Rage Against the Colleges

Mint is still $15 a month for premium wireless. And if you haven't made the switch yet, here are 15 reasons why you should. One. It's $15 a month. Two, seriously, it's $15 a month. Three, no big contracts. Four, I use it. Five, my mom uses it. Are you playing me off? That's what's happening, right? Okay. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch.

Upfront payment of $45 per three-month plan, $15 per month equivalent required. New customer offer first three months only. Then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. See mintmobile.com. Attention all small biz owners. At the UPS store, you can count on us to handle your packages with care.

With our certified packing experts, your packages are properly packed and protected. And with our pack and ship guarantee, when we pack it and ship it, we guarantee it. Because your items arrive safe or you'll be reimbursed. Visit the upsstore.com slash guarantee for full details. Most locations are independently owned. Product services, pricing, and hours of operation may vary. See center for details. The UPS Store. Be unstoppable. Come into your local store today.

Rage against the colleges. Welcome to The Texas Take. I'm Jeremy Wallace of the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express News. And one of the beauties of this operation is that we get to take y'all to a lot of places in Texas. And this week's show is sure evidence of that. We're going to dive into the heart of Houston's fifth and third wards with columnist Joy Suing. We're going to take you into the academic and political drama unfolding in College Station with reporter Samantha Ketterer.

pop you down to Eagle Pass with Benjamin Werman, where state troopers are racking up major overtime bills even as border crossings plummet. And we'll take you up to Round Rock, where I was with the newest Democrat in the U.S. Senate race, who is making some early waves. Plus, on top of all that, I'll introduce you to a retired astronaut down in Houston who is running for the U.S. Senate and let him tell you why he's in the race and if he has the time to build.

an upstart campaign that can actually break through. We'll get to all of that in a minute.

But first, we need to talk about the assassination of Charlie Kirk in Utah, what it means, and how he's a major part of the reason why our college campuses have been under such scrutiny for the last five years, not just in Texas, but nationwide. First, here's what happened earlier this week in Utah.

One of the nation's most prominent conservative activists is dead after being shot during a political rally at a Utah college campus this afternoon. In a social media post, President Donald Trump announced Charlie Kirk, the head of the conservative youth organization, organization Turning Point USA, died after being rushed to the hospital from an outdoor event at Utah Valley University. If you aren't familiar with Kirk, he has been a major figure on the right.

who ran an organization called Turning Point USA. That group has made changing the politics on college campuses and with young people in general central to its mission. I recognize that there was a ideological imbalance on a lot of these college campuses. And we wanted to go about trying to offer a counterpoint of conservative.

you know pro-freedom pro-liberty you know america and you saw the college campuses as sort of the underbelly of the opportunity or or is it just more just experiential in terms of your own sort of animus towards well i mean you have a sitting population about 20 million kids that are there for four years. And also, again, you had nowhere to go but up. I mean, when we started in 2012, 75% of kids on college campuses would vote for Democrats. Now, fast forward to today, this last election cycle.

Democrats lost the youth vote in Michigan, nearly lost that Wisconsin, nearly lost in Arizona. So our goal was, hey, let's move at 10 points. We moved at 13 points. That was Kirk. sitting down with California Governor Gavin Newsom on his podcast back in March of this year. Kirk started this

in the simplest ways back in 2012. Listen to him talk about the beginnings of what he started doing on college campuses. To your point, your crowds are growing. 2012, where were you? You were coming in and people were...

i mean you were taking i mean yeah you were like getting threats i mean it you still get tons of threats yep but it was i mean what was it like just to paint a picture of you walking on college i i had no money no connections and no idea what i was doing and uh yeah i mean we were

I didn't even have a social media account. I mean, it was just the ultimate startup. And would you just say I'm available and you started at this sort of debate? No, it was even more scrappy. I would literally show up to UW Madison with a card table and a big cardboard sign saying debate me.

You know, like, here's some provocative statement. So you're 20-something years old. And I wouldn't even film it. I was 18 or 19. 18 or 19. What he's talking about there is really what has been happening on a larger scale on college campuses. year after year, as the right has really trained its firepower on universities. In short, they have put on display their distrust of what colleges are teaching and are convinced that they've become the root of all the problems in America.

You're seeing that happen right now on campuses in Texas, like at Texas A&M University this week. More on that in a minute. But let me first set the stage. Here's J.D. Vance in 2021 in a speech before the Edmund Burke Foundation. spelling out in very blunt terms, more than three years before he was going to be vice president, what he thought of universities in America. So much of what we want to accomplish, so much of what we want to do in this movement and in this country.

