F-Bombs Away!

You You F-bombs away. Welcome to the Texas Take Because of You, the number one politics podcast in the great state for going on nine years now. I'm Scott Braddock. He's Jeremy Wallace. His work, of course, is at HoustonChronicle.com, and you can find the inside story on Texas politics at Coral.

ForumReport.com. Jeremy, there's a couple of things that I need to say and be upfront with the audience about. Number one, I can't hear myself as we do the show, which is strange for me. As a longtime radio professional, I'm kind of flying. blind here i can hit and i'm not even going to explain to the audience why it's a bunch of technical bs that that evan could explain better we are um going to get through it though because i can handle it in fact

I think I could pull off a radio show not being able to hear anything. I think that I could do that, but I'm not going to have to do that this time. I can hear you, Jeremy. How are you? I'm doing great. I've been in every time zone in America in the last couple of weeks, but I'm feeling great. We may explain why you were all over the place in just a bit. We are, of course, spread out across the continental United States. I am in Tulsa, Oklahoma today while Jeremy is holding...

and down the fort in Austin. One of the reasons I'm here is I did want to check out a community where THC products are readily available and figure out if the whole place just went to shit because of it. Guess what? The answer, it might surprise Dan Patrick. Let me put it that way. So we're doing our sound check here. I still can't hear myself, but I think I can hear Evan. Evan, are you there? He is, well, Jeremy's in Austin.

I'm in Tulsa, and Evan, of course, is manning the control board in Los Angeles. Evan? Yes, sir. All right, there he is.

He's reporting for duty. I can hear him. And I should be able to hear some of the things we're about to play for the audience. Last week, I got so many messages, Jeremy, about the Rebecca Black Friday song. I realized that for folks of a certain age, that hit the right note. We struck a chord with that.

I had somebody reach out and say that for so many of their group text messages, when they're just talking to their friends, that that song gets mentioned all the time. So it really woke them up. Now, I'm not going to do that to you again, Jeremy. I rarely... Listen, and as I said, I can't even hear myself right now. And I rarely listen to our shows because that would be the height of narcissism. I'm not into that, but...

I did, Evan. I went back and listened to the beginning of the show last week because I wanted to relive the part of the show where I played the Rebecca Black song and the sound from Jeremy. I wanted to make sure I heard him right as we were recording. The sound from him. was pure disgust. He sounded like he wanted to just leave the show right at that moment. Was I remembering that right, Jeremy?

Yeah, clearly I have no poker face when it comes to music. If I like it, you're going to know it. If I don't want it...

You're going to know it. I knew that pretty instantly. So he was offended by that. There are a lot of people who are – I'm going somewhere with this, of course. There are a lot of people who are also offended by the way politicians talk lately. And Jeremy, how many times have I said – either in speeches, presentations that you and I have done together, or here on the show. I say this all the time. Politics now really needs a parental advisory.

So we did have some listeners prompt me to start the practice of using a swear jar. here because I was cursing a little bit and Jeremy would curse some. And of course, there are listeners who have their kids with them as they're listening. And I appreciate that. We're teaching a new generation.

All about Texas and American politics here, Jeremy. But I do want to warn you right up front, there is some strong language. And you can't ignore it because it's the most powerful people in the country who are saying these things. It goes right to the top.

with President Trump, he was very frustrated this week when he was asked about the fact, and I'll do the short version of this for you, he was asked about the fact that Israel... and Iran were immediately just shooting at each other again after there was supposedly a ceasefire after the bombing of the nuclear facilities in Iran. And this is what Trump told reporters. I think he was out there by Marine One at the White House lawn.

you'll hear how frustrated he is about the situation. We basically have two countries. that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don't know what the they're doing do you understand that of course that was memed all over the place somebody would put out an image of trump saying that in the video of him saying that and then

And someone would say, well, it looks like my baseball team is not doing well again. And then they would play the clip of Trump saying, well, they don't know what the fuck they're talking about. They don't know what they're doing.

And so people were sharing that all over the place and some pretty funny stuff. But of course, it is a serious situation. And the classic debate has broken out, Jeremy, about Congress's role. in declaring war. If you have a strike on another nation, you will immediately have members of Congress. And this happens with both parties. Republicans and Democrats over the years have brought up the fact that it's very often the executive who just acts alone.

The president acts alone. It's been the practice in the United States for decades at this point that the president just goes it alone when it comes to acts of war or things that could be easily and quickly portrayed as acts of war. Of course, all that gets that gets debated. as well, whether it's a quick strike.

You know, on a country, a major strike like what happened in Iran, or sending in ground troops, all of that, it gets really nasty. I mean, you've seen this over the years, right, Jeremy? And, you know, some of this, I'm sure, came up when you were covering things in Washington.

Yeah, in the 90s in Washington, like, you know, the president would just, you know, have strikes. You know, it's like you saw Bill Clinton do it. You saw, you know, obviously George W. Bush do it. It's like this was something that like, you know, presidents have slowly taken this power a little bit away.

from congress right congress you know still votes for an official declaration of war think you know 1940s with you know the attack on pearl harbor but nowadays like we you have a situation where presidents can essentially start a war uh and congress if anything, can like do a back vote.

You know, say, yeah, we're with you or not, you know. But what does that matter if the troops are already there? So it's like you saw that happen with the first Trump administration too when they did strikes on Syria or when Obama, you know, he did strikes too, you know. So you get the sense of it.

Yes. So we had a prominent member of Congress from Texas, a Democrat, Jasmine Crockett from Dallas. She raised the question. about whether trump should be asking congress for permission to do this of course trump supporters would say uh that he doesn't have to do that and in her and she would say that he does and there are you know all sorts of opinions about this uh the

debate gets nasty quickly. And when she was talking about it, when Crockett got into it, she also dropped the F-bomb in similar fashion to what Trump had done. And I want to make this clear. This is not a discussion about both sides doing it.

There's no false equivalence here. That's not what I want to get at. I would like to make a larger point here that I hope is helpful. But what Crockett said was that she and other members of Congress should get to vote on whether there is, as Jeremy said, an act of. To understand enough about the Constitution to the extent that I'm the one that's supposed to make the fucking decision or at least get a vote.

So she got a good reaction from supporters there, of course. And the debate about who gets to decide when we go to war aside for just a second, Jeremy, I think the reactions to what Trump said. And to what she said are very telling about our politics at this moment. And I wonder what you think. So he said that those two countries don't know. I'll just.

I'm going to say the F, OK, because we've already heard the F word enough for this edition of the show. He said those countries don't know what the F they're doing. And she basically said that she should at least get an effing vote on what happens. Right. So on CNN, Abby Phillip. who is one of the anchors there, she pointed out how Fox News Channel hosts have a very double, I would say very, very double standard about cursing.

