Drawin' Those Battle Lines

Draw in those battle lines. Welcome. to the Texas Take Because of You, the number one politics podcast in the great state for going on a decade now. I'm Scott Braddock, and he's Jeremy Wallace. His work, of course, is at HoustonChronicle.com, and you can find the inside story on Texas politics at Quorum Report.

Can I tell you, Jeremy, that, and I say this every time we take any kind of a break here, I had a few people messaging me. My DMs are open, folks, and that's because I want the news tips. I want to know what's going on. You know, we don't take requests on the show. People have really gotten that message. But I had a couple of people reach out and say, and very nice listeners who said, are y'all on hiatus or something? And I said, we don't do that. We don't go on hiatus.

And I know people are going to break out dictionary.com on me, Jeremy, and say, well, y'all took a break. Y'all weren't there. It's kind of the same. Now, when I think of hiatus, you know, it matters what the connotation is. If you talk about a hiatus, that's like a show goes away for six months or a year.

Evan, which we have never, ever done that here. This has been a constant. Think of it this way, Jeremy. This show has been a constant in Texas politics just about as long as Donald Trump has been a constant in American politics, about a decade. Going back, right? So he came down the escalator. I was reminded, and we're going to talk about President Trump a little bit. He came down the golden escalator 10 years ago last week.

Yep. Right? And everybody, remember at the time, everybody thought, this is a joke. This is just a PR stunt. This is not going to work at all. And actually, this guy has been at the center of not just... American, but Texas politics as well. You know, I mean, the way that Republicans have behaved in our state for the last decade and all these people who are trying to pattern themselves after Donald Trump's behavior, it can put me in a bad mood. And here's something that occurred to me.

Because everything's so nasty, you know. You and I were talking earlier, Jeremy, about social media. and the way that people interact there. Everybody's trying to get the kill shot on somebody. Everybody's trying to dunk on everybody all of the time. It's nonstop insults, and everybody thinks that they're going to have the social media posts that end somebody's career.

And that's coming at you every second of the day. All of this can put you in a bad mood. And I know our listeners were in such a bad mood last week because we weren't here. I'm sure you heard it from people. But people started to go back and listen to old shows. So check this out. I didn't ever think that people would connect as much as they did with me talking about growing up on the farm in Wharton County.

And do you remember, and I'm going to pull the curtain back a little bit on how we do the show. Do you remember when we were doing our show prep session, we were getting ready to do the show, where I went off about working on the farm as a kid.

And when we were doing our show prep, do you remember that I didn't seem that thrilled about talking about it? Yeah. It was just one of those things I didn't feel like anybody's even going to care. And then, of course, that leads me on the show to say people don't care about farmers. Well, two days ago.

I had a listener reach out and say that that was the realest thing they ever heard on any podcast ever. And it was because I was kind of losing my mind about, you know, all this bullshit with, oh, by the way.

I'm in San Antonio. I'm not at home, so I don't have the swear jar here. I don't know what I'm going to do in place of that, Jeremy. But this BS of people always saying they care about farmers when they really don't, right? I mean, the policy decisions they make, which you were reporting on, don't reflect that they actually care about.

American farmers, the Texas farmers. And I was thinking about growing up on the farm. And I was thinking about the reason that I'm even in front of the microphone at all, which is the reason is that I was so this is this speaks right to my psychology. As a kid, and I mean going back to being four and five years old, all I wanted to do was be on the radio. Because when I was growing up on the farm, where it was miserable, the people that I heard on the radio, they were having fun.

And growing up in rural Texas in Wharton County, south of El Campo, I mean, we didn't even have cable TV in 1985, which by the 80s, you probably had cable in... Late 80s, early 90s. You had cable in San Antonio probably. We didn't. I didn't have cable at home. until maybe, I guess when we moved to Washington County and Brenham in maybe 1994, 1995, something like that. We had the antenna. Evan, did you ever have to do this? We had the antenna on top of the house.

that if the wind blew a certain way, somebody had to go up there and adjust the antenna so we could get the stations out of Houston. And get this, Jeremy, where we were situated... in wharton county if we pointed the antenna one way we could get the stations from houston and if we pointed the antenna the other way we could get the stations from victoria so if somebody if we if we wanted to watch the victoria news which was a little more local news for us someone

And I'm pointing at myself. Someone had to go move the antenna. There are a lot of people listening now who have no idea what I'm talking about. They have no experience with anything like that. But here's the deal. I loved listening to the radio.

There's a picture of me when I was four years old wearing the clothes that my mother made for me on the farm. And I was holding up a little tape recorder because I was going to be making radio shows then. I was making radio shows in my house on the farm. in Wharton County. Full circle, 40 years later, as a 44 year old man, I still basically do the same thing. I'm just recording shows in my house with you.

At that time, it was just with me. Maybe I would interview my sister or something, who didn't have much to say, but she's the only other person there. Anyway, I loved the radio. And I love being on the radio. I love listening to the radio. And here's the thing, Jeremy.

I didn't do news at first, right? I was a disc jockey. So the reason I'm even in front of the microphone is because of music. It puts me in a good mood. With all of the bad shit that's happening, you and I, we both love music.

And it can put you back in the good mood, right? You like to go to Green Hall and places like that on the weekend. I see you tweeting out the pictures if you're at some concert, whatever it is. I remember in 2000, I guess it was 2008 or 2009, that the song that would always put me... in a really great mood. I was doing a talk show in Dallas every day on KRLD, on CBS radio there. On Fridays, I would get us into the weekend by just saying, y'all.

It's Friday. You remember this? Yeah. You remember this? The best song ever. Rebecca Black. Turn it up Evan. Let's go. Yeah. Yeah. Every week we come here, Jeremy, and I say to you something like, are you ready to go? And there's almost a little sigh in your voice. Okay, yeah, I'm ready. Because it's Friday and we have worked all week, right? And we're drained.

sometimes and so i wanted to pump us up a little bit so if that's not your speed you know if rebecca black isn't doing it for you There was a friend of mine who worked at a radio station in San Antonio, and on his Friday shows, this is the one that he would start with, because what a great mood it puts you in is this, that you're feeling all right.

Who is this, Joe Cocker? Oh yeah. Now, neither of those... are the style of music that jeremy's posting about on the weekends but did you see that cross-canadian ragweed which you love that band as well right i'm thinking of some of their tunes right now they were weighing in on politics

And this is where we get into the meat of the show. What's the guy's name? Cody Canada. Yep. I actually saw him at Green Hall recently. So there you go. When you saw him, was he taking issue with the little governor and his ban on THC? No, not back then. But I'll tell you this. I guess this was two days ago. This is how he dedicated the song, anybody who knows that band. And this is Red Dirt Country Music. Again, when I was on the radio, the first...

a radio operation where I worked at Jeremy, KTTX, Brendan Bryan College Station, we would play the red dirt country music in between the other country music. Most of the stuff we would play would be, you know, George Strait, Clint Black, Shania Twain. Dixie Chicks, stuff like that, before they were just the chicks. But then you would play other stuff like Pat Green, Corey Morrow, Robert Earl Keane, etc. And cross-Canadian ragweed is in that genre.

And one of the songs that I think this is probably the best-known song from them, it's The Boys from Oklahoma. And you know what that's about. And it dovetails perfectly with the crusade that... Dan Patrick has been on. I'd like to send this song out to the lieutenant governor of fucking Texas. Fuck that guy. Why don't you get your shit together, Texas, Dan Patrick, and legalize the fucking...

They're singing about the way that the boys in Oklahoma roll their joints, right? And of course, in the song, which you know, Evan, you have the studio version there, of course. It was kind of hard to hear in that live. in that live edition. It's all about weed. And, you know, in the song, they talk about how great the weed is in Texas. Way too long. Well, I ain't a holy roller, so I don't, she's a bong. I'm awesome, Oklahoma. Rolly John's so wrong.

Jeremy, here in San Antonio last night, I met up with some friends for a drink before they had to go to a business meeting, a business dinner. And so I sat down at one of my favorite bars in Texas. It's called Double Standard. Have you been there? I love this place.