I think are fundamentally dependent on going through a set of very hostile institutions, specifically the universities, which control the knowledge in our society, which control what we call truth and what we call falsity, that provides research.

that gives credibility to some of the most ridiculous ideas that exist in our country. And so I'm excited to close this conference with this particular set of remarks because I think if any of us want to do the things that we want to do for our country and for the people who live in it, We have to honestly and aggressively attack the universities in this country. But he's hardly alone. Remember, at the start of 2023...

It was on this program that I had Governor Greg Abbott talking about how he, too, had big problems with what was happening on universities, including at the University of Texas. That's when he really started to kind of get fired up and really involved in going after diversity, equity, inclusion programs in Texas. What came out of that, obviously, was legislation that basically dismantled all programs that he considered DEI in Texas. What we've seen in our universities... And more recently...

Abbott has signed legislation from State Senator Brandon Creighton, a Conroe Republican, that aims to go after faculty sentence and to cut their influence of college professors on how universities are run. Here's Creighton talking to me about that.

in December and about what his plans were. To build in the higher education arena, we're going to be looking at faculty senate governance and the details of how universities... govern themselves and spend taxpayer dollars, always striving towards degrees of value and making sure that our students and our adult learners get what they're paying for.

It's worth noting that one of the changes at universities in Texas over these last couple of years has been how they're turning more to Republican lawmakers instead of people from academia to lead their university systems. Former state comptroller Glenn Hager is now the chancellor at the Texas A&M University System. Former state rep John Zerwas just became the chancellor at the University of Texas System.

And Creighton is on the verge of becoming the chancellor at the Texas Tech System. All that is critical to understand as we talk about what has happened at Texas A&M this week.

What's happening at A&M is what fits into everything that Vance, Abbott, Creighton, all these others on the right have been kind of leading this nation to for years now. They are going after. what they think is wokeism at universities in any way and every way possible. Here's an undercover recording from a student at Texas A&M in a classroom this week. This video has gone totally viral. Take a listen. I just have a question because I'm not entirely sure this is legal to be teaching.

Because according to our president, there's only two genders. And he said that he would be freezing agencies funding programs that promote gender ideology. And this also very much goes against not only myself, but a lot of people's religious beliefs. Thankfully, I have higher education reporter Samantha Ketterer with me to help sort out everything that's going on this week. Catch us up to speed on what happened in that video there and what is going on here.

Yeah, so essentially we have a professor. Her name has been confirmed as Melissa McCowell. And she was teaching in a children's literature course, including lessons about gender identity, essentially stating that there are more than two genders. The student, as you heard, obviously. had an issue with that, raised that issue in this undercover video. And, you know, I think the professor asked her.

If she wanted to leave, she could. And she did. And I think at some point she said, you can go. And so that created just this massive uproar. on X particularly, formerly known as Twitter. But I know that this is something that some Aggies, they're called former students, not alone, but Aggie former students.

Many of them do have a real problem with this being taught in the classroom and particularly with what they might see as a violation of the student's religious beliefs, because she did invoke her religion and say this is why she had a problem. She was asked to leave. So I think we have a lot of things threading through all of this, but essentially that it all led to just instant calls for this professor to be.

fired, and then to President Mark A. Welsh being fired as well. Those calls are still out there, by the way. We have not really seen any of this calm down in the last two days. So I'll let you ask me any more. questions. I know there's a lot going on here. Yeah. And that was I was going to ask you about the reaction from politicians like so like who's lost their job about over this so far? Give us a summary. Is the professors still employed? or has she been pushed out or what's happened here?

Yeah, so I guess to backtrack a little bit, there are two other audio recordings that I'm thinking of that show President Mark A. Welsh meeting with a student around the time this all occurred in the summer course. And he said that firing the professor was not going to happen. And that is what has really inflamed.

the ire of a lot of politicians. And essentially, we now have Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick kind of upping the pressure on Welsh, saying that I know the regents and Chancellor Glenn Hager will make the right choices, but if something doesn't change, you know, they need to take action because I'm very unhappy with what. the way Welsh responded to this student initially. But yeah, I mean, this comes, even that response from Dan Patrick, which we just saw earlier.

today, which is a Thursday. This comes days after, you know, Welsh removed a dean and a department head from there. administrative positions. I believe we don't know this for sure, but in those positions, usually you're tenured, so they likely would have retained their professorial roles. But yeah, they they lost their administrative positions over this on this rule that apparently they approved.

course content that was not in line with the course description in the course catalog. And that has been kind of the sticking point that Welsh has used in making the decisions he's made. And, you know, we've heard from a lot of faculty who say that they don't find those very convincing. But essentially, yeah, these two people lost their administrative roles over it. And then shortly after.

Governor Greg Abbott called for the professor to be fired. Welsh said he had independently made the decision. to fire this professor. We don't have any details on how that firing occurred. Usually those processes are not instantaneous. I don't believe she was tenured, so it wouldn't be as long. of a process, but still seeing it in such a short time period is pretty astounding, I think. Things have come together really, really quickly.

