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Say that to my face. Welcome. to the Texas Take, the number one politics podcast in the great state. I'm Scott Braddock, and he's Jeremy Wallace. His work, of course, is at HoustonChronicle.com, and you can find the inside story on Texas politics at QuorumReport.com. I have to thank everybody, Jeremy, right here at the beginning for all the well wishes. People have seen that I'm not feeling that well. I'm not really sick. I've been sickly.
you know what i mean for about the last two weeks i feel sickly you know sore throat and just you know sinus issues and all of that and and then i had some people who doubted that I was sick, some people said, well, wait a minute, but you were on TV and you were on radio and you were giving speeches and all of this stuff.
And I said, look, I understand your skepticism. I said, I'm coming up on 30 years of doing this stuff for a living. So for me to do it when I'm not feeling well is different from what it would be for you, right? I know that for most people, their best day.
is when they really need to be on the radio or on TV. To me, it doesn't matter. I do this all the time. I just power through it. And I know I still kind of sound terrible. Evan, how do I sound, Evan? Is it all right on your end? I think you sound good. A little nasally? A little nasally? All right. I'm going to power through it. I've got the the chloroceptic here in case I get in trouble with the sore throat. So I'm ready to go with that. Here we go.
Okay. Now that's solid podcast history right there. Thank you. So, yes, people are getting the full effect. one thing that probably won't help is another cold snap that just started. And it looks like we're going into the deep freeze next week, Jeremy, all across the state from Houston to Austin.
to Dallas-Fort Worth, where we find Pete Delkis, who of course is a legendary weatherman in DFW at WFAA. Wintry mix! Oh, I always like to start with the big headline of a wintry mix because it gets everyone excited. And we do have a little bit of that in our... forecast as we head into Tuesday night and Wednesday morning of next week. I'm not talking snowmageddon. I'm not talking icemageddon. There's no cobblestone ice right now in my forecast. I'm not ruling it out.
But right now, that's not in my forecast. Right now, it's just a dusting of a little wintry mix across the area. That could be a little freezing rain. It could be a little sleet. It could be a little bit of light snow. But right now, all the precip looks light. Now, all of that that he's talking about, Jeremy, is coming. Monday, Tuesday through looks like Thursday and Friday in a serious way in DFW. They actually, on Wednesday night, overnight, they get down to about 18 degrees.
in Dallas. So you'll probably, and that comes with a little bit of precipitation, as he said. So you might have snow. He might change up his forecast. You hear, I mean, there's a reason the guy is a legend. You can hear him say, I don't have the cobblestone ice in the forecast right now. But I might later. Right. And he might actually have ice and snow in the forecast by then. So that's in Dallas in Austin. It looks like it's going to be cold coming up Wednesday, Thursday. Really cold.
Overnight low of 25 on Wednesday, 21 on Thursday, but not as much precipitation is expected in Austin. Of course, these forecasts can change. We're recording on Friday afternoon. And down in Houston, it'll be raining on... Saturday, tomorrow, and Tuesday. But the really cold weather doesn't happen. It doesn't happen with the rain, with the precipitation in Houston. The really cold weather happens.
Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday when the overnight low on Thursday will be about 29 degrees. I had all these people asking me, what's up with the electricity grid? Is it going to hold up? That's the first thing everybody asks around here because we have PTSD about it. And I see that right now the forecast is that things should be fine. But I did see that by the – what was it? By the year 2027.
They were predicting that the ERCOT grid will have some issues, Jeremy. So even though, and the only reason I'm bringing this up, is that even though we'll probably be okay. with electricity in Texas over the next week, but we'll keep an eye on all this stuff. You'll want to watch HoustonChronicle.com, QuorumReport.com for all the updates if there is anything happening with it. But remember, in 2021...
It was not going to be an electricity session at the Capitol until there was a big winter storm right around Valentine's Day. And the Dallas Morning News had a good reminder from four years ago. Remember, like Dallas had one of the worst pileups in the history of that city because of the black ice on the roads. Look, we're Texans, man. We're not used to this icy black ice stuff. You know, we have all these over...
passes that you just can't solve so it's like it was a good reminder that you know people can lose their lives you know that was you know six people died in that and you know another 40 people were like seriously injured where their lives will never be the same so pay
attention y'all just don't don't drive on if you don't have to yeah be careful uh so we'll keep an eye on all that for you in the meantime there's a lot to cover on the show here issues wise i had a lot of questions about this jeremy because we've already talked a lot
about some of the things that are already being debated during the legislative session. One of the things that's a little more under the radar that I still get a lot of questions about is abortion. And people just want to know, where are we with that?
Are they doing anything at the Capitol about it? You remember, because you covered it, Jeremy, the State of the State address by the governor a couple of weeks ago. He talked about a lot of different things, but not this, right? But the Texas Democratic Party did talk about it in their response. They featured Dr. Austin Denard from Dallas.
in their response video to Abbott's State of the State address. And it was kind of awkward because, remember, they played the video in the same hall where Abbott had just given his speech. And one of the people who was there told me, they said, yeah, that was... That was awkward to say the least. I mean, there were some Democrats there, but mostly Republican crowd having to listen to this doctor talk about the difficulty of not just...
practicing medicine, but also what happened with her in her personal life. The state of my state looks like a constant state of anxiety. I'm a doctor, and I knew I wanted to be an OB-GYN as far back as I can remember. Through years of medical school, residency... I've supported countless women with complicated pregnancies.
But Governor Abbott and Texas Republicans have made it nearly impossible for me to do my job. She says that might sound personal enough, but it gets even more personal for her. No matter your experience, when it happens to you, it's a shock. And in 2022, during my first trimester of pregnancy, my fetus received a fatal diagnosis.
I knew that continuing the pregnancy was going to be too excruciating for me emotionally, and it was going to put my health and my future pregnancies at risk. But Texas abortion bans meant I could not get the care I needed here.
As we told you at that time, it was the very next day that Jeremy sat down with Abbott in the governor's mansion in downtown Austin. And this is one of the things that... jeremy brought up he said look there are folks who wonder what might be done when it comes to abortion policy in this legislative session
One of the things that some in the legislature have been wondering about is can they make changes to the abortion law to make sure there's more clarity on the exception clauses so women don't feel like they have to go out of state? state during a complicated pregnancy. We've already had that happen a few times. Would you be willing to sign something that changed that to make it more clear? So as you may know,
I know Lieutenant Governor Patrick has brought this up. I think Senator Scherf brought it up, probably Senator Hughes. It seems like I've seen something like this brought up in the House. And I'll take a look at what they bring up. One thing is clear. We passed this legislation with the full intention that the life of the mother be protected.