It's great. I'm sure someone will tweet about this. Tweet hatred at me. Dunk on me. Call me an alcoholic. It's a drinker's bar. It's downtown off of Houston Street. And as I said, it's called Double Standard. And then the tagline is... where doubles are standard. So I go in, sit down at the bar, order. They have one of the best burgers in the state. Of course, that'll start a fight too. Everybody wants to tell you they have the best burger, right? But go in, order a burger, just get a brew.

And there's something that has happened. I know this is happening to you because you went viral after Patrick called you stupid over this whole question about whether adults should be able to partake. you know, in THC while protecting children. You know, I think you were trying to reasonably ask him that question. He called you crazy and stupid, as we said, as we pointed out on the last edition of the show. But as soon as anyone...

figures out that I have anything to do with Texas politics, they immediately start talking about this topic in the last few weeks. This was going on for a while. And then it really broke through with people. And they say, hey, you know, what is going on with that? Is the governor going to veto that? What's going to happen with it? And your reporting over the last couple of weeks has been that he's basically undecided, right?

Yeah, he's been telling me that he's trying to take a very judicial approach to everything, trying to weigh this calmly and peacefully, which is very different. From the lieutenant governor, right? Yes. And it's one of those things, I know people on this show listening to this already know this, but for our new listeners who are out there, I know a bunch of y'all are tuning in for the first time. It's like the lieutenant governor and the governor don't run together.

Like you would think of a president and a vice president. So they're not necessarily. friends and that is very clear and their styles are very different in how they approach things you saw in those clips of patrick going off on me patrick is all showmen Ex-broadcaster. He knows – he wants to have a scene going, right? And then you get Greg Abbott who built his entire political career coming out of the judiciary. So he is trying to – Calm things down.

and not try to piss anybody off. Right. So let's listen to the contrast. Here was Patrick in Wichita Falls, and he was on a tour of the state. He was all over the place, I think 17 cities or something. He's using somebody's private jet. to get around the state very quickly to do lots of news conferences and talk to reporters about what's going on. And of course, one of the things he was emphasizing.

is this, again, I'll just call it his crusade. He's emphasizing this crusade to get rid of this hemp-derived THC. This is not a game. I understand some people out there disagree with the policy. But it is not legal. The federal government has not legalized pot across the country. What are they selling if you've never been in one? They're selling gummies and candy and popcorn and cookies and drinks to attract young people. to buy them to get hooked on this very potent THC. Higher levels than...

What your grandfather or some relative or maybe you smoked back 20 or 30 years ago. I never smoked pot. I don't know. It's funny to me that someone can sound so certain about something and then say, I don't know.

what I'm talking about. All in the same sentence, Jeremy. When you talked to the governor, was this at the Capitol or at the governor's mansion? There was some sort of a little reporter's roundtable. Is that what it was? Yeah, I get to – there's just a couple of us in there, and I went into the meeting, and I was determined to ask almost the exact same question that I asked Dan Patrick. It's like, is there a way to approach this issue where you can still allow grown adults?

adults to have a THC, but make sure there are protections to keep it out of the hands of kids. That's kind of how I framed it to him, knowing he wasn't going to tell me which way he was going to go on vetoing or not. I'm going to give it the thoughtful consideration.

from every angle that it deserves. There are people on both sides of the issue that have concerns, and those concerns need to be looked at. This is a time when I will Once again, put on my judicial hat and weigh arguments from both sides and figure out a pathway forward.

He's been in the current office for so long, Jeremy, that people – it's not just that they forgot. There are people who are familiar with him but don't even know that he was a judge at one point, which he was. That's how he started his –

career in politics as a state district judge down in Houston. Then, of course, was on the Texas Supreme Court. He was attorney general. So he's been, you know, somebody who's been involved in the legal world for a long time. And he likes this comparison of acting as.

As if being a governor isn't that different from being a judge, although I can tell you it's very different. But these offices are informed by the people who are in them. So when Rick Perry was there, you know, he's more of a West Texas. Good old boy. Kind of was never a judge or a lawyer or any of that. In fact, I'm trying to think. What did Perry ever do other than be in politics? I know he was, you know, he's in the military and all that. But, but.

But as far as his entire adult life, he was in politics. He was a state representative and lieutenant governor, agriculture commissioner before that and all that. But Abbott, he says, I'm just going to act like a judge. I'm going to weigh the evidence and see how this goes.

One thing that I thought was interesting was pointed out by our colleague at the – your colleague and mine, Chris Tomlinson, was writing about some of the influence that's being exerted here from not just – and we've talked a lot about the liquor industry.

and the alcohol industry being against this hemp-derived THC, and actually part of the... alcohol industry i should say because the liquor stores really like it because they're selling it so they're kind of divided but there's also this divide between and get this you you can think of it this way it's one way to think about it

I never want to tell people what to think or even how to think, but let me give you a few things to think about. Here's a way to think about it. Dan Patrick is on the side of marijuana. Right. We're talking marijuana, medical marijuana versus hemp. So if you look at the lobby effort on this, right, the medical marijuana folks.

who, as you have pointed out here, are making a lot of money by charging a larger amount in the Compassionate Use Program. And we're talking about those folks who are veterans and other people who qualify for it. The difference can be big, right? I mean, the difference can be... Between $500 a month versus $14 for a can of THC drink at the liquor store. And that's why a lot of people have moved over to the hemp-based THC or the hemp-derived THC.

you have Patrick really doing the work and the estimation of a lot of folks of the... medical marijuana folks to move people into that program. And of course, they had the bill to expand it and all of that. But what did you make of Abbott's comments? You were there, you could see his face, you could tell us kind of what that was like. And where we may go from here, we have talked this to death.

I feel at this point, although as you point out, there's always new people who are tuning in. We know that the politics of it are tricky. We know that one poll after another shows that even among Republican voters, just about everybody hates this, the ban. on thc so the politics would seem to be straightforward but it's a lot more complicated when you look at who's trying to influence the governor on his decision on this and where he may come down

Yeah, when I left that meeting with him, I got to take him at his word that he still hadn't made a decision. And I kind of got a feel that he was still – yeah, he was trying to weigh the evidence on both sides. But I think more important to what he was saying to me – and you heard it in that clip, like he was trying to present this calm approach to it, which made Patrick look like the foil of the whole thing, right? Patrick's not even listening.

to the fact that there are grown adults like we've talked about, you know, people in their 60s and 70s who are contractors who don't have access to health insurance, like those people, right? Patrick doesn't even want to hear about that. Like he's set one way and that's where he's going to go. Abbott.

almost took a note from that. He acknowledged he had seen the video exchange with me and Patrick, who has it at this point. But you could see he was building this contrast of like, no, no, I hear there are people.

who are making good cases on both sides of this. You hear him wanting to... be that guy if he's gonna veto the thing at least he's not totally discounting the other side of the argument which patrick is already doing right Try to thread this needle a little bit more carefully that allows – I think he set himself up to hear more from people to maybe give him cover if he does veto.

and gives him cover if he doesn't, right? I think he's trying to do it. I'm not saying he's going to be successful, you know, in that, but I think he's at least, he's positioned himself that if he vetoes this, he's going to be a contrast to Patrick and the anger. at Patrick will just remain with him and not be transferred to Abbott. What I saw in some of the comments to me as I've been giving updates on TikTok and all the social medias, it's like...

I've been hearing a lot of people trying to lump Abbott and Patrick together on this like they're a team on this. I think Abbott is trying to make it clear we are not on the same page on this thing. He may go where Patrick goes. I don't know, but he's not going to do it because of that relationship with Patrick.

No, absolutely not. And we'll continue to watch this. It's going to happen one way or another over the weekend. I had some people asking me, well, can't he just pocket veto it? We don't have that in Texas. That's not the way that works. If the governor...

doesn't sign something, it still goes into a law anyway. It becomes a law anyway. And that's all based, by the way, that comes from the original... constitution uh constitutional idea in texas of a weak governor in other words if the governor does nothing that doesn't matter right that the led what the legislature did is what matters right the exercise of power

on abbott's behalf or on you know the exercise of power by abbott would simply be for him to veto it and then he could in a special session of the legislature um ask them to do something else I've heard some chatter on this this week that maybe he would go back and say, you know what, maybe I'll take another swing at that.

and maybe do something more like what was proposed by Texas House lawmakers just in the last six weeks, two months, that maybe we could regulate this the way that we regulate alcohol. You know, ID people. Keep it away from the kids to the point that you asked Patrick about. Keep it something that only adults can use, which we have some success with that, with alcohol. And there's no reason we shouldn't be able to do the same thing with this.

