when it comes to corruption. And by the way,
1:08:15
Speaker 2: just kind of also a big picture point. I think
1:08:18
Speaker 2: a lot of the terrible things we see in DC
1:08:23
Speaker 2: they're incubated here in Texas. And I'll give you an
1:08:26
Speaker 2: example of one of them that ties into this corruption.
1:08:30
Speaker 2: So there was an independent watchdog group, Public Citizen, that
1:08:34
Speaker 2: found and released a report about two three months ago
1:08:38
Speaker 2: that found Greg Abbotts given almost a billion dollars in
1:08:41
Speaker 2: no bit contracts to his donors. Right, and you can't
1:08:46
Speaker 2: even make this stuff up, the largest of which is
1:08:48
Speaker 2: one called Gotham Gotham Corporation.
1:08:52
Speaker 1: Right.
1:08:54
Speaker 2: And so what he has done since twenty twenty he
1:08:58
Speaker 2: started with COVID. He started signing an emergency executive order
1:09:04
Speaker 2: every month waiving competitive bidding laws. And that was right,
1:09:08
Speaker 2: I mean, it was COVID. We needed ppe, there was
1:09:11
Speaker 2: you know, we needed things fast. But he just got
1:09:15
Speaker 2: fat and happy of that kind of power and continues
1:09:19
Speaker 2: it to this day. And as a result, many of
1:09:22
Speaker 2: his friends are getting contracts. There was a an Egle pass.
1:09:26
Speaker 2: One of the emergencies sided has been border security. Right
1:09:31
Speaker 2: that that's one of the excuses to do non competitive bidding.
1:09:36
Speaker 2: I think that's what's happening in Washington right now as well.
1:09:39
Speaker 1: By the way, well you know it's funny about pay
1:09:41
Speaker 1: to play. Yeah, you know, I think your challenge on
1:09:46
Speaker 1: this issue is, yeah, they all do it. You know,
1:09:51
Speaker 1: like there's like, you know what I mean, the electorate.
1:09:53
Speaker 1: I'm sure you're you've seen this in some of your research,
1:09:57
Speaker 1: which is they believe your child, your your charge against Abbott,
1:10:01
Speaker 1: but they think this is how it all works, that
1:10:04
Speaker 1: they're all and I've just got to decide which corrupt
1:10:08
Speaker 1: side am I picking from? Right, Hey, how do you
1:10:11
Speaker 1: how do you convince these swing voters who might be
1:10:15
Speaker 1: skeptical of Ariight, we're just going to go with from
1:10:17
Speaker 1: one political party getting you know, playing favoritism to another.
1:10:22
Speaker 1: How can you what's your accountability promise? Right? You know,
1:10:26
Speaker 1: it's sort of the trust but verified mindset, because I
1:10:29
Speaker 1: think this is I think the corruption issue is both
1:10:31
Speaker 1: ripe everywhere and at the same time, it's a very
1:10:35
Speaker 1: cynical electorate that exists these days, who just assume everybody's
1:10:38
Speaker 1: on the take.
1:10:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's fair. And look, I think most people
1:10:43
Speaker 2: recognize that politics as usual as broken Democrats. So there
1:10:49
Speaker 2: are plenty of blame when it comes to that sense
1:10:53
Speaker 2: amongst the electorate. And we for too long have defended
1:10:57
Speaker 2: as Democrats systems that are not defensible, systems where they're
1:11:02
Speaker 2: using our own I mean, what's happening in Texas is
1:11:06
Speaker 2: Greg Abbitts using our own money against us with the system.
1:11:10
Speaker 2: And that's why my proposals are clean slate, fresh start,
1:11:15
Speaker 2: zero based budgeting. Right, you have you hide in a
1:11:19
Speaker 2: zero based budgeting approach to government. I mean, we're saying
1:11:25
Speaker 2: we're going to wipe the slate clean and let's build
1:11:27
Speaker 2: this budget. That's teacher pay, small class size, at school safety,
1:11:30
Speaker 2: special education. That's it, right. So we're proposing approaches that
1:11:37
Speaker 2: are not traditional democratic approaches to just good government. And
1:11:41
Speaker 2: that's why to this day I will I do have
1:11:44
Speaker 2: maga moms who will send me tips and information to
1:11:50
Speaker 2: try to help me in this race because they see
1:11:53
Speaker 2: everything is broken right now. And in fact, that on
1:11:57
Speaker 2: Greg Abbott's side in the primary's ten opponents right now,
1:12:01
Speaker 2: that's never happened before, and it is their number one
1:12:05
Speaker 2: talking point. His corruption is their number one talking point.
1:12:10
Speaker 2: So I do think to your point, people think they
1:12:13
Speaker 2: have a sense that government is corrupt, but when we
1:12:17
Speaker 2: talk about Greg Abbott, it's just a new level of corruption.
1:12:21
Speaker 2: And the way we tie it to people so that
1:12:25
Speaker 2: they care is we talk about you're paying the price,
1:12:28
Speaker 2: you're paying the Greg Abbitt corruption tax, and let me
1:12:31
Speaker 2: you know, and I can give you some examples of that.
1:12:36
Speaker 2: So when it comes to, for instance, our electric bills
1:12:41
Speaker 2: in Texas. In Texas, we spend about forty dollars more
1:12:46
Speaker 2: a month on electric bills since winter Storm Mury hit
1:12:50
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty one. Why did that happen? That happened
1:12:54
Speaker 2: because at that time we had gas companies whole ding
1:13:01
Speaker 2: the fuel that our grid needed while Texans were freezing,
1:13:04
Speaker 2: literally freezing in their homes. I went with electricity for
1:13:08
Speaker 2: four days in my home. Texans died in that winter storm.
1:13:14
Speaker 2: The gas companies waited until the price was high up
1:13:18
Speaker 2: that they could make billions in minutes. Right now, that
1:13:22
Speaker 2: price that our utilities have to pay is being socialized
1:13:25
Speaker 2: to mix. Now we're all paying the price for that.
1:13:29
Speaker 2: And that is an example of the Greg Abbot corruption tax,
1:13:32
Speaker 2: because Greg Abbott got a million dollar check after that
1:13:35
Speaker 2: legislative session that gave these gast companies a pass and
1:13:40
Speaker 2: passed the cost on to rate payers and consumers.
1:13:45
Speaker 1: One of your big challenges is not going to be
1:13:47
Speaker 1: the issues you're talking about. It's going to be where
1:13:50
Speaker 1: you where you're from. There's an Austin liberal, right, and
1:13:54
Speaker 1: I say this, this is true with Colorado and people
1:13:58
Speaker 1: that ran from Boulder. This was true for most of
1:14:01
Speaker 1: my life until Jeb Bush won people that ran from Miami. Right.
1:14:05
Speaker 1: Part of it is whatever the big Blue city is
1:14:07
Speaker 1: or whatever the big city is. Their skepticism took over
1:14:10
Speaker 1: two hundred years before Amya Philadelphia ever got elected governor
1:14:14
Speaker 1: of Pennsylvania. So in some ways this is sort of
1:14:17
Speaker 1: a not unique. But you know that's the card Abbot's
1:14:21
Speaker 1: going to play. You're essential Austin Liberal, the crazy Austin progressives.
1:14:28
Speaker 1: What does she know about Abilene? How are you going
1:14:31
Speaker 1: to respond to those attacks?
1:14:33
Speaker 2: So I'd like to see Abbott come after me as
1:14:37
Speaker 2: being from Austin as an attack, because there's nobody who's
1:14:42
Speaker 2: more from Austin than Greg Abbott. He has been in
1:14:44
Speaker 2: statewide office for more than a quarter of the century,
1:14:48
Speaker 2: living in Austin. He's lived in Austin longer than I have, look,
1:14:52
Speaker 2: I don't have. I am honored to have served the
1:14:55
Speaker 2: community of Austin in the Texas House. I'm originally from
1:14:59
Speaker 2: the Rio Grand Valley and we've been back there about
1:15:01
Speaker 2: six or seven times since we launched. We launched in Brownsville.
1:15:05
Speaker 2: The real Grand Valley went for Trump last election cycle.
1:15:10
Speaker 2: Trump won it. And so what's your explanation why do
1:15:15
Speaker 2: you believe it is battleground? Well, I think a big
1:15:17
Speaker 2: one was border security. So at the time, I was
1:15:21
Speaker 2: chair of the House Campaign Committee. I was appointed by
1:15:25
Speaker 2: our Democratic Caucus chair to lead up that effort. So
1:15:29
Speaker 2: I went to the Valley for campaign purposes. We had
1:15:33
Speaker 2: a House seat in play, and people were so angry
1:15:37
Speaker 2: about border security. But remember at the time, there were
1:15:39
Speaker 2: the caravans coming over. It was chaotic, people were living
1:15:43
Speaker 2: under bridges. Biden was mums. I mean, he did not
1:15:46
Speaker 2: show the leadership we needed and we all paid it.
1:15:49
Speaker 1: They blew it. Do you feel like Biden really harmed
1:15:51
Speaker 1: the Democratic brand on border security?
1:15:54
Speaker 2: Absolutely? Absolutely, and there was no reason for it. I
1:15:58
Speaker 2: will tell you that about a month before his last
1:16:02
Speaker 2: year in office, said December before this last year in office,
1:16:06
Speaker 2: I got a call from one of my members in
1:16:08
Speaker 2: Eagle Pass who was in a swing district, and he said, Gina,
1:16:12
Speaker 2: they just shut down the border and it's the week
1:16:15
Speaker 2: before Christmas, and this is not We cannot this cannot continue.
1:16:22
Speaker 2: So we called and said, hey, can we get a meeting.
1:16:24
Speaker 2: We called the Biden administration. Can we get a meeting
1:16:26
Speaker 2: with your top border people, because we got real problems.
1:16:29
Speaker 2: We had all our border members on there, and they
1:16:32
Speaker 2: heard an earfold. The next week they sent a delegation
1:16:35
Speaker 2: to Mexico so that Mexico would start enforcing for security
1:16:38
Speaker 2: on their side. And at the time crossings plummeted, it happened.
1:16:42
Speaker 2: I'm telling you, like within a week.
1:16:45
Speaker 1: Oh no, I I look, I have spent some time
1:16:48
Speaker 1: with people that worked at DHS, and you know they
1:16:51
Speaker 1: were they knew what they needed to do, they just didn't.
1:16:54
Speaker 1: They were they were handcuffed by the West Point.
1:16:57
Speaker 2: By the West Point. It did hurt us, but I
1:17:00
Speaker 2: I will tell you when I go now, it's a
1:17:01
Speaker 2: one to eighty on that issue, because everybody knows someone
1:17:05
Speaker 2: who's been detained or deported, some beloved member of their community,
1:17:10
Speaker 2: who's been there twenty years, who reads the bonandaia, the
1:17:13
Speaker 2: bakery down the street, and that's what nobody had in mind.
