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You can't win them all. And in fact, maybe you can't win any of them. Welcome to the Texas Take Because of You. This is the number one politics podcast in the great state for going on nine years now. My name is Scott Braddock. If you're not familiar, his name is Jeremy Wallace. His work, of course, is always at HoustonChronicle.com and ExpressNews.com, where he's reporting from today in San Antonio. And you can find the inside story on Texas politics at Quorum Report.
Jeremy, did you get a haircut? You're looking sharp over there. Oh, there you go. Yeah. You're in the very professional broadcast studio they have at the San Antonio Express News headquarters there in San Antonio, which was, of course, the site of the big loss for U of H.
This past week, we'll get to it here in just a second. But I can tell you that during this show, as good as I feel, and somebody said, you know, Scott, you were already complaining at least once this session about being sleep deprived. I feel good even though I'm just moving slow. Growing up on the farm, Jeremy, when you had to wake up early and you had to – no joke. A lot of people doubt my origin story.
They don't understand that I am a farm kid. I had to get up early and feed the chickens and run the dogs off from the chickens, slop the hogs, all that sort of stuff. When you wake up at 4.30, 5 o'clock in the morning to do that, What you do, the old farmers would say, just move slow. As long as you're moving, you're good, right?
And so last night, I was worn down after this marathon debate in the Texas House. It's the budget debate, which I told you all about last week. I told you that by the time we would do this show... I'd be moving slow, right? Because this takes a long time. During the show, no matter how sharp Jeremy looks over there, both he and I have to eat a little crow during the show, and I'll tell you why. Because we both got something not, you know, we didn't make predictions.
Because we don't do that. But we were both kind of a little off track. I thought that the budget debate would be shorter than it was. And I had good reason to think so. Jeremy thought that maybe Paxton's not going to get into the Senate race, and he had good reasons to think that. But there have been some developments since then. So I hope you got your fork and knife ready because both of us are going to eat a little crow.
Over those things. And we'll get to all of that. And we'll tell you about that budget debate and everything. I got home at about 4 a.m., Jeremy. And this is the first time I can remember in a long time that I got home from the Capitol and I just passed smooth out. I didn't have any wind-down time or anything. I just passed out at 4 o'clock. Woke back up this morning on Friday.
at 9, 930, something like that. And I started thinking about how we're going to approach what happened this week on the show. And I have to tell you, I was so happy for the U of H fans this weekend, you know, after the victory over Duke. And I know it sounds cheesy, corny, whatever, Evan, to think that just because you're in the big game, the championship, that that in and of itself is an accomplishment, right? Jeremy, when's the last time that happened for U of A?
Oh, well, not only that, they've been there so many times and lost, it just hurt. You know, I'm getting tired of them getting so close. You know, you can go back to the 80s, man. It's like this is like I'm getting tired of this story where they just get right on the cusp. And somehow, it's almost like that Cubs thing, you know, where it's like they're always going to break your heart at the end. Yeah, unlike, you know, because I'm one of those Astros fans who is not a Fairweather fan.
I was there for the Astros when they were the last rows, you know, back in the day. And then all the way through the championship. But a lot of the Astros fans, and they know this. Right. They hate the Astros when they're losing and when they're winning, they're all on board. But the U of H crowd.
They are so in for it no matter what. So after the victory over Duke, I can tell you that in San Antonio, where the championship game was, the Final Four was, those Houston peeps, I mean, they were just rolling in San Antonio. So they're rolling in San Antonio, candy paint cars and all that sort of stuff and just having a great time. And of course, you know, this is one of my favorite rap songs from the Houston guys.
In Houston. And did you see this, Jeremy, that where you are in San Antonio on the Riverwalk, and all credit to the founding fathers, the people who had the vision. to basically make what is a drainage ditch into a tourist attraction. I'm giving them credit. It's incredible, right? You wouldn't want to be in that water. But on the Riverwalk, one of the tour boats that they have there, a marching band, I guess it was some of the U of H marching band members.