Yeah, in my newsletter last night, I kind of proposed the idea that maybe what Abbott could do here, like there's a potential for him to say, look, I'm going to veto this, not because it's a bad idea, but I want you to more narrowly tailor. this legislation so it's not so detrimental to you know a whole industry and to these you know

you know, 60, 70 year old, you know, contractors and veterans and all these other people, you know, so maybe that's the way he can kind of work this thing out. Right now we know, like when I was in that meeting with Abbott, I asked him if he saw any need for any special sessions. at this point and he said no not yet uh but then it was just two days later you know he joked at a harris county republican lincoln uh reagan dinner that i was at joke that he might have or not joke but you know

that he might call a special session on taxpayer fund and lobbying. So he's already kind of in that mindset where he's talking about... potential special sessions. And if he's looking for a reason to have special sessions, we have a few little ideas kind of already kind of piling up and he could certainly use THC and say, look, come back in more narrowly tailor this and maybe I'll go with you on.

So on the THC thing, on the taxpayer-funded lobbying thing, I've heard a couple of other potential topics that could come up in a special session, including banning abortion pills. And then the other thing. that has been nationally reported, and we've talked a lot about it around here in Austin, is this idea that the legislature might need to redistrict the state. Now, if that happens, we will talk a lot more about it here, and we'll get into it.

pressure from the White House. What I would like to say on it for now, and I'm going to kind of leave it at this for the moment, is that if there is a special session dealing with redistricting and that the whole idea here is to give Republicans more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. basically because Trump doesn't want to be impeached. Again, they're trying to keep the Democrats from getting the gavels in Washington. It may be that the special session on redistricting...

is kind of a loser for Republicans. And so they would want to do some other things that are seen as more productive by their base. Strong conservatives are going to want another quote unquote. pro-life law in Texas. Strong conservatives have been talking about banning taxpayer-funded lobbying in Texas for a long time, right? So he's going to want to fill the agenda with some other things if they end up doing a special session, which it's my understanding right now.

now, Jeremy, may happen as soon as maybe the first full week of July. So after the July 4th holiday. So put a pin in that and we'll continue to watch it. Remember this, Jeremy.

It was, as I mentioned, a decade ago that Trump became central to American life. And it was nine years ago on the, remember. He announced in 2015, by the time they're into the 16 primaries, you and I were there for that with Trump, and how many candidates were running? Every Republican in America was running. Let's make a list of who wasn't running, and I'll be shorter. That'd be easier. Right. I mean, they were all running back in 2015 and 16. And nine years ago...

On the presidential debate stage, I was going through some of the old video and watching this with Ted Cruz on one side and Jeb Bush on the other. Trump defended his position on what he called endless war. He said America shouldn't be involved in all these wars overseas in Afghanistan and Iraq in particular. He was very upset about that. And one of the things that propelled him to the – and there was a lot to it obviously, but this was a main –

argument from him. It wasn't just some sort of a side thing. He was making the argument that the old school Republicans, the hawks, if you will, what a lot of these folks call the neocons, Trump was arguing that they were wrong and they shouldn't be in charge. He went so far as to call George W. Bush a liar in laying the predicate for the war in Iraq. And during this debate, he defended his position.

He was very adamant about it when he was asked, is it true that you think we shouldn't have been in the war? And this, that he thought, I mean, this is how far it went. He thought... and had said this more than once, that George W. Bush should have been impeached over the war in Iraq. Listen. Obviously, the war in Iraq was a big, fat mistake. All right? Now, you can take it any way you want, and it took just...

It took Jeb Bush, if you remember at the beginning of his announcement, when he announced for president, took him five days. He went back. It was a mistake. It wasn't a mistake. It took him five days before his people told him what to say. And he ultimately said, It was a mistake. The war in Iraq, we spent $2 trillion, thousands of lives. We don't even have it. Iran is taking over Iraq with the second largest oil reserves in the world. Obviously, it was a mistake.

George Bush made a mistake. We can make mistakes. But he didn't just say that it was a mistake. When the debate moderator pressed him about it, Trump said that the Republican president and the people around him were... Liars. So you still think he should be impeached? I think it's my turn, isn't it? You do whatever you want, you call it whatever you want. I want to tell you, they lied. They said there were weapons of mass destruction, there were none, and they knew there were none.

There were no weapons of mass destruction. You hear Jeb Bush there saying, I think it's my turn to talk. When those debates were happening at the time, Jeremy, you remember it was almost never anybody else's turn to talk because even if they got to talk, Trump would be interrupting them. That's the campaign cycle in which Trump was calling.

Ted Cruz, Lion Ted, and little Marco, Marco Rubio. These are all people who he's since worked with, Rubio's in his administration now. Now that he's in the White House, there are these questions. about possible nukes in Iran.

Right. We've had the conflicting reports about this, even though the American intelligence agencies have said now they they put all that on pause 20 years ago and they haven't said anything different in the meantime. But Trump is saying, oh, maybe that, you know, maybe they are working on this. He's leaning in the direction of siding with Israel and their hot war now with Iran. And some reporters at the White House tried to pin Trump down about this and say, where are you at on this?

What are we going to do? And listen to what he says now versus what he said nine years ago. Have you been to answer questions about whether you are moving closer or you believe the U.S. is moving closer to striking Iranian nuclear facilities? Where's your mindset on that? I can't say that, right? You don't seriously think I'm going to answer that question? Will you strike the Iranian nuclear component? And what time exactly, sir? Sir, would you strike it?

Would you please inform us so we can be there and watch? I mean, you don't know that I'm going to even do it. You don't know. I may do it. I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I'm going to do. I can tell you this, that Iran's got a lot of trouble. Well, it is true. Nobody knows exactly what Trump's going to do at any given moment. And I think in another interview or somewhere that I saw him speaking, he said something to the effect of, I don't even know what I am going to do. No one knows.

what i am going to do um and this is causing a big rift in the republican base right now now how durable this is i don't know if we actually end up in a war i think it's a little more durable than if we don't right i will we'll see

We'll see how this plays out. And then where the Republican base ends up. This was on full display when Tucker Carlson, our old buddy, Tucker Carlson interviewed. the very junior senator from Texas, Ted Cruz. And Jeremy, after watching, did you watch? This interview, I watched enough of it, I think. I had a few friends who were telling me, you need to watch the whole thing. I think it went on for two hours. Yeah. I watched all two hours, and as some of my followers, when I sit most...

mentioned that to them. They said, thanks for doing that for me, because I don't think I can listen to two hours of Tucker Carlson for sure. And I'm not so sure about Ted Cruz for two hours either. But I did that for y'all. I listened to it all. I broke it all down. And that's why. Boom, we're here today. Yes. It's called work for a reason. And listen, this was very important to the MAGA crowd that we would not be in forever wars. Who were the people who talked about this a lot? Trump himself.

Steve Bannon, who was part of the team, Tucker Carlson, who's one of the biggest cheerleaders, all of these MAGA guys had said we shouldn't be in wars overseas to the point where some of the rhetoric on this issue sounds a lot like some of the Democrats back in the day. when the Iraq war was getting started, and they didn't agree with Bush. Now, the establishment Democrats did go along with it.

Right. And they would tell you they would give you their reasons for it. But the more liberal progressive wing of the Democratic Party was always against that. And so the MAGA folks on this sound more like those. progressive Democrats, right, on just this piece of it, on whether we should be engaged in these wars. So listen to Tucker Carlson go right at Ted Cruz.

And try to make it sound like Cruz is an idiot. He doesn't know anything about the subject matter. That Cruz is just an ignorant fool about all this. How many people live in Iran, by the way? I don't know the population at all. No, I don't know the population. You don't know the population in the country you seek to topple? How many people living around? 92 million. Okay. How could you not know that? You know what it sounds like? You remember the Alan Jackson song?