Just the act of cursing. You know, when somebody drops the F-bomb, you can hear very different reactions when Trump does it versus when Crockett does it. Here's how one host reacted to Trump and then 20 minutes later reacting to a Democrat using the same word. The president feeling very frustrated this morning and using some salty language as he lashed out at both countries, accusing them of violating the agreement that he hopes will lead to peace in the region.

That's Emily Compagno. She was pretty measured there on Fox News Channel, basically saying that, and some other folks said a version of this, Jeremy. They said, well, you know, sometimes daddy has to use stern language. with these other countries. That's the way that some Republicans were talking about it. But what did the very same host on Fox say about what Jasmine Crockett said? When Crockett dropped the F-bomb, the reaction...

was very different. I was particularly repulsed by Rep. Jasmine Crockett's comments where she said, I'm the one that's supposed to make the effing decision on bombing Iran. First of all, it's a pretty foul mouth of her for someone that went to a tidy little all girls Catholic school. So she has no patience for a Democrat dropping the F-bomb, but when it's Trump doing it, it's just fine. And as I said, Jeremy, I don't think it's helpful to sit here for us to say, well, they both.

do it both sides do it whatever here's what i think might be something that we could all think about as we move forward in our politics and it's this that we're so and we and we've kind of talked about this before but i really want to uh you know underline this italicize it, bold it. We're so tribal that the person can do the exact same thing that a different person did. And the way people judge it isn't based on the thing that was done. It's based on who did it.

So Trump drops the F-bomb, and he's being stern. But when the Democrat does it, oh, she's foul-mouthed. She shouldn't be doing that, Jeremy. How can she be considered a serious member? of Congress, she should probably be, you know, she should be kicked out of the house, expelled, you know, in the estimation of these Fox News folks. And I'll say one other thing about it. You might say, Scott, what does it matter what they say on Fox News? That's just one host on Fox News Channel.

Well, believe me, what they're doing on Fox is just sort of the inverse of what they do on MSNBC. They are playing to an audience that is receptive to that, right? The Fox audience would agree with her that it's fine for Trump to do it, but not okay. for Crockett to do it. And it's solely based on which political party they're in and whether they agree with the person's politics, nothing to do with what they actually did.

Yeah, and we've been through this before. Remember, it wasn't too long ago that Beto O'Rourke was that foul-mouthed Beto O'Rourke. Remember, he was dropping F-bombs, and he was like, oh, I got to turn that stuff in. And again, some of those same people who were criticizing Beto O'Rourke back then are... huge supporters of trump you know and like you know even though he just used the same exact language right and so you're always kind of like trying to you know

figure out where we are in today's American politics. And like, and sometimes I just crack myself up and, you know, I'll put myself in this mindset. You all know, I love history, right? As like, imagine like Abraham Lincoln sitting there about to sign the Emancipation Proclamation.

and he just drops an f-bomb you know he's like that effing you know robert e lee you know it's like god damn him you know and then henry clay is like on the floor giving this great speech and you just just drop in an f-bomb you know well the president and can't tell me what the F to do. There's a reason that isn't in American history.

right it's like it may have been happening but it just wasn't recorded you know and stuff like that because people kind of understood there's like but they were playing to their time right and like and to me i think you know not that i think these guys are planning this stuff i don't think trump crockett

Beto or any of these people are planning this stuff out, but I think they're speaking to this audience that kind of likes this, right? And like you said, it could be the same word from the same person, but from different people, but it just doesn't matter. It's like, it's about...

my tribe yeah my tribe is saying yeah that's macho to call now you know you drop an f-bomb you know and like yeah i'm not taking anything from anybody but then they're like i can't believe beto said that or jasmine said that Yeah, it's like I just don't understand that part of it. Look, and it happens the other way too. It's like I saw a lot of people on the left going like, I can't believe Trump is using this language. It's like, oh, come on.

Come on, y'all. It's like let's – I would – look, not to be a prude, but I'd love for all of that language to take a step down because, again, as a parent of three kids, it's like – This is what our kids are all seeing, obviously. My kids are older, so they can handle it. But I'm just sitting there going, man, it just would stink if your first recognition of the president of the United States is him dropping an F-bomb.

You know, it's like, what a totally different upbringing than what we would have had. I just can't imagine Reagan stepping to the podium. I was once in a room with Ronald Reagan giving a speech, and I can't imagine if the F-bomb had come out of his mouth, what that would have done to my entire thought. process of who Reagan was.

Yeah, and you don't even have to go that far back. I was talking with my publisher, Mr. Kronberg, a few years back when a member of the Texas House, a Republican chairman, and for the insider crowd, when I say that,

this, they'll know exactly who I'm talking about. A Republican chairman had called me, and I'm trying to remember what the story was, but basically he didn't agree with something that had just happened. And he said, well, you know, that's just a bunch of bullshit. And Mr. Kronberg and I talked about it. And we decided that we would, for the publication, sort of sanitize it where you put the asterisk in for the eye, that we didn't want to print the word bullshit. And now...

Now, I mean, everything is different. Now, if someone drops the F-bomb, we just play it for you here on the show, if it's the president or a congresswoman. Just last year, Harvey wrote a column where the headline was something about calling BS on Greg Abbott. That was the headline. The coarsening of all of our – and I mean –

We proudly ran it because it was time to call BS on him. But the point is that people just don't care anymore. To your point about what kids see, when I have given speeches around the state, I would sometimes –

you know, raise the question about whether you would want your children to behave the way that Trump behaves. And there was a time a few years ago when I think people would kind of think about that for just a moment. Now it almost gets no reaction. People just don't put those two things together. They don't even care.

If people are involved in politics on any level or just observers of politics, they expect the combat to be that heated all the time. And I do – this is something that I think is key to understanding why we're – so mired in all this nastiness right now is is is what i said is that people judge things not based on what's done but based on who does it and that's just the most unhealthy way to think about um judging someone's actions

Well, and one little news hook that's kind of embedded in all of this, like the reaction to Jasmine Crockett, I have zero doubt, was partly due to the fact that she was really in the running to be the next leader of the House oversight.

committee in congress uh like she was in the running you know she ended up losing out uh to a congressman from california but like she was really in the running up until this point so when when she said that you know she was part of the enemy state and what i mean is that If she had become the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee and then Democrats won the majority back during the midterm elections next year, she would have been the chairman of this committee that has the power to –

to basically investigate everything the White House does. It's like she would have been subpoenaing the heck. out of Donald Trump and every advisor in the White House. And so Fox had already kind of recognized her as a potential enemy, you know, going forward. Right. And so you can see if, you know, if that's just like, you know, one of our lower level members of Congress.

who's not anywhere in the power base, it's one thing. But when it's Jasmine Crockett, it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, this might be the attack dog for the next round of Democrats. So let's just bury her as a foul mouth, whatever, right? It's like, oh my gosh, I can't believe this is so unbecoming of a woman in the United States Congress. Shocking. It is so shocking. We can't put up with it. This is just amazing to me. You know who else was just completely outraged?