They were on one of those boats and they were doing the marching band version of that song of Top's Drop. Check this out. It's hard to play the tuba that way. You know? So they're having a blast. And being in the championship game is great and everything. But as you know, the final moments were just devastating for you.
national championship is in the balance 13 seconds left florida leads it by two using gotta go use it give it up crier six seconds five seconds sharp he walked he can't touch it Such a terrible last minute of the game for Houston. I mean, it was all tied up. They were up. They were down. And then in that last minute of the game, Jeremy, if you were watching, there was just one unnecessary turnover after another. They kept giving the ball back.
to Florida. And I got a tip from, because look, as the ultimate insider. And I give some credit to Houston Chronicle had a picture of Senator Ted Cruz was in one of the suites there at the game. But I'll just say my picture was better because the picture that I got, I wasn't in the suite. But one of my sources was in the suite and sent me the picture from within the suite. And there's Ted Cruz. And why am I bringing this up? Well, you know, the crew's cursed.
You know, it's a legend by now that if Senator Cruz shows up for a game, and it's not just for any game. for a high profile, high stakes game like this. If he shows up the Texas team loses. That's what, you know, it has been said over and over again. He would push back on that, of course. But, you know, if you put the picture out, as I did on social media and others did as well, if you put that picture out of Cruz there, that's the thing that goes viral.
Anything else you could report throughout the week, it doesn't even matter compared to that, Jeremy. That's the thing that goes viral. So on CNN. commentator Chuck Rocha blamed Cruz for being in attendance at the game and said his Cougs could have won. if dude had not been there. The thing I'm really keeping my eye on is Ted Cruz, because I blame you for my Houston Cougars losing last night.
Every time you show up at a sporting event for a Texas team, we lose and I am bitter and it's your fault. He's bitter. Just last year, you remember that Democrats, including Colin Allred, who was running against Cruz, they were really using this as a theme. during the campaign as they tried to take him out. Feeling frustrated, exhausted, defeated. Sports fans across Texas are suffering from the same affliction, the Ted Cruz curse.
It didn't work as a political strategy, Jeremy, but it keeps happening. I would say to all those sports fans that, look, and this happens across issues. I'm going to include sports as an issue because you want to bring up something people actually care about? Sports, right? All the other things that we'll talk about, people care about those too. But sports.
Whenever the thing happens that your team loses or something comes out of the Texas Capitol as a policy prescription you don't agree with, that's when liberals and Democrats get angry and then they're pissed at somebody like Ted Cruz. But guess what? Those sports fans don't show up and vote against him, I guess, because, you know, he still wins his reelection overwhelmingly. Here's something.
that I would say to push back on Senator Cruz, who has said that he's been at plenty of games where, you know, the Texas team won. But if only there were rabid sports fans who sort of obsessively kept statistics on things about sports. Do people do that, Jeremy? I hear that's true. Keep track of all of the stats about their favorite players in basketball, football, baseball, whatever.
You know who's really especially into the stats, Jeremy? The people who bet on sports, right? So I was looking at one of these accounts online that keeps track of those kind of statistics. And they said that – and this is just the numbers. Sports gamblers are now 18-2 since 2017 when betting the money line against teams that Ted Cruz shows up to support in person. Right. So when Cruz says, oh, you know, I've been there for some winters as well. No, the people, in fact.
If people had only bet about $100 per game for the ones that – if they bet against Ted, they would have – over that time, they would have profited about $3,000. So if you had gone to Vegas or some other liberal state where you can bet on sports, then you would have won quite a bit if you were just going with the numbers, just voting against Cruz. Well, look, and I'll—
This is kind of a defense of Ted Cruz. What makes it difficult, I think, particularly for him is that he actually is legitimately a fan. He likes the teams. He legitimately is a huge Rockets fan. Like he knows the players. He knows what the offense is. He knows like – he's not like one of these politicians who just shows up for the championship game and doesn't know a clue about anything happening. So I give him a lot of credit for being like a legit sports fan.
And so I think that's why it bothers him even more to his core when we talk about the curse, right? If you all remember back in the fall when UT was playing Georgia in that big football game during the campaign. I did this TikTok video where I pretended to be in front of his bus while I was in front of his bus, and I was going to slow down his bus so he wouldn't get to the game.
So UT would have a better chance. And Longhorn Nation went crazy for it. They gave me a ton of retweets and lots of likes and all this stuff. But even Cruz retweeted it out and said, well, if I had showed up, maybe they would have done better. And so, like, he can have fun with it to a degree, but I can tell at this point.
He does not like this at all. In many ways, it's the opposite of just being there to get the photo op. He's not there for that. He's there because he likes the game. But how many average sports fans do you know? are so superstitious, especially go to baseball. He's an Astros fan, right? And go to baseball. Astros fans or any baseball fan of whatever team, they will obsess about it and think that because I was there, they didn't win, so maybe I shouldn't go.
you know, to the next one. People will go to, you know, when the Astros went to the World Series, I attended one of the games that they lost. It was one of the past games. And I thought, well, man, I better not go to the next three games. Yeah. Even if I got free tickets. And the other thing is, which I didn't get free tickets about.
