So Much Uncertainty in Texas Politics

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I'm your host, Jeremy Wallace. And look, we're all used to lots of uncertainty in politics, but boy, are we hitting a ton of it right now. There are so many levels in which things are uncertain. For sure... congressional redistricting. We just now have a decision from the US Supreme Court saying which maps can be used. It's a total mess. A lot of people who thought they were running for one district are now all of a sudden in a different district.

And who's running for the U.S. Senate? We're not even really fully sure who's in the race and who's out, largely because of Jasmine Crockett. You know, she's been flirting with maybe running for the U.S. Senate, and we're going to get into all of that. And look, it's going to have some effect on Joaquin Castro.

Yeah, we might have some news on Joaquin Castro. You definitely want to listen to all that. And look, what about THC? Is it legal or illegal at this point? We went from it being on the cusp of being banned in Texas to being legal. then now back to being on the cusp of being banned again. It's been a crazy yo-yo on that front for sure. And here's one more for you. Dreamers. You know, those people who were brought to this country by their parents, but yet...

risks deportation, even as President Trump has vowed to help them. You know, listen to him here. The dreamers are going to come later and we have to do something about the dreamers because these are people that have been brought here. At a very young age, and many of these are middle-aged people now, they don't even speak the language of their country. Newsflash. He hasn't done anything.

U.S. Representative Silvia Garcia is going to join me later on in the program to talk about what, if anything, is happening on this front and if there is still an opening where they can convince this White House to do something on DREAMers. We've got a lot of unpacking to do on this program. Look.

Up front, I'll tell you, we're not going to really get into the congressional redistricting decision coming from the U.S. Supreme Court. We'll unpack all that next week as we absorb the decision and where it goes from here. Clearly, the U.S. Supreme Court has zero respect to the Texas Take podcast.

recording schedule. We won't hold that against them. They got their thing to do. I get it. But I do have both Isaac Yu and John Moritz joining me to help me break down all these other issues. First, I want to get into the U.S. Senate race. Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett apparently is going to make a big announcement on Monday and tell us maybe she's joining the race. I am. I am closer to yes than I am. No, I will tell you that. She was on MSN Now talking about.

that she's probably in maybe and we also need to make sure um we have what i consider to be a strong slate people that can also raise money people that also have kind of different groups of people that are attracted to them so look she put one huge caveat on her running she has a criteria that she wants to have happen which is she wants a strong ticket what does that mean here's her telling MS now what she wants. Part of that equation for me, again, comes down to

What type of ticket instead of relying on one person to kind of carry the load? What type of ticket? So I've actually been talking to other candidates, potential candidates as well, trying to recruit them. And that's going to be really important because. What I'm hearing from my sources, Joaquin Castro, the congressman from San Antonio, he's been talking to Crockett about what a new ticket might look like. Does that mean he's getting into the race or not? You remember he was on this program.

Graham just a month ago talking about he was still interested in running for the U.S. Senate or for one of the other seats in Texas, but he didn't say for sure where he was going to go. He's still considering all of this, apparently. My sources tell me he's an active conversations with Crockett now trying to figure out what they're going to do. Well...

Let's bring on John Moritz to really help on this. John, you've been covering politics in Austin, you know, in the state of Texas for a long time. What does Jasmine Crockett mean in this race for the Democratic? Does she clear the field or is there more nuance to this?

I think there's a little bit more nuance. Right now, the indication from both James Tallarico and Colin Allred is that they're going to stay in the race that they've announced for and have been campaigning for, raising a ton of money each. for. So getting them out of the way would take a Herculean task. Let's also remember all of this is coming down to the wire.

This is a conversation that might have been better had three months ago before filing even started. And maybe those conversations were had, but nothing became of them or no resolution came of them. But right now, you know, say there's a Castro. move. We're pretty sure that there will be a Jasmine move. It's going to come on the last day to file for the March 3rd.

primaries. So not only is this going to be like a little bit of hand grenade that's going to blow up once, it's going to have a ripple effect across the landscape because, you know, this is going to affect congressional districts, definitely in Dallas, possibly in San Antonio, and who knows elsewhere.