I don't know the difference between Iraq and Iran. Yep. But I remember what it felt like on 9-11, so we should go bomb those people. We basically had all of country music, not all of it, a lot of it, complicit in talking America into a war. It's wild to think about what was going on at that time, Jeremy, after 9-11. So Cruz wanted to know why any of this should matter. Why is he being quizzed about random facts about...

Iran. Why is it relevant whether it's 90 million or 80 million or 100 million? Why is that relevant? Because if you don't know anything about the country. I didn't say I don't know anything about. Okay, what's the ethnic mix of Iran? They are Persians and predominantly Shia. Okay. You don't know anything about Iran.

Okay, I am not the Tucker Carlson expert on Iran. You're a senator who's calling for the overthrow of the government and you don't know anything about the country. No, you don't know anything about the country. You're the one who claims they're not trying to murder Donald Trump.

No, I'm not saying that. You're the one who can't figure out if it was a good idea to kill General Soleimani and you said it was bad. You don't believe they're trying to murder Trump. Yes, I do. Because you're not calling for military strikes against them in retaliation. And if you really believe that- We're carrying out military strikes today. A little worked up there.

Jeremy. Now, the argument that Cruz is trying to make is that – and I – you and I talked about this previously on some different issues, not specific to Iran or what to do with foreign intervention. But the – but the Cruz is – trying to sort of be

the senior senator from texas now you've had john cornyn is off running a race where he's going to have to be you know as far to the right as possible in his primary that's the way he's going to run it right and as close to trump as possible cruz is trying to you know follow trump here although difficult to follow Trump when what did you hear Trump say? Trump doesn't even know what he's going to do, that no one knows what he's going to do. So this sets the stage for a very difficult discussion.

within the Republican Party. And where they're going to end up on this is, I think, anybody's guess. But the nuanced argument that Cruz is trying to make, that he tried to make at the very beginning of the interview, and as I said, I've listened to enough of it to kind of figure out where this was going.

Cruz is saying that it's not just two kinds of Republicans on this, that it's not just the pro-war Republicans and the isolationist Republicans, that there is a middle ground. I consider myself... a third point on the triangle. And what I describe that as is that I am a non-interventionist hawk, which sounds a little weird, but what do I mean by that? I mean the central touch point.

for US foreign policy and for any question of military intervention should be the vital national security interest of the United States. How does this make America safer? How does this protect Americans? If it does- We should be strong and actually another way of conceiving what I'm saying, I'm speaking theoretically, but Reagan referred to it as peace through strength.

Yeah, so Tucker tries to get Cruz to offer any evidence for the claim that Iran's government is trying to kill President Trump. I'm asking about your allegation and the Prime Minister of Israel's allegation that... Then Iran is trying to murder the president. Killing terrorists is a good thing. Killing people who are trying to murder Americans is a good thing. Because if you're America first.

You want to protect America. And so taking out, killing Osama bin Laden was a fantastic day for the world. But you don't really believe that they're trying to murder Trump. Yes, I do.

Yes, I do. Then why aren't you calling for military action against Tehran right now? Because they're not very effective. In terms of hitmen, their hitmen are not very effective. I do think- So they're hitmen, but not the bad kind, the efficient kind? No, they're just- What are you saying? They're a weak country who is on its knees, and I think we need to-

Then why are we so afraid of them? Why are they the biggest threat if they're a weak country that's on its knees? Because they're trying- I'm trying to keep track. They're trying to develop- Be a little less snarky. I know, you're right.

That is a problem that I have. I'm sorry. At the White House, Trump was asked about this interview. Have you seen the Tucker Carlson, Senator Ted Cruz interview? It seems like this issue on whether or not the United States should strike is kind of dividing a lot of your supporters. No, my supporters are for me. My supporters are America first. They make America great again. My supporters don't want to see Iran have a nuclear weapon. Tucker's a nice guy. He called and apologized the other day.

because he thought he said things that were a little bit too strong. And I appreciated that. And Ted Cruz is a nice guy. I mean, he's been with me for a long time. I'd say once the race was over, he's been with me ever since, right? A challenge that Republicans have.

in this debate and in many debates over the last decade, Jeremy, is that they are trying to, in a lot of ways, they're trying to do, and Cruz is doing this, others are doing that, they're trying to... appear to their base and their base specifically and to everybody else at large. They're trying to appear as though they are operating based on certain principles. The way they would...

normally have done before in the decades before. You know, that there are certain things that you don't compromise about. And the difficulty is that Trump isn't that way at all. The standard bearer of the Republican Party. just kind of blows with the wind and he does whatever he wants in the moment, right? I mean, when it was convenient for him to criticize George W. Bush and say that he was a liar.

And that the war in Iraq was based on lies and that we never should have been there and Bush should have been impeached based on that. And he talks about all the loss of life and the money spent and all of that. That was convenient at the time. And then that was, you know.

What he went with. But the other folks who were following him on that, Bannon, Tucker, well, they really believe it. They really believe it. No matter what the situation is, they think that we shouldn't be involved in any of that stuff. Now that Trump's there. He's singing a different tune. And even in the last few days, you heard him say it on the show just now. He doesn't know what he's going to do. He's not operating based on some philosophical principle.

Or, you know, giving everybody something to think about with, hey, maybe there's some middle ground between being an isolationist or being a hawk or whatever it is. Instead, he's operating with the intelligence that he has at the moment and trying to figure out what the United States is going to. do on this. And guys like Tucker and Bannon are not going to change their mind about something that they see as fundamental to who they are and what their politics are.

Cruz is trying to thread a needle that I don't think he can thread. Well, I think not only that, but I think he walked himself into a weird trap. And typically, I actually believe Ted Cruz makes some smart political moves. This is a guy who wants to run for president again and is thinking very far ahead about how he wants to kind of frame his image and who he is. I have no doubt he saw this chance to go up against Tucker Carlson as a chance to really kind of hammer home one.

particularly key point. And he did it several times in the interview. And so I give him credit for this. He was able to say that he is an unequivocal supporter of Israel. And he was able to kind of pound that message home, which I think in a future... you know, Republican primary, you know, and who knows when, if it's 2028 or beyond, it's like, that is going to be like, that's the message he wants to get out. But I think his.

One, I think he underestimated Tucker Carlson, which is easy to do, right? Tucker Carlson does things that – he gets under people's skin and maybe a very – thought out way right and where he kind of gets several times in that interview cruise becomes a little bit like almost like too reactionary you know it's like he is at one point where he starts calling him uh you know almost anti-Semite.

Right. You know, and there's a whole exchange about it where Cruz said, oh, that's not what I'm really trying to do. And then Carlson fires back at him. Oh, yeah. You're trying to do it in a sleazy feline backhanded way. And you're just like, what the heck is now going on? here. And so it's two hours of mostly, you know, Tucker Carlson looking like he knew more about Iran, Iran and the Middle East.

than Cruz. And the reason that's a problem, and I don't think enough people have emphasized this, I made sure it was clear in my newsletter this week that the reason that is so damaging, not just, this isn't just like, you know, if you remember the, you know, old clips of going after politicians about not knowing a leader's name. Hey, who's the leader? George W. Bush ran into that trouble at one point where they're like, oh, how can you not know who the leader of Uzbekistan is?

or whatever. I get that. That's not what this is. What makes this more damaging for Cruz, I think, than others is that, remember, he's a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. We're not just talking about somebody who doesn't...

have to think about this issue like he's off in some other committee. This is a guy who is on a committee that deals specifically with the foreign relations with Iran and Israel. It's like he should have this down and back know everything about this stuff at least not be in a position where you give Any chance that Carlson knows more than you on this issue, that to me is super damaging. And I think most of this interview just was a bad interview. And I can see, you know, this is where maybe...