But the senator would. He's a U.S. senator, right? He's always going to get the tickets for the suites at the Rockets, the baseball games, or whatever else. But there is a serious reason to bring this up, which is this. You now have a U.S. Senate race coming up in Texas. It's going to be hot. It's going to be expensive. And even though Cruz shows up for those teams that then lose, the Texas team. he certainly ain't showing up for big John Cornyn.
Did you see on CNN this week one of their reporters, Manu Raju, who is always roaming the halls of the U.S. Capitol? He tried to get Senator Cruz on the record about whether he would support Cornyn in his reelection now that he has. what I would describe as a major challenge, right, from Ken Paxton. And, of course, Cruz, you've got to listen closely here.
Cruz tells the reporter, you know, you should just call the office about that. I'd like to support John Cornyn for reelection. Call the press office. He called the press office. So let's see. We have. Paxton getting in this race, and he of course is a formidable Republican candidate statewide, even though, as Jeremy has pointed out, He didn't win his last primary without a runoff, so he has his own challenges, right? But let's see, what did Paxton have to say? I think...
It wasn't necessarily surprising to you and certainly not to me or anybody who follows this stuff closely that Paxton's getting into it. I thought the timing is a little interesting. We've talked about that a little bit here on the show, Jeremy, that Paxton kept saying, oh, hey, I'm thinking about this and I need a couple more weeks. He said that at one point earlier this year. Then when he made the rounds in Washington, what did he say? I need a couple more months.
And then I've got my remote here, Evan. Let me, you have the TV turned up. I'm going to turn on. Fox News Channel for this major announcement. There he was with Laura Ingram, who just set it right up for him. She just. set it up, and he knocked it down. You have a big announcement, I understand, you want to make tonight. What is it?
Well, first of all, I'm excited to be on your show to do this. It's a great place to do it. I'm announcing that I'm running for U.S. Senate against John Corner, who apparently is running again for his fifth term, which we put him there for three decades. It's definitely time for a change in Texas. We have another great U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, and it's time we have another great senator that will actually stand up and fight for Republican values, fight for the values of the people of Texas.
and also support Donald Trump in the areas that he's focused on in a very significant way. Ken Paxton at his most charismatic there, Jeremy. Just initial thoughts. When you saw the announcement, what did you think? Yeah, okay, so a couple of things are happening here. One, you know, it's like the fact that Cruz didn't back Cornyn right off the bat. It's kind of almost becoming part of a pattern, right? If you remember last fall, we told you all that John Cornyn fell two votes short.
of becoming the next majority leader of the United States Senate. And Cruz was one of those who didn't support him. His hometown buddy did not want Texas to have the majority leader spot. He was more with the Trump guy, Rick Scott from Florida. Yeah, exactly. So you end up in a situation where he didn't back him there, so I wasn't surprised he wouldn't say something more positive about him here.
But the other thing, the thing that I thought was going to be a problem for Paxton, and I might be wrong on this ultimately in the end, but the National Republican Senatorial Committee doesn't want to spend any money defending the seat in Texas. They don't want anything to happen here where they would have to spend even a nickel in Houston because a nickel in Houston is worth –
5,000 nickels up in Maine. They have a pickup opportunity in New Hampshire, and they have defense seats that they have to worry about in Maine and North Carolina. That's what their priority is. They don't want to be staking any donor money. They don't want Republican money even from other private donors to be messing around with Texas when they really need the help elsewhere.
So that's why I thought there'd be a lot of pressure on Paxton right out the gate not to do it. And then you even saw right away, you saw Tim Scott, the South Carolina senator, came out right away and endorsed. you know, John Korn for re-election, of course he has to. You know, he's the chairman of the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, which means you have to defend the incumbent. But again, for the Republican Party,
So it's in their best interest not to waste money in Texas when they can use it somewhere else. And if Paxton becomes the nominee, the question is, does that make it even more possible for a Democrat to make it a right? Right. Now, you remember in Cornyn's reelection announcement, he talked nonstop about the most important issue to Republican voters.