Yeah, right. This went from, you know, you know, nothing to full out fire in just a couple of days. And that's what's kind of shocked me on this. And I'm interested to get a sense that like, look, in this era, like we heard earlier in the program.

I'm like, all these attacks on DEI and faculty senators and J.D. Vance, you know, pledging to go after universities, all this stuff is kind of coming to a head. And it feels like that's what we're seeing at Texas A&M. It's like, what are you hearing from? know, faculty there, do they feel like they're at the front line of this target zone? Because it is kind of a conservative type of campus. And it feels like they're under a microscope that very few other universities probably are right now.

No, you're absolutely right about this. And I spoke with an expert, someone who studies higher education the other day, actually, and asked that same question. Like, why is it that Texas A&M, a supposedly conservative university, is... so attacked consistently by conservative lawmakers and by Texas Scorecard, for example, right-leaning.

a right-leaning publication. And the answer that I heard was just that, you know, like, we do not expect this sort of thing out of A&M. Like, you know, maybe UT. It's expected over there, but at A&M, we cannot allow this to occur and we need to maintain that status quo. And so I think faculty have been struggling with these issues over the last few years. Quite honestly, we saw.

Joy Alonzo is an opioid expert. And, you know, she was in the hot seat for some comments she made during a guest lecture at UTMB. Essentially, those comments. pertained to the state's opioid response, and it got back to lawmakers. So we've seen this kind of interference. for a while and at least maybe not interference but government interest in higher education but it's just ramped up to this point now where we're seeing yeah a professor getting fired we also had a professor at

Texas State, who was fired after speaking at a socialist convention and sharing some pretty, I guess, controversial remarks there. So I think this is, like I said, yeah, it's getting to a point where we can't ignore. ignore what's happening. And I think one thing that's really important to distinguish here is that Texas's anti-DEI law does not prohibit a professor from teaching in the classroom on a topic of diversity, which would include also LGBT issues.

what a belief is about the fact to her that there are more than two genders. And so essentially, like even the university's academic freedom policies say that you can teach controversial topics if they are relevant. to your expertise and to the course. And what we know about this course is that in children's literature, there is a big diversity of content.

children can pick from, including about transgender, non-binary people. So I think that's the assumption of what she was doing there. But again, we also haven't. gotten many answers from Texas A&M as to like what was happening in that course, exactly what she was teaching and what was outlined or approved in her syllabus, for example. So we don't really know the answer to those things. And also the clip was a clip, right? We don't know what happened before or after.

Well, yeah. And what's interesting about this is, again, this is happening, obviously, in College Station. But this, like we talked about, is a bigger statewide issue. And really, it goes all the way to the White House. There's a reason J.D. Vance is the vice president of the United States.

And he has Trump's ear and they are being aggressive about going after all universities. And their end goal is to go after what they think is a problem in America, which is universities being at the core of this problem. They're going to keep pushing until they feel that they are making progress on all these college campuses, including Texas A&M, including University of Texas. They're going to keep the heat on all of these schools. And I'm only wondering from here.

Where do we go next on all of this stuff? Everybody should be reading Samantha Ketterer's work here at the Houston Chronicle and in the San Antonio Express News. She has a lot of information that she's going to be keeping us posted on all of these developments. University of Texas A&M University and the other schools as we go along. Samantha, thank you so much for taking time for being on the show and good luck with your reporting. Thank you so much. Thanks for talking with me.

Now, as I mentioned, I want to get you back down on the border in Eagle Pass. Sure, the border crossings have dropped in Texas over the last couple of years, but that doesn't mean reporter Benjamin Werman isn't keeping an eye on how much money we as taxpayers are still spending. on Operation Lone Star. That is the police and military buildup that Governor Abbott has led over the last couple of years. Ben, y'all found that even though the number of crossings is down,

The Texas Department of Public Safety is still racking up a lot of money in overtime. What, $77 million on overtime on Operation Loan Start just this past year? That would surpass what they spent in 2023. when crossings peaked and troopers were arresting thousands of migrants. I was struck by some of those overtime members because y'all found that some troopers were over $300,000 in one year, right? What's the explanation for this? Why is there so much money being spent on this still?

Well, DPS says that, you know, even though crossings are not anywhere near what they were, they are still, you know, actively working. Operation Lone Star focusing more now on. Things like human trafficking, drug trafficking, that sort of thing.