Yeah, right. There's a lot of opening. And you and I both know this issue for months now, like you brought up. Like we thought this was going to be, you know, this conversation was going on six months ago. It's like back in May. It's like I was told by Castro.

James Tallarico and Beto O'Rourke that they were working together to try to figure out a ticket. You know, it's like, you know, maybe we're not running against all each other. They were all in San Antonio talking about how maybe they can have. you know, a slate of candidates running. So we thought the conversation was going on then. Apparently, it didn't go smoothly because here we are. We are in December, y'all, and we're still talking about this. It's driving some of the...

You know, the people who make their living either working for candidates or consulting and doing all that sort of thing. It's making them crazy because, you know, say you put all your eggs in the basket of one of those candidates. There are three high profile ones. Now in the Senate, two of them are out of the picture.

And then you're on the sidelines. And the voices of those two candidates, you know, be it Tallarico, be it Jasmine, be it Colin Allred, I mean, each has a good message. Each has a good story. But that's going to be. off the table once the runoffs are over, and there's going to be a long time between the runoff and the November election where they're not going to have all the bats in the lineup, to use a bad metaphor.

Well, and look at who these people are, right? Like, it's not like these guys don't know each other and have no problem blowing up each other, right? These are people who all know each other pretty well. You know, Crockett and Tallarico served with each other in the Texas House.

Allred is pretty good friends with Jasmine Crockett. They talk quite frequently. I know she's spoken with both of them about what she's maybe planning on doing. So it's not like these are friends who are going to have to kind of blow each other up. at some point here if they're going to do it. Which brings me to Isaac Yu. Isaac, obviously you work with the Houston Chronicle, but you know Dallas-Fort Worth too. You're from that area. Isaac Yu get the sense that...

Jasmine Crockett is rock solid in a place like Dallas where she would dominate in a race up there, even with Colin Allred in the picture. Dallas is a big place. Yes. I grew up in Garland, which is a suburb outside of Dallas, which is actually within Colin Allred's old house district. But it's a big place, and there's a lot of different voices.

We've talked about this before in a Democratic primary. You know, the black community matters a lot. That's the area that Jasmine Crocker herself represented. Not sure.

what suburban territory looks like for someone like Allred in a primary, especially now that he's already run statewide once. I wouldn't call it... you know, at least for an area like Dallas, as diverse as it is, as many different kinds of communities as there are, as any surefire thing for any candidate, even someone with the name recognition that Jasmine Crockett has.

Yeah, it's interesting to listen to Jasmine Krakas. You know, look, obviously she's been a congresswoman up in Dallas. But when she comes to Houston, you know, she was at this event with me with Gavin Newsom a couple of weeks ago where she says, it's nice to be home. So excited!

So she clearly has this hometown thing that she's trying to associate with Houston. Look, she did go to the University of Houston, but obviously she didn't grow up in Houston. But nonetheless, she does have some ties to the University of Houston. So I think she sees she has a...

potential lane in Houston, where she can do better than both Oliver and Tallarico, who aren't very well known in those areas. But John, this brings up the question of Austin. You know, we know in a Democratic primary, you know, Travis County isn't the biggest of the counties in Texas. Obviously, Harris County has that, but they get a pretty good turnout in primary elections for Democrats.

Is this a potential where Tallarico might have a little bit more strength, you know, in a three-way battle against these two if it does happen? You would be inclined to give him the home field advantage in Austin. It's been a blue county long before Harris and Dallas. turn blue. Also, the primary in Travis County is November for a lot of these races because it's been so blue. So that's going to perhaps boost the turnout.

with some of these down-ballot races helping to drive it. So that would, on paper, seem to help Tallarico, but also like you would... Like we've been talking about, Allred is run statewide, so he's well-known. Crockett served in Austin. She's reasonably well-known here. So, you know, this is a three-way gunfight that we might be— covering this time next week or next month.