To be honest, looking at the law and looking at the situations that some of these mothers have been in, some mothers have either been denied what they were rightfully entitled to. or didn't accept what they were rightfully entitled to. Now, he also said that if some women and doctors don't understand the law, that's kind of their fault. There have been hundreds of abortions that have been provided.
under this law. So there are plenty of doctors and plenty of mothers that have been able to get an abortion that saved their lives and protect their health and safety. And so I know that the law as it currently exists can work if it is properly applied. And maybe we just need to do a better job of clarifying. But again, from the very beginning. We have two goals. Protect the life of the child.
protect the life of the mother. Now, he mentioned that Lieutenant Governor Patrick had brought this up without being asked, by the way, which is true. That did happen on Channel 8 News in Dallas-Fort Worth right around the beginning of the legislative session. Patrick was just asked about the issue of abortion in general. and he volunteered this. I do think that we need to clarify any language so that doctors are not in fear of being penalized if they think the life of the mother is at risk.
i think it's clear but i'm also open to the idea that some doctors don't see it that way some hospitals don't think that way we don't want to stand in the way of that but we're not going to open it up So that abortion is prevalent again in the state, but no mother's life should be at risk and it's if there's clarity on that I know we're working with some people on language that hopefully
clarify that how about punishing women if they we shouldn't punish women of course not that's that's those were a few people somewheres you know That said that they don't speak for Republicans. They don't speak for Americans. You're not going to punish women. That's ridiculous. There are some Republicans who want to do that, by the way. But Jeremy, back to your interview with Abbott. It seemed to me that it wasn't his favorite topic or the thing he wanted to talk about the most, obviously.
But he did have an answer ready for it, and I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the reason he had some kind of substantive answer for that that Abbott did is because Patrick's pushing him a little bit. On this, not the Texas Democratic Party. I think he's worried as worried about that. But he has seen where Patrick.
And the author of the latest abortion restrictions, Brian Hughes from East Texas, the senator from there, that they are supposedly working on something about this and that Abbott feels comfortable. with signing something like that, that maybe on some level, despite election results, even though we know in some other states, rolling back some of these abortion restrictions has been successful, even in some conservative places.
despite what we've seen in Texas, which is it doesn't seem like this argument from Democrats, like Colin Allred and whoever else has made this argument, doesn't seem to really have worked in those elections, but that there is some recognition. by top Republicans, including Patrick and now Abbott, that maybe they need to figure out something a little bit different when it comes to this because it's not working.
Yeah, and boy, and saying it and doing it are such different things, right? Like if you go back to, well, I'm going to use the Scott Braddock Manual of Politics. If you go to page 43, this is a primary state. right? You know, a primary state means that if you put your name on anything to walk back, abortion...
restrictions at all. You open yourself up to some primary challenger using it against you, no matter how well-intentioned you are. Listen, when you heard Dan Patrick talk about they're talking to people, he never identified any people. mentioned the word Hughes in there, but I'm not imagining Hughes who might have statewide ambition of his own doesn't want to weaken a law.
At least that's how his opponents could use it in the future if he were running in a primary. So you're left with this. Who can really do it? Who can actually adjust this? If anything, the Republican Party has – more people pushing to go further.
to the right on this issue, as if there is a further right. But that further right, we actually just got news today about this Collin County judge. Taylor Goldenstein wrote about this for the Houston Chronicle. But a Collin County judge has ordered a New York doctor. to stop prescribing abortion pills to the male, to Texas women. And so this is the next front. They're going after this much more aggressively. That's the mood.
of the Republican party. And I just don't know, like even with Patrick's words and Abbott's words, if there's a lot of like, you know, Republicans raising the hand, go, oh yeah, I want to carry that bill for you. It's like, I'm just not sure what. that Republican looks like. And they clearly have to be somebody who has no concern whatsoever about a Republican primary.
Well, maybe. I wonder. Let's see what Patrick comes up with. It's been my reporting that Hughes may be interested in doing something on this. Have you seen the op-eds that Hughes put out there saying that doctors are getting it wrong and all of that. So he's pushed back on the whole idea. I would suspect that if Patrick's talking about it without being asked, that he's got somebody in the Senate working on it.
And the point man on that would be Hughes. So we'll watch that closely. I will say this about the Republican primaries and the issue of abortion. It's one of those things, and we've seen this nuance before. It's one of those things where if you ask Republican...
primary voters about it, they'll generally agree with the most conservative position you can come up with. Right. But here's something that's very different over the last 10 to 15 years. In my experience, Jeremy, as I travel the state and talk to these voters in every part of Texas.
It's not one of the first things that comes out of voters' mouths when you ask them what the state ought to be focused on. And that's similar to school choice, by the way. If you just say to a voter, just very open-endedly ask them, what do you think?
the government in Austin ought to be working on. That'll never come out of their mouths. They won't say school choice or school vouchers. They won't say abortion. I think in the minds of a lot of primary voters in the state, that abortion has basically been dealt with.
And that they're on to other issues at this point. You know, most of what they talk about is, I'll tell you, the first thing is taxes, property taxes. That's number one. The next thing, and sometimes it's the first thing, is immigration. And that's the one they're most intense about.
That's the one they talk the most about. And then there are some other things about the grid and some things that sound kind of conspiratorial, and I won't get into all those right now, but things that actually just sort of organically come from the grassroots.
Cracking down on abortion more isn't one of them. So I do think there is some... room for Republican leadership to maneuver on this and do it in such a way that they don't come off as seeming as if they're somehow not pro-life enough, because look at how much they have done to restrict it in the state.
Well, and that's why it led to that question for Abbott, right? That's exactly why. It's like, okay, if he's not willing to sign anything, certainly nobody would want to put their name out there at all. Why even try if the governor's just going to veto it and make an example?
out of it, right? You want to kind of be in a position where you know the governor's going to agree to it, that Dan Patrick's not going to raise fire about it. You want to be able to kind of safely progress. And maybe you're right. Hughes might be the only person. the legislature who has enough license on this issue.
to kind of get away with it, right? Like, he can restrict a little bit and say, like, even if they came at him and say, hey, you're trying to weaken, you know, this law, and he goes, like, I passed the heartbeat bill. I am the heartbeat bill. Like, so he has a built-in defense on attacks that I think a lot of other republicans would maybe struggle to kind of defend themselves on
Well, as we covered on the show, over the course of the last year, there are some folks who worked very hard on this issue of clarifying the abortion regulations in the state, including Steve and Amy Bresnan, who are a couple lobbyists in Austin, who kind of took that on as just a passion project. I don't think they were getting paid on that. But look, it's something that needs to be done by the legislature. They were trying to do it through the Texas Medical Board.