They also, you know, won't release time cards and were only willing to give us details on a handful of the cases that we pointed out. So we don't have total clarity on what all of these troopers were actually doing as they were racking up some of these overtime. charges one of the things that's interesting about this issue like i know there's been a lot of debate in the legislature whether or not there'd be any sort of reduction in over in

costs for border security now that Trump's in the White House and border crossing numbers were down. Catch us up to speed. Did they end up changing how much money we're spending on Operation Lone Star in Texas in general? They cut some border security funding, but it was almost entirely border wall funding. So DPS's border security budget did not get touched. And this was actually part of a, you know, there was some discussion over.

this uh over time specifically during the legislative session but it didn't it didn't really go anywhere and sort of um You know, the furthest that at least I saw lawmakers going was maybe to suggest that rather than spending so much on overtime, they should consider just giving raises to people of the agency.

And give us a sense, you know, you were down in Eagle Pass recently, right? I've been down in Shelby Park a lot when it was really built up and it almost felt like a movie set at times because they literally created a stage at one point where there's barbed wires and mills.

military props all over the place and then you'd have jd vance you know speaking at this little makeshift stage and or maybe it was abbott and he had kim reynolds with him and all these other governors but they kind of had turned it into almost a movie set and like there was so many troopers around the place from all around the country. What's it look like nowadays down there?

You know, it's not entirely back to normal in the park. You still have a lot of the barriers and wire and all that. But when I was there, I saw maybe two or three trucks. I didn't see any DPS vehicles. pretty empty really when i was there and uh as you'll remember you know from the peak uh back in 23 um All the hotels were full. You'd see, you know, every parking lot basically full of not only Texas DPS vehicles, but Florida, other states that it sent.

officers down and that's definitely not the case now. Those parking lots are empty of police vehicles at least. Yeah, it was crazy. There was one point where, like I want to say two years ago, that there were so many state troopers and military people from out of state filling up the hotels. It was hard to get a hotel, like you mentioned. I paid $176. tonight from Motel 6.

And my neighbors were all Florida Highway Patrol people who were there making overtime, surprise, surprise, you know, trying to help secure the border, you know, for Texas. So it just shows you like, you know, so much has changed down this area. And it's worth it. noting that, look, throughout Texas history, at least over the last 50 years, Eagle Pass has typically been one of the least crossed areas of the border up until just the last few years. It was just five or six years ago we started.

to see this surge of, you know, human traffickers pushing people towards that part of the border because, you know, everybody like on the Rio Grande Valley, that used to be really where people crossed the most. Those numbers started to. shift as the security ramp up in South Texas got more aggressive there, a lot of the people moved out to Eagle Pass. But now we're seeing those numbers in Eagle Pass are really...

pretty small, right? The last numbers I saw, there was hardly anybody come across the border. Yeah, and that's true for basically the entire border, which is, you know, that's why we decided to take... another look at these overtime charges. Crossings have been low basically all year, and that has not affected how much overtime DPS is racking up, which really stood out to us.

Operation Lone Star now accounts for about a third of overtime charges at DPS, and it doesn't seem to be budging even as border crossings are. Well, definitely y'all need to check out Ben's story with Matt Sedan. They had this whole series or this whole story, both in the Houston Chronicle, San Antonio Express News and the Austin American Statesman. Check it out there. And obviously check out the Texas Tech newsletter.

I had some of it earlier this week and I'll have more of it on Friday talking about the program. Thanks a lot for joining the show again, Ben, and we'll talk to you soon. Thanks for having me. Now.

Let's head back over to Houston, where the city still hasn't had a member of Congress for the 18th Congressional District for quite some time now. By now, you all know Sylvester Turner died in March, but his seat is still vacant. What makes the news even more astounding is that Virginia just filled its open seat created by U.S. Representative Jerry Connolly, who died in May. In Arizona...

In two weeks, they're going to have an election to replace their congressman who died back in March. In both those cases, those members died after Turner. But yet, their communities are going to have a new representative this month. The 18th congressional district in Houston, not so much. Remember, Governor Greg Abbott set the election for the special election for November.

That means that the district will have gone at least 244 days without any representation. Now, if that race goes into a runoff, tack on another potential 30 days or so before a winner can maybe be picked in December. Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis made clear to me in an interview earlier this week that he doesn't like what's happening, that other districts around the nation are getting filled, yet the 18th Congressional District remains without a voice. It's one of the long...

You know, it's disgraceful, to be honest with you. The 18th congressional district is such a historic district. The first seat where an African-American in contemporary Texas since Reconstruction. go to the United States Congress in the person of... It's sure leaving a key part of Houston without a member of Congress. That's why I have Joy Suing on the program with me now. She just did a column about one example of how this district is feeling the vacancy.

about that column and about this Latino Learning Center that seems to be kind of getting the short shrift here. Well, you know, when I was thinking about writing about this, I live in the 18th district and I know that we're impacted. But until you find an organization or a group like the Latino Learning Center that is... out there really helping community, doing the work, and learning about their impact, then you really understand how significant

the loss of not having representation is. And I learned about the Latino Learning Center through Erica Lee Carter, who was elected to assume her mother's seat after Sheila Jackson Lee passed. So the Latino Learning Center has been in existence in Houston since the 70s, founded by three friends who were military veterans, and they had done...

amazing job serving their country and wanted to serve their community. So they started the Latino Learning Center as a way to do outreach to the community, provide vocational training. things like carpentry and air conditioning skills and things like that, that people can actually go out and... and get a job or start their own business and make a living wage. And they also do English as a second language training. You know, to see their building now, their building is in unbelievable disrepair.