Yeah, and Jasmine Kroc has been on MS now and a lot of the TV shows. She does a lot of the cable programs, more so than the other two. She clearly has a following. Her fundraising is off the charts. If you look at all the members of Congress, all 435. She's one of the top five or six fundraisers in the entire Congress right now. She is just outside of AOC and Hakeem Jeffries, those type of people. She's in that class of fundraising. So she brings a lot of money and power into this race.

I think let me ask you about like, look.

Us older folks, you know, maybe aren't on the social medias as much as others. It seems like Tallarico is putting a lot of eggs in the basket of, look, I got a social media influence. I can reach younger people in a way that maybe other people aren't. Do you think.

He has appeal through a younger audience that can translate into a primary vote, or is it just a social media thing that doesn't translate to voting? I've heard from a lot of people, even outside of Texas, who have heard of Taliban bill. these viral moments mammoths and all these other things and going on joe rogan is also not insignificant you know that's a lot of young people listening to that podcast it's tough to say because

As much as you want a candidate that can appeal to young voters, I don't think many people in my age range generally actually vote in a primary. We aren't kind of plugged into the same information environment that would feed us things like... When is the primary date? Where can you vote? So I wouldn't, if I was a candidate, I wouldn't be putting all of my eggs in a basket of young voters.

Social media doesn't really necessarily tell you whether you're talking to people in Texas or you're talking to people in any other part of the country. But what it does do... gives you opportunity to tap donors. And where that money comes from doesn't really matter as much as how much of it comes in. Yeah, so I don't know that...

Tallarico or either of the other two are talking to primary voters as their chief audience. I think they're talking to people who have PenPal and Venmo accounts, and they could tap into that. Well, and we're at the point of the early going in this thing where everybody seems to have a poll that tells them what they want to hear. Right. And it's like, John, tell us a little bit about what you were hearing about the polling. You know, I've heard some polling that like.

Jasmine Crockett's really strong in a primary, but maybe she's not so good in general election and she doesn't really have a pathway there. Does that have you seen that? And is that part of the conversation as these Democrats prepare? It's definitely part of the conversation. I had a story heading into Thanksgiving week about Jasmine Crockett, and Republicans are licking their chops at the prospect of running against her in November.

that you mentioned, the most recent one I've seen shows 49% of a statewide electorate would not vote. for Jasmine Crockett. And if you're Tallarico or Allred, you might be just sitting there clapping until you go one step farther and read that 43% wouldn't vote for Colin and 40% wouldn't vote for... for Tallarico. So that leaves a very, very thin margin, you know, to peel off. If you start out 49 points in the hole, you've got to win.

every persuadable voter that there is left, and to a lesser extent, you know, the other ones too. Also, let's keep in mind... Polling, you know, a little bit more, a little bit less than 11 months before the election is a dicey proposition. You know, it kind of gives us a bit of where people are attitudinally, but not, you know, are they locked in? Are they in love with one candidate or the other?

Or are they in hate with any of the other candidates as well? Just want to jump in with as much as John is bringing up a potential line of attack for these two other candidates on Jasper Crockett with that poll. I'm wondering if at some point we're going to see them pull out flip side for Colin Allred. He's not a poll, a real election in the last cycle, and they can point to a certain percentage of voters.

Literally didn't vote for him rather than just responding to a poll that way haven't seen that as a line of attack But that's certainly possible in in like we're saying it's gonna be a knife fight between these three Yeah, interesting watch. And I think what makes Jasmine Crockett so dangerous for the other candidates in this race is that we've seen on a very national level that a lot of Democrats are looking for a fighter.

more than they are somebody who's going to be able to work with the other side. Look, they've tried, let's work with the other side for a long time, already pounded that into the ground. I can work with the other side if I get elected. He went against Biden on things, you know, on immigration.

just to kind of illustrate that. But what Crockett brings is this fiery, I'm going to punch you in the face if I disagree with you, something that I think a lot of Democrats want after watching how Schumer handled the shutdown. or the non-shutdown at the beginning of the year and then later did the shutdown. I think a lot of people are looking for a fighter in the primary. Even if you're going to lose, go make a good strong case. We don't want to lose and have you just sound like...