Which probably has some, you know, way of clarifying that for doctors, but it would be much, I would say, not just better, but it would maybe be, you know, the exact right way to do it is to have lawmakers go back and in the law, just say. what the exceptions are. Because as we understand it right now, the only exception for a legal abortion in Texas is that the woman is dying in front of the doctor. But that can present in different ways.
I mean, the way that we have heard it described by some people is that the woman is bleeding out in front of the doctor. Sometimes what's happening with the woman is happening internally, and the doctor knows that, but they can't. act on it or they don't think they can act on it because this all becomes a gray area when all of these folks want to present this as if it's something that's black and white. So we'll keep tabs on this and figure out what happens with it. Did you see what Elon Musk
tweeted at Texas House Speaker Dustin Burroughs today. Did you see that, Jeremy? Yeah, I did. Musk said, quote, I hope Dustin Burroughs passes school choice in Texas to give kids a chance. I'm going to show you on my phone here what Burroughs... tweeted back at him. Do you see that? I hate those little candies. I can't eat too many of those. I think I can eat two of those. It's the Little Candy Hearts.
Burroughs tweeted out an image of a candy heart because it's Valentine's Day. And Evan, you see what the heart says? It says, we will. You see that? It's cute, right? So we will is what he said. In the meantime, Governor Abbott has – and I'll describe it this way. As the kids say, there's been a vibe shift.
in the way Abbott is talking about school choice. And I had different people read it different ways. Opponents of school choice have been asking me the question this way. They say, is he so defensive now because he thinks that maybe it's in some trouble?
And then supporters of school choice have asked, well, is he acting the way he's acting because maybe he's cocky now because he knows it's going to pass? So people are looking at it differently. I would simply say, objectively, the way he's talking about it is different. So over the last... you know, 18 months to two years.
We've seen Abbott on a just go on a scorched earth campaign trying to take out Republicans in the Texas House and their primaries when they didn't agree with him about this. He would lie about them, say anything, say that they were soft on immigration, even though these are the same people who voted for some.
of the harshest immigration crackdowns that have ever come through the Texas Capitol. But he said that they couldn't be trusted on border security. And the real reason he was doing it was because they disagreed with him on school vouchers. So we saw that.
What we didn't really see before as much before this last week or so, and this really started to happen around the time of our, I'm not going to say it's because of our last show, but so many things happened because of this show. Anyway, he started talking about it in a little different way about a week ago. Jeremy, and I noticed, and this is being an astute observer of Texas politics in general and of the governor specifically. At first, what he started doing...
On Twitter is he was responding to Texas House Republicans who support his position on school choice, and he would say something like this. He would respond to them and say, you are spot on, or you – right on, bro, or right on, girl, or whatever.
He was basically just giving them encouragement if they agreed with him. And then a couple days later, he started just calling anyone who disagreed a liar. So he's talking about Democrats and some Republicans who disagree with this and disagree with the school choice push. And one of the people that he called a liar and said was the former president of the, quote, woke Austin school board is state representative Gina Hinojosa, a Democrat from Travis County. And she.
Abbott said that she's not lying about how school finance works. And she said that, hey, look, I've got a kid in public schools and that she has skin in the game and all that. And she invited Abbott to her office so that they could sit down and talk about.
how school finance works hello governor abbott i see that you have called me out as a liar for truthfully saying that your taxpayer funded voucher will take money out of our neighborhood schools and line the pockets of your donors what you may not know about me is that I have a son in public school so I have literal skin in the game and like mothers across this state we see
what you're doing. I was also president of the Austin School Board, so I understand how school finance works, and I am happy to educate you on it. I will be at my office in the state capitol if you'd like to come talk to me about it.
I'll wait. She better keep her cell phone with her because waiting in the office probably isn't going to pay off with Abbott. I don't think he's going to take her up on that. In the meantime, Abbott has been – and you remember he did this two years ago, Jeremy. He tweeted out some pictures of – meetings that he was having with different Republican state representatives, talking to them about school choice. That's the way he portrays it on his X feed, on his Twitter feed.
And one of the pictures that Abbott put out there this past week was himself with Ken King, who is the new chairman of the State Affairs Committee. The committee assignments came out this week, and I think they were right on time. I saw all these people complaining that, you know, why has it taken so long to get these committee assignments? I thought that it's like a brisket, man. You don't rush it. They're trying to figure out where everybody goes. 150 members.
In a legislative chamber, you got to figure out who's going to serve the state and their communities and which spots they need to be in to do that in the best way. You don't rush these things. I always like getting a barbecue reference in there, but Ken King was on the radio last week up in the panhandle on KXDJ radio in Perryton, Texas. And he said, even though there was this picture of him talking to Abbott in Abbott's office, you know,
Ken King says, I should say Chairman King, says that his position has not changed on school vouchers. I've always said... When we fully fund our public schools and we got an extra couple billion dollars laying around and they want to give it to the private sector to help a very few, I'm good with it. But we haven't got there, Chris. And all the stuff we just talked about, in my opinion, should be taken care of first.
before we go down this road. So the things that he's talking about that need to be done first in his estimation are fully, quote unquote, fully funding Texas public schools. He said that if Abbott gets his way on this, and he said that that's totally possible in this radio interview, by the way, he said that he's He said, hey, whether I vote for it or not, Abbott might pass his school voucher program. But King still says it's a bad investment, that this is just not fiscally conservative.
$2 billion to $4 billion plan over the next five years that helps maybe 60,000 kids in the state, but we're going to put $5 billion in a system that takes care of 5.5 million kids. It's a little... And that is not Ken's thoughts. That's where we're headed with this. And numbers, numbers don't lie. Even the radio talk show hosts, including on some conservative stations in West Texas, Jeremy, don't necessarily agree about school choice. If you go to Houston or Dallas or San Antonio.
That's flipped. The quote unquote conservative radio hosts are the ones who are really pushing for this stuff. But with some exceptions, I'm not saying that they're all super activist about it. But people, there's a different strain of thought among conservatives in West Texas. And I mean, in places like.