Ted Cruz's confidence kind of got the best of him, right? This is a former debate champion. We've pumped him up on that before, right? We've talked about how he's such a good debater, you know, on the stage, you know, in his past. elections, whether it be for the U.S. Senate or even when he was running for president. He did good in a lot of those debates. You can see him having a lot of confidence. I think he just got overconfident, sat down for this interview in his own office.

and let Tucker Carlson really dictate the entire interview. And I don't think – I watched all two hours. Going into it, I thought I was going to write a story about what – Ted Cruz got out of this, it's going to be so important why he sat down. But after I listened to all two hours, I was like, I don't know why he sat down with him. It's like, it makes no sense to me.

Well, let me help you. So there's a part of the interview where he gives a reason for that. Remember, because I said I did listen to enough of it. Not enough to consider it work, but I did listen to it to maybe 20 minutes or something like that. And one of the things... that Cruz said was he said to Tucker, you and I have been friends. He shared some anecdotes about private moments that they've had in public things as well. Now, I think a lot of that was just trying to blow smoke up.

Carlson's ass. But at the same time, I do think it should be a lesson to other Republicans about these various activists and media figures who are in sort of the right wing ecosystem. These folks. are not your friends, right? They will, even if you think, if you enjoy their support right now, they will turn on you in a dime, on a dime. And you have, I don't have my swear jar here, so I don't even have, I don't even have coins to look at.

The deal is, Tucker's not your friend. Did you see the way that the interview was promoted? On Tucker Carlson's social media. He would pick out the moments that you're talking about, the moments that look embarrassing for Cruz, and tweet that out, put that out wherever.

whether he's on Instagram or whatever else, he would put out the most embarrassing clips and then say, you can see the rest of basically, you can see the rest of Ted Cruz's embarrassing interview, you know, on our, on our, you know, on our Twitter page. And these guys, I mean, here in Texas. The guys who are sort of the right-wing enforcers, as I have called them, people like Michael Quinn Sullivan, talk show host named Chris Salceda, and some others.

who folks might think, some Republicans might think those people are their friends because they're promoting them in the moment and they seem to be agreeing with them in the moment. But the second you don't agree with them and you can agree on and... Cruz said this too. He said, Tucker, I think we agree on 80% of things on earth is the way he said it. It's the 20% where they don't that this guy who you thought was your friend.

will go out of his way to embarrass you because he's not your friend. There's nothing, and my publisher, Mr. Kronberg, has made this point many times with some of these right-wing enforcement groups here in Texas. There's nothing from those folks for Republicans other than punishment.

You don't ever get any reward for dealing with those people. Abbott does the same thing. Abbott led a guy out of jail who had killed people in Austin based on what? That Tucker Carlson said he ought to. Remember, we covered it here on the show with that case in Austin. They would never, I mean, the governor would never expedite that kind of a, that kind of a thing for anyone else. It was because Tucker Carlson was ranting and raving about it.

And so Abbott speeds up the process of getting somebody out of prison, even though they had been convicted of murder in Travis County. And you have this right wing guy, Tucker Carlson, who's thought to be a conservative thought leader. Very influential with the Republican base. He said, well, you know, there's no justice in Texas, is what he said. We played those clips here on the show. And what did Abbott do? He just sort of bowed down and did whatever Tucker Carlson wants.

Cruz thought he could do the same thing. I think his political calculation, though, Jeremy, is that, and who knows if he's right, his calculation on Cruz's part is that he thinks he just needs to stick with Trump. If I stick with Trump, I'll be fine. Right. With the Republican base. But to your point, I think it's more complicated than that. You have, you know, Trump going in a direction that, you know, that base, as Trump said, they just agree with him no matter what. But I don't.

Know that he's always going to be right about that. At some point, Trump won't be around anymore as we look ahead to that next presidential election you're talking about. Well, I can see Ted Cruz like in a normal interview. like where he has a regular, a real journalist there, like him having combative interview would play well with his base, like with the Ted Cruz Republican base. Look, I went to battle with Jeremy Wallace, you know, in an interview.

or, you know, CNN or, you know, wherever. It doesn't matter, right? That combativeness, you know, pays off. But in this case, the motivation for this interview for Tucker Carlson is to play to... His crowd to his 16 million social media followers and the people who watch this stuff, even though it's on some, you know, backwoods main country road or wherever he's doing those shows. It always looks like he's in some weird log cabin somewhere. You know, it's like, I don't know.

he's doing it from but yeah but uh but so like i think cruz just misunderstood the motivation of why you know, Tucker Carlson might want you on this for two hours, right? You know, for, for Cruz, the motivation is, Oh, I might be at a, you know, really. Hold firm on my support for Israel and really pound that message home to a very large audience for a future run. Makes sense to me. For Tucker Carlson, that interview is for him to like.

His motivation isn't just to let people know what Ted Cruz has to think. That's not what Tucker Carlson's job is. Tucker Carlson's job is to feed himself too. Like he's going to make sure that – He's going to go to town on you. Again, you mentioned the Abbott stuff. Remember what he said about Dan Crenshaw? He's gone to war with Dan Crenshaw. It's like you can go over and over again. He picks so many fights in Texas. It should be absolutely –

Standard operating procedure for any Republican going on with Tucker Carlson to be super prepared and to make sure you know that there's a good chance he's going to try to embarrass you at some point. And I think he successfully. produced enough clips on this that, look, I don't think everybody's going to remember this interview years from now. But there's going to be clips pulled out where that whole section on anti-Semitism, this whole section on not knowing about Iran.

whole sections of that are going to make it look like, you know, Cruz is being dominated by Tucker Carlson. And I think, I don't know how that can ever help you, you know, in a future race. And I don't know why he wasn't better prepared. It just surprises me because again, I think.

Ted Cruz generally makes... He thought he was his friend. I'm going to say... Well, let me... Yeah, hang on. Let me say something that I really should have the swear jar for here. I think it is as simple as he thought that guy's his friend and he got fucked over.

I mean, he got baited into that. I mean, those guys have had a longstanding relationship, right? But they've had clashes. They have, but here's the thing. There is nothing about what Tucker Carlson did that was in good faith in that interview.

Right. I mean, nothing. I mean, you know, I can only imagine and, you know, Cruz isn't going to go there. I can only imagine what the back and forth was like between Cruz's office and Tucker Carlson's people before the interview. They probably made it sound.

And this is my opinion because I've seen how these people operate. They probably made it sound like this is going to be a friendly interview. You know, you guys have been buddies for a long time. You can go in there and, you know, say what you want about this. And we may not agree about everything, but we'll have a friendly exchange. And there was...

None of that in that interview. And you can see it all over Cruz's face that in the moment he's trying to figure out, why am I getting this treatment? To your point, I don't think that they have had clashes.

I don't think that he went there thinking, oh, he's going to agree with me about everything I'm going to say. That would be incredibly naive, right? But I do think that he at least thought it's going to be a friendly conservative interview, the kind of interview that Carlson conducted, for example, with Ken Paxton when he went to that. that cabin you're talking about up in Maine or wherever it is. Yeah. And I, and let's say, and I, I'm just convinced that Ted Cruz should have known.

it was going to be a worse interview. If you listen to Tucker Carlson, again, it's part of my job to kind of understand what he's, you know, what about to happen there. So you listen to Tucker Carlson, you know. He's absolutely against these policies right now. Anything to do with attacking Iran, he was going to be against. It's like he's not even fully supportive of supporting Israel. There were a lot of questions in there. There was a whole exchange on...

Tucker Carlson making Ted Cruz look like he's a shill for APAC. And making it sound like he didn't know what AIPAC did in its relationship to Israel. And it just sounded absolutely unbelievable. Unbelievable in that. How did Ted Cruz not see that coming? He knew who he was going in on, and yet he still...

Wasn't prepared for the AIPAC questions. Wasn't prepared for the Iranian questions. Wasn't prepared for, you know, anti-Semitism shots back at him. It's like he wasn't prepared for any of that for some reason. And that is not the Ted Cruz I'm used to seeing. Right. His mind is like a steel trap. He should have all of those facts, you know, because his mind is a steel trap.