Support for Donald Trump. Listen. It's an honor to represent Texas in the U.S. Senate. In President Trump's first term, I was Republican whip, delivering the votes for his biggest wins. Now. If you listen to the announcement commercial from Paxton, you would think it was a completely different reality because he says that Cornyn has not supported Trump even a little bit in fact.
to the commander in chief senator john cornyn turned his back on president trump you've said that uh you think it's time for the republican party to move on from president trump you know in politics Unless you could win an election, you're pretty much irrelevant. John Corner of Texas told CBS News he simply doesn't think Donald Trump can get elected president. Quite a statement from Senator Cornyn. Cornyn told Fox 26 he won't be supporting former President Trump and neither.
And at some point, the commercial gets around to issues like border security, immigration, stuff like that. John Cornyn supports Amnesty and says Texans should just deal with millions of illegal aliens. The American people are a compassionate people. that I think they would find a way to deal with the 12 million people. He even fought to stop President Trump's border wall. A new giant wall from sea to shining sea makes no sense whatsoever. The idea of a wall is...
So it shifted to immigration for a second, but of course that ties right back in with whether you support Trump or not, which is the only thing that seems to be important in these. uh republican primaries at this point on a statewide level that's probably right um you know i think cornyn's challenge here um and hit let me float this out there just for sake of discussion if cornyn stays in the race
Right. So there's plenty of time for him to say, actually, I decided not to do that. I mean, you might have Trump come out at some point and endorse Paxton. You have to believe that the Cornyn folks are working real hard to get that endorsement, right? I saw where Paxton said something earlier this week in one of the interviews that he did that he's hoping for Trump's endorsement. But even Paxton said that might not come for quite some time, right? We might not hear Trump weigh in on this.
until we're actually into the primary next year, right, in January, February, something like that. Whether it has to come down to the Trump endorsement, I think that this also speaks to how durable Trump's popularity is, even among some. Republicans where we're starting to see some cracks in the dam, if you will, which we'll talk about in just a second, Jeremy. But give me your assessment at this point. Well, I'm watching Truth Social nonstop to see what –
Trump ends up saying because he's already started. Sorry about that. Yeah, he's already starting to make endorsements in some races. He's made some endorsements. Yeah, he made an endorsement of Dan Patrick, but he did another one in North Carolina. He's talked about other races that are out there, one in Alaska. But what he hasn't done is said anything about this race. In fact, so now I'm reading between the lines of Trump.
you know, truth social tweets or whatever. What do you call a truth social thing? I don't know. It's a truth social post. There we go. He would tell you it's called the, it's a truth social truth. Yeah, it's the truth. It's a truth. If that's not what they call it, I'm really surprised actually. Well, it's interesting. So the one thing he did say on Truth Social, I think it was earlier this morning.
was that he's fighting Mexico to make sure there's more water given to farmers in South Texas. And he praises Ted Cruz for helping on that issue. He never mentions John Cornyn. You know, it's like Cornyn's been working on this issue, too. So he clearly like it just would be no shock whatsoever if Trump at some point says, you know what, I'm going to go with Paxson on this thing.
It's not that people need their receipts on this. But remember, Ken Paxson did file the Supreme Court challenge to the 2020 presidential election. And he also had Paxson at the Stop the Steal route. on January 6th, 2021. right before the storming of the Capitol, right? And so you see Paxton's been with Trump a lot on this stuff. And as we heard in just all those clips, Cornyn's been sideways with Trump many times.
Trump, of course, has also praised him at times, as you heard in the earlier piece from Cornyn. Cornyn will play you the – The moments in which Trump did say, oh, John, Corn has been great. He'll play you those clips too. They will. It's a sad reality of today's Republican politics. Like what Trump says on Truth Social will determine a lot about this race and about John Cornyn's future. You know, you have this veteran member of the Texas politics whose career could end off of like a mean tweet.
essentially yeah and wouldn't be the first one um and it is the reality of the of republic republican politics and not just in the state Whatever he says on True Social and whatever the video is, the archive video may not very well, may not match up with what he says later. And I mean, this is a real hard deal for Republican candidates now. and Republicans when they're legislating as well. is that Trump is a person who can contradict himself within the same sentence.
He might start out in one direction and ends up somewhere else completely later. So I do think that that's going to have a lot to do with the success or failure of Cornyn here and whether, as I said, as I teased out, whether he even stays in the race. If you end up with a strong Trump endorsement.