Amarillo, Lubbock, et cetera, where they would get no benefit from this. And as King said, the numbers on it are actually really remarkable. You know, we talked last week about the Senate passing what Dan Patrick says is a billion dollar program. But what the actual estimate from the state number crunchers came up with, it looked like about $4.6 billion would be going into that program within four years, which if you go back more than a decade.
To 2011 is almost the same amount that was cut from public education in that year when they had a deficit budget in Austin. Point being this, when you see these folks argue. that public schools would only, quote, be defunded if parents make a choice to take their kids somewhere else. The other way in which they would be defunded in a much more significant way is when we get into a bad budget year. We don't have that this time around.
This time around, there's plenty of extra money, 24 billion extra dollars. It was 33 billion extra last time around two years ago. But when the comptroller comes up with a revenue estimate that's negative, which has happened before. Well, then all of a sudden you'd have this program that's a voucher program that costs $5 billion or so. According to the state's own numbers.
And then you'd have the ongoing cost of public education as well. As Ken King said, the top number we're talking about for putting new money into public ed is about $6 billion. And it really should hit people right between the eyes. on this, that the $6 billion for the voucher program is for 100,000 kids. And the $6 billion for public ed is for 5.6 million kids all across Texas.
I mean, Jeremy, that I think comes to about $100 extra per year per kid, something like that. And so when critics of this say this is a transfer to the wealthy, That's exactly what it is, because among those 100,000 kids who supposedly would be helped by this, the vast majority, and we've seen this in other states, would be those who are already in private schools. And they, as you have said, they'd be getting a coupon.
They'd be getting a discount for the tuition for that private school that they're already attending, and this wouldn't help any of these quote-unquote poor kids who are attending failing schools, as these supporters of the program put it. Well, one of the things like Abbott can get a little confusing in his own messaging on this issue. You know, I know he like I think sometimes he's talking more to the lobbyist and to the really.
entrenched debaters on this when he's tweeting out some of this stuff and not realizing like masses of Texans are listening to him. And what I'm referencing, I'm going to have more of this in my newsletter this evening, but one of the things he did on Twitter was he started talking about the only people defunding the public schools are the parents who are choosing the best option for their kids.
kids and said when they leave, the funding goes with the child too. And some people took that as, oh, see, so the schools will get defunded, right? But then he comes back and they'll tell you, you know, this was the next day, you know, after... people were starting to kind of react to that first one. He comes back and he says, school choice doesn't take a penny from public schools. It's funded separately. And you're like, okay, wait, wait. So wait, you're telling me...
Parents are going to help defund the schools, but funding is not going to be taken away. And so, again, I'm talking about the people who aren't in the day-to-day war on this issue. If you talk to normal human beings, you're like, okay, wait. So which is it?
What are we doing? And so I think his message sometimes gets confusing. It's like just stick to whatever you were originally going at and hold on to it. If schools aren't going to be defunded, stick with that. But when he takes that shot at – I think he was trying to take a shot at Democrats. I think he was trying to take a shot at Hino Hosuh and some others. But just it comes across like, but wait, wait, are you saying?
that we're going to lose funding because remember the way this like i don't look i know we've hit it on this program but i don't think people understand that like in those rural school districts those are the places where they're having a hard time meeting their budgets in even It's like the Texas Tribune, you know, last year had this piece on how, you know, 38% of all the new hires now are uncertified teachers.
And the people who are really relying on them are the rural school districts. That's what's happening in the real world of public education. So when they hear like more funding might – get taken away by parents or whatever. Like, I don't care who's taken away. That's an alarm bell for them because they're like, how many more teachers are we going to lose? And how many more like...
uncertified teachers that we're going to have to bring on to get through the school day. It's like there's a real concern there. And again, just for the utility of the people who live in those rural areas, I just wish Abbott was more clear to them. and explaining what he's going to do to make sure that they're going to be taken care of, and then don't add some line that parents are going to be the ones defunding it. It's like, wait, what does that mean?
I think he had a moment of clarity there. I mean, look, there's no way to do a school voucher program. without taking money from public education. You can't do it, right? I mean, and that's what he was saying when he was answering Hinojosa or whatever other Democrat, when he was saying, oh, no, it's the parents who are going to defund the school. And, you know, I had put it on social media and said, I think...
As I said, I'm an astute observer. I said, I think that's the first time I've seen Abbott acknowledge that this would take money out of the public school system, which to my knowledge, it is the first time that he ever said that.
Seems like news to me. And I did notice that after I said that, there were about five news stories about this. So here you have Abbott admitting that at least in some way it would do that and then having to kind of overcorrect for that and say, no, no, no, it would never. Now, is Ken King right that Abbott's going to get this program through the legislature? I would say maybe. I'm still on a maybe on this. I don't know exactly what's going to happen because I'm not sure.
that the Texas House, which still has enough Republicans in it who agree with Ken King about the fiscal issues surrounding this and that public ed needs to be funded first, I'm not sure that they would put a bill on Abbott's desk that he would actually sign. That's what I'm not sure about. I do think something will pass the House. And as Dustin Burroughs tweeted on that, what did that little candy heart say, Evan? We will. Evan, did you read it?
Yeah, it said we will. We will. Yeah, right. So you've got the Speaker of the House on record saying the House is going to pass some version of this. Is that on the record? When it's on a candy heart, does that count as on the record? I'm taking it as on the record. So we'll see how it all works out. I don't know that the House can pass a version that Dan Patrick would be OK with or that the governor would sign. This is where all of it matters so much, as we've talked about previously, that.
Those guys either get along or don't. Right. I mean, I don't from, you know, for me, I've covered I've covered it when the lieutenant governor and the governor and the speaker all kind of basically got along. And man, I have covered it when they haven't. Right. And so we see what the results are as we go through the legislative session. So we'll keep an eye on all of that. Jeremy, you were writing this week. I want to move on here to this deal about.
Project 2025 and some of the things that are being implemented by the Trump administration. And I think it's fair to say, by the way, that there are some. publications and broadcasts that have made the whole thing about project 2025, that there are some of them that kind of make it sound like some conspiracy theory. Right. And we just have not, I think any objective reading of people of what you put out there, anybody who's listening to us.
would just say that we haven't been among that group. We haven't really been hammering on this and talking about Project 2025 all the time, like they do on MSNBC and wherever else. But it's fair to point this out, that some of the things that are being implemented now... that reflect what was in that document that came out during the campaign in 2024, a lot of that really is starting to impact Texas.