Like there are holes in the ceiling. You can see, you can literally almost see the sky. And what they had anticipated, a nearly $2 million grant through the federal government. that Sheila Jackson Lee had advocated for and had gotten approved again. And then she died. Then Sylvester Turner, who took her seat, pushed it along. And so I believe it was just waiting to be appropriated through the budget approval, and it was not.

So now you have an organization that had depended upon that money to help with necessary renovations. They've had to halt their programming. They are basically in limbo. the philanthropic community in Houston reaches out and does something, they risk shutting their doors. And that's the real consequence of what's happening here.

Yeah. And that's a really big point. So a lot of people will know, like, look, clearly the 18th district doesn't have a voice to vote on any legislation in Congress, but it also loses this, what you're talking about, which is, you know, members are able to put things in the budget.

kind of push it along. If Sylvester Turner had been around when they were assembling this last budget package, he would have had a fighting chance of at least getting it in that package. But he wasn't there to do that. And other members are in other districts worried about their own district.

going to put the same energy into getting this through as Sylvester Turner would have done or Sheila Jackson Lee before him. So that leaves a hole there. But now it's important, like, and you pointed this out in your column, that the 18th Congressional District does... They technically have offices still operating. They are doing constituent service work. So like if somebody calls about their VA benefits or their Social Security check missing, they're still trying to do that stuff.

Listen to this. The House Clerk's Office has instructed the staff that if anybody calls about any sort of legislative issue, you are to send them to Senator Ted Cruz or Senator John Cornyn. That is the instruction. They're not allowed to do anything political at this point under House rules. So you have people in the 18th congressional district who might have a problem with something that's happening on a bill or wasn't in the budget, but they're being.

told, well, just call Senator John Cornyn or Ted Cruz. They'll take care of you. But it just shows you the real-life consequences of this happening, right? And for all the communities. You and I have talked about this before. The 18th Congressional District has been in a state of limbo here. For really two years going on. Right. Right. And, you know, you're talking about 800,000 people, nearly 800,000 people and majority Hispanic and black.

You know, a community that has a lot of wonderful things and a lot of, you know, not so wonderful things happening. And one thing that Sheila Jackson Lee did was advocate for any, you know. Community programs and things like that. I mean, she's the one who, you know, doing COVID made sure that people had.

Things that they needed or during a hurricane that we had resources or resources for our schools. Now we have no one to advocate for that on our behalf. And in order for our district to have any type of. federal support, we have to have a representative in place.

Yeah, it's interesting because, like, particularly going from Sheila Jackson Lee, look, whether you like Sheila Jackson Lee or not, her politics or not, it's like the one thing that she was really, you know, focused on doing was making sure the 18th Congressional District was heard from.

Now, that was one thing she told me. She wanted to make sure that people always knew that she was there and working. So they had a pretty aggressive person in trying to do programs throughout the community. So if there was like a health care sign up program, she was going to do it in the community. was having problems with their VA benefits, they could call her directly. It's like she was to that point where she was so on the ground. And to go from that...

to now like zero representation. All those people who are used to seeing Sheila Jackson Lee holding these seminars or events in the community, they're getting very little of that. You know, again, the office is still trying to do these things.

to have on the 16th, they have a health care forum over at the Justin Robson Community Center in Houston. So if y'all are in Houston, you all want to check that out. But like they're still trying to do those things, but they're just not getting the same attention. and...

approach as you would have had with Sheila Jackson Lee or if Sylvester Turner were still with us. Absolutely. And over at the Latino Learning Center, when I was talking to one of the last surviving founder, along with some of the... You know, they they mentioned about how much Sheila Jackson Lee advocated on their behalf and then how Turner took up the mantle and decided to carry it forward. And now they are just.

It is a horrible situation because, you know, you go into the building and you see the potential. The building is 100 years old and you see the artifacts on the walls about. what they've done over the years. And you know that this is a pillar in the community. And you know that this is where people can't go to for resources. And now everything is shut down. And so where are those people going?

Yeah. And one of the things, you know, I talked to Abbott about this earlier this year, but why he was taking so long and he put the blame entirely in Harris County. He said, oh, because they are terrible at running elections and I wanted to give them as much time possible to do. one of those things. But look, as we know, the result of holding that seat open was that in May, when the big beautiful bill was going through the United States House of Representatives, it passed by one vote.