And I mentioned Mr. Cronberg. Harvey. wrote a column this week at quorumreport.com in which he argued that the longtime master of the outrage industry in Texas finally has the GOP base outraged at him. That is what is happening with Dan Patrick. And he just got smacked down, Jeremy, earlier this week. It was Sunday night. I was in Fort Worth at a cigar bar. Imagine that.

Liquor and cigars in the same establishment, two legal things. I think there's no other major city in Texas where that happens, but that's a side note. Anyway, you have a cigar bar.

You're going to get me on a rant now. Anyway, it was 1122 or so on Sunday night when Governor Abbott issued his veto of the ban on THC, which we have been talking about here. Jeremy, I guess for about a month. I mean, it had been proposed longer than that, but it really came to the forefront over the last three or four weeks after Dan Patrick just really pushed all in on this. And the way he pushed in on it, Jeremy, in my estimation, knowing and...

covering Dan Patrick for this long, he may consider it. It's not me saying it. He may consider it. Well, I am saying that he would be thinking it. But he might be thinking this is his worst defeat. Ever. Maybe even worse than the bathroom bill in 2017 when he and then Speaker Joe Strauss clashed about regulations for who could use which public restrooms. But, you know, you had the governor come out and say there are constitutional problems with this, you know, that you're.

going to be taking people's businesses away from them, that they would be stuck in lawsuits, they'd be stuck in litigation for a long time, which I do have to say on that point, Jeremy. I'm a little surprised to hear Abbott say that because we've never had any problem in Austin with the legislature passing things that end up in court, challenged for a long time, right? But here comes Dan Patrick on, I guess, on Monday.

He looked defeated. I thought he was going to maybe melt the Capitol down with just anger and rage. And there was some of that. But more than that, he looked defeated. defeated um as i watched him um he said that after he read What Abbott wrote in his veto message, which is, dear listener, that's just a little, it's just what it sounds like. It's just a little note that goes along with the veto explaining what this veto was all about many years ago.

When Rick Perry issued what Mr. Kronberg at the time called the drive-by vetoes, there were 80 vetoes or so in Perry's first session. Jeremy, did you know that the veto messages, it was so sloppy that some of them didn't even go with the bills that had been vetoed? He was just vetoing a bunch of bills to make a point. But anyway, Abbott was making a specific point this week about siding with the legal hemp industry, the THC guys. And Patrick said...

in his very defeated press conference, that he thinks that the governor wants to go 180 degrees the other way. In reading the proclamation, one can only come to this conclusion, which surprises me. The governor of the state of Texas wants to legalize recreational marijuana in Texas. Now, as I read the proclamation from the governor, that's not quite what he said. He said that he essentially wants some sort of a law that's similar to what was proposed in the Texas House.

earlier this year, Jeremy, something that would do I have this right? Something that would just regulate this stuff similar to the way alcohol is regulated. I mean, that's what Ken King had proposed, the chairman of the State Affairs Committee. Now, listen to this. And I cannot remember Patrick ever speaking this way about Greg Abbott before. He accused the governor.

acting in bad faith. The last time I talked to the governor in the Capitol before session he said don't worry about the bill. He said your bill is fine. That's what he told me. In front of witnesses. The part where he says in front of witnesses, I think, is very telling. He wants all of us to think that you can't trust Greg Abbott. Now, I already had reasons for that. I didn't need Dan Patrick to...

to tell me not to trust Greg Abbott. Patrick said that the states with legal recreational THC are hellholes. We're not Colorado. And we're not Oregon. And we're not Washington State. We're Texas. And I will not sign a bill that legalizes marijuana in Texas. Jeremy, you can see my shirt here. Do you see what is the emblem? that's there on my shirt. It's the beautiful state of Texas.

Right. It's the state of Texas. It just happens to be one of the random shirts. I'm saying that to point this out. I'm a big fan of Texas. I love Texas. And I'm with Dan Patrick on this. We are Texas. I'm with him on this point. We're better. We are superior to the other places. I do believe that. Yes. But Colorado and Oregon and Washington State are nice places.

Correct. I lived and worked in Washington State for a while. Oregon is gorgeous. I mean, if you've ever seen the Washington coast or the Puget Sound there where the mountains come right up to the water, we don't have anything like that. They've got their own stuff. It's cool. And here I am in Tulsa where they have

legal pot stores all over the place. And I do want to make this point before we listen to the rest of what Patrick had to say. I'm in Tulsa for a couple of reasons. One, I was visiting my mother, who I think folks know, lives in Fort Smith, which is about 90 minutes from here.

She lives in northwest Arkansas, south of Fayetteville. And this is one of those places where you don't really come to Tulsa unless you're already, unless you had some great concert you were going to try to go to, right, Jeremy? I mean, they've got, this is a legendary music town.

But it's kind of out of the way, right? And so I came up here because I was already in Fort Smith. It's about 90 minutes away, as I said. And I wanted to check out a place that has pot stores all over the place because they do. They do. And in Oklahoma... What they have has been described as the most liberal version of a medical marijuana law, meaning that it's not really that difficult to get the little medical marijuana card and go buy stuff at the stores of these stores.

They're nice stores. They have all kinds of stuff in them. It's not the stuff that I generally would, you know, partake. But I don't think you should even have to say that, you know, when it comes to this argument. I have said this on the show and I've said it online as well.

So what if people want to get high? Here I am in Tulsa, where just like in Texas, they would have billboards that say, drink, drive, go to jail. There are billboards here along the highway in Oklahoma that say, if you're high, just don't drive. And to your point about what you had asked Patrick that he got so angry about, what about letting the adults do something that they want to do or that they can benefit from while protecting children? That's what they do here.

They ID people. They make sure that the kids aren't using the stuff. I do believe that the city here has some say over where these shops can be so they don't end up in every single corner store like Patrick is concerned about. But no. This is one of the nicest little downtowns. I say little. It's a bigger city. It's one of the nicest downtowns around. It's clean. It's great.

The old Art Deco skyline here in Tulsa is pretty amazing. People love this place if they know about it. It's a little gem. But the point is, just like with casinos, there's a casino in downtown New Orleans. It doesn't define. the city of New Orleans in any way, shape, or form. In fact, if you went to New Orleans, going to gamble at the Caesars there is probably the last thing you would even think of, right? But it's right there in downtown. I mean, it is there.

You have access to it. Here in Tulsa, they have access to legal THC, but it's not the first thing that people think of when they come here. They've got all other sort of stuff too. It's not the end of society and the places that have this.

are not hellholes. Patrick is just wrong. So are you seeing seven-year-olds that are high just walking around the streets of Tulsa and going to the slot machines and then getting behind the wheel and driving off? Is that what you're seeing? Is that what you're telling us? I just – if I do –

I'm going to stay here another night, Jeremy. If I see it, I promise to report it because you get honesty in reporting from me. Please get a little video of that so I can get that to my TikTok followers because that would really drive home what Dan Patrick is saying. is that if we don't do something about banning all THC from adults, seven-year-olds are going to go to town with this THC stuff.