Republican light, right, Isaac? I think so. I will make one point. The first kind of election that I was politically conscious for was 2020 and the primary then. I think it surprised a lot of people. Generally, the Texas primary voters went for Joe Biden over Bernie Sanders in the primary. That's not a one-to-one comparison with what we're going to see here, but in that cycle is all about electability, who can beat a Republican.

You know, if Texas voters are indeed that pragmatic, that could bode well for maybe some of the candidates who are polling better in the general election. That is a critical point because, look, we know, I know from the data, I've spent a lot of time looking at primary data over the years, and we know the best primary voter in a Democratic Party is over 65 and 10's white.

It's like those are the people that all three of them, I don't care how young or how much you're on TikTok or how many times you want MS now. It's like you've got to be able to talk to people who are over 65 who have problems with maybe Ken Paxton or John.

cornyn that's going to ultimately be the decision that has to be made at some point how do you make that case yeah that's it that's it i'm sorry that's a november thing more than a primary thing i i think we're going to see a younger democratic

electorate. Oh, one other thing on the polling, let me throw that out real quick. The poll that I had mentioned early by Change Research, which is a Democratic-leaning polling company, says that this cycle, and it's not surprising, that Democrats are far more energized, even though whether they're losing in Texas, they're far more energized about their prospects than are Republicans. And I think that's also going to be a factor in this primary. And to your point.

point, Jeremy, who is going to best tap into that energy, translate it into a message that will resonate in March once we know what the field is going to be. And I think each candidate right now. If he or she is not looking at that energy factor and trying to figure out the best way to corral it and exploit it, they're going to be the ones who are going to be sitting home silently after the primaries are over.

Well, and you bring up a really good point, especially coming off of the election in Tennessee. Look, Tennessee is not Texas. It's one district and people are overreacting to, you know, the results one way or the other. It's like I already I will tell you that right now. But a lot of Democrats are. finding hope in that number because it took a plus 20 Trump district and turned it into a less than 10%.

district right so they they trim the margins quite a bit if the same thing happened in texas you know with all the races that trump won by plus 20 we would have some seats flip over you know like because of how close you know you know it could get so you can see where energy But I'll tell you, Democrats, if you're listening.

There's some false hope in that. You can't base what's going to happen on the ground in Texas, the race that's happening outside of Nashville, one in New Jersey and one in Virginia. That's not like we have a different brand of politics, y'all. It takes a lot more.

work and a lot more on the ground activity to make all that happen. Well, look, lots of questions heading into that primary, but I want to get into something else that's been just topsy-turvy. up and down constantly. And that's THC. That's why we have Isaac Yu in the bullpen here on this issue every single time. My goodness, for six months, people who use THC products have been fearing the state was going to block.

access to the product. Then they got a reprieve. But now here we are again. Congress has now jumped in and everybody's now wondering, am I supposed to hoard as much THC as I can now? Because it's going to go away. What do I do? Look, and y'all... This affects Willie Nelson. And you know, if it affects Willie Nelson, it affects the Texas take and me. This is Willie. Don't forget to drink a little every day. This is pretty good.

That was Willie Nelson, of course, talking about his product, Willie's Remedy Plus. It's a THC-infused product that he sells all the time. Look, I bring him up because he's mostly the spirit animal. Of the whole legalizing marijuana and expanding THC use, he has for years advocated switching to, you know, THC or marijuana as an alternative to alcohol and drugs, which he said almost ruined his life, almost killed him.

Right. And so he has a reason for and why he's written songs like it's all going to pot. Best I can tell, the world's gone to hell And we're sure gonna miss it a lot Isaac, you have a great story right now looking at how this whole THC industry is just on this yo-yo going back and forth about...