Say by say by the time of the filing period in Texas, when when the candidates actually have to really put their name on, you know, on the ballot. And you've got Trump saying, hey, I'm with Paxton. That's all there is to it. Big John may just decide to pack it in. I think for Cornyn. He's going to have to find voters for the Republican primary. Because listen, as you said, for those that stand with Trump 100%, you know, about J6.
or stand with him about the lawsuit that Paxton filed to overturn the election that Trump lost, all of that sort of stuff, those people are going to be with Paxton. Right. And it was my reporting that Trump had said at some point to George P. Bush during a private meeting that the reason that he was with Paxton in the attorney general's race.
was because of that, that Paxton was the only AG in the whole country who would file that lawsuit on his behalf. So he does have some – Trump personally has – he feels like he owes something. Well, and two more things to add to that. So, first of all, by Paxton doing this, he continues a streak that I talked about in my newsletter this week, which is. Every single attorney general in Texas since 1972 has run for governor or for the U.S. Senate. Every single one of them.
It's like we're on the streak of 53 years in which like this seat just is always that next stepping stone. Right. And so, you know, it's one thing that Paxton has done in this thing. But I think the other thing is just, you know, if you want to talk about the contradictions of Donald Trump. Look no further than his own captain.
is his secretary of state. You know, it's like there's a point. You mean Little Marco? Exactly. You know, this is a guy that was at complete war with Donald Trump, but then Trump can take you back in. So that's where I think Cornyn could get taken back in because I think Trump likes Cornyn to a degree. Of course, he loves Ken Paxton. It's like, so does he stay on the sidelines the whole time? And if anything happens where Korn decides he's not going to run again,
Keep your phone ready because that's when Wesley Hunt might be back in the race. That's when people like Chip Roy and people like Ronnie Jackson, all those people will quickly be kind of in the conversation. Real quick on this, and then we'll get to giving Ted Cruz some credit for something, if you can believe that. It's just this. I do know, and this is going on in Austin and Washington right now.
Republicans who are close to these campaigns with Paxton and Cornyn have said that they are right now trying to figure out which candidates may still get into the race anyway. who would siphon votes from either of them right i mean you might have someone like jackson who might take votes from paxton
Or you might have somebody who would be more of, quote unquote, of an establishment candidate who might take votes from Cornyn. And I would say that most of those folks are probably frozen out now that those two guys are in the race. It's a clash of the titans as far as Texas politics. The way for Paxton to win the clearest path is a runoff. That means they need at least one more or two more candidates to get in and keep both Cornyn and Paxton under 50%. Now, I never, almost ever.
listen to any, I don't listen to this podcast. I don't listen to podcasts. Jeremy, when they first asked me if I would do a podcast, in collaboration with the Houston Chronicle, because that's how that happened. Part of the origin story, as I said, who would be the best possible host? Who could actually create a show? Who could create a show out of absolutely nothing? And who did they find? They found me.
So this is what they ended up with. And so I almost never listened. At that time, I said, I don't listen to podcasts. I don't even really know how to do it or anything about it, but I'll give it a shot. Of course, I had done broadcast news for many years. So that's why they... But I did see a little, it looked like a movie trailer, a promo, a promotional video for Ted Cruz's podcast this week.
And it struck me as, listen to this, Jeremy, it struck me as just a little bit different, not exactly what I would expect. from the very junior senator from texas we are living in extraordinary times This past week, President Trump announced tariffs on virtually every country on earth. The highest tariff level since 1933. Every country is freaking out. The American stock market has been in dramatic decline. Six trillion dollars of value disappeared in 48 hours.
And now we're in the second week. What is going to happen? And there is a choice. There is a fork in the road as to what's going to happen. It sounds very negative about Donald Trump from Senator Cruz. Now, Cruz. was okay with Trump. basically saying that his wife was ugly and that his father maybe had something to do with the assassination of JFK.
But tariffs seems to be going too far. So if I'm going to actually – so I want to download that. I want to download that podcast. What do I do on my phone here, Evan? I hit – let's see. I'm going to go to – I'm using an Android, which is a superior phone, by the way. Is Pocket Cast, will that work on Android?