1:17:18
Speaker 2: In fact, last week we were meeting with the executive
1:17:22
Speaker 2: director of the Builders Association and all their members, most
1:17:28
Speaker 2: of a lot of their members better Republican, and they're
1:17:31
Speaker 2: not there anymore because what ICE is doing is waiting
1:17:35
Speaker 2: until those job sites are they've poured the concrete, and
1:17:40
Speaker 2: then they'll go around and everybody up. They even had
1:17:43
Speaker 2: an American detained because they asked they take you first,
1:17:48
Speaker 2: and they ask questions later, are.
1:17:51
Speaker 1: You on ICE? Is is is the Ice? Is ICE
1:17:55
Speaker 1: something that needs to you know, there's a whole abolish
1:17:58
Speaker 1: ICE movement. And then you know, the other argument is
1:18:01
Speaker 1: ICE isn't the issue. It's the leadership, it's the training,
1:18:04
Speaker 1: it's you know, you need to have an you know,
1:18:08
Speaker 1: an law enforcement agency to enforce border security and and monitor,
1:18:15
Speaker 1: you know, foreigners that are coming in out of the
1:18:17
Speaker 1: country at the same time. I don't think anybody believes
1:18:21
Speaker 1: they're getting the proper training that the way that it's
1:18:24
Speaker 1: being used. So I guess the question is I can
1:18:27
Speaker 1: understand both arguments. I can understand that says I just
1:18:30
Speaker 1: gotta go. We need to rethink the entire agency, so
1:18:34
Speaker 1: start from scratch versus No, this is a leadership issue.
1:18:38
Speaker 1: This is this is a Christy Nome Tom Homan issue,
1:18:41
Speaker 1: And if we had better training, we could have a
1:18:43
Speaker 1: better ICE.
1:18:46
Speaker 2: So here's what I know. I know that what ICE
1:18:49
Speaker 2: is doing right now is terrorizing communities, hurting Americans, and
1:18:55
Speaker 2: he needs to stop now.
1:18:57
Speaker 1: It is.
1:19:00
Speaker 2: Let's just start even setting this aside, the fact that
1:19:04
Speaker 2: an American mom was shot in the face and killed.
1:19:06
Speaker 2: Let's set that aside and.
1:19:09
Speaker 1: Hard to set that aside, But yes, I take your point.
1:19:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that there's no investigation in it. And there's
1:19:14
Speaker 2: nobody in leadership in the Trump administration who will say
1:19:18
Speaker 2: they are even concerned about what we all witness as
1:19:22
Speaker 2: an atrocity. Right, just let's start with the fact that
1:19:27
Speaker 2: we've masked law enforcement on the streets. I'm in America.
1:19:31
Speaker 1: That should be illegal, right, That should be.
1:19:33
Speaker 2: Illegal because none of us are safe when that happens,
1:19:36
Speaker 2: because you can't have accountability when somebody does you wrong.
1:19:40
Speaker 2: And this happens. We all know this is not the
1:19:43
Speaker 2: first time that an American has been hurt or even
1:19:47
Speaker 2: killed by law enforcement or harassed. But we have to
1:19:51
Speaker 2: hold those people accountable, and you can't do it when
1:19:55
Speaker 2: you have masked agents who are doing this work.
1:20:07
Speaker 1: You are your father was the longtime chair of the
1:20:10
Speaker 1: state Party, so you've had a front row seat this
1:20:14
Speaker 1: sort of this the of the transition in Texas. You know,
1:20:18
Speaker 1: when I first started covering politics, I think you and
1:20:21
Speaker 1: I are about the same age. You know Texas was
1:20:25
Speaker 1: you could see it shifting to the right. But you know,
1:20:28
Speaker 1: I'm old enough to remember what a big deal it
1:20:30
Speaker 1: was to Republicans when Kate Billy Hutchinson won, right, it
1:20:33
Speaker 1: was like, Wow, they broke through on that front, and
1:20:37
Speaker 1: then you saw it go We've seen it go all
1:20:39
Speaker 1: the other way. Now. It feels like I always tell
1:20:42
Speaker 1: my friends who don't quite understand Texas, I said, it's
1:20:45
Speaker 1: kind of a three party state right now. You do
1:20:47
Speaker 1: have sort of two different Republican parties and you have
1:20:50
Speaker 1: a Democratic Party and you witnesses look at your I
1:20:54
Speaker 1: point people to the State House, which is just a
1:20:57
Speaker 1: fascinating development we've watched over the years where you've had
1:21:00
Speaker 1: these coalition majorities, which frankly I find kind of healthy,
1:21:05
Speaker 1: right because I think if we had more coalition politics
1:21:09
Speaker 1: and more political parties, you know, we might we might
1:21:12
Speaker 1: be less polarized. How do you describe the state and
1:21:17
Speaker 1: what's your recipe for growing the Democratic Party so that
1:21:20
Speaker 1: it's not just a third but that it is truly
1:21:23
Speaker 1: the alternative.
1:21:26
Speaker 2: What I have seen in the House, and I so
1:21:30
Speaker 2: I work with these Republics. I mean, actually, I think
1:21:32
Speaker 2: we would all be better off. When you have to work,
1:21:35
Speaker 2: we're forced to work with people in one room from
1:21:38
Speaker 2: every part of the state, of every mindset. It helps
1:21:42
Speaker 2: to create understanding and relationships, and so it's been a
1:21:47
Speaker 2: area of growth for me just to get to know
1:21:50
Speaker 2: Republicans right and work with them.
1:21:54
Speaker 1: Oh, I'm a believer that if you force people, you know,
1:21:58
Speaker 1: if it takes you know, if it takes a coalition
1:22:02
Speaker 1: to get a majority, then you're more likely to compromise
1:22:05
Speaker 1: when you're legislating.
1:22:07
Speaker 2: Yeah. You Well, here's the problem though, the problem is
1:22:14
Speaker 2: that now those maybe I guess you would think of
1:22:20
Speaker 2: as more country club or chamber type publicity.
1:22:25
Speaker 1: I refer to you. I guess I just now refer
1:22:27
Speaker 1: to them the Bush Republic. I joke like someone my
1:22:30
Speaker 1: son's at SMU and I'm like, yeah, you're in the
1:22:33
Speaker 1: you're in the last Romney precinct of Dallas over there.
1:22:36
Speaker 1: Probably right, but they're but they're John Cornan voters and
1:22:40
Speaker 1: they're always going to be John Cornan voters. Right.
1:22:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, But here's the problem. The problem is that they're
1:22:45
Speaker 2: not free to vote their districts anymore much less than conscience.
1:22:50
Speaker 2: What happened, and the voucher fight exemplifies it better than
1:22:53
Speaker 2: any other fight. We beat vouchers in twenty twenty three
1:22:58
Speaker 2: because we had rural republics with us, and we had
1:23:02
Speaker 2: some some bushare of Republicans with us. Greg Abbott put
1:23:07
Speaker 2: in a million dollars against each of them in their
1:23:09
Speaker 2: primaries and most of them won. He took out nine,
1:23:13
Speaker 2: and since then they've been very reluctant to not tow
1:23:18
Speaker 2: the party line. The party line at this point is
1:23:22
Speaker 2: Trump's line, because Abbott is the enforcer for Trump. So,
1:23:26
Speaker 2: I mean, on the day of the vote for vouchers
1:23:29
Speaker 2: last year, Trump called in and talked to all the
1:23:33
Speaker 2: Republican legislators and he said, I'll come down there if
1:23:36
Speaker 2: I have to, Right, he said, I need you to
1:23:38
Speaker 2: vote for this voucher, and I'll come down there if
1:23:40
Speaker 2: I have to. So they are not freaking. I have
1:23:45
Speaker 2: had several Republican colleagues say, I hope you win this.
1:23:50
Speaker 2: They they have lost.
1:23:53
Speaker 1: They feel trapped by the politics. Yeah.
1:23:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, they've lost control of their party. They don't agree
1:23:58
Speaker 2: with what is happening. They don't have the courage to
1:24:02
Speaker 2: risk their primary by stepping out of line and doing
1:24:07
Speaker 2: what they know is right, because they they tell themselves that, well,
1:24:12
Speaker 2: it would be worse if I weren't here.
1:24:15
Speaker 1: Right, If you're running your race without the national environment,
1:24:25
Speaker 1: I imagine you would feel like your challenge, my guess
1:24:29
Speaker 1: is one of your challenges not to let them nationalize
1:24:31
Speaker 1: this race. Is that fair?
1:24:35
Speaker 2: Well, let me say, I don't even see it like that.
1:24:38
Speaker 2: Our issues, our biggest challenges are so Texas. I mean,
1:24:41
Speaker 2: look right, Frost governors like I mean, it's like ready
1:24:45
Speaker 2: for president. This is a big, diverse state. We are
1:24:48
Speaker 2: a world economic powerhouse. Our issues we got enough to
1:24:53
Speaker 2: deal with here in Texas, and so that is what
1:24:58
Speaker 2: I focus on. And at the same time, I know
1:25:02
Speaker 2: that what happens in this midterm election will affect every
1:25:06
Speaker 2: single American and that's because of our size. So I
1:25:12
Speaker 2: don't know if you have heard this, but about three
1:25:17
Speaker 2: years ago I first learned from a national kind of
1:25:20
Speaker 2: political player, a donor who came to talk to a
1:25:24
Speaker 2: few of us and said, Texas is going to gain
1:25:28
Speaker 2: four to five more congressional seats by the end of
1:25:30
Speaker 2: the decade. That's the Brennan Center, right. And then that's
1:25:35
Speaker 2: just because we're growing faster than everybody. And so that
1:25:37
Speaker 2: if Texas doesn't flip before the end of the decade,
1:25:40
Speaker 2: there cannot be democratic control of Congress. Math doesn't work.
1:25:45
Speaker 2: And because congressional seats are quite to electoral votes, there
1:25:48
Speaker 2: cannot be democratic control of the White House and the ended.
1:25:52
Speaker 2: And this was like after like my fourth special session
1:25:54
Speaker 2: fighting this voucher, and I was like, cleary id and
1:25:57
Speaker 2: I was like, what is this meaning I'm going into?
1:26:00
Speaker 2: And he said, and so the way we see it,
1:26:03
Speaker 2: the fate of the Union depends on Texas. And I
1:26:06
Speaker 2: was like, you got to be kidding me, But that
1:26:11
Speaker 2: is a motivator for me. We have an opportunity in Texas, yes,
1:26:15
Speaker 2: to save ourselves and to deliver real results for Texans,
1:26:20
Speaker 2: but we also have an opportunity in this race to
1:26:25
Speaker 2: be the difference for this country. And because the state
1:26:29
Speaker 2: legislature and the governor has veto power over the next
1:26:32
Speaker 2: maps that will be drawn, what happens in these state
1:26:36
Speaker 2: races is huge.
1:26:39
Speaker 1: Let me get to the business community, because you know,
1:26:41
Speaker 1: one of the other things press releases you get all
1:26:43
Speaker 1: the time from Greg Abbott is you know some new
1:26:45
Speaker 1: survey Texas is the best place to do business or
1:26:48
Speaker 1: a new place is moving to Texas. So he is
1:26:51
Speaker 1: going to tout that record, right, the record of you know,
1:26:54
Speaker 1: job growth in the state. You know, every day there's
1:26:57
Speaker 1: a new headline of another new company moving into place
1:27:00
Speaker 1: or Frisco or you know, so even someplay not everything's
1:27:03
Speaker 1: North Texas, though a lot of it is these days.