You know, what are we supposed to do? How do we, do we have products, you know, coming or not? Can we sell these things? Can we make deals with distributors? What's going on here? You talk to a bunch of the people who are working in the THC world. What are they telling you about what they do now? And bring us up to speed on what Congress has done here. Right. So Congress passed the national ban, tucked kind of into the spending deal that ended that.

federal government shutdown for people that remember that happening. You know, this federal ban is not set to take effect for another year. So that's November of 2026. Congress could vote at any point in that next year to reverse or alter the decision. It is an all-out ban. It's very, very similar and in fact goes slightly farther than the Texas ban here that Dan Patrick was proposing.

shouldering through the state legislature. But for consumers who are listening, those products are still on shelves in Texas. There are tangible effects that people are telling me they're feeling already. I was talking to farmers and retail shop owners and manufacturers and all different corners of the state and Corpus Christi and Lubbock. They're feeling the effects. There's two things going on. One, they're seeing sales go up.

probably partly people hoarding those products like you were mentioning, who maybe are wondering about the legality of these products come a year from now. But also just generally all this news has really... woken people up to the idea that there are these products existing and legal in Texas. Many people are surprised to hear that THC products are even legal in the first place. And anytime these products come under fire from...

lawmakers that kind of gets people more aware of the product's existence. But the other, on the flip side, a lot of these manufacturers And farmers are having problems with their business, right? It's, you know, at the end of the day, they have to run their operations effectively. And all this legal uncertainty makes it really difficult to do business, you know, all the things that other...

industries might take for granted, things like banking and insurance and credit card processing. That all gets really hard when it looks like your products might be banned a year from now.

Hey, Isaac, what's your insight on the politics of it all? I mean, this isn't a bunch of liberal hippie potheads versus a bunch of straight late. conservatives, this thing here seems to be one of the wackiest coalitions. What do you hear from the people you talk to day in and day out?

A lot of the people, the advocates that I talk to, people who are lobbying at the legislature and making podcasts and getting the word out there, a lot of them... are very quick to emphasize that they themselves are conservatives a lot of them are farmers a lot of them live in rural areas Many of them vote Republican generally in most elections. And they're arguing kind of a conservative message of free enterprise. Let us put our products out there.

overregulation as a ban is bad. Some level of regulation would be preferred. Yeah, it does make for an interesting coalition. And I think we're going to see something similar play out on a national scale. This issue really split conservatives within the party here in Texas. Look at Greg Abbott, look at Dan Patrick. But already in Congress, we've seen some Republicans coming out in support of the hemp industry. Eight of them is Rand Paul, the senator.

Kentucky, who is opposing the ban pushed by his fellow Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell. But also we've seen Ted Cruz, he voted to keep hemp access alive in that amendment. You can read my past stories on that. And, you know, even other Republicans like Dan Cunshaw coming out and pushing kind of a veteran-focused message that these products are heavily used by people in the military community as alternatives to things like opioids.

prescription medications. Well, and that's a really good point because there's a libertarian wing of the Republican Party that hates talking about banning any kind of products like this. Right. It makes sense by Rand Paul, the son of Ron Paul, the one time libertarian presidential candidate would be going, hey, wait a minute. What are we doing here? These are grown adults. It kind of goes back to when I asked.

Dan Patrick about why can't you find a way to let grown adults to use these products? And look, I got to play the greatest hits, y'all. Here's what Dan Patrick said to me at the time. I understand wanting to protect children, but you have grown adults who are using these products too. Is there a way to do this where grown adults could still have access to these products? We don't want adults having this either. What are you, crazy?

You want to go home and need a bag of this tonight? See if you're here tomorrow? This is what we focus on, kids. Because that's where they built the shops. But adults are buying this stuff, too. Make no mistake.