Yeah, sure. Can I use that? Okay, so I'm going to, what's the name of the show? I'm going to punch this in. Ted Cruz, the verdict is the name of his deal. I just hit download. Is that what I do? Yeah, download. Okay, let me hit download here. All right. So now that Cruz has my attention, let's listen to a little bit of this show. What does Cruz really think about Trump's trade strategy, which has freaked out Wall Street?
and has all these economists and people who really know what they're talking about, Jeremy. It's got everybody freaked out. As Cruz said, it's got them all concerned in a real way. about a possible recession. We're in a scenario 30 days from now, 60 days from now, 90 days from now, with massive American tariffs and massive tariffs.
on American goods in every other country on earth, that is a terrible outcome. It's terrible for Texas, which obviously I care about deeply, and it's terrible for America. So that sounds bad. Is there any way for Trump to pull this out of the ditch, Senator? Inflation, this is going to have a powerful... upward impact on inflation okay this all sounds terrible jeremy uh now now the rest of the nuance to this was that and this is the way i think this is what's interesting on the politics of it
I'm not an economist, but I can tell you those numbers on Wall Street are not good, although there were those who were saying, if you just stick with it, we're going to have some pretty good days ahead because what has this all led to? Extreme volatility. Someone who is later in their career or retired, for good reason, was freaking out, getting their money out of the market as they saw all this started to unfold.
But somebody who's our age would say, OK, just keep – if you've got a retirement account, just keep it there, and then you're going to have a day that's pretty good coming up when all this kind of turns around. At some point, that should happen. That's been the history, right? But I think this is interesting. Cruz, in trying to talk to the Republican base, which would be people who would do what I just did and download the verdict with Ted Cruz, people who are the Republican base.
Man, even broaching the idea. is a really hard thing to do right remember congressman troy nails what did he say jeremy we played it here on the show he just said well if trump says tariffs work then they work and that's all there is to it Right. Cruz is not saying that. The nuance to what Cruz said was, look, if things continue the way they are, this is going to be terrible, especially for Texas.
This is the NAFTA state. I mean they basically drove the North American Free Trade Agreement to its – in conception and then getting it done. They drove it out of the Greater Houston Partnership. years ago when my friend Jim Kohler was the head of that for 15 years when George Bush was there and they had – back in the day with Clinton and all of that. And so – You look at the fact that free trade is good for Texas.
Full stop. And then for the rest of the country, people are just starting to figure out how good it is for consumers to have free trade. Right. But what Cruz is saying is if that continues, if these tariffs continue. Which they pause some of the stuff. But if it continues, that's terrible. But then he says if Trump is baiting the rest of the world into better trade deals for the United States. then that's great. And Cruz is trying to say to the Republican base that that's what he's hoping for.
That maybe he'd be willing to be a little just almost kind of barely critical of Trump right now in the short term with some hope that long term this will turn out OK. But as we said, volatility is the name of the game right now. Yeah, it's been kind of really interesting watching Ted Cruz on this. This is why I've spent so much time writing about this this week. So it wasn't just that Cruz did one of those verdicts on his –
on the tariffs. He did one on Friday, then he did one on Monday, and then he talked about it again on Tuesday. It's not like he did one. In another show? Yeah. Did he do more than one show? Correct. He did two full shows on it. I think it speaks to weakness. I mean what you really should do now that I've been doing this coming up for a decade. You really should just let that one show speak for itself for the week.
Evan, I mean, come on. But you're right. He was really trying to stress this and really trying to make this argument. Yeah, and he also went on Fox Business. He made the same case. And I want to kind of get into this a little bit because I think this was really interesting watching of all people Ted Cruz navigate this, right? This is a guy who like, you know, I don't think it takes too much imagination to think that this guy wants to run for president in 2028 and try to follow Trump.
And so you put that in your head when you're hearing any of this stuff, right? And so what you saw in Cruz is like he makes this case like, oh, like Trump's a brilliant guy for making these countries come to the negotiating table. But he also then makes it very... clear that tariffs are attacked. on the American consumer. He's made that point so many times over the last week that you can kind of see where he would break away easily from Trump.
But then I think this is where I think Ted Cruz has gotten pretty good at the sophistication of the politics of dealing with Trump. I know that says a lot, but there is a sensitivity that you have to prepare for. And so when Cruz starts criticizing the tariffs and if the tariffs are going to be permanent, he puts the blame on advisers. to Trump who are on his shoulders. He says there are angels and there are demons on his shoulders trying to offer him advice.