1:27:05
Speaker 1: Are I love I love the story of it. Is
1:27:07
Speaker 1: it San Angelo the halfway point between San Antonio and
1:27:10
Speaker 1: Austin that is now becoming its own megapolis?
1:27:13
Speaker 2: Right?
1:27:14
Speaker 1: You know? Do I have it right?
1:27:16
Speaker 2: Are Saint Marcus? Maybe San marcous That's what.
1:27:18
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of San Marcos? My apologies, but it's like
1:27:21
Speaker 1: every day you turn, it's like there's a whole new
1:27:23
Speaker 1: city like rising up. Right. How do you uh, how
1:27:30
Speaker 1: do you get the I don't want to say support
1:27:33
Speaker 1: of the business community. You may not get the support.
1:27:35
Speaker 1: You know, maybe it takes a term, but you know,
1:27:40
Speaker 1: how do you get the business community not to be
1:27:42
Speaker 1: antagonistic to what you're doing?
1:27:46
Speaker 2: The business community's pissed right now, let me tell you, okay,
1:27:51
Speaker 2: because because of tariffs, because of immigration raised right builders,
1:27:57
Speaker 2: builders who have typically been Republicans in this date contractors,
1:28:03
Speaker 2: They are very angry at Republicans. It just politics is
1:28:08
Speaker 2: broken and it creates opportunities. I will say my response
1:28:14
Speaker 2: to Abbot touting his business record is that the people
1:28:18
Speaker 2: of Texas are not benefiting from our economic power in
1:28:24
Speaker 2: this way. We have the highest uninsured rate for working
1:28:27
Speaker 2: Texans of any other state, highest mount of uninsured veterans kids.
1:28:32
Speaker 2: That goes on. We have more people making below fifteen
1:28:39
Speaker 2: dollars an hour than everywhere else. We work longer hours
1:28:43
Speaker 2: than anyone when you look at national average for hours work.
1:28:48
Speaker 2: We work really, really hard, and we don't get the
1:28:51
Speaker 2: benefit of that work. And that's because Greg Abbot basically
1:28:54
Speaker 2: hands over the keys to the castle. An example of that,
1:28:58
Speaker 2: he's become big buds with el Elon Musk now has
1:29:03
Speaker 2: his star base in South Texas. He just gave Elon
1:29:08
Speaker 2: Musk the ability to open our and shut our public
1:29:13
Speaker 2: beach booka Chika beach. This is a beach that in
1:29:16
Speaker 2: the Texas Constitution says shall be free and open to
1:29:20
Speaker 2: the public. It is our constitutional right to have access
1:29:22
Speaker 2: to that beach. It is being bought in state court
1:29:25
Speaker 2: right now, but it is predicted that they will shut
1:29:28
Speaker 2: down this beach about three months out of the year.
1:29:31
Speaker 2: My word, So you know, it's those kinds of deals
1:29:35
Speaker 2: that are raw deals for the people of Texas at
1:29:38
Speaker 2: the exp and only really benefit fitting these CEOs of
1:29:44
Speaker 2: global corporations. My business approach is. Look, we say we
1:29:48
Speaker 2: value our small business owners, Let's give them a lega.
1:29:54
Speaker 2: So cut sales taxes for our small business owners. Let's
1:29:57
Speaker 2: have a tax free small business Saturday, Saturday after Thanksgiving. Right,
1:30:02
Speaker 2: Our small business owners in Texas make below the average
1:30:07
Speaker 2: for profits for small business owners in this nation, have
1:30:11
Speaker 2: a harder time getting access to debts. So again, it
1:30:16
Speaker 2: is a clean slate, a fresh start to build an
1:30:20
Speaker 2: economy that actually works for Texans, including small business owners
1:30:23
Speaker 2: who have this bold ambition that we are proud of
1:30:27
Speaker 2: in Texas to create their own business, provide for their family,
1:30:31
Speaker 2: and create good jobs in our community.
1:30:33
Speaker 1: Let me get you out of here on this which
1:30:34
Speaker 1: is that grid, your electric grid, which I feel like
1:30:39
Speaker 1: is a ticking timeline. It's you know, every time there's this,
1:30:45
Speaker 1: you know, you know, whether it's super heat or super cold. Right,
1:30:48
Speaker 1: You're like, is it going to hold? Is it going
1:30:50
Speaker 1: to hold? Is it as simple as saying that deregulation
1:30:55
Speaker 1: was a mistake.
1:30:59
Speaker 2: So here's what I think was deregulation and mistake. I
1:31:06
Speaker 2: think that there are some pros to tregulars to deregulation,
1:31:10
Speaker 2: but definitely we have had big problems when it comes
1:31:14
Speaker 2: again to the corruption question. I mentioned the issue of
1:31:18
Speaker 2: letting the gas providers get away with basically price gouging Texans.
1:31:26
Speaker 2: We also have the new big concern, frankly for our grid.
1:31:30
Speaker 2: Are these data centers that are popping up all over
1:31:33
Speaker 2: this state. Greg Gaba has said, we're going to have
1:31:35
Speaker 2: more data centers than any other state in the nation,
1:31:38
Speaker 2: and it's going to cost any better.
1:31:40
Speaker 1: You guys better start four one K electric bills or something, you.
1:31:43
Speaker 2: Know, I mean, right, I mean, it's so it is.
1:31:46
Speaker 1: I'm in northern Virginia and we're already feeling the impact.
1:31:48
Speaker 1: Are electric bills of skyrocketed over the last six months,
1:31:52
Speaker 1: and it is you know, this is this sensitivity is out.
1:31:57
Speaker 2: There in Texas. It's predicted we will have to pay
1:32:01
Speaker 2: about six hundred more dollars a year with the cost
1:32:07
Speaker 2: of electricity, right because they want to socialize the expense
1:32:11
Speaker 2: and then privatize the profits. These are data centers that
1:32:17
Speaker 2: are owned by the richest men in the world, and
1:32:19
Speaker 2: they should pay for themselves. So there are Look, the
1:32:23
Speaker 2: whole data center AI thing is something that we're all
1:32:26
Speaker 2: struggling to get ahead of. But at big, basic bare minimum,
1:32:31
Speaker 2: they should pay for themselves there are, but there are
1:32:34
Speaker 2: big challenges with how our grid is going to be
1:32:37
Speaker 2: able to meet the energy needs of these data centers.
1:32:42
Speaker 2: And also I will say that there is in Texas
1:32:45
Speaker 2: a big problem that we have part bisins who are
1:32:50
Speaker 2: in the legislature who are insistent that renewable energy should
1:32:57
Speaker 2: not be part of the equation. Renewable energy has essential
1:33:00
Speaker 2: to keeping this grind going and Texas renewable energy has
1:33:03
Speaker 2: been essential to helping with the cost of electricity in Texas.
1:33:08
Speaker 2: But on so many issues, it's the ideology, the ideological
1:33:14
Speaker 2: kind of true believers on when it comes to fossil fuels,
1:33:18
Speaker 2: who are just opposed and who threaten the viability of
1:33:21
Speaker 2: our grid.
1:33:22
Speaker 1: Tune, where are you on nuclear energy? Just curious, that's
1:33:27
Speaker 1: a that's a I get it, you know, but you
1:33:30
Speaker 1: know it could be the it could be the solution
1:33:32
Speaker 1: to clean energy.
1:33:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, look, I'm not against it. I know there are concerns,
1:33:36
Speaker 2: and I think we need to make sure that we're
1:33:39
Speaker 2: addressing any externalities. Any going to fall up fall out
1:33:42
Speaker 2: to the wrong word, So I should use that any
1:33:46
Speaker 2: any kind of externalities that come from it. It's my understanding. Also,
1:33:52
Speaker 2: water intensive we have a severe water challenge in Texas.
1:33:58
Speaker 2: We're running out of water, and so these are all
1:34:00
Speaker 2: things that need to be looked at. Look, I'm not
1:34:02
Speaker 2: an expert on it. I don't have all the answers,
1:34:05
Speaker 2: but I can always promise the voters of Texas that
1:34:08
Speaker 2: I will make sure we evaluate it all and that
1:34:11
Speaker 2: whatever we do is about putting Tuxans first and not industry.
1:34:16
Speaker 1: All right, I'll get you out on here on this.
1:34:18
Speaker 1: So give me your favorite sort of it's you know,
1:34:26
Speaker 1: it's nine o'clock, you're campaigning. Are you looking for a tacorea?
1:34:32
Speaker 1: Are you looking for barbecue? What's the what's the road?
1:34:35
Speaker 1: What's your campaign road trip? Food to refuel and and
1:34:40
Speaker 1: you know, do you have any specific favorites You're like, boy,
1:34:43
Speaker 1: I hope we're running late, you know, in Fort Worth
1:34:46
Speaker 1: because I love this place, you know, or something like that.
1:34:48
Speaker 2: So like my favorite and like with that exception where
1:34:52
Speaker 2: we land is always tacos. And because any mom and
1:34:57
Speaker 2: pop and those are the best tacos you can get
1:34:59
Speaker 2: at some mom, little not well known Mexican restaurant. You
1:35:03
Speaker 2: can always it's good to go food, right, you can.
1:35:07
Speaker 1: If you don't recognize the name of the restaurant. It's
1:35:10
Speaker 1: going to be good.
1:35:10
Speaker 2: That's it.
1:35:12
Speaker 1: You got it, Jack, I love that. No, it's by
1:35:15
Speaker 1: the way, it's true. Fried chicken. In the South, the
1:35:17
Speaker 1: best fried chicken is usually the family that runs the
1:35:21
Speaker 1: local gas station, who has the fryer in the back.
1:35:24
Speaker 1: And it's like you think gas station fried chicken. Trust me,
1:35:27
Speaker 1: it's the best fried chicken you're gonna find in the
1:35:28
Speaker 1: state of Georgia, you know, or the state of Alabama.
1:35:31
Speaker 1: And I believe that. In Texas, you know, it's by
1:35:34
Speaker 1: the way, this is true. In Iowa, you go up
1:35:36
Speaker 1: I thirty five and the best place to eat is
1:35:39
Speaker 1: usually a first generation Mexican owned restaurant.
1:35:45
Speaker 2: Is that right?
1:35:46
Speaker 1: And you will get it. The best best home made
1:35:48
Speaker 1: mole I've ever had was in Carroll County, Iowa.
1:35:51
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I don't know.
1:35:53
Speaker 1: I'm sure I'll find better, but if I go to
1:35:57
Speaker 1: I'm not denying that, but I think what the point
1:36:00
Speaker 1: being is, you know, the less known, the more authentic, Right.
1:36:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree, that's right.
1:36:08
Speaker 1: Amen, All right, we'll be safe on the trail. You uh,
1:36:12
Speaker 1: do you have a preference in that Senate race or
1:36:14
Speaker 1: you just or are you gonna stay out of that primary.