Right to that point, Patrick said in that defeated press conference that Abbott has put lawmakers in a terrible box. If we don't pass a bill, if we don't pass a bill that regulates hemp and marijuana... then the status quo continues in those 8,000 shops and they keep selling all this poison and kids keep getting sick and parents keep losing their children and people walk out in front of trains and people shoot somebody. And by the way, if that happens, I'm sorry, Governor. It's not on us.

We'd abandoned. Where was his all-out ban on the kind of weapons that were used in Uvalde when children were getting shot? He just mentioned people getting shot. He didn't do anything about that. Everything about gun policy, and I'm going to get some notes about this, I'm sure, but everything about gun policy goes... The exact other way, 180 degrees the other way, is we should have more guns everywhere. And I don't hear Dan Patrick talking about people dying because there's more guns everywhere.

In Texas, believe me, they are everywhere. It's a Second Amendment state. When it comes to this, it has become something that most people, and this is the polling. We have reported on this, Jeremy. It's borne out by the activism. It's borne out by what we see in conservative media. Those on the right agree.

would agree with at least part of what i just said which is that people should have a right to have the access to this stuff and they don't want the quote unquote nanny state telling them what to do Well, and let me loop it to how you started this show, right? It's like it's that like the same, you know, the same words can come out of two people's mouths. But if one's a Republican, one's a Democrat. Ooh.

a totally different thing. And I want to relate this to his outrage and his deep concern for the children of Texas if they get THC. It's like, where is that when it's a single mom in the fifth ward who's... worried about her food stamps being cut off because of the legislation that we're going through you know where is that like you said with the uvaldi families like you know like you know look obviously he's been supportive of those families to a degree but there's like a

There's another level of like, where's that passion that he's sharing for this? with that. It's like, I've never heard that same thing of those, and I keep going back to those elementary school kids who survived that shooting, who will never be the same, and nobody talks about that. Nobody feels that, but he feels the pain of these children who might get so high on THC that they're going to explode. Remember, he held that bag up in front of me and said, you want to take this?

knows if you'll be here tomorrow it's like what it's like do you even know what you're holding it's like he still doesn't know what he's holding Even in that press conference, you can see he still hasn't got the full message that what he's holding is not a bag of cocaine. It's not a bag of fentanyl.

THC is not the same as those things, but he's just conflated all of it, which further misleads the people he thinks he's representing. Like, they now are thinking, oh, wow, maybe Patrick's right. Maybe this stuff, you know, he's... continuing to make them think that what they're holding is like, like,

Meth. It's not. So the word you use there, conflating, is exactly what he's doing. And I have to tell you that I was offended during a news conference earlier in the session when Governor Patrick... brought a couple of mothers to a press conference. So you and I were sitting next to each other and those women, those mothers had sorrow in their eyes. I could see tears. welling up as they were speaking about the experiences that their children had had with synthetic thc and at the time i had asked

Senator Perry, Charles Perry, who's carrying this legislation, I had asked him about the polling data that showed that Republicans don't agree with this. And the point that I was trying to get to in this news conference is that you could have legislation. to deal with what those mothers dealt with and just ban the synthetic stuff because those were the stories that Patrick was highlighting. But he was conflating their stories with the naturally occurring THC from hemp.

and they're not taking a scalpel to this. They're taking a sledgehammer to it to try to ban the whole thing. He brought those mothers there and put them in front of the cameras, and they told their stories, and I do not question their motives even a little bit. But I would say this, he was happy to do that, to put those grieving mothers in front of the cameras. And when the Uvalde families came to the Capitol, what happened to them, Jeremy?

They were jerked around, and they didn't even get to testify until midnight after they had shown up at the Capitol at 8 in the morning. And they asked for something very specific. And it's not – I mean, you got me going here, Jeremy, because what those mothers said in that news conference with Patrick when they were talking about their kids having these bad experiences with the synthetic THC. They were asking for what? They were asking for something to be banned or at least regulated.

What were the Uvalde families asking for? They were asking for something to at least be banned for people under 21. That's all they wanted. They wanted the lightest of regulation on guns. They said, hey, just do the raise the age thing. That's it.

They weren't talking red flag laws. They weren't talking about any of this other stuff. They weren't talking about the things that get the Second Amendment enthusiast crowd all fired up. They were talking about the bare minimum and how were those families treated. Republican legislators led by.

The GOP leadership, including Dan Patrick, put their fingers in the ears. They didn't listen to them at all. But when it came to what happened with the THC moms, the moms who have had this experience with their kids, the fake THC, what did Patrick say? He accused me. of playing a, quote, political cheap game, close quote, which is exactly what he was doing with those mothers when he paraded them in front of those cameras.

Yeah, it's like – I'm always weary of – man, it's like your heart goes out to these families. If you lose a family member to anything, right, it's like – You can't possibly know what it's like that those people are going through. It's why, you know, maybe my favorite picture of all time, you know, since I've been, you know, particularly back in Texas was that day when Willie Nelson leaned into the family members.

from uh uvaldi and said you know look you'll never get over this but you can get through this you know it's just like you know it's like to get that picture when he was doing it it's like you know Like, I think we just need to treat people who go through loss with a lot of respect and be careful to use them as political.

you know, parts of any game. If they're naturally pushing for something, go for it. But if like, I just get nervous every time I see like a grieving mom, you know, or a grieving dad. you know put out there it's like oh man it's like yeah i hope they know i hope they've been briefed to what they're getting themselves into

Right. Yeah. And I couldn't say it better myself. You know, this situation has, and you probably couldn't tell it from my comments here because I got a little worked up. You got me going again, Jeremy. Yeah. But over the last couple of weeks, I have...

I've gotten more bored of this topic, though, because we've been talking about it for a while. And unlike some of the outrage industry people we were talking about, I'm just not hardwired to be pissed off all the time anymore. When I was in my 20s, I was.

I was angry about everything all the time when I was in my 20s and 30s. But at some point, I'm just not in the Fox News demographic anymore because I don't wake up ready to be angry. I'm not ready to be told what to be angry about and to be angry all day. I don't want to do that.