We want to protect the 20 and the 30 and the 40 and the 50 year olds too. We don't want anybody buying anything off the shelf that could kill them or ruin their mental state for the rest of their lives. The young man who was 22, who stepped in front of a train after he ate some of this junk. He wasn't a kid. He was an adult. That's crazy talk. That's the kind of talk, the reason why we're here. Media that would say something as stupid as that.

Well, which makes me want to come back to you, John. Look, there's a real political danger here for Republicans on this issue, I think, right? There are still a lot of Republicans, as Isaac was mentioning, who... use THC products. We have veterans, we got contractors, you know, all throughout the state who are using these products. And I've, at least anecdotally, when I've written about it in the newsletter and we've had it on the program, I've gotten a huge response.

people who say, I've always been a Republican. I'm never voting for Dan Patrick again. And so again, you hear that stuff. Does that look, it may be them just blowing off steam. Maybe they don't know when the primary is and they may not vote anyhow, but. Do you get a sense that there's any real political danger here for people like Patrick and Republicans who want to ban this?

This is the first time in as long as I've been watching Dan Patrick as a political figure, which dates back to his very first Senate campaign, you know, 20 years ago or whatever it was. This is the first time I've ever seen him not reading. And going with... And sometimes leading where the conservative movement is. He's almost never at odds with conservative-based voters. Either he's following their lead or he is showing them a path that, you know, they would have found other.

But he's getting them there quick. And I don't know, you know, whether it's a political miscalculation or whether it is the lieutenant governor's deeply heartfelt position that this stuff ought to be illegalized, maybe a little bit above. But the bottom line is he's a little bit out of touch with at least some element of his Republican base on this particular issue.

Well, and the place I've heard it the most is when I've been out in West Texas. Like when I go out to visit family in Amarillo or out in Lubbock, man, it's like the people up, everybody I talk to is. upset about the idea of banning THC products. They're like, and I had one person tell me, what do you want me to drive to Colorado and buy products there?

It's like, you know, it's like when you're in Amarillo, you are far closer to Colorado than you are to Austin, Texas. Right. And you can kind of see like there's an added level of stress on this issue to people. You know, you saw Charles Perry, the state center who was. pushing this. He took a lot of arrows over this thing. I'll be interested to see how he gets dealt with in the future, too. I wonder if people will hold him accountable for this stuff. But I think...

Are there lessons from what happened in Texas that the THC... supporters are saying they're going to use in Congress. You touched on a little of that in your story. It's like, you know, what can they do from Texas that could help them on the national level, you think? This is the exact question I've been asking some of these folks. And I mean, I think there's a lot of lessons chief among them, you know, the kind of message that you use, you know.

If you're using a more conservative message, free enterprise, libertarian mindedness, or even just a pro-business angle, I think that's what people think kind of got Greg Abbott onto their side. He's always, you know. wanted to appear very pro-business, and certainly he's gotten his flowers from the hemp industry because of his actions here in Texas. So that's the kind of message they're going to be wanting to push in Congress.

I think the other lesson is there is power in the fact that these products are so ubiquitous. People who haven't used these products or don't know about these products, you might not know it, but... They're everywhere. They are in your HEB. They are in all the restaurants and bars that you go to. And that's across the state. That's across the nation. And there's a lot of anecdotes and stories that can be told about, you know, people's grandmas and people's.

relatives or coworkers who are taking this vast range of products, whether that's beverages or gummies or tinctures or whatever. I think the lesson there is actually for the people who want the ban is you shouldn't estimate the movement that's going to come at you because there are so, so many people that use these products and that personal... detail that personal story does matter.

Yeah, there's going to be a lot of personal stories one way or the other. That's what we learned in Texas. Like for every story we heard from the veteran contractor who uses THC to sleep at night, we also heard Patrick bringing out moms who lost their child.

child because they said it had something to do with THC, you know, or these products that were too close to schools and they're poisoning our kids. You can see how that's going to be a very conflicting message for a lot of people in Congress as they move forward. we get this all dealt with.