If there had been a Democrat from... the 18th congressional district in Houston, that bill would not have passed. So it's hard to separate the political reality of what happened with that bill with why this seat has been open. And so that's why I think people really should check out your...

column, Joy. It's in the Houston Chronicle. And y'all should be following all her stuff. She has some really pointed columns. Take a look at that at HoustonChronicle.com. And thanks so much for joining the program, Joy. Jeremy, it's always a pleasure. Thank you so much.

Now, let's get caught up on the latest in the U.S. Senate race here in Texas. Obviously, this is one of the hottest races in the state, if not the nation. This week, we had State Representative James Tallarico making the official announcement that he... getting in the race. Look, we knew this was coming. I told you a couple of months ago about how Tallarico had reserved the website Tallarico for Senate.

So it wasn't quite a secret, obviously. Tallarico, you'll remember, is a Round Rock native and is a former San Antonio middle school teacher. He's also a Baptist pastor, and that part has become part of his identity, especially when he's giving speeches or in debates. He often works biblical concepts into all of that. Here's him and Round Rock on Tuesday demonstrating just that.

That barefoot rabbi walked into the seat of power and flipped over the tables of injustice. His love rose to meet that abuse without becoming it. To those who love this state, to those who love this country, to those who love our neighbors, it's time to start clipping tables. I told you on the last show about how it's those kinds of speeches that got him on the Joe Rogan experience earlier this summer.

Rogan actually encouraged him to run for higher office, at one point pitching him to run for president of the United States. While he made a big splash this week, don't forget we have two others in the race already running for the Democratic nomination. You heard earlier on this program from Colin Allred. He's been telling all of us that he's running a very different campaign this time around and is determined to...

meet more people, get out more, and thinks he's the guy who's going to be able to flip the seat. Here's a little from that interview with Alred earlier this summer. And if folks don't agree with it, that's okay. This is what to me was important to have a chance to in this campaign.

You know, let it rip a little bit and let folks hear, because I'm just as angry as anybody else. Now, I want to bring in another Democrat in the race that maybe has flown under the radar a little bit more than the others. That's retired astronaut Terry Verz. He's a former Air Force fighter pilot and more importantly, a huge Astros fan. All right, Terry, thanks for joining the program. Tell us a little bit about why you're in this race and what do you think you offer voters going into this?

Thanks, Jeremy. I joke that I lost a bet in a bar, so I had to run for Senate. The reality is when I look at what's happening in America, especially the last, you know, seven, eight, nine years. It's just going in the wrong direction. And I got tired of standing by and being angry about this or that. And when I looked at what is happening in the Democratic Party, which, of course, has been very unpopular nationwide.

I don't see a path to victory. And I said that somebody with my background as an F-16 pilot, NASA astronaut, would connect with Texans and who wants to focus on working class. And so I said, I can't just sit around. I raised my right hand to support and defend the Constitution and that service as an Air Force officer. I'm going to hopefully continue in the United States Senate.

Now, look, Texas is a really big state and running for Senate is no easy task, obviously. But you're not going in this completely cold, right? You've got some pretty good advice from I'm assuming some of the people around, you know, particularly the. The astronaut program, I'm assuming you've talked to Mark Kelly about, you know, this prospect of running. Did he give you any tips and ideas about, you know, what you should be doing?

Mark and I had some really good long talks. He told me what a great job it was, how much impact you could have. That was really cool. He said how hard it is. You got to raise a lot of money to win a state like Texas. If Arizona has an astronaut, Texas needs an astronaut. We can't let Arizona have one and me not have one. And, you know, I'm running in the John Glenn tradition of common sense, work for the working people.

Democratic astronaut. Now, I've seen you down in the Rio Grande Valley. I've seen you out in Midland. I've seen you over in College Station. What's been the reaction so far? Look, I know you're starting this thing up right now. It's like I'm not expecting thousands of people. showing up, but what is the feeling you're getting so far out there? It's been awesome. I mean, when people...

know me when they get to hear my story, where I came from, and also my vision for the future. I want to focus on the future. They are very excited. I've been talking to Democrats everywhere, but I'm also talking to Republicans. Democrats are not going to win. If we nominate the same guy, if we nominate...

The guy that can win in the bluest of blue districts in Austin, that's not going to win statewide, which is why I'm running. And I've talked to some Republicans who have said, had said like, hey, man, what's your website? I'm going to donate to you or, you know, let me buy you dinner. And and that makes me feel good in that. My message is one of Texas. It's not one of party. And unless we have that, a Democrat is not going to win. You got to get some reluctant Trump voters.