It was the comedian Shane Gillis would talk about how his father, his elderly father would watch Fox News Channel and just work himself up and work himself up until he wore himself out and then would go to sleep at night. So... So I think what Patrick maybe didn't anticipate, because he had to understand that the base of the party was not with him on this, he can read polls better than any Republican politician that I've ever covered. In fact, probably better than any politician, period.

of either party. I think what he didn't anticipate is the sustained anger about this. We've been talking about this now for weeks, and those on the right who don't agree with Patrick are starting to call him Did you see this? Dana Loesch, we played a portion of her show on our show previously. She's the former NRA spokeswoman and all that. She's very popular with folks on the right. She said that Patrick needs to get some new advisors.

because now he's kryptonite because of this, because of this, because of the THC issue. I would say that I think it's cute that Dana Loesch thinks that Dan Patrick listens to political advisors. I've covered him long enough. I've covered him long enough, and I'm giving him credit, by the way, on this part of it. It's all him. I can't tell you how often I've been aware.

that the people who advise him don't agree with what he's doing and he does it anyway. Because he calls the shots. I can tell you that on his first campaign, and this is the kind of info that... You can't really get anywhere else. People who don't have as much experience in covering all these people, Jeremy. Going all the way back to his first race for the Texas Senate in 2006, I know the folks who ran that campaign for him.

The people from Houston who would tell you he was the one who made all the decisions about how that went. And it's been my understanding throughout the rest of his career. It's always been the same. Dan calls the shots. And on this one. I think he understood that the base wouldn't be with him, but what he got wrong is that the base of the party has had sustained anger about this.

And I don't know why he wouldn't have anticipated that because we were talking about – you mentioned that the Republicans would be angry about a Democrat who's cursing and then vice versa. But if the Democrats get angry about it, they get angry in the moment and then they kind of move on.

This has been my experience. If people have a different opinion, please let me know. But with liberals, it always was funny to me that the liberals, the progressives got tagged with the whole cancel culture thing because they did do it for a while. I mean they did it for a while and you could go through case by case as far as how that – went and which ones were justified and not. But they got tagged with it. When conservatives do it all the time, it is...

part of conservative ideology to shut down opinions you don't agree with. And we've seen that in Texas. We've seen it around the rest of the country. And conservatives are always angry, for example, about immigration. Jeremy, no matter what's going on with it, they stay the same. They say this. I mean, you know, we had we had bigger numbers of migrants coming in during the Biden administration. Of course, they were angry. But when the numbers were down, they stayed just as angry about it.

It inflames the Republican base in a way that no other issue, there's no other issue that comes close. Right. And there's always angry about it. But for the things that they're angry about, they just stay angry no matter what's going on with it. And when I want to figure out what's going on.

with their conservative base there are a few things i do one of the things i do is check in with my friends and talk radio because you know for all of the stuff that's online for all of conservative media. In Texas, conservative talk radio is still king if you want to know what's happening with the GOP base. You know, you check in with the talk show hosts.

Check in with their audience. You know, what feedback are they getting? And my friend, Chad Hastie, who hosts his show out of KFYO in Lubbock and is also heard in other parts of West Texas as well. And so I think he gets. He gets a pretty good representation among his audience of what they think about what's going on in Texas politics. I check in with Chad every week on Mondays. And usually, Jeremy, it's that, you know, he asks me questions about what's going on in Austin.

So this week, I wanted to kind of turn the tables on him and ask him some questions about what the conservative base thinks about Patrick. So when I was on the show, I just started asking him questions about the way Patrick has handled all this. And I will say... Hasty has been one of, he's been tip of the spear on this. One of the conservative thought leaders in the state who's been very angry about what Patrick has been doing, but he's not alone.

Almost every other talk show host that I am aware of who's a conservative host in Texas did not agree with Patrick except for one. The only one that I can think of who was with Patrick is Mark Davis in Dallas. He's the dean of Texas Talk Radio. So he's a prominent person. But he's really on an island by himself when it comes to what's happening on the AM.

and in some cases, the FM airwaves. For him, he probably thinks that, and obviously we can get into the motivation, but for him, he probably thinks, yeah, the base isn't with me on this. But maybe it's not a motivating issue. It's not the kind of thing that's going to cost Patrick or anybody else their elections. But did it seem that way, that he was almost completely ignoring what the conservative base and the MAGA base was saying about this?

I think so. And, you know, it was something that for Patrick, and you've brought this up many times. Others have brought it up. If nothing else, Dan Patrick is great at reading polls, and he knows polls. He knows the pulse of the Republican Party. And I think he does on just about every other issue that's out there. I think Dan Patrick's pretty much right on. But this one, I mean, Scott, he even went out and found a different polling firm to find the answers that he wanted.

On this one. I mean, just about every single poll that had been done by independent agencies, by his own poller, found that the Republicans are, you know, just the lowest number. I saw was 45% who were against the ban. That doesn't mean that 55% were for the ban at all. It was in the 30s or 20s that were for the ban at the highest mark. Yeah, it just, you know, and again, you know, there's lots of cha-ching reasons why Dan Patrick is for this.

And it's just, it doesn't ring, it doesn't ring true with the, the base of the party that, by the way. still is all about that small government and not about the nanny state. So this is going to be the marquee issue in the upcoming special session, Jeremy, which is going to get underway coming up next month. And, of course, we'll keep an eye on what happens with it.

Someone asking me about what happens in a special session. Someone asked, is it possible for lawmakers to convene in Austin and have a short... tidy, neat little special where they just address the issue right off the bat and then get the hell out of town. And here's my answer.

No, it never goes that way. There's always some theory that they can just come in, that the lawmakers can come into the Capitol for two days, Jeremy, and they will just kind of sign off on what the governor wants and then they'll get out. But that has never happened. We do have the specter being raised of redistricting of Texas.

That's not on the agenda yet. I did want to remind people that the governor can add things as we go. He can add things before the special session. He can add things during the special session. Did you remember that back in 2014 when Wendy Davis filibustered the big abortion? legislation that was being passed that year when she did that, when the special session started, abortion wasn't on the agenda.

It was redistricting at first, which then Attorney General Abbott had convinced Governor Rick Perry to hold a, quote, short... nifty little special that would only last a few days. They could just do redistricting real quick and then get out of town. And that didn't happen. Two weeks later, Perry added abortion to the agenda and we were off to the races. So we'll put a pin in that.

And we will track where this issue goes from here. I do want to get to your story, Jeremy. I think it's important. The story about... one of the industries along the Texas coast that is just going away unless somebody does something about it. And you were telling me about this and I can say, you know, personal experience. I grew up not far from Matagorda Bay and as a kid was very familiar with the lifestyle and the hard-working folks who are in...

the fishing business, the shrimping business specifically, once a year. It was a treat in our family, by the way, Jeremy. We would go down. We would leave the family farm, drive down. to Matagorda, to the Matagorda-Palacius area, and we would buy some shrimp right off the boats and put them in the big cooler, take them back to the farm.

peel those shrimp, they had the kids do that, peel the shrimp, and then we would freeze them in Ziploc baggies so we'd have shrimp for the whole year. By the way, when you are doing that, you can never get that smell off your hands. My hand's probably still... They probably still smell that way. But what's going on with this? I mean, the shrimpers are having a hard time.

Yeah, this is one of those stories that drive me crazy. Again, for those people who grew up in Texas, it's like this was such a dominant industry at one point. Not terribly long ago, in the 1990s, 50% of all the shrimp... assumed in America came from Texas. We were the kings of this industry, right? Now, get this, it's 4% is coming from Texas.