What it all means for sure is that we're going to be talking about THCA a lot more going into this next year than we thought we would. So Isaac, just be prepared. You're coming on the show quite a bit this next year. Y'all are going to hear a lot from Isaac. And look, and thanks to Isaac.

Nick and John, thanks for joining me on this part of the program. Okay, y'all, political uncertainty is one thing, but living it is something entirely different. I'm talking about dreamers. You want to talk about people who live in political uncertainty every single day. These are people who were brought to this country, typically by their parents at a very young age, had no say in the matter. So they're not.

fully U.S. citizens and yet they're not citizens of another country or never lived in another country really from their memory at least. Democrats have long been pushing for this issue. We know U.S. Representative Sylvia Garcia, a Democrat out of Houston, has been pushing for the bipartisan American Dream and Promise Act since she stepped into Congress.

filed the legislation earlier this year, hoping that Republicans would eventually join on board with this idea as they push for an immigration reform package. Over in the U.S. Senate, Dick Durbin, the retiring... Democrat from Illinois has long fought for this issue. He once again has filed legislation, has some Republican support. He's had backing before from Lindsey Graham and Jeff Flake before him and others at times.

never been able to get this to the finish line, but he's back at it doing it again. But look, even Republicans say they want to do something about this. Here's President Donald Trump talking late last year. to Kristen Welker over at Meet the Press on NBC. The Dreamers are going to come later, and we have to do something about the Dreamers, because these are people that have been brought here.

at a very young age and many of these are middle-aged people now they don't even speak the language of their country and yes we're going to do something about what does that mean what are you going to do i will work with the democrats on a plan and if we can come up with a plan but the democrats have made it very very difficult to do anything republicans are very open to the dreamers the dreamers

we're talking many years ago they were brought into this country many years ago some of them are no longer young people and In many cases they become successful. They have great jobs. In some cases they have small businesses. In some cases they might have large businesses. And we're going to have to do something with them.

And you want them to be able to stay. That's what you're saying. I do. I want to be able to work something out. And it should have been able to be worked out over the last three or four years. And it never got worked out. You know, Biden could have done it because he controlled, you know.

Congress to a certain extent, right? He could have done something, but they didn't do it. I never understood why, because they always seem to want to do it, but then when it comes down to it, they don't. I think we can work with the Democrats and work something.

He clearly made it sound like he wants to do something, right? And here's Tom Homan, who put a little bit of a caveat on it, but still seems to... keep the door open, right? He says they want to get the border secure first, and then they'll talk about this. Here's him on Fox News talking about it.

President Trump will put it on the table again. But I would not go forward with it until the Democrats show this president that they're willing to secure this border and willing to support him in the removal of public safety threats that are illegally here in the United States. So it's going to be put on the table once again. And I support the president in that idea. And now let's shift over to Representative Maria Elvira Salazar.

She's a Republican from Florida who signed on to Sylvia Garcia's American Dream and Promise Act, but she's also now pushing another bill of her own that would find another way to give some legal protection. to dreamers, yet not give them that pathway to citizenship. There's a fear, obviously, with many people in the Republican Party that if you start talking about citizenship for these dreamers, you're using the big scary word.

amnesty. No Republican wants that attached to them. But here's her on NBC News talking about how now is the time to deal with the Dreamers now that the border is secure, right?

and everything in politics is timing and this is the time for something like this the border is secured uh the bbb assures 150 billion dollars for border security in the southern border now it's time to have a national conversation as to what going to do with those people who have been here for more than five years they are needed in the economy they don't have a criminal record and they are needed so dignity is the best solution is not path to citizenship is not

amnesty you don't it only lets them stay work and pay taxes now that all brings me back to sylvia garcia I, of course, wanted to bring her on. Like, again, she's logged a lot of hours on this issue over her time in Congress and before she ever got to the United States Congress.

Here's what she had to tell me in an interview about Dreamers and what the prospects look like going forward. Has Trump opened the door enough where there's a pathway? I'm not so sure she sounds like this is going to happen. without a lot more pushing. But the bottom line is, Jeremy, Americans support dreamers, you know, as high as 70%. If people really want to do...