Or the Democratic Party is going to lose yet again. It's been over 30 years. We're going to continue that losing streak unless we try something different. And how are you doing with the money part? You know, it's like I don't want to make it all about money and polls, but it just seems like you're going to have to raise a lot of money from. a pretty unknown perspective. You haven't held any office before in Texas. So how is that going?

You know what? I have a great digital fundraiser. We brought them up. We started off with a not great one. And a few weeks later, we replaced them. And the new guy is really awesome. And so my list has been really expanding. The fundraising is actually starting to go really well. But as you know, Texas is a big place. You got to have a staff. The staff wants to be paid. If you're going to run ads, that costs money. So people ask me, how much do you need? I think.

To win the primary is probably a $20 million proposition, which is a huge amount of money. So my eyes are wide open. I know we can get there. people are hungry to win. Like I said, it's been over 30 years and all I care about is winning. All I care about is actually fighting. I don't want to just have performance and speeches. I want to win.

Fundraising is an important part of that, but it's going great, actually. I've been super happy with the digital fundraising folks that we have. And let me ask you, so what, you know, look, it's an unusual perspective coming from, I don't know, the space station.

And I knew you served on the space station. But, you know, how does that experience kind of translate into what you're trying to do here? Why is this like why is it worth Texans to take a shot at something that is very unorthodox for at least what we've seen as. past politicians in Texas? Well, I think my life experience has prepared me for this job. I was an F-16 pilot, flew 45 combat missions in Iraq, defended South Korea from North Korea for a year.

Test pilot flew over seven months in outer space, was commander of the space station. And seeing Earth, seeing planet Earth fly through the galaxy gives me a perspective that's pretty unique. I have a national security perspective that's very, very, very important for Texas. Working class Texans, so many jobs depend on trade. Our foreign policy under this president is a disaster. The massive tax increase, which are tariffs.

are not only unconstitutional, they're hurting working Texans. And I think my business experience and also my national security experience is something unique that I don't see any of the candidates on the Republican or Democratic side.

that have anything like that. Plus, seeing the planet helps me understand things in a way that very few, only Mark Kelly is the only other person in our government who understands that. Well, and tell me about like the, as you get into this contest, what are some of the... issues that you think are going to be really important to hit in a Democratic primary? What are the key messages that you're trying to get to these Democratic audiences? Well, here's what voters...

ask me about is economic issues, middle-class issues. The affordability is a huge issue. Healthcare is a huge issue. I mean, I'm a... middle-class Texan. I just got my flood insurance bill and was shocked. It's doubled in the last couple of years. I go to HEB or Kroger and I'm shocked. Like, how can I just bought this and it's $150?

So affordability is a huge thing. The president's policies are making affordability much worse. I think Texans know that. Health care is a big issue. I just had surgery last year. You know, I get these bills. It's like, you got to be kidding me. average Texans are going to struggle with this. This president's policy is going to kick off over a million Texans off their health insurance.

I know how important Medicaid is. My son's in medical school. He tells me almost all of his patients that he sees as a student in medical school are on Medicaid. The current administration talks a big talk. He likes to make himself sound strong, but the reality is the policies that MAGA...

And John Cornyn is supporting 100 percent are bad for working Texans. And we need to change that. And I'm running as the as the one Democrat who can finally and actually win statewide Senate race. Well, and how. Look, Texas hasn't elected Democrats. It's Lloyd Benson, at least to the United States Senate. And so like.

Why is this going to work this time? What are you seeing in the Republican politic? Granted, Trump's approval ratings are starting to slide some. Is that going to continue and kind of make more people tempted to maybe kick the tires on a Democrat, a moderate type? Democrat? Well, I mean, we have the United States military has occupied Washington, D.C. We have masked men on the streets of Houston yanking people off the street, throwing them into unmarked cars.

We have tariffs that are going to hurt profoundly Texans. The way to reduce housing costs is not to go to Home Depot. and round up the housing workers. The Texas economy is obviously one of the largest in the world. If you only looked at our trade, if you only looked at imports and exports, it's about $900 billion. We will be in the top third of global economy.

if all you looked at was Texas trade. And what this administration, what the Republican MAGA movement is doing is hurting trade. And that hurts the dock workers here in the Port of Houston. That hurts truckers that are driving up and down I-35 to Dallas. from the Mexican border. So there's a lot of economic issues that this administration is very rapidly

hurting Texans. And I think they're going to, if they have a candidate, they can vote. If they have a candidate who's focused on middle-class issues and not the radical culture war issues that the Democratic Party has gotten bogged down with. then I think they'll vote for a Democrat. And that's why, and also somebody with my background as a military fighter pilot and astronaut, I think that will resonate with those middle Texas voters that we have to get.