They went from dominating this industry to there's just now 4% of the shrimp you consume in America is coming from the great state, right? And so what's the impact of that? It's like, well, that's been a dramatic impact because of this flood of foreign.

shrimp that now has been in the markets they've flooded the markets like incredibly so to where it's made it hard for these shrimpers in texas who used to be the industry they have had to like we've seen their numbers shrink dramatically the number of shrimpers who are actually licensed in the state of texas is down 60 since you know the year 2000 it's like in the boats there's just a fewer boats out there that can do this stuff now because they simply can't compete

with the international market that has just flooded the market. Yeah, and so give us the context for this, what we're about to hear. One of the shrimpers from Texas was testifying. Yeah, this is Patricia Kimball. She's the vice president of the Port Arthur's Area Shrimpers Association. It's a pretty small group. So when you say here association, these are small mom and pop type people. It's a third generation shrimper in a family.

three brothers who shrimp, and it looks as though this will be the last generation of shrimpers giving the outlook for the once proud shrimping industry. Many of the shrimpers grew up in the shrimp community and are continuing the proud traditions of those who fished before them. It is unbelievable that those many generations will end with this one.

Unless something is done immediately. Now, I'll get in just a minute to what they exactly want to see happen here. But, of course, this gets into the conversation about tariffs and what some would call protectionism, etc. And those folks who do such an honest day's work. Believe me, every day that they do it along the Texas coast, they're being undercut right by these shrimping companies from overseas.

that you will hear in this PBS report from Shane Campbell-Staten that those companies are using modern-day slaves. That's the way it was portrayed. The video of this, by the way, was really compelling. And dear listener, stick with it. You will hear one woman speaking in Chinese who just stick with it, like I say, because the reporter will explain what she's saying.

But listen to the kind of conditions that these people work in all of the time to be able to charge so little for shrimp in the United States. Facing a shortage of local workers willing to spend months at sea. the fleets turned to cheaper and more vulnerable sources of labor. So people are being actively recruited and brought in, and then once they're there, It's a completely different situation than they expected.

As a black American, the word slaves brings up a lot of feelings for me. But it's hard to think of another word to describe this reality. People tricked into a brutal life. where they're bought and sold to work long, unpaid hours under constant threat of violence or death.

Now, you might say that's the liberals on PBS. Well, here's how they covered it on Fox News Channel. 90% of shrimp consumed in the United States is imported from overseas, and the American shrimpers say they just can't compete. Let's bring in Leanne Bossard. who is the fifth generation of her family to be involved in the commercial fishing industry. Leanne, what would happen to American shrimping without tariffs?

Well, the U.S. domestic shrimp industry has been on a downward trajectory for decades now as a direct result of the unfair trade in the overseas aquaculture industry for growing shrimp overseas. And these tariffs threw us the lifeline that... we needed to hopefully live to fight another day in our industry in this country. So, Jeremy, we have now heard from a couple of the shrimpers here. You hear about what's happening overseas. Big picture and drill down as much as you want with where.

This goes from here. Is there something else they're asking for? Is it just the tariffs? Is there some policy they want to see enacted? I know that there was some legislation passed on this in Austin, and I haven't watched the stuff in D.C. as closely.

on with it well so here's a couple really key points so like you know particularly you know where the labor comes from how the fishing is done and all of that stuff is obviously much more regulated in the united states than you know it is in these other countries right and so

that in itself creates that imbalance that you're seeing that these shrimpers just can't compete with, right? Like they can't, they're not going to use slave labor. They're not going to, you know, scrape the bottle of the ocean and destroy all kinds of habits. hats just to get the shrimp that they're doing overseas right so you get that in the first but what that the end result in in in on the market right that the it costs it can cost you know 10 to 12 for a pound of shrimp

you know, if you go to a store. But guess what? The shrimper in Texas is getting a dollar or less for that work. So imagine that. It's like the farmers that we've talked about before and what they're doing. You're getting paid nickels for something that now is being charged so much because there's such a glut in the market that it's really kind of put these people.

in a bind so what do they want and what do they need right like the first you know thing to point out is that so the reason i got onto all of this is because governor abbott did sign a bill from senator mays middleton uh from galveston who ended up you know having this bill that, you know.

It makes sure – it makes it clear to restaurants that you have to identify where your shrimp is coming from. If you say you have Texas shrimp on there, it better be Texas shrimp. It better not be from these international places. If you're buying this stuff, if –

If markets are selling it, they have to disclose where it's coming from. So like you can't just pretend your international shrimp is coming from Texas because it's a big deal. It's something Louisiana has already done. Like in Louisiana, if you go to a store, you –

You're going to know if that shrimp is from overseas or from the bayou, right? It's like you're going to know that. We don't know that in Texas right now. We don't have that as a law. And so his legislation is meant to address some of that. So that's one piece of the puzzle, right? But there's another piece of the puzzle.

puzzle uh where you know this is where congressman troy nails and others have been getting into involved in this they want to make the government crack down more overall on just kind of what's coming in overseas right you know what does that mean it's like it can mean lots of things And so there was legislation in the Texas House that asked Congress to get tougher.

you know avenues of this is trying to get terrorists put on these places now you know terrorists are a very sensitive word here and there are times where like the terrorists have hurt a lot of texas farmers right but here's a case where if the tariffs aren't used as a sledgehammer and more tailored and more narrowly focused on something like the shrimp industry, you can see where there might be some value in it because, because of the human rights.

concerns that are much more pronounced than i realized before i started doing the story i had no idea you know like you know now i'm completely panicked anytime i see a shrimp cocktail for the rest of my life you know what the hell had to happen to get that there it's like that report on pbs y'all really should go check it out you know be prepared for some really dark

stuff, man. It's like, you know, some of the stories in that report, it just like shocked me that, you know, people like are getting beaten, killed, thrown over, you know, the side, losing arms and limbs, and it's all to produce that shrimp cocktail at the cheapest. price possible uh so the you know restaurant and the suppliers make money it's like it just blows your mind but again and why does this matter so much right like let's talk about you know this in its in its soul is

Part of what makes, to me, this is the Texas Tech experience in its shell, right? It's like, we don't just talk about the industries here. We're not just here for the lobbyists. We're not just here for like higher level people. If you follow this program and follow this stuff. that I try to write every day. This is about like the single mom on food stamps who doesn't really matter to a lot of lobbyists. This is about like the six-year-old contractor whose hands hurt every damn day.

want some thc it's like this is about the shrimper who is like after five generations is looking like and having to look out at this book like this is the last generation we can't do this anymore i think we're supposed to be a voice for these people who can't be heard a lot of times, you know, like there's a big J journalism.