We're only a few weeks into this administration. We're about a month into this administration, if you can believe that, Jeremy. And you were looking at some of the things happening in Houston and across the state as well. Let's start in Houston. What were you looking at there?
Yeah, look, it's one thing when Donald Trump and his administration started going after DEI and going after the Environmental Protection Agency. It's like, look, people were focused on the national level on the big picture of what's this going to mean.
government workers and all this stuff but like immediately i started kind of worrying about what's that going to mean for like some of these epa programs that are alive and well in texas specifically one of them that like really kind of like is aimed at trying to find contaminated land and soil and water in texas particularly in low-income areas of this state you think about the black
community in Houston, thinking about all those, that property in South Texas that could have poisons on it from... chemical contamination, all those military bases, obviously, all kinds of things that could be out there. And so you start questioning, like, well, what happens to the EPA if we're not doing that kind of stuff?
Right. So, for example, Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis was saying that this last round of testing that the EPA did in some of those areas there really showed some nasty results. This latest round of testing confirms what we have long known. Black and brown communities, including families of the Fifth Ward, have been poisoned for generations. Often, not all the time, but often due to corporate negligence and government policies.
rooted in environmental racism. That is why continued testing across the Greater Fifth Ward. It's critical. Jeremy followed up with Houston Congressman Sylvester Turner to see if he foresees the Trump EPA being less committed to testing in those communities that Ellis is talking about.
disregard all of that. This, what has been found in the Greater Fifth Ward Kashmir area goes to the heart of their... step away from following through on the inspections, the holding parties responsible for potentially contaminating. these communities, these neighborhoods, then essentially they would be discriminating against them simply because, in this case, they are black.
Yeah, one of the things, to go back on this, one of the reasons this became such a big issue this week is that they found dioxin, a high level of dioxin at a community center in Houston that has a Head Start program. literally children who are near this soil. It's like the EPA was able to find this stuff recently, and some of it has to do with a Biden administration that had pushed the EPA to do more of this stuff in places that don't have.
the political power and the money to make it a forefront issue, right? And so that's why this all became an issue. And think about Sylvester Turner there. One of the reasons I wanted to ask Sylvester Turner about this was that here's a man who... who knows Houston as well as anybody, right? He's been there forever. He knows the Fifth Ward. And he himself... has had this battle with cancer that has taken a toll on him, right? Those who haven't seen Sylvester Turner in a while, he's lost...
pieces of his jaw to cancer and these treatments. And it's like, talk about a guy who understands his role as a voice for finding these carcinogens in the greater fifth ward. Yeah, and here was Jeremy asking him about that. Well, like I said at the start of this, you're a month into your term in Congress and you certainly have something big to kind of have to worry about right away, right? Well, as I heard...
this minister say. Sometimes you are called to be at a place for such a time as this. And that's the way I look. So we'll continue to follow that. And one of the other things that falls under this umbrella of some of the government, quote unquote, efficiency that's being put into place, some of the cuts that may be put in place is going to happen in regards to children in schools.
Um, and also, uh, you know, kids who, uh, just receive some kind of food assistance, even when they're not at school. Um, Brooke Rollins is, is, has she been confirmed now? Brooke Rollins from, uh, central, from, I would say. That's the heart of Texas, up around Waco area. It's hard to tell you exactly where certain parts of the state are because as one of my news directors one time said, it doesn't help that Texas is all effed up shaped.
is the way he said it. But his was not edited. It was hard to say. DFW, everybody thinks that's North Texas, right? That's what everyone would say, and I would say that. But there's parts of Texas that are way north of that. Right. And people in Lubbock, which is a total side tangent, but I never lose my place. People in Lubbock would say that's West Texas. But what do people in El Paso say? That that's real West Texas, but there's a place east of that.
in the marfa area where they call that far west texas right so any of it none of it makes sense anyway brooke rollins who is now the ag secretary she was in her confirmation hearing, and when was that, a week or two ago, something like that, Jeremy? Yeah, at the end of last month. And talk about what she was being asked about there, and then we'll hear some of it. But what was the topic?
Well, first, I got to tell you, you know, my love for history here, but, you know, Abraham Lincoln created the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Brooke Rollins is going to be the first Texan. to ever hold that position. And in that confirmation hearing- I'm so proud of that.
She talked a lot about the ranching and farming, you know, that background that she has. But one of the things that's in a lot of people, particularly in the Democrats' mind, was what is going to happen with some of these food nutrition programs? You know, think about the USDA.
It's more than just about farmers. No offense to them. They do hard work. I get it. But a lot of those food nutrition programs are run through the USDA. So think about food stamps. Think about the school lunch program. All of that. goes through that program. And there were a lot of Democrats wondering, so what is she going to do with this, especially as Project 2025 has talked a lot about cutting back on those areas?
major role in all of the above, ensuring that these programs are serving those who need them and doing it effectively, but also ensuring that the taxpayers are being well served, that the dollar that we take from my electrician in Fort Worth You know, if they were consistent across issues, then she would say something.
Like what Ken King said about if you're going to spend $5 billion on 100,000 kids, if you compare that to the $6 billion that you're going to spend on 5.6 million kids in public education. If she would say something along those lines, it would be kind of consistent. But...
No, she's a school voucher supporter, by the way, because she's one of the TPPF people and one of the America First people and one of those people who is in the orbit of all this Project 2025 stuff, Jeremy. And, you know, Trump has said.
that he didn't know anything about any of that. I think it's fair to say, and we pointed that out on this show, that Trump did some things, he's doing some things that he said he was going to do. And I've seen a lot of analysis across the country from very smart people. who would say, yeah, you can disagree with what Trump is saying now, what he's doing now, but he is doing what he said he was going to do. But on this Project 2025 stuff, that's not true at all. In fact...
Evan, do you have this? I think there's a mashup of – I've got it over here. There's a mashup of Trump saying various things about 2025, this Project 2025. And – And when people say that he's doing what he said he was going to do, I don't think that's quite accurate if you listen to what he said on the campaign trail about Project 2025. Like some on the right, severe right.
came up with this Project 25, and I don't even know, I mean, some of them, I know who they are, but they're very, very conservative. He's involved in Project, and then they read some of the things, and they are extreme. I mean, they're seriously extreme. But I don't know anything about it. I don't want to know anything about it. They wrote a document that many of the points are...