1:36:19
Speaker 2: I'm check on team Jazzeriko. They have both endorsed me,
1:36:26
Speaker 2: and I wish them both the best.
1:36:29
Speaker 1: At all. Were I assume you just look forward to
1:36:32
Speaker 1: running against Ken Paxton. Is that the uh that he
1:36:35
Speaker 1: helps your messaging more than anybody else?
1:36:39
Speaker 2: Well, there's certainly a corruption issue there, so yeah, I
1:36:42
Speaker 2: mean he would be Yes, I think that's right. But look,
1:36:46
Speaker 2: I think no matter who, there's more than one way
1:36:49
Speaker 2: to win a race, and no matter who it is,
1:36:51
Speaker 2: I think Democrats just have a great opportunity this election cycle.
1:36:56
Speaker 1: Well we'll see if the National Party, the National Party
1:36:58
Speaker 1: kicking in. You know that Texas is always next cycle
1:37:01
Speaker 1: they're going.
1:37:01
Speaker 2: To invest, isn't that right? Well, you know I mentioned
1:37:05
Speaker 2: the national implications of this race. I've talked about them
1:37:09
Speaker 2: to Ken Martin. He seems to get at it and
1:37:11
Speaker 2: he seems to be on board. It's like the future
1:37:14
Speaker 2: is now in Texas and we need to make this happen.
1:37:17
Speaker 1: All right, Well, we'll be watching, Tina. You know, it's
1:37:19
Speaker 1: a be safe for the trail.
1:37:21
Speaker 2: All right, all right, great, thank you appreciate it.
1:37:32
Speaker 1: All right again, shoot me some thoughts on what are
1:37:37
Speaker 1: some of the what are some of the details of
1:37:39
Speaker 1: what you'd like to see in a sort of revamped
1:37:42
Speaker 1: public school Uh, you know, we're sort of reimagining the
1:37:46
Speaker 1: public school system. What does it look like? How is
1:37:49
Speaker 1: it funded? Right, especially when you have this movement of
1:37:51
Speaker 1: trying to cut or get rid of property taxes. I
1:37:54
Speaker 1: know there's some movement on the right of trying to
1:37:56
Speaker 1: get rid of property taxes altogether. I think that would
1:38:00
Speaker 1: be a nightmare for local and state government if that
1:38:03
Speaker 1: was ever attempted in any state that tried to attempt it,
1:38:06
Speaker 1: And if you did it, you'd immediately see, you know,
1:38:09
Speaker 1: massive fees and tolls and all sorts of stuff. I mean,
1:38:13
Speaker 1: you know, if you want to know what happens when
1:38:15
Speaker 1: you have a state that tries to lower taxes, all
1:38:18
Speaker 1: you have to do is rent a car in that
1:38:20
Speaker 1: state that lowers taxes and find out how much you're
1:38:22
Speaker 1: spending in tolls and how many roads become toll roads,
1:38:25
Speaker 1: and all of that you get feed to death. And
1:38:28
Speaker 1: I do think we need to have smarter ways and
1:38:31
Speaker 1: trying to present what your total tax bill is in
1:38:34
Speaker 1: a given year, because tolls, fees to register cars, reregister cars,
1:38:41
Speaker 1: all of that, those are all taxes. But if you
1:38:43
Speaker 1: call it a fee, right, if you call it a
1:38:45
Speaker 1: toll people for whatever reason don't you know, or a tariff, right,
1:38:49
Speaker 1: they don't immediately put it in the same category as
1:38:53
Speaker 1: when they write that one big check. I mean, the
1:38:55
Speaker 1: fact is we're all easy marks on having government taxes
1:39:00
Speaker 1: more if you don't call it a tax, if you
1:39:02
Speaker 1: call it something else, and then that's that's how you
1:39:04
Speaker 1: end up getting nickel and donnd your on your tax bill.
1:39:08
Speaker 1: But it is Wednesday, Top five lists to.
1:39:12
Speaker 2: Top five top.
1:39:17
Speaker 1: We've had some action in the Senate. I think it's
1:39:21
Speaker 1: pretty clear that you know, Democrats have now, uh have
1:39:29
Speaker 1: met the minimum requirement to put the Senate in play.
1:39:32
Speaker 1: And what do I mean by the minimum requirement. They've
1:39:34
Speaker 1: got five Republican seats actually in play in legitimate ways. Right,
1:39:40
Speaker 1: There's North Carolina, Maine, Ohio, Texas, and Alaska. Those five
1:39:45
Speaker 1: all have legitimate, likely Democratic nominees. In some cases, the
1:39:51
Speaker 1: primaries in Texas and Maine may not matter who wins
1:39:55
Speaker 1: the primary. They're going to be competitive due to sort
1:39:57
Speaker 1: of Republican problems there as well, particularly in Texas. So
1:40:01
Speaker 1: Democrats need four right to flip the Senate so they've
1:40:04
Speaker 1: put five Republican health seats legitimately in play. I still
1:40:08
Speaker 1: think they need a couple of more. You sort of need,
1:40:10
Speaker 1: you need more on the table if you want to
1:40:12
Speaker 1: get your four or five, because you're not gonna they say,
1:40:15
Speaker 1: you're not going to clean sweep. In wave years there
1:40:17
Speaker 1: we do see sweeps, so that can happen, but you
1:40:22
Speaker 1: know they're clean sweep. Heers having to win some states
1:40:25
Speaker 1: that Donald Trump won by near double digits or close
1:40:28
Speaker 1: to double digits, like your Ohio's, your Alaska's, your Texas.
1:40:31
Speaker 1: So you know, and and when I just when I
1:40:34
Speaker 1: just laid out those five seats that that Democrats appear
1:40:37
Speaker 1: to put in play, he carried four to the five
1:40:43
Speaker 1: right North Carolina, uh, Ohio, Texas, and Alaska. And he
1:40:50
Speaker 1: got one congressional district in Maine. Right, So these are
1:40:54
Speaker 1: these aren't easy. I think they you know, they need
1:40:56
Speaker 1: to figure out between Florida, Mississippi, Kansas, Iowa, those four
1:41:01
Speaker 1: I think he's got. They got to get two of
1:41:03
Speaker 1: those four legitimately legitimately in play. Maybe they throw in
1:41:07
Speaker 1: a Kentucky on there. I'm a little skeptical on that.
1:41:10
Speaker 1: But the more elon Musk plays around wherever Elon Musk is.
1:41:14
Speaker 1: He's not good politics. I think with swing voters and
1:41:17
Speaker 1: with independence and the fact that he's dabbling in the
1:41:19
Speaker 1: Kentucky Senate race, might actually might actually boomerang a little
1:41:26
Speaker 1: bit because of sort of I think the feeling, the
1:41:29
Speaker 1: growing feeling that voters have about the power of these
1:41:33
Speaker 1: tech giants, and he in some ways, because he's so famous,
1:41:36
Speaker 1: is kind of the avatar for big tech, and I
1:41:40
Speaker 1: don't think he's good politics. But overall, we do have
1:41:43
Speaker 1: a bit of a shift in the Senate landscape. So
1:41:46
Speaker 1: under that what are my top five most likely to flip?
1:41:49
Speaker 1: So number one hasn't changed. The North Carolina Senate race.
1:41:53
Speaker 1: Roy Cooper remains the front runner. We've yet to see
1:41:55
Speaker 1: a poll with him trailing. He's financially a juggernaut. Look
1:41:59
Speaker 1: Michael wattat that republic likely Republican nominee is certainly doing
1:42:03
Speaker 1: pretty well on the fundraising front. But I still think
1:42:06
Speaker 1: he's got an uphill battle. The only thing he's got
1:42:08
Speaker 1: going form of the demographics of North Carolina, Roy Cooper's
1:42:11
Speaker 1: got almost everything else going for him. Maine, I am,
1:42:16
Speaker 1: you know, And so North Caroline's on the one spot.
1:42:19
Speaker 1: I'm keeping Maine in the two spot of most likely
1:42:23
Speaker 1: to flip simply because I'm not convinced Susan Collins is
1:42:28
Speaker 1: running for reelection. I still think, Look, she finally deadline
1:42:32
Speaker 1: hasn't passed yet. She has never been this unpopular as
1:42:37
Speaker 1: she is going into this race. Do I think John
1:42:42
Speaker 1: Thune has basically protected her from a from a MAGA
1:42:45
Speaker 1: primary challenge. I do. I think Trump at a minimum
1:42:48
Speaker 1: understands that with Collins, which is why he feels carte
1:42:52
Speaker 1: blanche to do to basically kill Bill Cassidy's political career. Now,
1:42:57
Speaker 1: which I think he just did. We'll see. I actually
1:43:00
Speaker 1: think there's a path for Cassidy if he chooses to
1:43:03
Speaker 1: take it. It's a harder path. It's the Lisa Murkowski path.
1:43:06
Speaker 1: It's independent, and it's something our system desperately needs. I
1:43:12
Speaker 1: think he's got the stomach and the spine to do it,
1:43:15
Speaker 1: but it's his only path to re election. I think
1:43:18
Speaker 1: trying to win inside a Republican primary in the state
1:43:21
Speaker 1: of Louisiana is fools is a fool's errand for him,
1:43:26
Speaker 1: and I don't know if that's the way I'd want
1:43:28
Speaker 1: to go down fighting I'd want to go to and
1:43:29
Speaker 1: fighting with the biggest electorate I could use, which when
1:43:33
Speaker 1: you run as an independent, you can maximize who may
1:43:37
Speaker 1: support so number one North Carolina, and I think there's
1:43:42
Speaker 1: a gap growing here. I think the more this political
1:43:44
Speaker 1: climate deteriorates for Republicans generally, and the lower the President's
1:43:48
Speaker 1: job rating goes, it feels like the North Carolina race
1:43:51
Speaker 1: just gets harder and harder, especially now when you have
1:43:55
Speaker 1: the retiring Senator Tom tillis growing increasingly willing to confront
1:44:05
Speaker 1: the president on what he's doing, particularly informed policy. I
1:44:10
Speaker 1: mean Tillius has been leaning in on the concern he
1:44:13
Speaker 1: has with the saber rattling over Greenland. So North Carolina
1:44:18
Speaker 1: number one, number two main and again, I think the
1:44:21
Speaker 1: thing to watch for in the next couple of weeks
1:44:23
Speaker 1: is signs, you know, is there does she decide I'm
1:44:27
Speaker 1: not going out losing, And I think there's plenty of
1:44:30
Speaker 1: politicians don't want to do that. They don't want to
1:44:32
Speaker 1: go out losing. She's been she's been in the Senate
1:44:36
Speaker 1: since ninety six, So that's my that's just my I've
1:44:43
Speaker 1: I've seen this type of incumbent in the past with
1:44:47
Speaker 1: polling numbers like this in a political environment where your party,
1:44:51
Speaker 1: political environment is not going to get any better to me,
1:44:56
Speaker 1: all of the hallmarks of an incumbent. That's I'm not
1:45:01
Speaker 1: fighting this uphill battle. I'm not gonna do all of
1:45:04
Speaker 1: the sleepless nights, all of the fundraisers, all the begging
1:45:07
Speaker 1: for money, because that guy's already tanked my reelection. And
1:45:12
Speaker 1: that guy I'm referring to is Donald Trump. So and
1:45:15
Speaker 1: if Maine opens up, Maine becomes number one, Maine one
1:45:18
Speaker 1: in North Carolina would flip if that happened, because I
1:45:22
Speaker 1: promise you you'd more likely get a mega adjacent maybe
1:45:26
Speaker 1: not fully mega, you know, but but somebody that's I
1:45:30
Speaker 1: don't know if you'd get a Johnny Sinunu type of
1:45:33
Speaker 1: type of candidate there, I think you'd end up with
1:45:36
Speaker 1: something something a bit further to the right, maybe even
1:45:39
Speaker 1: a Paula Page jumps in. So North Carolina, Maine in
1:45:44
Speaker 1: the number three slot, I'm still keeping Michigan. It is
1:45:47
Speaker 1: the only Democratic health seat that I think continues to
1:45:51
Speaker 1: be more problematic for Democrats as this election cycle goes on,
1:45:56
Speaker 1: not less. And it's all because the primary is shaping
1:45:59
Speaker 1: up to be very odologically divisive, potentially making the Israel issue,
1:46:05
Speaker 1: which I think is just going to be a massive
1:46:07
Speaker 1: challenge to Democrats, right. I mean, look at the commentary
1:46:12
Speaker 1: in and around Joshapiro. The fact is, if if every
1:46:19
Speaker 1: Jewish Democrat is going to be asked, you know, could
1:46:23
Speaker 1: you know about whether they fought in the Israeli army
1:46:27
Speaker 1: or with some sort of secret idea, I mean that
1:46:31
Speaker 1: that that is, that is the definition of anti Semitism.