That goes into what we do on this program and in these newsletters. And we have to be right by that and not just be like feeding whatever's best for the industry. Right. Like these industries don't want to hear this stuff. Some lobbyists are going to take offenses.

of these things at times but that's what we're not here just for y'all it's like i love the insiders being part of these programs it's like y'all should listen to this stuff as much as you can but we're also here to give the voice to the people who can't be heard in your committee hearing the people who don't have the time or the power or the access to give you know donations at a fundraiser to coddle up to the lieutenant governor and say what they want to say right those people that's

that's imperative for us in the media to be that voice. And if there's one hill I'm willing to die on, it is to support the people who work their tails off every day, not for any sort of super gain, but just to put food on. Well, I would say if they had a bigger lobby presence for the Texas shrimp market, they would have a different situation around here. I mean, the fact that they don't have much of an association left.

I mean, speaks to where the industry is, and you're right. That report, by the way, on PBS, people can find it by Googling, watch the true cost of shrimp, what the grocery store doesn't. show you. Is Big John dropping out?

Is Big John dropping out? This was a Wall Street Journal report that said that John Cornyn, our senior senator, was seriously considering dropping out of his bid. for reelection and jeremy asked him about that and i also wanted to ask you about that wall street journal article from earlier in the week they made it sound like that you were considering or willing to drop out of the race for the senate

if you thought it was the right thing to do. And that article confused me in relation to our past conversations about this race. Is there any indication that you might actually step aside? None whatsoever. I'm absolutely determined to run and to win. If I didn't think I could win, I wouldn't run. But it's clear that with the problems that the attorney general has that are well known, but not as well known as they will be by the time the primary is over with.

that he cannot win a general election in Texas. And I've simply labored too long in the vineyards in Texas in Republican politics to turn the seat over to Democrats. in November. I've talked to the president and his team about this. They are fully aware of the risks associated with it, and we'll continue to have that conversation. I'm absolutely convinced that once Republican primary voters know their choice between me and the Attorney General, that we'll...

we will prevail. To balance this out, I did hear some chatter out of Washington over the course of the last week, Jeremy, that indicated that, and who knows, you know, that the Wall Street Journal had their reporting that said, you know, maybe Cornyn was going to drop out. I had heard from what I will call a usually reliable source, that there were decent rumblings out there that you could hear it out there that Paxton was getting concerned about not really raising much...

money, or at least not enough, certainly not the kind of numbers that you and I had talked about that he was listing as his targets earlier in the year. And that there is some talk that Trump might Put in a call that this I don't know that this happened yet, but I'll just share the gossip now since they're all they're gossiping about Cornyn in the Wall Street Journal. Gossip was that Trump might at some point put in the call to Paxton and say, hey, look.

To a point that Jeremy Wallace has made, we don't need to be spending all this money in Texas. There are other races that they need to focus on, especially that Republicans need to focus on in a year that we would. We'd be charitable to say it could be bad for Republicans and pretty good for Democrats in the second midterm for Donald Trump as president.

Yeah, and to be clear, I did reach out to Ken Paxson to ask him about what Cornyn had said, because that's what I do here. I'm all about the balance, man. Like, Cornyn's going to blow away at you. I'm going to make sure I try to reach out to Paxson and see what he has to say. And essentially, his response to me was,

Look, the political establishment pushed the same desperate attack throughout 2022 when I was outspent by millions and I still won the general election by nearly 10 points. He, of course, is responding to that cycle when we had George P. Bush and – a cast of thousands, you know, trying to unseat him, calling the great Louie Gohmert, who I miss so much hearing his voice, you know, in the U.S. House, you know. How could I forget Louie?

Yeah, exactly. But that was a spirited race. He ended up winning despite the fact that he had been impeached by the House, later acquitted, of course, from – all of his troubles did not bring him down, right? And so ultimately in the end – You know, I think Paxton thinks this is the same thing that happened before and I can prevail again. But I know.

There are people in D.C. who are very worried about this, not because of the idea that they could lose the seat as much as they are. Oh, my gosh, that's a lot of money that's tangled up in Texas that we really want to use. in Maine. Like imagine how much further your dollar can go in Maine that it can go into Texas. It's like you can spend $5 million in Texas and you haven't moved anything at this point. Like it's going to take them $100 million potentially to hold the seat in Texas.

Texas, and again, $100 million, what could you do with that in North Carolina? If they lose North Carolina because they didn't have the financial resources out of Texas, who's going to answer for that? Right. Texas is big, y'all. It's huge. It's a huge place. Is it still true? I remember these numbers were from a few years back. But it's still true to do a decent TV buy.

in the bigger markets in Houston or DFW, you're talking a million dollars a week, right, in the home stretch? And maybe even a little more than that now? Yeah, closer to $2 million in Houston. Yeah. Right, yeah, depending on what saturation you're going for and everything like that. But it's serious money, to your point. They would be, as Republicans, much better off not having a big fight.

about who's going to be the Senate nominee. But the base of the Republican Party may not agree with that. They may say, well, we don't want that rhino John Cornyn. That's what they would say. The guy they basically booed off the stage at the Republican Party of Texas convention in Houston a couple of years ago. You know who really agrees with John Cornyn and some of those people concerned are the Democrats.

Like there's a reason the Democrats are getting excited by the race. It's not because of Cornyn. It's because of the prospect of Ken Paxton being the nominee. And so you have like all these Democrats now putting their hands up. I don't know if you saw, you know, like the San Antonio Express News, my buddies down there just had a story about how Joaquin Castro is far more serious than even I had.

known even a couple weeks ago remember a month ago i was telling you how he was traveling around houston in the valley and all these places and showing up in places i didn't expect and like he might be running for something well he flat out told greg jefferson at the uh you know express news that you know i don't know he's seriously

considering this. But what a weird twist, right? So tonight, this being Friday, I'm going down to San Antonio where Beto O'Rourke, Joaquin Castro, and James Tallarico, who all might run against each other for this U.S. Senate race, right? They're all...

going to be together at the same event to kind of show some democratic unity and they're going to share the stage. And I'm like, and they invited Colin Allred too. And Allred opted not to go for whatever reason. And I talked to... Go ahead. I was going to say, I'm sure Allred is relaxing spending time with his kids. That's all he talks about in interviews these days. I don't think that people should run...

and base it all off of pre-scripted answers and pre-packaged stuff. Not that I ran that way or anything, but all I'm doing these days is just relaxing with my kids. Thank you, Congressman. Thank you, Congressman. Is he still a Congressman? So he's a former congressman. And to tie up the loop, I did talk to Terry Virts. He's a Houston astronaut who did actually announce his candidacy this week. I did talk to him somehow in this wild week that I've been on. But I chatted with him for a little bit.

It didn't sound like he got an invite from the Beto, Joaquin, Tallarico crowd. But I don't know if that's just because he was so new in the process and nobody kind of has much of a relationship with him. Who knows if he'll be invited to these in the future? But like it's just – So you have all these people who want to be the Senate nominee because they want to take on Ken Paxton. They know they have a shot against Ken Paxton that John Cornyn does not offer them. Let me give Democrats one.