Fine. Many of the points are absolutely ridiculous. I have nothing to do with the document. I've never seen the document. I've seen certain things that are said in it. So, Jeremy, you were looking into specifically the things that Brooke Rollins is being asked about and what Project... had to say about those topics.
Yeah, first of all, without a doubt, Brooke Rollins testified that she had nothing to do with Project 2025, just kind of like what you heard from Donald Trump there. So she made clear that she wasn't involved in it, even though former TPPF people who used to work with her.
are involved with it, right? Okay, so that's the first thing. Secondly, like, understand that there are three million children in, you know, Texas schools that are getting, you know, food programs through school lunches and school breakfasts and things like that.
like that. So we're talking about 3 million people, and those are obviously going to be more so in places like Houston and San Antonio. But one of the things that Project 2025, in their report, this is the line that was really important to me. It says, programs to their original intent and reject efforts to create universal free school meals. The USDA should work with lawmakers to restore these programs so that they go to...
while they're at school. So that to me is kind of the opening of, okay, what does that mean? There was a lot of criticism that the Biden administration used the pandemic to really expand these programs. And it's true. programs really exploded. They did a lot of those summer lunch programs that we've talked about in this program before. They expanded school lunches to make sure more people were eligible for it. So there's definitely some of that happening.
Collins is going to be head of USDA with these Project 2025 advocates around Trump trying to push him and her to do something about these programs that look like they've gotten more expensive, right? Right. Where does that, you know, cutback comes, right? Like, where do you make those cuts? Again, it's really tough when you start talking about real children in real places who are now getting a school lunch or school breakfast that didn't qualify before because of whatever reason, right?
Now they qualify. Do we take that food from them? And look, I don't have many biases in this world as a journalist, but one I do have that is clear. Kids. I don't care if you're Republican or Democrat or whatever. Kids have no vote in this thing. Their parents make bad decisions all the time, and I hate when kids pay for it. You know, it's like in this case, if like adults end up...
trimming this program and making sure like some kids somewhere in the South St. Independent School District isn't getting a lunch. It's like, wow, is that success? Yeah, and there's no doubt. that the Project 2025 stuff is being enacted by the Trump administration. I mean, the guy who was the chief architect of it, this guy Russell Vaught, he's in the administration.
And by the way, he was in the last Trump administration. And do you think he might have something to say about how money gets spent? His title is director of office.
of management and budget so i think he probably has something to do with the way they're going to spend money it's a really good look at that jeremy i appreciate that and by the way people should check out all that reporting from your newsletter this week right that that would you know which you can find all of those can you find the old editions on that same link on your X page. They're all right there.
Yeah, they're all on there, but you can also – now the Houston Chronicle and the Express News have the actual top of those newsletters running on the website. So you can go to those now and kind of track them down. I wrote about the EPA cuts, and I wrote about the food stamp.
program. We'll put all those this week, so you can find all those on the Houston Chronicle and Express News. There you go. Why is Senator Paul Bettencourt just randomly breaking out into a Trump impersonation? You just heard Trump. talking about Project 2025 and how he doesn't know anything about it. Paul Betancourt, Senator from Houston, who's the point man on property taxes in the Senate, and a longtime listener of the show.
He just randomly lately has been breaking out into his Trump impersonation. And I noticed this. It was last Friday, the last time we did a show a week ago. He was in a hearing of the Senate Finance Committee and Chief Nim Kidd. The Texas Department of Emergency Management was testifying about what they do at the department, which is for short, they say TDEM. And it's important to know that as you go into this, they call it TDEM. Kind of like FEMA and TDEM.
All these emergency management organizations, there's always a four-letter acronym, right? Betancourt's talking to Chief Kidd, and listen to what happens here. He's talking in his normal voice, and then he starts trying to do the Trump thing. And it doesn't really sound that much different from his normal voice. Go ahead, Evan. We have the best in class.
operation and madam chair i would just you know i may not know what i think of fema but i know what i think of tedum and you know tedum and them kid did like they're the best they're the greatest they're the wonderfulness Was that an impersonation? I know nothing, nothing. Thank you, Senator.
It's Friday. Don't do that to me. Right. It's a long week. It's a little humor. A little humor on a Friday is okay, but maybe I shouldn't have done it because I've done this. I said to him, you know, it's not bad. I said, it's not bad, Uncle Paul. That's what the senator likes to be called. Uncle Paul. He was always Uncle Paul going back more than 20 years ago at this point. Back in 2003, Jeremy, Paul Betancourt was elected tax assessor collector.
at that time i think in the 2002 elections and so he and i started you know working basically the same same time that's when i started at ktrh radio there got to know paul a little bit so so i just said to him hey the trump impersonation is not that bad
Well, I didn't mean for him to keep doing it again and again, including on the Senate floor, including during the tribute to the dean of the Senate, Judas Zaffarini. He was talking about how many votes she's taken, consecutive votes in the Texas Senate. And it's more than whatever it is. It's more than 70,000. I'm probably not exaggerating. It's probably more than any other human has taken consecutive votes. And by the way, everybody calls her Z. I think it was her birthday this week.
Senator Zafirini, yeah, they had a birthday gathering the other day. So they're on the Senate floor and they're paying tribute to – Senator Zaffirini, and here's Betancourt again. You're so far ahead at 72,000 votes. It can never be equaled and not a partisan comment, but it's huge. It's the greatest ever. It's going to be the best ever. You're the most wonderful. ever because it is a world record and it will stand the test of time. An honor to serve with you, Lady Z.
Thank you, Senator Betancourt. Senator Zafrini just couldn't help himself. No, he couldn't help himself. I'm going to try not to encourage that anymore, Jeremy. I will say, if you go to my Twitter page and look at the videos... The mannerisms he's doing are not terrible. But the voice, it's almost like the voice doesn't even change at all. An ongoing debate for years in this state has been whether the government...
The state government should be putting your tax dollars into the film industry to get more movies made here and TV shows. And it's interesting to me that one of the leading conservatives in the state, maybe the. He calls himself the preeminent voice for conservatism in Texas and America. The little governor, Dan Patrick, is putting tens of millions, no, hundreds of millions of dollars in the state Senate's budget.
For film incentives. Now, you know that our Texas movie stars, we have quite a few movie stars. The biggest ones were all in this film trailer that they put out earlier this year. And two of them, you've seen. the original True Detective, season one, which I thought was excellent. They kind of lost me on season three. Anyway, and if you've seen the show, you know what I'm talking about. They're all very different. But in the first deal...