1:46:36
Speaker 1: It's certainly the definition of prejudice. You know, it's it's
1:46:40
Speaker 1: so it is. I certainly take offense to it as
1:46:44
Speaker 1: a Jewish American. So uh, and I know I'm not
1:46:48
Speaker 1: alone on that. This Michigan primary, I think is going
1:46:51
Speaker 1: to get really messy on this issue where it ends
1:46:54
Speaker 1: up right and all that, And it's a three way primary,
1:46:57
Speaker 1: so it is. And again the Republican nominee, yes, he's
1:47:01
Speaker 1: got certainly his share of things that he's got to
1:47:03
Speaker 1: deal with, but he's not super mag he' he's gonna
1:47:06
Speaker 1: be hard to paint as Trump Maggott. Now, he's certainly
1:47:10
Speaker 1: tried to get in keeping Trump's good graces so that
1:47:12
Speaker 1: he that he can keep this nomination. But I continue
1:47:18
Speaker 1: to believe Michigan is that primary is a potential nightmare
1:47:22
Speaker 1: for them that whoever comes out of it. And remember
1:47:25
Speaker 1: they sort of have a very sort of conventional, sort
1:47:28
Speaker 1: of establishment candidate and Haley Stevens sort of an outsider,
1:47:32
Speaker 1: but I would say sort of a bit more mainstream
1:47:36
Speaker 1: liberal in Molly McMorrow. And then you have Abdul say Ed,
1:47:40
Speaker 1: who is I think much more progressive, has the endorsement
1:47:44
Speaker 1: of Sanders and AOC in that wing of the party.
1:47:46
Speaker 1: So it is it is likely that whoever comes out
1:47:50
Speaker 1: of that primary is in trouble. And then of course
1:47:53
Speaker 1: the governor's race is also a three way nightmare for
1:47:55
Speaker 1: Democrats too. So I put I keep Michigan. Is the
1:47:58
Speaker 1: loan Democratic health seat that I think is in this
1:48:02
Speaker 1: I still keep in this top five. Then my next
1:48:04
Speaker 1: two a seat that I've totally dropped by the way,
1:48:08
Speaker 1: which means is I think Georgia. And you know there
1:48:12
Speaker 1: are other handicappers that like to use the lean and
1:48:14
Speaker 1: the likely and all this stuff. I think we are
1:48:15
Speaker 1: we are, We've george is no longer a toss up
1:48:18
Speaker 1: center race. I think Georgia is now a you know,
1:48:21
Speaker 1: across the board, a race where John asoff's the favorite.
1:48:25
Speaker 1: We'll see if there's a Republican nominee that that can somehow,
1:48:29
Speaker 1: somehow pull this off. But I think it's a weak
1:48:32
Speaker 1: field in a tough political environment for Republicans in general,
1:48:37
Speaker 1: in a swing state where the incumbent has a massive
1:48:40
Speaker 1: financial head start. So George is not on my top
1:48:44
Speaker 1: five at all anymore, completely out of race's most likely
1:48:48
Speaker 1: to flip parties. So number four on this list now
1:48:51
Speaker 1: I put Ohio. Now, I know we had the news
1:48:53
Speaker 1: on Alaska, and I'm putting Alaska at five, So I
1:48:56
Speaker 1: have Ohio at four, most likely to flip in Alaska
1:48:59
Speaker 1: at five. Right now, I still think Republicans are favored
1:49:02
Speaker 1: to win both races, even in this current political environment.
1:49:08
Speaker 1: If you know, I do think everything is happening the
1:49:11
Speaker 1: exact way you would want it to happen if you're
1:49:14
Speaker 1: Shared Brown and trying to win back your Senate seat. Right,
1:49:17
Speaker 1: it's a midterm environment. It's a Republican in the White House,
1:49:20
Speaker 1: it is an unpopular Republican. The economy is not great, right,
1:49:24
Speaker 1: Everything in the Shared Brown wheelhouse is there. You're running
1:49:27
Speaker 1: against an appointed senator who you get to kind of
1:49:29
Speaker 1: run against as an incumbent, even though he's not the
1:49:31
Speaker 1: incumbent now. I think some of that, you know, I
1:49:35
Speaker 1: think that Shared Brown the one thing he doesn't get
1:49:38
Speaker 1: to benefit from is being an out total outsider, right
1:49:41
Speaker 1: because he was just there so but in general, everything
1:49:45
Speaker 1: else is sort of going his way. He's raising a
1:49:49
Speaker 1: ton of money, not quite Roy Cooper numbers, but pretty close,
1:49:52
Speaker 1: and he obviously is he never really stopped running, right
1:49:55
Speaker 1: since he just lost in twenty four and that matters, right,
1:49:59
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, it's like you don't want to
1:50:01
Speaker 1: take a break, you get rusty, like John easan Unhu's
1:50:05
Speaker 1: a bit rusty on the campaign trail, still a little
1:50:07
Speaker 1: bit you know, you need more batting practice this case, right,
1:50:10
Speaker 1: Jared Brown's just been running almost NonStop since twenty twelve,
1:50:14
Speaker 1: and that right that that can matter in a positive
1:50:20
Speaker 1: for him. And then debuting in the fifth slot, I
1:50:23
Speaker 1: think the first time that I've got Alaska in the
1:50:25
Speaker 1: top five. This is to me the recruit of the
1:50:28
Speaker 1: cycle so far. Mary Peltello the former member of Congress.
1:50:32
Speaker 1: She won thanks to rank choice voting that at large
1:50:35
Speaker 1: House seat back when Sarah Palin was running for that seat.
1:50:40
Speaker 1: She had the support of Lisa Murkowski at the time.
1:50:43
Speaker 1: I don't think she's going to have the support of
1:50:44
Speaker 1: Lisa Murkowski in this race. And like I said, the
1:50:47
Speaker 1: Republican she's challenging Dan Sullivan. He's no maga guy. He
1:50:51
Speaker 1: just looks conservative when standing next to Lisa Murkowski. But
1:50:58
Speaker 1: you know, if Peltello can can sort of hug that
1:51:01
Speaker 1: center lane in Alaska, it's it's just being an Alaskan first,
1:51:06
Speaker 1: not a Democrat, not a Republican, but an Alaskan first.
1:51:09
Speaker 1: There's a there's a lane there she has, she has
1:51:12
Speaker 1: an opportunity to do it. She's gonna raise a ton
1:51:15
Speaker 1: of money, and an Alaska you don't need a ton
1:51:17
Speaker 1: of money, and she's gonna have plenty of it. But
1:51:19
Speaker 1: so Stan Sullivan. But this overal race now, uh and
1:51:25
Speaker 1: and it is it is It is literally to me,
1:51:29
Speaker 1: you know, before getting her, I did not think Democrats
1:51:32
Speaker 1: had put enough seats in play to legitimately say they
1:51:35
Speaker 1: had a shot at winning the Senate. Getting her in
1:51:37
Speaker 1: this race, now the numbers are there, all right, they
1:51:41
Speaker 1: have to do a clean sweep. That can't you know,
1:51:45
Speaker 1: can't necessarily lose Michigan in this scenario. But even but
1:51:48
Speaker 1: they've at least got padding right. If they somehow swept
1:51:51
Speaker 1: the five competitive Republican health seats and then lost Michigan,
1:51:54
Speaker 1: they could still net four. That seems like an odd
1:51:57
Speaker 1: scenario if it would happen, But the Michigan is complicated
1:52:00
Speaker 1: enough where that's not a crazy outcome on that front.
1:52:05
Speaker 1: So there it is my top five right now, the
1:52:08
Speaker 1: five Senate seats most likely to flip in order. Number one,
1:52:11
Speaker 1: North Carolina it's a Republican held seat. Democrat is the
1:52:14
Speaker 1: front runner. Number two is main a Republican held seat.
1:52:17
Speaker 1: I question whether Susan Collins is definitely running for re election.
1:52:19
Speaker 1: Number three is Michigan a Democratic held seat open seat.
1:52:23
Speaker 1: Gary Stevens's Gary seem Gary Peters Miami on the brain.
1:52:27
Speaker 1: Gary Stevens was an old offensive coordinator for the University
1:52:30
Speaker 1: of Miami back in twenty twenty four. Who back in
1:52:33
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty five and eighty six, And there's always been
1:52:37
Speaker 1: this great rumor talk about it, and aside that Gary
1:52:39
Speaker 1: Stevens once punched a Sports Illustrated reporter in the face,
1:52:42
Speaker 1: which is why s I really did the cover that
1:52:44
Speaker 1: said Miami had to drop football. That's at least always
1:52:47
Speaker 1: been the Miami version of events. But I digress. Gary Peters,
1:52:51
Speaker 1: so Michigan sitting in the number three slot the loan
1:52:55
Speaker 1: Democratic health seat that's in my top five. Then Ohio
1:52:59
Speaker 1: shared Brown John Houstad is the Republican incumbent there, he's
1:53:03
Speaker 1: the appointed senator and number five on the list the
1:53:08
Speaker 1: Dan Sullivan's seat with Democratic challenger Mary Piltello. So there
1:53:13
Speaker 1: you have it. The political environment continues to get better
1:53:18
Speaker 1: for Democrats, or at least it's one of those where
1:53:22
Speaker 1: I don't think the Democratic brands improved. It's just that
1:53:25
Speaker 1: Trump has made things that much worse for Republicans across
1:53:28
Speaker 1: the board. So there's your top five for them on
1:53:33
Speaker 1: Senate for the month of January. I'll do my gubernatorial
1:53:36
Speaker 1: races next week. All right, let's do some questions. Ask Chuck,
1:53:53
Speaker 1: get a little ask Chuck. Remember ask Chuck at lechucktodcast
1:53:57
Speaker 1: dot com. Best way to communicate with my team and myself.