If members of Congress really want to do what their districts and the people in this country want, they would all sign up for the DREAM Act and pass it next week. Well, and we've heard plenty of Republicans say they want to do this. I have interviews going back with Marco Rubio like 15 years ago where he's telling me he wants this pathway, you know, for people to be able to stay here. I know I was.

president of the national association of latino elected officials and i remember uh senator ruby at the time coming to visit with us and i remember talking to him he personally told me that yep The reality is they'll tell you that in the hallways. They'll tell you that at the gate. They'll tell you that at the receptions. But they don't say that on the floor and they don't put their name next on the dotted line that's necessary to get the bill passed.

So at this point, then, when Durbin's doing his legislation, when you're working on your legislation, it's like... What's the point at this point? Is there any hope that something could happen during the Trump administration? Or is that just you just have to hope for a different president?

Well, number one, it's hope, and two, it's keeping the issue alive and well and making sure that the dreamers know that we're still fighting for them, that we're still there, and that we're lifting their story. But remember, elections matter. And we've just been seeing the direction of some of the elections more towards the Democratic Party. And there are still some people who speculate that before this session is over.

And that means that by the end of next year, the Democrats may have the majority depending on a number of elections. We could be at a plus two or a plus five. depending on who redistricts and who doesn't and who wins and who flips some of these seats. So there's a strong possibility that something could happen next year, that we could get it out of the House.

And I was very happy that Senator Durbin was able to get a Republican co-lead. And hopefully she will continue the fight and they'll have someone ready. uh when once the senator leaves because he's been such a strong leader on this issue and he's just a really really great decent guy what he will be missed

I know Maria Salazar down in Florida. She has some stuff she's been working on. It sounds like she might have the ability to work a little bit with Trump. I don't know if she's at least from South Florida. Well, but she still has to convince her colleagues. Yeah. And she's got to convince Democrats. Like, I, for one, have not signed on to that bill. It's got a lot of things that I don't like.

you know the it's presupposes that people don't have their baby and they have to go through a process to get it and and there's additional fees additional uh um they they completely uh um eliminated any protections for tps holders it's trick strictly just just uh the dream act that my dream act that they put in there but they removed the tps and and it's just like i said it requires more return and more return business with very high fees attached, that it doesn't serve.

Dreamers will, and I'm not sure it's the right answer for a full, it's not full immigration reform. Wow, what a start to December. There's so much going on, y'all. We would need a three hour program to even get close to everything that's really happening. We're going to get into the redistricting decision from the Supreme Court and what it means for Texas and going forward for all the different.

races. We're going to know a lot more as we get into next week and start seeing how members of Congress and how people who want to be members of Congress react to the decision. So stay tuned to that for next week. We'll dig into that a lot more.

In the interim, please be sure to check out the Texas Tech newsletter. I'm going to continue to have updates in there about everything that's happening with redistricting and everything you heard about in this program today. We'll get into all of that in Texas Tech. You can...

Check that newsletter out either by, you know, you can sign up for it either going through my X page where I have it as the pin post. You just click on it. It'll take you to the signup page or you can just Google it. You know, Texas Take Newsletter and Jeremy Wallace and it'll take you to. either Houston Chronicle, San Antonio Express News, or the Austin American Statesman, where you can easily sign up from there.

Thanks again to all of my guests for joining me this week. I loved having both John Moritz on and Isaac Yu to help kind of break down everything that's happening with the Senate race and with... the THC battle in Texas and beyond. And also, thanks a lot to U.S. Representative Sylvia Garcia for joining the program again to talk about an issue I know that is super important to well over.

100,000 people in Texas that live in this world of being dreamers. This weird status where they're here among us and yet... They have to kind of live in a shadow still and are at risk of deportation. So thanks again for listening to the program and I will catch y'all next week. The holidays mean more travel, more shopping, more time online.

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