It's our Texas guys. It's Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson. And so there's a trailer that was put out on YouTube to promote the film incentive program in Texas. And again, simple idea. that the state government should invest in films being made here to compete with other states. I mean, you know who really eats everybody's lunch on this is Georgia. Aren't all those Avengers movies and everything else like that? Everything says, you know, thank you to the state of Georgia.
I mean, Evan is in Los Angeles now, and they're probably making more movies in Georgia than in Hollywood at this point, Evan. I mean, it's pretty competitive, right? And it's because they're putting... tax dollars into propping up this industry. And there are those, including the Lieutenant Governor, who say that we need to be competitive with that.
In this movie trailer that kind of looks like an episode of True Detective, McConaughey and Harrelson, some of our Texas celebrities, they're driving around. It looks like out in West Texas. And they're talking about the state of the film industry overall. You ever wonder if this industry of ours is just chasing its own tail? No. I don't wonder. Restrictions, regulations, nickel and diamond productions, political lectures. Hollywood is a flat circle wood, round and round.
a record with the sound off so what you just want to turn the record off no i want to change the tune it's not that i want to change the record so i want to change the tune Do they make enough movies in Texas? Well, no. It'd be a lot cooler if they did. He should have said that. Anyway, some people will get that reference. Do you get that reference, Evan? It'd be a lot cooler if you did?
I think I'm maybe too young for that. No, he's lost. What? He's too young for that. Young Evan. Those who get it will instantly know what I'm talking about. Anyway, I think that was his first breakout role, what I'm referencing.
Jeremy. I'm getting the head nod from Jeremy. Easily. Everyone would remember it. Has McConaughey ever convinced anybody of anything with his... weird long-winded bullshit or did people just find it something to talk about i'm trying to remember when there was all the buzz about how he was going to run for office maybe yeah jeremy
Oh, how can I forget? I mean, we talked about that here. I was having to watch every word he said in case he announced to run for governor. So all of a sudden I was like watching every interview when he was promoting his book, you know? Yeah. In life, there's red lights.
and green lights the red lights is when you gotta stop but the green lights are when you're gonna go and you're gonna go as far as you've ever gone before and you're gonna go places you've never been before it's just like on and on and on it's all this free so it's just you know just talking talking um so In that film trailer, Woody Harrelson makes what I think is about as direct as possible a statement and argument that I've heard from these guys about taking your tax dollars and giving it.
Two filmmakers. Small fraction of Texas budget surplus could turn this state into the new Hollywood. Now at the Capitol, they're going to run into some folks with less star power, but actual power in Texas government. And you have Patrick, who's on the side of the Hollywood types, which is interesting. Patrick's on the side of the Hollywood types, including Taylor Sheridan, Matthew McConaughey, Woody Harrelson you just heard from. Who else? Billy Bob Thornton.
Renee Zellweger from Katy, Texas. All these people pushing for this, including Patrick. But we've got folks like freshman representatives. Who would tell you they're true conservatives and they don't agree with this? It's State Representative David Lowe and I'm here at the Texas Capitol fighting against corporate welfare. Corporate welfare, right? Jeremy, this is what this is always called. When Lowe says it, what is he talking about?
Specifically, $498 million to revamp the Texas film Incentive, making Texas the movie capital of the world. Continuing, it will consist of two parts, $48 million in grants. and 450 million in new tax credits. That is not the role of government. That is unacceptable. And I will fight corporate welfare because I want the money to go back to you.
Jeremy, this is going to be one of those, you know, intra-party fights for Republicans. The lieutenant governor, who I will say has been consistent about this, as far as I can remember, Patrick was always cool with the film incentive program. He wasn't pushing it as much as he is now. If you go back just a few years ago, the entire budget for the film incentive program under Governor Perry and then under Governor Abbott, it's been around $45 million.
Every two years, something like that, which that might sound like a lot of money to you. But in a state that has a budget that's about a quarter trillion dollars, trillion with a TR, a quarter trillion. And this time around, last time around, the budgets are more like 300. $1 billion, something like that, when you look at all the money, federal and state. $45 million, some of the budget writer types, they would say, that's budget dust.
That's the term they use at the Capitol. So $45 million. But in the meantime, it's been pushed to $200 million here in recent years. And in the Senate's base budget for the Texas Senate. pushed by Dan Patrick, they're now pushing it to around $500 million, which to go from $45 million to a half billion is a big deal.
Is this a good investment? Here's what the governor's office has said about it. I was looking at quorumreport.com from some of our coverage last fall. There was a hearing where they had Taylor Sheridan come in and testify and some other folks like that who came in to talk about this. They also had. Adriana Cruz, who was at the time, and I think she still is the executive director of the Economic Development and Tourism Office in
the governor's office, one of the sub offices there. And she talked about all of this money. She said the legislature was right to increase this in the budget, which has gone up and up year over year. And there's really gone up exponentially recently. The incentive program, according to the governor's office, and this was with the $45 million investment, it generated $2.5 billion in spending in the state, created 189,000 jobs.
And they said it amounted to about a 469% return on investment. Now, the thing about that is that's spread over about 14 years. Something like that, Jeremy. So what the proponents of this, the supporters like Conaghy, who would tell you, Evan, that 500 million would be a lot cooler. than $45 million. They would tell you, they would tell you, well, if he's never convinced anybody with it, maybe I can't. He would tell you,
You know, that they should boost this up because he and others would say – and you see this in all of their arguments that they've made before the legislature, Jeremy, and they'll be doing it again as we go forward here. They'll say that that – return on investment will be increased exponentially as the initial investment is increased.
up to $500 million. And it's also interesting that Lieutenant Governor Patrick has not really made a fiscally conservative argument about this, because I don't even know what it would be. Instead, he has said that this is something that Texas should be doing. to promote
conservative values and conservative ideals that recently there was, I think it was a few months ago, there was a screening of that new Reagan movie that came out last year and Patrick hosted it. And I wasn't there, but I knew several people who were, and they were telling me about how Patrick was saying that.
This is what we need to do. That in Texas, we should be making movies like this that really promote a conservative viewpoint and a Republican viewpoint. Of course, the problem you'll run into with that is that a lot of the folks coming from Hollywood. would not be interested in promoting conservatism or a Republican point of view. They just want to make a movie, whether it was liberal or conservative or whatever.