1:54:02
Speaker 1: We'd love to hear from you, whether it's on your ideas,
1:54:06
Speaker 1: on your ideas on reimagining our public education system for
1:54:14
Speaker 1: primary and secondary, as well as just any questions you
1:54:17
Speaker 1: might have. So with that, I'm going to jump in here.
1:54:21
Speaker 1: First question comes from Connor, who says he's from Oklahoma
1:54:27
Speaker 1: City and Morocco. He may be in Morocco at the
1:54:30
Speaker 1: point and originally from Oklahoma City. Let me read his question.
1:54:35
Speaker 1: He says, here, long overdue, thank you for answering my
1:54:37
Speaker 1: last question and hoping this finds you in a great
1:54:39
Speaker 1: mood after the Knees incredible season. Well, great mood, No,
1:54:43
Speaker 1: but I'm not in as bad of a mood as
1:54:44
Speaker 1: I thought i'd be. If not. It was a great
1:54:47
Speaker 1: year for the you and they've got a great future ahead.
1:54:49
Speaker 1: I recently got into a debate about what would be
1:54:51
Speaker 1: more dangerous the current Trump presidency or a potential JD.
1:54:54
Speaker 1: Vance presidency. I've had that debate myself. Connor most argued
1:54:58
Speaker 1: Trump's on predictability and like following make him uniquely dangerous.
1:55:01
Speaker 1: But I made the case that Vance's extremism, combined with
1:55:04
Speaker 1: coherence and focus, could be even more threatening. Curious to
1:55:06
Speaker 1: hear your take on this, especially Advance, or to assume
1:55:09
Speaker 1: off this mid term under chaotic circumstances. Gokaines, So three
1:55:19
Speaker 1: months ago, I would have said, Look, my my concern
1:55:24
Speaker 1: about JD. Vance is his relationship with Peter Teal. And
1:55:28
Speaker 1: I say this because Peter Teel has a worldview that
1:55:30
Speaker 1: is not small D democratic, right, He's part of this
1:55:35
Speaker 1: movement in Silicon Valley that you know, I think believes
1:55:38
Speaker 1: that you know, there's certain people are you know, you
1:55:42
Speaker 1: know that essentially wants a monarchy some form of it,
1:55:46
Speaker 1: you know, you and I would call it authoritarianism. But
1:55:49
Speaker 1: there is like this weird sort of and uh a
1:55:52
Speaker 1: really that we know best type of mindset, however you
1:55:55
Speaker 1: want to look at it. And part of look this
1:55:59
Speaker 1: is there's a lot of this in Silicon Valley that
1:56:02
Speaker 1: you know, we you know where we know best, you
1:56:05
Speaker 1: know where the future we have all the answers, We're
1:56:09
Speaker 1: inventing all the answers. We're going to cure all these
1:56:12
Speaker 1: problems just with technological advances. So I just think that
1:56:19
Speaker 1: relationship and the fact that Vance never really has done
1:56:23
Speaker 1: anything for a living other than been supported by him
1:56:27
Speaker 1: in one way or the other by Peter Teel. So
1:56:29
Speaker 1: I do think that, you know, and I think we've
1:56:31
Speaker 1: always been as a country skeptical of any politician who's
1:56:34
Speaker 1: sort of who sort of owes one person for everything, right,
1:56:40
Speaker 1: and in that sense, he would, so I understand the
1:56:45
Speaker 1: the case you're making. I think right now, though, what's
1:56:49
Speaker 1: happening with Donald Trump is this is it's incredibly destabilizing
1:56:53
Speaker 1: because one thing JD. Vance isn't is incoherent and there
1:56:59
Speaker 1: is there is a pragmatism to him, There is a reality.
1:57:04
Speaker 1: I think he lives in reality. He doesn't seem to
1:57:08
Speaker 1: be as consumed with his with a with a with
1:57:11
Speaker 1: a narcissism that Trump is that I think has made
1:57:15
Speaker 1: things worse, right, his obsession with a peace prize and
1:57:18
Speaker 1: all this stuff and how it's like led to just
1:57:20
Speaker 1: some deteriorating relationships that matter a lot more for the
1:57:25
Speaker 1: United States. But I understand the debate. I understand the
1:57:35
Speaker 1: that this isn't a clean eighty twenty answer on that front.
1:57:43
Speaker 1: And I do think in a weird way, I get
1:57:45
Speaker 1: your point there that that Vance's would be a lot
1:57:50
Speaker 1: smarter about building or rebuilding or you know, you know,
1:57:57
Speaker 1: Donald Trump wants to knock things over. JD. Vance wants
1:58:01
Speaker 1: to rebuild it in a different image, right, and so,
1:58:09
Speaker 1: but I also believe he would articulate what he's doing,
1:58:12
Speaker 1: he would try to make his case. I guess maybe
1:58:15
Speaker 1: I'm being naive that I think that. I do think
1:58:18
Speaker 1: jd Vance as president would want to at least try
1:58:24
Speaker 1: to make the case to the public with what he
1:58:26
Speaker 1: was doing and look for popular support for what he
1:58:29
Speaker 1: was doing. It's not something Donald Trump wants to do.
1:58:34
Speaker 1: Might have given you an unsatisfactory answer there, but I
1:58:38
Speaker 1: get the debate. Let's just say I've had it myself
1:58:41
Speaker 1: with a few people. Next question comes from Debamp, Greensboro, Georgia. Hey,
1:58:46
Speaker 1: I followed you since your early meet the press days.
1:58:48
Speaker 1: Didn't think anyone could fill Tim russell shoes, but you
1:58:50
Speaker 1: proved me wrong. Well, I still don't think anybody can
1:58:52
Speaker 1: fill Tim's shoes, but I appreciate the sentiment. I have
1:58:55
Speaker 1: probably a naive question. If most Americans are center left
1:58:57
Speaker 1: or center arrived, why can't we elect more centrist presidents.
1:59:00
Speaker 1: It's the primary system to blame. Also, I'm a sixty
1:59:02
Speaker 1: seven year old woman who never misses the podcast, even
1:59:05
Speaker 1: the college football bets. Do you know the demographics of
1:59:08
Speaker 1: your audience? Debborough, Georgia. We know a little bit, but
1:59:12
Speaker 1: we actually know less than we ever have before. Sometimes
1:59:15
Speaker 1: because part of it is you get some it's easier
1:59:19
Speaker 1: to see the demo. You know, YouTube gives you demographics
1:59:23
Speaker 1: that are easier to to sort of figure out a
1:59:28
Speaker 1: little harder on the audio only side of things. But
1:59:32
Speaker 1: trust me, it's uh, we're we're constantly doing. I think
1:59:36
Speaker 1: on gender we're pretty evenly split. I think it's a
1:59:41
Speaker 1: you know, I think if you look at it through
1:59:43
Speaker 1: the prism of pro Trump anti Trump, it's probably not
1:59:47
Speaker 1: fifty to fifty on that. But I think I think
1:59:49
Speaker 1: I have a big chunk of centrists center right, center left,
1:59:52
Speaker 1: because I could just tell from the anecdotes that I have.
1:59:56
Speaker 1: I don't think I have a lot of super progressive
2:00:00
Speaker 1: in super maga. So on that front, that's the sense
2:00:05
Speaker 1: I get. But your your basic question, you know, what's
2:00:08
Speaker 1: interesting is in our system? Are you know? I could
2:00:14
Speaker 1: argue that, going back to Eisenhower, that we always ended
2:00:17
Speaker 1: up with as centrist of a president as the time
2:00:21
Speaker 1: would allow, right, as that era will allow. Right. Eisenhower
2:00:25
Speaker 1: super centrist. You know, Kennedy compared to Nixon was closer
2:00:30
Speaker 1: to the center, Johnson compared to Goldwater, closer to the
2:00:34
Speaker 1: center Nixon. Humphrey. Nixon was certainly campaigning closer to the
2:00:39
Speaker 1: center than Humphrey was, or at least there Nixon McGovern,
2:00:44
Speaker 1: Nixon sort of had the center, Lane Ford, Carter. I
2:00:47
Speaker 1: think that was a case where you know, we would say,
2:00:50
Speaker 1: now you would have said Ford was the center, was
2:00:53
Speaker 1: closer to the center, but the public was ready to
2:00:55
Speaker 1: punish the Republicans for Nixon, Carter, Reagan. I think actually
2:01:02
Speaker 1: when you throw in form policy that Reagan looked like
2:01:06
Speaker 1: was closer to the center. So my point is is
2:01:08
Speaker 1: that I always have felt as if our elections kind
2:01:10
Speaker 1: of got us to where because I think the center
2:01:14
Speaker 1: moves a little bit, you know, I think we you know,
2:01:17
Speaker 1: sometimes we think it's all you know, where you know,
2:01:19
Speaker 1: everything the Overton window shifts right, and so in that sense,
2:01:24
Speaker 1: what is considered the sort of the center of where
2:01:26
Speaker 1: America is in a given moment, And I think we've
2:01:31
Speaker 1: always found that. I might argue that even the election
2:01:33
Speaker 1: of Donald Trump in sixteen was sort of I think
2:01:39
Speaker 1: that's what some some Trump voters in the middle would
2:01:41
Speaker 1: argue of what they're doing. And I think certainly the
2:01:45
Speaker 1: election of Biden was seen as he was closer to
2:01:48
Speaker 1: the center. And I think in an own weird way,
2:01:53
Speaker 1: the voters that didn't like either Harris or Trump saw Trump,
2:01:56
Speaker 1: at least on economics as closer to the center. So
2:02:00
Speaker 1: I think that's where are where the where the swing
2:02:03
Speaker 1: voters try to pull themselves to. But the primary system
2:02:08
Speaker 1: is definitely a blame here of why we have and
2:02:11
Speaker 1: it's it's the it's the you know, I think I
2:02:15
Speaker 1: don't think we should have partisan primaries. It is it
2:02:21
Speaker 1: is I think we should all voters should be you know,
2:02:23
Speaker 1: having a say, I don't think we certainly shouldn't have
2:02:25
Speaker 1: taxpayer funded partisan primaries. I think there's a violation of
2:02:28
Speaker 1: the equal protection clause. The idea that if you live
2:02:31
Speaker 1: in a state that is party registration and this state
2:02:33
Speaker 1: pays for the primary, and that yet you cannot participate
2:02:37
Speaker 1: in that primary because you're not a member of this
2:02:39
Speaker 1: private organization called the Democrats of the Republicans. How the
2:02:43
Speaker 1: hell is that constitutional?
2:02:46
Speaker 2: Right?