He's also well-positioned to have been in the various jobs that he's been in. He was an appellate attorney. He was the Solicitor General of Texas. If you've ever listened to the arguments that those lawyers have to make... in those appeals courts, including the United States Supreme Court, where Cruz has argued. All they do is pepper you with questions. You have to have all the facts and the law ready at hand, and he is eminently qualified for that, I will also say.

that you, dear listener, should not read into any of my comments any sympathy for Senator Cruz, who has done the exact same thing to witnesses in front of his various committees, many. many times, right? Made them look foolish through his use of his rhetoric and his questions. So let's check on our, you know, I thought I didn't have anything to say about that. And then we went on about it for a little while, Jeremy. So on the...

On the question of the senior senator from Texas, John Cornyn, I've gotten a lot of questions about this. What's that, you know, what is that race going to look like? You know, he's facing Paxton, who I mentioned, as his... main challenger, there may be some others as well. Big John, as he is known, was on WFAA television, being interviewed by Jason Whiteley, our friend there. And he was asked, and we've seen this, we reported on it a little bit during the...

during the session of the legislature, Jeremy, but we're going to focus some more on these races as we go forward. He simply asked Cornyn, why is it you're behind in every poll that we see? about this and not by an insignificant amount. Early polls show you trailing Ken Paxton your challenger by almost 10 points. Why do you think that is?

Perhaps a variety of reasons. I think it's primarily name identification. Most people don't wake up in the morning thinking about who their United States senator is. They're worried about more important things. But this is... I think about the first inning in a nine-inning game.

And certainly we know what we need to do. He said that Paxton's ethical and legal troubles over the last decade will be central to his, to Cornyn's campaign. I think the contrast between me and the attorney general is pretty stark. I think character. still matters to texans and uh the attorney general is betting that character does not matter he acts like this is yesterday's news he's sweeping it under the rug

But I think most Texans, including most primary voters, don't know all the facts, and we intend to make sure they do. A couple things about that. One, I think that the way Cornyn's talking about it speaks to the things that Republican voters in Texas...

used to prioritize the things that they maybe cared about more in decades gone by. I think that people do sort of...

I sort of agree with Cornyn that people think that character matters. But I will tell you in traveling the state, and I've said a version of this before, so forgive me, Jeremy. But in traveling the state last year, going from Beaumont... to abilene to dfw to nacogdoches to san antonio to the valley and talking to voters everywhere and you've you've made these rounds as well one of the things i have uh really taken to heart over the last

really over the last 18, 24 months, is that voters, especially Republican primary voters in Texas, they believe that everyone in government is corrupt. Not every voter. But so many of them I talked to said that. They said, oh, yeah, they're all corrupt. And this was asked – the conversation, the context for it was the attorney general's, you know, Paxton's crusade to unseat Texas House members who had voted to impeach him.

Right. And so what these voters would say is, well, maybe he is corrupt, but everybody's corrupt in government. And so if that if they believe that and by the way, that's not true at all. I can tell you in doing this for as long as I have. There are gradations to it, right? Mr. Kronberg likes to say that the Capitol is one big gray area. So there is some corruption here, not some there. Most of the members that I know of the Texas House and Senate, I know all of them. I would say...

you know, corruption. I mean, no, for the most part, I think this is actually a positive comment. For the most part, they're just fine. For the most part, they're just fine, right? When the corruption comes up, you know, we report on it, obviously, and so do you.

But voters believe that they're all corrupt. So if they have that as their baseline, that everybody's corrupt, then what they make their decision on in the election is, will the person do what I want them to, whether they're corrupt or not? So on that question, I think it's fair.

For Cornyn to bring up all of the ethical and legal issues that Paxton has had, and I would say this to temper all of the talk about the polling that has looked bad for Cornyn, they still haven't spent any money in this race. Nobody really has, right? You've seen some digital ads, but Cornyn's right to say that they have plenty of time.

With a well-funded campaign, which as you know, we've reported on, he's one of the most prolific fundraisers, not just in Texas, but in the United States. He'll have every dollar he needs to put it on TV, to put it on the radio, to put it in digital ads.

All of the messages that Cornyn's campaign wants to convey to Republican voters, it's going to be conveyed, right? They're going to get the messages on this stuff. And then what do people think about it? And then, of course, we also have the question. of what trump is going to do in this race and as we have we have played the audio for you here on the show trump has said hey

I like both of those guys. Cornyn said in another interview this past weekend, the way he characterized Trump's comments was to say, basically, Cornyn says, Paxton is the most corrupt guy. And we're going to be telling people how corrupt that he is. But President Trump has said that basically these are two friends of mine who are just running for the Senate.

And it's too bad that I have two friends who are going up against each other. Now, I do want to give people a sense, Jeremy, of all the different names we're going to hear. Paxton and Cornyn. We may have some other people run for that as well. On the Democratic side, who do we have?

Who's the person who's still considering this and is doing so in a prominent way? Well, we got a couple of them, but Colin Allred is right out there, right? Yeah, he says he hasn't made up his mind. Well, I'll make a decision soon, and I'm seriously considering it, and I want to tell you why. You know, I spent the last... six months or so with my family, my kids, reconnecting with my kids in a lot of ways and watching.

and watching what's happening. And I think in the last election, a lot of folks voted for somebody who hoped would lower their costs, would look out for working people. And I think what we've seen is that's not been the focus at all. Okay, but he already ran. for the U.S. Senate. And it was against Senator Cruz, who, of course, in a general election is, I would say, Cruz has a harder time in a general election than Senator Cornyn has had in the past, right?

You have to ask Colin Allred, as Jason Whiteley did at WFAA, why would this time be any different? Yeah, just personally, I feel more relaxed. Do you really? I do, I do. The pressure of DC off of you or what? Yeah, I think part of it is spending time with my kids, spending time with my friends, talking to normal folks, getting back to the feeling of why I went into public service in the first place.

Which was not to deliver scripted lines and to you know Do whatever was most politically expedient and that's not how I ran last time But it's certainly I always think that that's a pressure that you have but to just really speak to the real issues i will note that he said that he doesn't want to give scripted lines but every answer to every question included something about spending time with his children um on the so we'll check back in with him when he makes up his mind jeremy

We also have Beto O'Rourke running around the state once again. And this has, I mean, he's got big crowds once again. I don't know. You were there for, I think, some of this. I don't know that he's attracting the same kinds of crowds, the same energy he had. before when he ran previously, going back all the way back to 2018. But it's not just that he's holding these rallies. He also told Jeremy that he is doing something a little bit different, which is trying to create a bench.

for Democratic candidates in this state as we go into another Trump midterm. I love doing this and it's hard to keep me off the road because that's where I want to be and I want to be with people. It's not just about that. It is about these very specific outcomes that we're looking for. And we want more volunteers registering more voters, but we want more candidates running for more offices. And we also want more people.

who have sat out previous elections or become discouraged by the political process to see that their you know their neighbors the folks in their community are turning out stepping up and also telling very personal Sometimes very painful, but always very powerful stories that I think are incredibly motivating. You hear these people, you meet these people, and you're like, God, I've got to stand up and fight. Tell us about that conversation, Jeremy.

Yeah, it was interesting because he started going back into the 2018. He acknowledged something that you and I have talked about on the show before. Like one of the reasons that 2018 race against Ted Cruz was so close was because there was so much energy down the ballot. Right. It's like there's so.

many candidates running for Congress, even in places where they were just long shot candidates. Right. But there were decent candidates in those places. You know, same thing with the statehouse races and even county commission races and, you know, the county judge races. You had.

So many people running, you know, think about like, you know, how many people broke through that year. And so one of the things I could hear in, you know, what made me start asking him more questions about it, the way he was talking about it was like whether he runs or not.

For the U.S. Senate, what he's trying to do is almost kind of what you would expect, you know, the Democratic Party leadership to really want to do, which is trying to recruit more people to run for other offices because that energy. transfers up the ticket as much as the top of the ticket transfers down the ticket. And so that's why 2018 was so successful and why 20...