that we haven't gotten since Ann Richards was governor and Pearl Jam was at the top of the charts. That which is why this is why I'm running. I'm the guy that can win. Well, I was at a rally with one of your potential Democratic primary opponents, James Tallarico. He called himself the underdog. But I think you're the underdog of the underdogs at this point.

from really scratch here, right? James Salarico is definitely the front runner. There's no doubt about it right now. But, you know, we got 173 days to the primary and that's an eternity in political time. Yes, I have a launch countdown clock on my laptop. And so I think Texans are going to vote for the Texan choice. And sound bites and performance are one thing. But like I said, the guy that can win in the bluest of the blue districts, his district in Austin.

voted 100 to zero for him. He literally had no competition. I think once you take that out to the oil fields of Midland where I was last week, I'm going to Longview tomorrow. Those folks, when I sit down at the bar with them, you know, or when I just sit down at their place of work, they like, I like what you're saying. And I have actually, they come over to my side. I know I can connect.

with that group of Texans that Democrats have to connect with and that we haven't connected with. And doing the same thing over and over, hoping for a different result is Charlie Brown and the football. And we need to try something different. Well, the Pearl Jam reference was, you know, good enough for me. But certainly I want people to, you know, figure out where are you going to be? It's like, how do they find you? It's like, you know, tell the crowd how to get a hold of you.

I'm on social. Astro Terry is on all the different social networks is Astro Terry, Terry with a Y. Go to my website, terryverts.com, T-E-R-R-Y-V-I-R-T-S. Check it out. I've got a launch video in there that's pretty cool. I filmed it in one of the original World War II Jeeps and also in the space shuttle cockpit where I trained to be a space shuttle pilot. So that was a lot of fun. Look, I'm running as a reformed Democrat and my video is very critical.

of Republicans, but also of Democrats. I'm not going to be getting any Christmas cards from Chuck Schumer this year because I go after him. We need to replace him as our leader of the Democratic Party. So I think they'll enjoy it. It was fun to make. But like I said, I'm running as a reformed Democrat. We can't do the same old thing again. I want to help change the party. And if we win in Texas, that changes the national conversation. And I want to help lead that movement.

Well, I can't thank you enough for joining us, Harry. Good luck on the campaign trail. And I'm sure I'm going to see you somewhere out there in the sticks as I travel the state.

Today's a great day. I'm in Houston, but I'll be in Longview tomorrow and then back to Houston on Saturday for this big, huge meeting we're having here. So I'll see you around, Jeremy. Thanks for having me on. Great. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. Look, we'll dig in.

a little bit deeper into the U.S. Senate race and all the candidates who are still kicking the tires on getting in. We'll get into all that in some future shows for sure. Obviously, it's getting close to candidates having to make a decision one way or the other if they're getting in or getting out.

So stay tuned for all of that and be sure to keep an eye on my social media for all of that as well. I'm at Jeremy S. Wallace on most of these big social media platforms. Also, be sure to check out the Texas Tech newsletter. It's free. It comes out every weekday. definitely want to check that out. You know, thanks as always for listening to the Texas Take podcast, even through all of our changes. I really, really, really appreciate y'all, you know, still listening to this program.

Thanks to all my guests this week, including Joyce Ewing, Samantha Ketterer, Benjamin Werman, and Terry Virts. I really hope y'all are appreciating the variety of people we're bringing on the program to give you more about Texas politics. Now, finally, I want to close back on talking about what happened with Charlie Kirk. It's been such a terrible year when you really kind of think about it. You remember it was last summer that there were two assassination attempts on Trump.

Then we saw the killing of a health care executive in New York City in broad daylight. We had attacks in the Democratic National Committee building in Arizona and one on the Republican Party headquarters in New Mexico. We had a firebombing at a Democratic governor's home in Pennsylvania. Remember, there was... killings of the two Israeli embassy workers in DC. There's a firebombing of a peace march for Israeli hostages back in Colorado. And remember, there was that shooting.

of the two Democratic state lawmakers and their spouses in Minnesota. And now we have Charlie Kirk. That's all in a year, y'all. That's just since last July. It's really disappointing and frustrating as somebody who covers politics to see, you know.

people's speeches, ideas, and thoughts leading to violence like this. Like, look, I'm all for a robust conversation and look, people are going to lose their tempers and there's going to be like, tough moments in politics, but boy, to see a 31 year old father of two, uh, and a husband gone, like his kids are going to live with that emptiness, you know, for their whole lives, obviously. It's all just a sad note in American politics. I hope...

Somehow there's a way to slow this down and whatever's happened to our politics over these last few years can maybe calm down a little bit. It's just too many people resorting to violence to try to make their case. Just too bad. Well, anyhow, thanks again for listening to me on this and, you know, take care of those who you love. And it's another reminder that there is no tomorrow promise to any of us. Adios. I think I'll ride off in the sunset Leave my worries far behind