2:02:46
Speaker 1: So, if if you're a political party and you want
2:02:49
Speaker 1: to run a primary for your members only, you pay
2:02:51
Speaker 1: for it, but the taxpayer is paying for it, all taxpayer.
2:02:55
Speaker 1: And that's where I think a constitutional amendment comes in
2:02:57
Speaker 1: where any any state funded election has to be opened
2:03:02
Speaker 1: all voters period. It works for mayor's races, why can't
2:03:09
Speaker 1: it work for senate races? And governor's races and presidential primaries,
2:03:12
Speaker 1: but I think partisan primaries are the issue hard stop.
2:03:19
Speaker 1: Next question comes from Adam Overland Park, Kansas. Used to
2:03:23
Speaker 1: be this one of the swingiest areas in the country.
2:03:25
Speaker 1: I think it's less swingy these days. I think it's
2:03:28
Speaker 1: an old purple district that is pretty anti Trump, even
2:03:31
Speaker 1: if it's still pretty purple. Check. I really enjoyed listening
2:03:33
Speaker 1: to podcast on a regular basis, and especially enjoy your
2:03:35
Speaker 1: CFP commentary. All right, sorry about your canes, that's okay. Question.
2:03:39
Speaker 1: We know that military officers are forbidden from following illegal orders.
2:03:42
Speaker 1: Would in order to strike, invade, or otherwise take military
2:03:45
Speaker 1: action against a treaty ally such as Denmark, be considered
2:03:48
Speaker 1: an illegal order. The treaty, after all, was signed and
2:03:51
Speaker 1: ratified by the US Congress, just like any other law.
2:03:54
Speaker 1: Thank you so, Adam. Here's the best look. A treaty
2:03:58
Speaker 1: ratified by the US Senate is binding US law, but
2:04:03
Speaker 1: it is not absolute. So under the Constitution, treaties are
2:04:06
Speaker 1: quote supreme law of the land, but a later statute
2:04:10
Speaker 1: passed by US Congress can override a treaty, and a
2:04:15
Speaker 1: constitutionally valid use of force can put the US in
2:04:17
Speaker 1: breach of a treaty without making the act itself illegal
2:04:20
Speaker 1: under US law. So, in other words, the US can
2:04:23
Speaker 1: violate a treaty lawfully under domestic law even if it
2:04:29
Speaker 1: violates international law. So and it's important. Under the Uniform
2:04:35
Speaker 1: Code of Military Justice, service members must obey lawful orders,
2:04:40
Speaker 1: they must disobey manifestly unlawful orders. But in military order
2:04:47
Speaker 1: to attack another country, even a treaty ally is not
2:04:52
Speaker 1: manifestly unlawful on its face, so the treaty is contraining
2:04:59
Speaker 1: the state, not necessarily individual soldier, and soldiers are not
2:05:02
Speaker 1: expected or required to adjudicate treaty legality. So unless the
2:05:08
Speaker 1: order itself is a war crime, a crime against humanity,
2:05:13
Speaker 1: targets civilians, or is in clear violation of the law
2:05:17
Speaker 1: of armed conflict, then the order is presumed lawful. So
2:05:25
Speaker 1: and so the question then becomes your follow up question
2:05:29
Speaker 1: should be, then who bears the legal responsibility if a
2:05:32
Speaker 1: treaty is violated? Well, in this case, the responsibility alies
2:05:35
Speaker 1: with the President and Congress. If Congress authorized or funded
2:05:41
Speaker 1: the action to violate the treaty. So under and then
2:05:46
Speaker 1: under international law, the US could breach international obligations face
2:05:50
Speaker 1: some diplomatic consequences and face international adjudication. Theoretically, of course,
2:05:55
Speaker 1: we don't really abide by the international the ICC, but
2:06:00
Speaker 1: the liability itself does not transfer to individual soldiers. So,
2:06:04
Speaker 1: in short, if Trump orders the invasion of Greenland, and yes,
2:06:11
Speaker 1: it's in violation of a treaty, but in theory wouldn't
2:06:13
Speaker 1: necessarily on its face be seen as an illegal order. Now,
2:06:19
Speaker 1: bombing a civilian boat speeding off the coast of Venezuela
2:06:24
Speaker 1: is a different story, because that is a violation of
2:06:32
Speaker 1: the law of arm conflict. So that is the distinction
2:06:37
Speaker 1: distinction there. I was about to say, fun question. That
2:06:44
Speaker 1: wasn't a fun question, Adam, but an important question, and
2:06:47
Speaker 1: I'm glad you made me research it, so thank you.
2:06:50
Speaker 1: Last question comes from Max w Alexander Virgini says, hey, Chuck,
2:06:54
Speaker 1: you nailed it. Warning about prediction markets. Just as someone
2:06:56
Speaker 1: made four hundred thousand dollars on polymarket betting Maduro would
2:06:59
Speaker 1: be before the US took action in Venezuela, if that
2:07:02
Speaker 1: person had insider knowledge of Operation Absolute Resolve, how should
2:07:05
Speaker 1: the country respond? What would be a fair penalty? Well,
2:07:10
Speaker 1: it's insider trading. It seems to be it should be
2:07:13
Speaker 1: prosecuted the same way we prosecute insider trading with the SEC.
2:07:17
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's it's a criminal you know,
2:07:19
Speaker 1: there's a there's criminal penalties to this. I just don't
2:07:22
Speaker 1: think we've figured out how to adjudicate these prediction markets yet.
2:07:25
Speaker 1: And then if you I'm not sure polymarket is still
2:07:28
Speaker 1: even considered something that can be regulated in the United States.
2:07:31
Speaker 1: Polymarket has yet. I thought wasn't yet legal in the
2:07:35
Speaker 1: US though Calshi is. But this it is. You know,
2:07:39
Speaker 1: once again, technology is moving faster than Congress can create regulation,
2:07:44
Speaker 1: and this is one of those areas we've we've got
2:07:49
Speaker 1: to do something here. But think about all of the
2:07:52
Speaker 1: challenges we have, this is one of those that as
2:07:56
Speaker 1: concerning as this is, this is like seventy fifth on
2:08:00
Speaker 1: the list of things that Congress ought to be focused
2:08:03
Speaker 1: on right now. And if you're if they're focused on
2:08:05
Speaker 1: this and not on what the hell's happening in Greenland,
2:08:07
Speaker 1: I'm like, what the hell are you focused on? No offense,
2:08:09
Speaker 1: I think it's an important question, but I think there
2:08:13
Speaker 1: are other priorities that they've got to get at.
2:08:15
Speaker 2: First.
2:08:23
Speaker 1: Let me give you my final college football report So
2:08:25
Speaker 1: look I am I'm not as upset that as I
2:08:32
Speaker 1: thought I would be about Hurricanes losing, because at the
2:08:36
Speaker 1: end of the day, they had every chance to win
2:08:38
Speaker 1: that game. I would argue Indiana made one less mistake
2:08:44
Speaker 1: and they made one more play. Miami made one more
2:08:47
Speaker 1: mistake and didn't make one more play. Right there were
2:08:51
Speaker 1: the block punt and the missfield goal are ten points
2:08:54
Speaker 1: right there, right there's there's ten points. You could easily
2:09:01
Speaker 1: say Miami should have won that game twenty three, twenty
2:09:05
Speaker 1: four to twenty one, or twenty four to twenty which
2:09:09
Speaker 1: was my if I think that was the prediction I
2:09:11
Speaker 1: made that if Miami won had been twenty four to
2:09:12
Speaker 1: twenty had they not had the block punt, Now, who knows,
2:09:16
Speaker 1: maybe they get maybe Maye. The other thing is Miami
2:09:19
Speaker 1: had two shots at stopping Indiana on fourth downs inside
2:09:24
Speaker 1: that red zone, and you know, look the Mendoz Here's
2:09:28
Speaker 1: what I'll say, I think Carson Beck played a really
2:09:30
Speaker 1: good game. Fernando Mendoza told us what showed us why
2:09:35
Speaker 1: he was the Heisman Trophy winner. That gutsy fourth down call,
2:09:39
Speaker 1: which we've now since learned. According to Miami defensive coordinator,
2:09:42
Speaker 1: they knew that was coming and it wasn't and they
2:09:45
Speaker 1: were trying to communicate it to everybody, and the linebacker
2:09:48
Speaker 1: got it to half the team, not the whole defense.
2:09:50
Speaker 1: There just you know that happens. You think you've read
2:09:53
Speaker 1: the play right, but you didn't communicate it in time.
2:09:56
Speaker 1: You know, when you see these guys holding up signs
2:09:57
Speaker 1: doing all this, that's what they're like, Hey, we think
2:10:00
Speaker 1: it's this, you know, prepare for this, prepare for prepare
2:10:03
Speaker 1: for that. And the other sort of disconcerting thing is
2:10:06
Speaker 1: that on the Carson Beck interception, I think the Indiana
2:10:10
Speaker 1: DC admitted that we had caught them in a in
2:10:13
Speaker 1: a bad spot and Frankly had just had marry and
2:10:16
Speaker 1: turned around and seeing that the ball was coming, he
2:10:19
Speaker 1: likely would have made a play on the ball that
2:10:21
Speaker 1: might have that might have might have pulled them off there.
2:10:24
Speaker 1: But I'll but there was another part. I I I
2:10:27
Speaker 1: was concerned that Beck played that last forty five seconds
2:10:30
Speaker 1: with a concussion. He took a hit, the late hit.
2:10:33
Speaker 1: And this was the other thing, right Indiana, Indiana gave
2:10:39
Speaker 1: Miami a chance. I didn't know, it didn't look like it.
2:10:41
Speaker 1: Miami was going to get the ball back and then
2:10:42
Speaker 1: Indiana did something that they hadn't done all year. They
2:10:46
Speaker 1: screwed they they screwed up. They gave Miami a chance. First,
2:10:49
Speaker 1: the false start moves them from a second and one
2:10:52
Speaker 1: to a second and six or I think it was
2:10:54
Speaker 1: a third and one to a third and six, which
2:10:55
Speaker 1: of course allowed Miami to stop them. There, call another
2:10:58
Speaker 1: time out, and then when Signetti successfully goes for it
2:11:02
Speaker 1: on fourth down twice to avoid giving Miami the ball,
2:11:06
Speaker 1: he decides to kick a field goal and give the
2:11:08
Speaker 1: ball back to Miami. I can't believe he did that.