22 was so weird, right? There were whole races that there were no Democrats running in. There was just no energy whatsoever. You just can't have the top of the ticket try to drag everything to victory by themselves. They can't do it in Texas.

as a Democrat, there's not enough. It's like, you have to have a full onslaught of candidates making the cases, you know, like they did in 2018. And remember in 2018, Lena Haldago breaks through in Harris County, you know, Hayes County flips over to the Democrats. You know, 12 Texas House seats flip over. Senate seats flip over. Two congressional seats flip over. Again, you had human, you know, logical, reasonable humans running in so many races. And that's something that.

the party kind of has missed since then really since 2018 and 2020 cycles, they had that, but we really haven't seen that. So I could hear from. O'Rourke that what he's trying to do again, he may ultimately run in the end himself and maybe it'll help him. But even if he doesn't, he's helping the future top of the ticket by trying to get people to run for. the county commission you know hey you want to run for something in bear county you know do it you know because it helps

produce the energy. And he actually particularly mentioned Criston Carranza, who is running again for the state house. He's like, when you have good candidates like that running, it just helps bring the energy to it. So anyway, we have those two guys running, and I wrote about it earlier.

in my newsletter. We have Terry Virts, the Houston astronaut that we talked about who's been kicking the tires and running for it. We've had James Tallarico telling some of my colleagues he was seriously considered jumping into the race. Who knows what this is going to sort out? Like, we got time to go to some extent. But as I've always said on the show, you have less time than you realize. I think that's what happened with Colin Allred last time. Like, he got into the race too late.

He started making rounds in Texas way too late, didn't get his message out, didn't set foot really in Houston and Harris County, a huge vote place that you need to do well in. Like he just didn't do much in those areas until it was too late. And if anybody's thinking that they can. wait till October to start pressing the on button. You can't do it. You got to get out there now. Go do your stuff now.

Yeah, so some of the Republicans who are getting their stuff out there now include Kelly Hancock, who is a state senator from DFW. And he has made an interesting transition. He resigned from his Senate seat. earlier this week and then was sworn in at the office of the Texas Comptroller as the...

I'm getting it for you here, Jeremy. He's sworn in as the chief deputy clerk of the comptroller's office. Now, why would they do that? This is some inside baseball for you, but it may be that for the governor... to just appoint Hancock as the comptroller would not be legal. And the way you know that is that when Greg Abbott issued an opinion on that as attorney general in 2002, he said that it wouldn't be legal.

to have someone be a legislator and then appoint them as the head of a state agency and this is primarily because the person would have a conflict of interest because that lawmaker would have voted on the budget for the agency okay that's

That's the short way to understand that. But Hancock is Abbott's guy. He loves Kelly Hancock. That's my understanding. The two are tight. They have a great relationship. I don't think either of them would mind me saying that. And that was borne out this week as you saw them make these moves. to put Hancock in position to be the comptroller, the state's chief accountant, when the comptroller now, Glenn Hager, becomes the chancellor at the Texas A&M system.

He's leaving to go do that. So it is pretty slick. They didn't appoint him. Abbott didn't appoint him. Instead, he just quit. He just, quote unquote, took a job over at the office. And now when Hancock or when when when Hager leaves. Hancock will just be promoted instantly as the acting comptroller. So he gets to run as an incumbent, basically. And he's got Greg Abbott's support. So he's going to have...

plenty of money to be able to do this. And how crazy and nasty is all this going to get, Jeremy? Well, on the day that that happened, that Hancock made this move over to the comptroller's office, you got Greg Abbott saying that one of the other... candidates in the race is a loser who lost who lost to a democrat and one of the other republicans who's running christy craddock who is a railroad commissioner overseeing the oil and gas industry she said i don't care who gets into the race

I'm not backing down. This was from Hancock's announcement video as he launches his campaign to win the office that he's about to take over. He wants to win the office in the election next year. For over a decade, I have fought for you, the Texas taxpayer in the legislature. I have passed conservative budget reforms, cut red tape, and stood against wasteful spending. Now, he's going up against Don Huffines, who...

was previously a state senator, has run for governor, some other things. He's the one that Abbott called a loser because he was only in the... Senate for one term for four years before he lost to Democrat Nathan Johnson, who's a senator from Dallas County. Now, Huffines said that, you know, this is the insiders in Austin are basically just putting a lapdog in the office now.

And that Hupp finds is the one you want to go with. That's his argument. Because guess what he's going to do, Jeremy? He's going to doge Texas. As your Texas comptroller, I will doge Texas. I will audit our government to improve efficiency and root out waste and fraud. I will fight to return the savings to Texas taxpayers.

I'm not saying too much about each one of these candidates. What I'm trying to do here, Jeremy, is give people a sense of the names they're going to hear over and over again for the next year or so. As you said, people have to start if they want to be in statewide office, especially in Texas. It was like running for office in some countries.

Because we have 31 million people. Obviously not that many people vote. But we will have millions of people vote. I would be surprised if the Republican primary turnout. You can – people can grade my paper later. I would be surprised if it exceeds 2 million next March. A really big primary in Texas is getting toward 3 million.

Something like that. Sometimes you see 2.5, 3 million, something like that, depending on what's going on. It's an off year, right? Not in a presidential year. It's a midterm. Somebody was, you know, talking to me, just talking my ear off. two days ago, about all those protests all over Texas and America last weekend, Jeremy? It was like, I think there were, I think this is right, 10,000 people on the streets of Dallas in this No Kings protest, the anti-Trump protest.

And you know how cynical I am. I sit there and go, okay, well, whenever all those same people actually go vote, well, then I'll care about it. And you remember the big protest years ago. In Trump's first term, when all of the women had their protests, right? They were so angry. It was right after Trump was sworn in. Remember this? And I saw, and you saw this giant protest. I don't think I've ever seen a protest as big.

in Austin, Texas, of people marching on the Texas Capitol. One of my friends who has been in politics for going on 50 years now had an overhead view of what was happening there. It was up on one of the high-rises overlooking the Capitol grounds. and said they'd never seen anything like it and again i was cynical and said well if they vote we'll see what happens well i started you know sometimes i have to tamp down my own cynicism and say

this, that those giant protests did precede elections in which Democrats did a lot better. Once they saw that Trump was in office and the things that he's doing that they don't like, it wasn't just the protest. Maybe I'm wrong. A bunch of them did show up and vote, right? So you have to believe, not just based on the protests, but based on history and what...

generally happens, and what has definitely happened in recent history, especially looking back to 2018. I don't expect that to happen again, this tidal wave for Democrats, but... But another one of my friends pointed out, a Republican who's very worried about this for his own party, said, think about this. In general, for the second midterm for an incumbent president, that's when it really gets bad for them, historically. And that's what we're going to have in 2026.

Yeah, and I think it's really important to kind of go back and like, so why would Abbott even care who the comptroller is, right? It's even more important now than it was even a few months ago because the way they structured his school voucher. program, it doesn't go through the Texas Education Agency like most educational programs, right? It's going to go through the comptroller's office. It's the comptroller who's going to be building Greg Abbott's

educational savings account program going forward? Does he want Don Huffines, who ran against him? You know, just a couple of years ago and called him all kinds of names. Does he want that guy being in charge of his legacy school voucher program going forward and how it gets built? Absolutely not. Right. You can see why he wants.

somebody who he considers a much closer ally running that agency if it's going to have basically the keys to build the program and try to make it work right because if anything goes wrong in this thing you know it's like it's not going to be the

troller that people remember doing it. It's going to be Greg Abbott. He needs to have his guy in there. That's why he's going to put so much effort into this. I would bet that he will be helping Hancock a lot along the way to win that primary because he simply can't afford Don Huffine, a potential enemy, being in that position. given that, like, he already has conflicts with other agency heads, right? You know, we've talked about before, he and Sid Miller don't talk.

Sid Miller's the agriculture commissioner. Those guys don't talk. You know, it's like there's no relationship there. It's like, you know, and so it's like he can't have that happening in the comptroller's office, too. You know, it's like, you know, we know his relationship with Dan Patrick is, let's say, hot and cold.

You know, it's like sometimes really hot. I don't think he's thrilled with him right now. Yeah, right. It's like, and so if I'm Abbott, I certainly don't want to hand the keys, the entire school voucher program to Don Huffines and let him do it all.