Not really advice. Let me give them – I'll go this far to say it's a warning. You remember the way that it went last year? When Democratic leaders decided who the nominee should be instead of letting Democrats figure that out. Just, you know, I'm seeing these reports about some of the guys are talking about having meetings and, you know, they're going to sit in a room together.

That didn't go great around the country last year. Democrats kind of collapsed all over the place when they didn't bother to ask their voters who ought to be their standard bearer. That's just – Just a little wisdom there that I'm going to throw down. All right, let's do – we've got to get – at some point, we've got to end the show. As good as it is, Jeremy, the show has to end at some point. Evan, let's –

Yeah, well, go ahead. I was going to say, Joe Rogan never says that. That's why he can go on for two and a half hours. We've got another couple hours to go to match the other Austin podcaster. Well, when I have a studio where I can just smoke cigars for three hours and talk politics with you, this will be a different format. I'm with you. And believe me, that may happen. All right, Evan, let's do Up and Down of the Week.

Each weekday in his newsletter, Jeremy brings you the up and down of the day. That is his sort of stock market style report on who's doing better, who's doing worse in politics. So for the show, we do up and down of the week. Who's up this week, Jeremy? All right, I'm going to go with Greg Abbott. And not because of anything to do with the THC stuff, but it's going to be about...

You know, he asked for 11 billion dollars from Congress, you know, for the border reimbursements for the Operation Lone Star stuff he's been spending money on like crazy for the last four years. And so, like, I thought it was a long shot he would get the 11 billion. But here the U.S. House. put in 12 billion well now it's in the senate you know as they go for a vote this weekend it's up to 13.5 billion

It's like somehow Abbott not only got his 11 billion, but he's got the 13.5 billion in there. Now that wouldn't all go to Texas. But what's important about that money is that it'll keep other states who wanted a share of the money. they can still get their money and the 11 billion Texas would likely be in line to get is still going to come to us. So I think Abbott comes to Victor here because somehow I thought it was a crazy idea that Congress would ever do it. But my goodness, he's on the.

verge of getting congress to send you know to set aside 13 and a half billion dollars to pay for all that razor wire and all those buses to the north we'll see what they do all right uh who's the down this week

Okay, I just got to go with Dan Patrick, right? There's a lot of other people I could pick in this thing. Terrible. Terrible week. It's not because of the veto necessarily because, you know, he lost on this thing, but it's the way he lost. It is just throwing me for a loop. You know, as a guy who covered Congress for the time I did, it's like I remember Mitch Connell saying, I'm not going to put something.

on the floor that ultimately is going to get vetoed or not get passed anyhow and put people in a bad spot. But look at what Dan Patrick just did. He made everybody walk this plank with him on this issue.

you know and it goes to what we talked about before how speakers are supposed to protect their members first and foremost right in this case everybody ended up walking off this plank to ban thc against the wishes of a lot of people in the republican party they all followed along with them and it was for nothing He burned all of that capital for absolutely nothing. And it goes to a bigger problem. He and Greg Abbott have had breakfast regularly on Wednesdays all this session.

Right. They regularly meet. They they have communicate at events. They were together at the Harris County Lincoln Reagan dinner that I was at. They were in the same room eating dinner next to each other. And yet through all of that. Patrick didn't see this coming. Like talk about a thing where this is a guy who has the pulse on everything. I am always like frustrated because he knows more than everybody. It seems like, and here's a case where he didn't know the basic.

trouble he was getting into which shows to me that like look as good as he's been at times in his career this is a really bad way to go out one of the things that was trending on my tiktok and uh in uh instagram post when i was writing thc was this phrase that i would hate if i was dan patrick it was nanny danny like people were posting that underneath those you know videos i was posting

And it's like enough to where I'm like, boy, if that's the legacy he ends off with, this great conservative political strategic mind is going to be known as Nanny Danny. Can you tell me a Republican who wants that? as their final image, if this were to be his last rodeo? I mean, it is...

It is a continuation of the defeat that he saw in 2017 when he was going to tell everybody which bathroom that they could use, and that didn't work out. That was something where the base of the Republican Party...

could be convinced to be on board with him. I would say on the school voucher issue with Abbott, it's interesting that in my estimation, the base of the party is kind of hoodwinked on that issue. I think they just don't really fully understand it. If you say to Republicans, hey, are you

you for school choice. It sounds great, right? It's a good bumper sticker, but then you get into the details. They don't like it as much. There's a lot of strong arming from the governor on that to get it over the finish line. I did see some of the chatter online and elsewhere, Jeremy.

some Republicans pushing back and saying, well, no, Dan Patrick didn't, he didn't strong arm anybody when it came to the THC ban, as we reported at quorum report.com. And we talked about here on the show, if you want to hear exactly how he got it done and the. that he waged, you can just go back to the episode that we called Master of the House. Scroll back to that and listen to it. You will get all the detail.

about exactly how that went down and all of the muscle he flexed and how Patrick now knows where every lever of power is in the Capitol. And he knows exactly how to make it work. and when to pull those levers, right? I mean, he made that happen. I'll just say this to tease it out, and we will cover it in as complete a form as any.

program in the state when it comes up for debate in the special session coming up next month. But I'll just say this, when it comes to the special session, a lot of those levers won't be there for him. Yes. To push and pull. So as I mentioned earlier, when I listened to his entire press conference earlier in the week about THC...

I couldn't tell what he was going to do. He came in with a lot of sort of bantam rooster bullshit, and he's doing his – he's a lot of bluster about this and saying the governor acted in bad faith and all of that. But in the same press conference, he essentially said, well, what the governor wants might still pass in the Senate. He said some nonsense about how it might pass, but I won't be on the podium. Now, if you want to count the guy out, though.

And I agree he's down for sure. But if you want to count the guy out, I wouldn't do that just yet because this is a guy who in the legislative session had 40 priorities and I think 37 of them. are the law. There's nobody else with that batting average, or they're set to be the law.

They'll go into effect later. Nobody else has that batting average in modern Texas politics. All right, that's probably enough show. Does that feel like enough show to you, Jeremy? That feels like enough show. And I got to get on the road and get to that rally in San Antonio.

All right. Thank you for covering that. If I see anything on the streets of Tulsa to make me think that all the children here... are high as a giraffe's ass i will let you know and check out jeremy's if you get a chance to go to kane's ballroom please go i've been dying to get up there and i need to get good intel on how much is worth getting up there

I'll see who's performing. You should check out Jeremy's newsletter. It's where you find the up and down each day, each weekday. And you can find the link for his newsletter on his social medias. And those are Jeremy's. Jeremy S. Wallace across all platforms. You can follow me as well at Scott Braddock. You should be a subscriber to quorum report.com Houston chronicle.com as well. And we'll see you next time.