2:11:11
Speaker 1: I can't believe he didn't go for it again to
2:11:13
Speaker 1: try to end the game. Yes, you'd have been giving
2:11:15
Speaker 1: Miami the ball back, maybe at the ten they'd have
2:11:18
Speaker 1: had to drive sixty yards for a game tying field goal,
2:11:22
Speaker 1: but you were actually not going to put the game
2:11:23
Speaker 1: at risk. So I actually think this is a case
2:11:26
Speaker 1: where you know, Mario christ Bo was getting all sorts
2:11:28
Speaker 1: of grief about how he clocked managed Signetti screwed up
2:11:33
Speaker 1: there in the fourth quarter too many, used up his timeouts,
2:11:37
Speaker 1: and then gave Miami the ball back. I thought we
2:11:43
Speaker 1: were going to make him pay for that, and we
2:11:45
Speaker 1: almost did so look, I'm not this is I've been
2:11:51
Speaker 1: to five national title games involving Miami. I've been to
2:11:56
Speaker 1: six total national title games. I happened to be at
2:11:58
Speaker 1: the Notre Dame colleg Rato won back in nineteen ninety,
2:12:02
Speaker 1: which was the ninety one Orange Bowl, when Colorado got
2:12:05
Speaker 1: a split national title with Notre Dame or not Notre
2:12:09
Speaker 1: Dame Georgia Tech excuse me, and so like. I was
2:12:15
Speaker 1: just angry and devastated after the Ohio state national title. Sorry,
2:12:21
Speaker 1: I don't accept that one. I'm not over that one.
2:12:23
Speaker 1: Some scars never heal right, but this one, Mimi had
2:12:29
Speaker 1: a chance. Indiana just played a little bit better. But
2:12:34
Speaker 1: I was I was sort of encouraged by the fact
2:12:38
Speaker 1: that the game played out exactly as I thought I would.
2:12:40
Speaker 1: I knew we were the best team Indiana had faced
2:12:42
Speaker 1: all year, and I think we proved it, and we
2:12:44
Speaker 1: made Indiana look worse than any other team made him look,
2:12:47
Speaker 1: except for maybe in the bad weather that Iowa pulled
2:12:50
Speaker 1: off there. I really, I will tell you this. I
2:12:56
Speaker 1: was not all bought into Fernanda Mendoza. I am. Now,
2:13:01
Speaker 1: that is one tough home bray. I'd like to say soob,
2:13:05
Speaker 1: but he would never use those that language, although I
2:13:07
Speaker 1: guess he cursed for the first time on TV the
2:13:10
Speaker 1: other night. I'm all in a Mendoza man, I'm written
2:13:13
Speaker 1: for him, And if you're a Raider fan, you should
2:13:16
Speaker 1: you put it this way. Imagine if Tbo had had
2:13:22
Speaker 1: the skills to be a great NFL quarterback. And I
2:13:25
Speaker 1: say this, Tibo had some incredible skills, but he was
2:13:28
Speaker 1: not a prototypical pro style quarterback. Couldn't really find a
2:13:31
Speaker 1: system that worked, you know, he was he was he
2:13:35
Speaker 1: really you know, the way New Orleans used to use
2:13:39
Speaker 1: Taysom Hill, you know, that ought to have been what
2:13:42
Speaker 1: Tibo's you know, but he never could accept the idea
2:13:45
Speaker 1: of being sort of tight in slash, sort of you know,
2:13:50
Speaker 1: multi faceted player. Mendoza feels like what Tebow would have
2:13:59
Speaker 1: been if he had the ability to be also a
2:14:02
Speaker 1: drop back pass. Look, he made some incredible throws on
2:14:05
Speaker 1: third downs. Miami couldn't get off the field a couple
2:14:07
Speaker 1: of times simply because a front end of Mendoza. So
2:14:10
Speaker 1: I'm all in, I'm impressed, I get it, I'm you know,
2:14:15
Speaker 1: and now I'm paranoid that his little brother is going
2:14:18
Speaker 1: to Georgia Tech. Georgia Tech is already a thorn in
2:14:21
Speaker 1: Miami's side. I can just picture Mendoza, you know, give
2:14:24
Speaker 1: it us, the younger Mendoza, who's not as big as
2:14:28
Speaker 1: his brother but plays a slightly different style of quarterback.
2:14:31
Speaker 1: Just given us fits because that's what Georgia Tech does,
2:14:34
Speaker 1: right we Every college football team, no know how great
2:14:36
Speaker 1: you are, always has that team that gives you a
2:14:38
Speaker 1: tough game, no matter how good or bad they are.
2:14:40
Speaker 1: Georgia Tech is one of those teams when it comes
2:14:43
Speaker 1: from Miami. But I'm pretty convinced that this will fuel Miami,
2:14:47
Speaker 1: that this will be similar to what you know, after
2:14:49
Speaker 1: Miami lost to Penn State in eighty six, the next
2:14:52
Speaker 1: year's team went undefeated, even though they had had to
2:14:54
Speaker 1: replace their quarterback with Vinnie Testa Verdi and eighty six.
2:14:57
Speaker 1: We got Steve Walsh in eighty seven and people were
2:15:00
Speaker 1: skeptical of Walsh. Well there was you know, that team
2:15:03
Speaker 1: was on a mission. Mario Cristobal was a part of
2:15:08
Speaker 1: that recruiting class. I think that came in right after
2:15:10
Speaker 1: the eighty seven team. So there's something about this that
2:15:13
Speaker 1: feels like this is the beginning of something. This wasn't
2:15:16
Speaker 1: just a This wasn't a fleeting moment. It's not a
2:15:20
Speaker 1: fleeting moment for Nianna either. A few observations about I'm
2:15:26
Speaker 1: very concerned that we are just pricing out people from
2:15:30
Speaker 1: experiences that used to not cost an arm and a
2:15:33
Speaker 1: leg to have, whether it's incredible football games like the
2:15:38
Speaker 1: one I got to witness, or even something as simple
2:15:40
Speaker 1: as going to Disney World. The amount of money now,
2:15:45
Speaker 1: if you want to have oh, if you want to
2:15:47
Speaker 1: have good seats, you got to have like tech bro money.
2:15:51
Speaker 1: If you want to have no you know, if you
2:15:53
Speaker 1: want to have shorter lines at Disney, You've got to
2:15:55
Speaker 1: pay for more of a velvet rope. You know. It
2:15:58
Speaker 1: gets into the same thing I sort of mentioned the
2:16:00
Speaker 1: other day that even even Blackjack has income inequality, where
2:16:05
Speaker 1: if you want to play for lesser steaks you get
2:16:08
Speaker 1: worse odds, if you want to play for higher stakes,
2:16:10
Speaker 1: you get better odds. It is, it is everything is about,
2:16:15
Speaker 1: you know, creating more velvet ropes to sell more insider access.
2:16:19
Speaker 1: And the irony was the most expensive seats at hard
2:16:22
Speaker 1: Rock Stadium. There's these comfy chairs on the fifty yard line.
2:16:27
Speaker 1: There are these wide seats literally soft kind of recliner seats.
2:16:30
Speaker 1: They were going for twenty to forty thousand dollars a piece.
2:16:34
Speaker 1: That was the only seats that looked empty. I was
2:16:38
Speaker 1: sitting on the opposite side about the ten yard line
2:16:40
Speaker 1: in a Miami section, in a section, and I will
2:16:43
Speaker 1: confess of Miami season ticket holders that were on the
2:16:47
Speaker 1: upper end of being Miami season ticket holders, Okay, but
2:16:52
Speaker 1: we were not. Yeah, we were priced out of any
2:16:54
Speaker 1: of those. And that's I'm not complaining, all right. I
2:16:57
Speaker 1: enjoyed it. I was able to get there. I have
2:17:00
Speaker 1: to pay four thousand dollars on the secondary market for
2:17:02
Speaker 1: tickets or anything like that. But you know how, the
2:17:10
Speaker 1: entire how we're just doing these things, we're we're sort
2:17:14
Speaker 1: of embedding inequality all over the place. And it's I'm
2:17:21
Speaker 1: not trying to sound like some socialists here, but it's like,
2:17:24
Speaker 1: I think we need we've gotten out of hand. I
2:17:26
Speaker 1: think we can charge up there, you know what for
2:17:29
Speaker 1: these suites, but the stands themselves can't. You you know,
2:17:34
Speaker 1: I understand that they're trying to get every dollar they
2:17:37
Speaker 1: can off of how much money's been paid for the
2:17:40
Speaker 1: rights to this playoff and all of this stuff. But
2:17:44
Speaker 1: I don't know, five hundred dollars for parking seemed absurd.
2:17:49
Speaker 1: Some of us may have paid for it because of Frankly,
2:17:52
Speaker 1: it was that or two hundred and fifty dollars one
2:17:54
Speaker 1: way Uber, you know, or one hundred dollars Cabra. Right,
2:17:58
Speaker 1: there was no cheap way to go. There was some
2:18:00
Speaker 1: shut if you wanted to sign up for the hard
2:18:02
Speaker 1: rock casino and things like that. But I just in general,
2:18:09
Speaker 1: I do think we need to you know, the stewards
2:18:12
Speaker 1: of these of these big things, whether you're whether you're
2:18:15
Speaker 1: Bob Iger and your run Disney World. You know, can
2:18:18
Speaker 1: a middle class family go and enjoy themselves and not
2:18:24
Speaker 1: feel like or not get reminded? Yeah you can go,
2:18:27
Speaker 1: but we're going to show off all the places you
2:18:29
Speaker 1: can't afford to be. It kind of felt that way
2:18:34
Speaker 1: at this football game. And again, I know this is
2:18:36
Speaker 1: the national time. We've already done this to the super Bowl,
2:18:38
Speaker 1: where the average NFL fan can't get there. That's the
2:18:42
Speaker 1: other thing. They don't even make tickets available. Everything is
2:18:44
Speaker 1: for these corporate and political guys. Trust me, I saw
2:18:47
Speaker 1: my Shriff. Politicians saw the the Santises saw Marco Rubio's
2:18:52
Speaker 1: Rick Scott saw. I did not see the president in person,
2:18:58
Speaker 1: but saw these other folks. We're all milling about, right
2:19:02
Speaker 1: except for there was security details everywhere and stuff. But
2:19:05
Speaker 1: it was that's just the one. We've got to sort
2:19:10
Speaker 1: of have some I just you know, it's almost like
2:19:14
Speaker 1: you need It's like we need an hr for sort
2:19:16
Speaker 1: of a reality check, you know, because guess what, none
2:19:20
Speaker 1: of this has value. If working people aren't interested in
2:19:25
Speaker 1: the product anymore, and if you make it so hard
2:19:28
Speaker 1: for working people to do this, you know, once a year,
2:19:34
Speaker 1: whatever it is, eventually they're going to lose interest and
2:19:37
Speaker 1: then the entire product gets devalued. So as we keep
2:19:42
Speaker 1: escalating to find more ways to make money off the
2:19:45
Speaker 1: super rich, be careful suddenly pricing out and getting rid
2:19:51
Speaker 1: of an entire class of people who arguably are the
2:19:57
Speaker 1: backbone of the popularity of of a place like Disney
2:20:01
Speaker 1: World or a sport like college football. Good news is
2:20:07
Speaker 1: this is my last college football report until spring practice. No, no, no,
2:20:11
Speaker 1: I'm just kidding until August unless the sport itself goes
2:20:14
Speaker 1: through yet another overhaul and there's some stuff there. I
2:20:17
Speaker 1: am going to transition to baseball. I got a lot
2:20:19
Speaker 1: of feelings about the new Baseball Hall of Famers. I'm
2:20:22
Speaker 1: going to save that for my next sports report on
2:20:24
Speaker 1: the next podcast. So with that, I'll see in twenty
2:20:27
Speaker 1: four hours.