That does not sound like good politics. Who else are we going to be hearing from over and over and over again, at least until the beginning of March? Let's look at the attorney general's race. All right. So Paxton. The AG is running for Senate. That means that we've got another domino falling there. And there's an open seat, at least for right now. I'm going to say this more than once before we get to the middle of December, Jeremy.

Any of these people who have announced for whatever they're running for at the state level, they could drop out of the race. They could change races. Just keep that in mind as we go through this. But the race is taking shape for attorney general. And you have Mays Middleton. who is a very wealthy, you're going to hear this name a lot, Mays Middleton, a very wealthy heir of an oil and gas company from Southeast Texas.

He represents parts of Galveston County and Chambers County. I think right now I'm trying to remember what the district looks like. They changed it up a little bit. But from what I understood, he lives in River Oaks in Houston, which is not in that district. But anyway. He wants to represent all of Texas. And you're going to see his face and his name and his family, the picturesque family. I always thought that Mace Middleton kind of looks like a Jared Kushner starter set.

You know, just the way that he presents himself. Running against him is a guy named Aaron Reitz, who just... left the Trump Department of Justice to come back to Texas to run for AG. Now, he worked for Paxton in the past, and Paxton has already said something about how, oh, yeah, I'm so glad that Aaron Reitz is in this race. So Paxton didn't really, and watch how this goes.

dear listener. Paxton didn't really endorse him. He just said that he's glad he's in the race. So it's like a non-endorsement endorsement kind of thing. So watch, you know, watch for that sort of stuff. And Reitz is gunning straight for Mace Middleton. I saw him on Spectrum News in Austin. this week with our friend James Bodegon. And Reitz, I mean, he just ripped, he ripped, and this is right out of the gate. You know, I mean, Reitz just announced for this.

And basically, he's just giving you every reason that he thinks that Middleton just sucks. I think that when you compare my record with Mays Middleton's, I think you're going to see that really only one of us has the credentials, credibility, background. And again... the real battle scars to prove that we've been in these major fights.

I don't know that Mays Middleton is necessarily the kind of fighter, the kind of champion, the kind of aggressive leader that we need in a critical executive branch office. And he went on to say that, you know, he's just laundering his own money and buying off endorsements. and all of this other stuff, Jeremy, already a hot race there. So we'll keep an eye on that. Now, also in the Attorney General's race, there's some speculation about one of our listeners, State Representative Mitch Little.

Denton County, he has been asked by not insignificant people about whether he would run for AG. For example, Steve Bannon, who we mentioned earlier, has that podcast. It's a little bit bigger than ours. He has that podcast called The War Room that all of the MAGA people, they all listen to that. And so you talk about doing work. Jeremy, I was sitting there listening to the Steve Bannon show. While you were over there listening to Tucker Carlson's thing, I'm over here listening to Steve Bannon.

for crying out loud. And Bannon asked, Representative Little, if he would be interested in also jumping into the attorney general's race. He has an interesting reason for asking him, of course. As you know, Little was one of the defense attorneys for Paxton during the impeachment trial.

In 2023, he took that sort of star moment to defending a conservative attorney general against what they were calling the establishment, the Bush establishment, trying to take him out. Little has leveraged that into a successful run for one office.

And so it naturally follows that Bannon would ask him if he might then leverage where he's at now to get to a higher office. You're in the legislature now, but I understand that you're also thinking of potentially running for – attorney general how do you recommend we pull all this together and do you have interest in in being attorney general uh i'm i'm definitely interested in it um here's the thing

That is keeping me up at night. Right now, we have the benefit of having President Trump in office. That will not always be the case for whoever we elect attorney general. So that person will be elected in 2026. They will have two years with.

president trump at the helm and then what maybe it's another republican who's just as good as president trump or maybe it's the alternative in which event you better not have hired a gardener in a war you better have hired a warrior in a garden as i said before about representative little i wouldn't want to go up against him in a courtroom

He's very talented in making his arguments. And again, I don't want to get into a whole thing about each one of these races right now or each one of the candidates or potential candidates, Jeremy. But I do want people to understand that the cast of characters that we are going to be hearing from.

for the next year as we go through the Republican primary process, because it is on. You can hear it in the thing that those arguments are being made right now. You heard Reitz going right at Middleton. You hear Little acting as if, as if, I'm not going to call him.

Chicken Little, but because he's a very brave guy. But the story with Chicken Little was that the sky was falling, right? And that's what he makes it sound like. If we don't have the right person in this office, the sky will fall. You're going to hear these kinds of arguments. Get used to it. for the next full year and then beyond that we have the general election

Well, I know one name that won't be in it because I did talk to Brian Hughes. I talked to him, I want to say, last week while we were on break. Not hiatus, break. Just a little vacation. A well-deserved... Right. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Hughes told me he was he was not going to run for the attorney general. There was a point where he was seriously considering it, but he is not going to do that and is going to run for reelection in the state Senate. So I just want to put that note out there.

Absolutely. All right, let's do up and down of the week. Every weekday. In his newsletter, Jeremy gives you the up and down of the day. It's sort of a stock market style report on who's doing better, who's doing worse in politics. And on the show, since we only do it on Friday, Friday, we do. We do the up and down of the week. What do you got for up this week, Jeremy?

Well, I'm actually going to last week to pull this one. So I'm going to put Genia Ortiz-Jones as the up. She is the new mayor of San Antonio. She won that race, won 54% of the vote. And look, San... Tony's the second biggest city in the state right now. It's like it's a lot of responsibility. You probably heard the name before. She ran for Congress before. It wasn't successful in that in those runs. But, you know, here she is now. She's going to be leading the second.

biggest city in Texas. And it'll be interesting to see how she does it after Ron Nuremberg, who was term limited and could not seek another term. Now, remind me on the city stuff in San Antonio for the municipal elections.

they're shifting now right to the four-year terms for the mayor uh is that right i need i need to double check that i need to double check that because i think well it's interesting because some of the discussion that i heard out of san antonio was that they're going to have a person in there who's going to be somewhat insulated.

from politics at least at the beginning right if you have a longer term you don't have to interact in the same way that you would if you had a shorter one right and so and so part of the conversation was about you know having some built-in durability so to your point about her being up

I mean, she's got some time to spend that political capital. All right. Who's down this week? Yeah, I'm going to go with Fort Cavazos. You know, it's like one of the things that happened during our little break here was that, you know. Donald Trump decided to rename all of the military bases that had already been renamed in Fort Cavazos, which used to be Fort Hood, is going to go back to Fort Hood. And I understand wanting to go back to the name.

You know, some of the other bases made a little bit more sense. But Fort Cavazos was named after General Richard Cavazos, a native Texan, a Medal of Honor winner, and the nation's first Hispanic general. It's like he's taking that guy's name. off of the base, you know, and putting, you know, Fort Hood on there, which, you know, isn't supposed to be named for the Confederate general anymore, but that's what people are going to associate it with. And so...

So, you know, I think, you know, given the ceremony a couple of years ago for the Cavazos family to honor their late father, to go from that. to now having to go, you know, having all that taken off just feels like a real major down in terms of at least the stock of the name Fort Cavazos, right? You know, it's just like, what?

kind of a sad turn of events for that family. Again, I understand why Trump's doing it. I know what he wants to do with it, but boy, this base seemed like it was renamed as well as any of the bases had been renamed. Well, I know who he's trying to... You know, pleased with changing that. The San Antonio City Charter was amended in 2024 to extend the term length for both the mayor and city council members from two years to four years.

Boom. Got him. Just like Ted Cruz, a steel trap. Jeremy, if you had sat there and quizzed me about San Antonio, I would hope I would do better than Cruz being quizzed about. Iran. If you hit me with what's the population of San Antonio, I'm just going to end the show right now. All right. I'm going to do it anyway. All right. That's a damn good show.

People were really missing us, Jeremy. And guess what? We just gave them another double platinum edition of the Texas Take, the number one politics podcast in the great state. You should check out Jeremy's newsletter. It's where you find the up and down of the day.

each and every weekday. And of course, you can get the link for that on his social media, whichever one you're looking at. His handle is Jeremy S. Wallace. I'm at Scott Braddock. You can check me out as well. You should be a subscriber at quorumreport.com and houstonchronicle.com and we'll see you. next time.