Yeah, and there's a couple of things going for these film incentives supporters. One, they're putting the right people out in front, right? You're putting a Matthew McConaughey out there who doesn't scream far left to a lot of people. Same thing with Woody Harrelson. But – and I think that's one of the lessons we learned. Remember when they did the honky-tonk tax break package a couple years ago? They were expecting a Republican backlash on it. But in order to kind of –
tried to help head that off they kind of went front forward with people like pat green randy rogers and george straight you know like a more conservative music front than like a willie nelson making the push right like this in this case they're not letting like evil and like more you know liberal
Democratic-type Hollywood people try to sell the state. They're quiet. They're almost like, okay, we're just going to keep our mouths shut over here and let Matthew McConaughey, the man from Uvalde, the kid who played, I don't know if he played high school football, but he... He went to school up in Longview. That's where he's from. So let that guy make the pitch on this and keep all the Hollywood people out of this mix, right?
Well, and it's the Taylor Sheridan-type programming that is dominating Paramount Plus now. I mean, he's got an empire with that network and that streaming service with the different shows like… Yellowstone, Landman, which is all about oil and gas in West Texas and all of that. Some of these shows that have been across the country have been more – and this is the way it's been covered in – across pop culture, publications, etc. It's been more identified with people who are
conservative, the people who are Republicans, right? Even though I know a lot of Democrats who watch this stuff too, because it's just entertaining and it's pretty good television. And that guy has become prolific. It was also my reporting that Patrick's point of view. about how much money to spend on this was really changed because of a meeting he had with Taylor Sheridan, that there was a dinner in downtown Austin where Patrick was there and the Senate finance chair, Joan Huffman, was there.
Sheridan made his whole pitch. This is from sources in the room. They said that Sheridan made his whole pitch and said, you know, I'm a Texan. I want to be telling stories about Texas and I want to film it in Texas. And if you don't have a competitive program. for your film incentives like they do in Oklahoma.
Georgia, which are also pretty conservative places, by the way. And I think Arkansas may be coming on board with this and some of these other places that are no more or less conservative than Texas, although some people will take issue with that. But that but that Patrick really.
bought into it when Sheridan was saying, yeah, I would love to see more of these shows made in Texas. And so at that meeting, it was apparently the case that Patrick made his decision and said to Huffman, yeah, let's make it 200 million or 500 million or whatever. Yeah, and remember Sheridan actually filmed some of his stuff. I remember, I think it was last summer, he did some shooting down in Galveston, worked up in the Hill Country. They recruited people to stand as extras up in Fort Worth.
for some scenes. And so you can see he has kind of like something to show the Texas legislature that people like. And look, even if you don't watch Yellowstone and some of those others, but Yellowstone particularly has maybe some of the best soundtrack. You know, if you want a Texas Tech... playlist, they have a Texas Take playlist for us. They got Wade Bowen and Randy Rogers on those things. They had American Aquarium on there. All kinds of great acts that have really been part of the music.
That's one of those shows. It's not set in Texas, but people would say it's a Texas show. Ryan Bingham was actually an actor in there. He's a Del Rio kid who's a big artist now. I love it. Well, we'll track this. I'm interested to see what happens. And Patrick is, I will say, politically, I've always said he's probably the most astute political actor in the state. And I mean actor as somebody who's, you know.
taking action on things. Maybe they'll, maybe they'll make him an actual actor in one of these shows. If he gives, if he gives them $500 million, you could, you could have a, you could have, you know, some cameos by Dan Patrick. Maybe he's hoping for that. Maybe he'll get some different Western shirts. I think he could update his wardrobe on that a little bit. Maybe change up those mom jeans. But anyway, I'll be interested to see who wins. Patrick?
Or those who make the fiscal conservative argument that, no, you shouldn't be doing this. It's interesting that one of the guys who has worked for Attorney General Ken Paxton, a guy named George Lane, has really been promoting this.
This film incentive thing, which I don't even know what his connection is to it, but he's always posting it on social media and claims to have – I guess this may be true that he claims that he was involved in that movie trailer promotion video that we were just talking about.
with McConaughey. So again, this is somebody who works for a very conservative Texas Republican, somebody who is thought of as a MAGA Republican. So, well, the MAGA Republicans who want film incentives and more film to be done in Texas. More of a film industry here. Do they win or do the old school conservatives who would say you shouldn't be spending money on that, that's tax dollars. Let it be free market.
is what those people would always say. Who wins that in this legislative session? That'll be interesting to watch. All right, let's do, we're making it a weekly segment now. Evan, let's do the up and down of the week. So Jeremy is always reporting every day on who's up and who's down in his newsletter. And here on the show, we thought it'd be a good idea to say who's up and down for the week. So let's start, Jeremy, with who you thought. was the UP.
of the week who was doing who was on the up and up who was on the rise well brooke rollins was in the running but i'm going to go with greg abbott because he made his third trip to dc since the inauguration you know hanging out with members of congress he ended up on cnn like so he's not just in the fox news
bubble anymore. He actually did an interview with CNN from the grounds of the White House. Talk about kind of showing what we've been saying all along. He is trying to build up his profile and kind of showing the rest of the nation who he is. All right, Greg Abbott is up. Who's your down of the week?
Down in the week is going to be the NIH and all that money we get in Texas, you know, from the National Institutes of Health. If you all heard that Trump is making some big cuts in there, and that is a major deal for us. Think of, you know, M.D. Anderson. in Houston, we get $190 million through that program. Baylor College of Medicine, $326 million. All of that money is in jeopardy now because some of the cuts that we're seeing at NIH, they are clearly the biggest losers.
particularly of this week. Their stock is way down. This is another one of those either Project 2025 or Project 2025-like things. So we're going to find all this efficiency in government and we're going to cut out all these different programs. with a texas medical center and what's there the cancer treatment programs and all that's the envy of the world people come from all over the globe to houston texas for that kind of treatment jeremy
Yeah, at some point, I'm glad I had Sylvester Turner on the show earlier because it's like they're going after his world, right? They were going after the Fifth Ward with these EPA testing and then MD Anderson where he got his treatment. If they start losing... research money it's like man you see who's getting hit here right it's a lot to watch as this trump administration rolls on
Absolutely. All right. You should check out Jeremy's newsletter for the up and down every day. You can find that on his X page. It's at Jeremy S. Wallace for the inside story. on texas politics you should be a subscriber at quorum report.com and of course go to houston chronicle.com each and every day as well for all your news updates out of southeast texas we will see you next week