The good advice, the angels, are the people who are saying the tariffs are used to bring people to the negotiating table, and then we go on from there. who are talking to him, he says, are the people who think that terrorists are the way we should go like William McKinley in 1901 type stuff. Like those are the demons that like. Clearly, Ted Cruz doesn't believe in that, and for good reason. Texas, like you mentioned, we have more to lose.
from these free trade agreements going into the – Right. We get – think of what happens to poor Laredo. Our friends in Laredo, like everything we know about a Laredo's economy goes completely upside down if all of a sudden – It's like if we really shut it down and jacked up those tariffs, the number one place that's going to get hurt will be Laredo in terms of like what we think of in their economy. But then secondly…
And keep this in mind. Remember, Trump did keep the tariffs and jacked them up on China, and China's jacking up theirs on ours. That's really important for us because our number one agricultural export center is China. We send stuff to China and it's agriculture. It's like our cotton and our cattle are our number one exports out there. And China is our fifth biggest recipients of all American – all Texas exports out there.
And so this is really important. Even if just the China tariffs remain in place, this has potentially catastrophic damage for the agricultural industry in Texas because if we don't have China buying those products. That's a problem. And so this is a long way to say Ted Cruz has kind of put himself in position. Where he can say, look, I've been warning against these terrorists from the very start. But then he can also say I was with Trump on the terrorists.
for what if there were a negotiating tool. He can kind of take both sides of this thing as he thinks about maybe what Iowa voters might be thinking, say, a year from now. Oh, you think Ted Cruz is ambitious, do you? All right. Well, what about another Texan in D.C.? Brooke Rollins, the former head of the Texas Public Policy Foundation. And of course, she was at the America First Foundation, whatever they call it. She, of course, is in the Trump administration now as ag secretary.
And she was asked about all of this, what's happening with slapping tariffs on all these countries. I mean some of the countries that are – and territories that are being slapped with tariffs, a couple of them just don't even have any people who live there.
You know about this? Yes, yes. And this is why there were all these memes this week online about the penguins who were pissed at the United States because – There's one part of the world where there's only penguins living there, Evan, and they're getting slapped with American terror. Asked Brooke Rollins about that on CNN.
Here's how that went. President Trump laid out with a giant graphic of all the countries where tariffs were going to, what he called reciprocal tariffs, were going to be imposed. And you're imposing a 10% tariff. on the herd in McDonald Islands. The herd in McDonald Islands have zero human inhabitants. They have zero exports. They have zero imports. They do have a lot of penguins. Why are you putting import tariffs on islands that are entirely populated by penguins?
Well, I mean, come on, Jake. Obviously... Here's the bottom line. We live under a tariff regime from other countries. We have too long- The McDonald Islands is not imposing. The idea that America goes first. I mean, come on. Oh, whatever. You know, my answer from now on, when I get something wrong or I don't know what I'm talking about, it's going to Evan, write it down. It's going to be whatever. If I complained to Evan later because there was a mistake in the production of the show...
Evan, that's a cabinet level – that's a presidential appointee whose answer for a serious question was, quote, whatever. So if there's a problem with this show, Evan… Like by Monday and you screwed up something, you know, having to do with some of the music we were playing or whatever else it is. And I'm screaming at you on the phone. You're totally entitled now to just say. It's whatever. Just say whatever. It's fine.
Well, there's never a problem, so I don't know what you're talking about. Okay, all right. Yeah, get ready. I will use that in some hypothetical scenarios. When I am red-faced and screaming at you, you can just say, whatever. All right, what was the rest of this exchange with Jake Tapper? Whatever. Listen, the people that are leading this are serious, intentional.
the smartest people I've ever worked with. I did not come up with the formulas. I'm the Ag Secretary. I studied agriculture at Texas A&M. I was in a lot of conversations to make sure our farmers and our ranchers were part of that. The president recognized the importance of inputs. got potash and fertilizer to make sure they could do their planting.
I have no doubt that I speak on behalf of President Trump when he would say he has the utmost confidence in the team and what they have built and what they have put together, and we are unleashing. a new golden age and we will see an economy that will benefit not just every corner of America, but our farmers and our ranchers and the people that have been left behind.
for far too long by both Republicans and Democrats. You know, she's pretty good at her BS. I will note that it's not the first time in Texas history that someone who holds a diploma from A&M blamed their alma mater for not knowing stuff. Did you hear she asked this question? She essentially says, well, I went to A&M. I don't know about this stuff.
I trust these other people, some of those advisors that you were talking about, Jeremy, the people who might be the angels or the devils on the shoulders of Trump. She just trusts those people. And she says, we're unleashing a new golden age. It is – I think it is – Maybe one of the biggest political gambles ever, right, to say and promise people we are unleashing the new –
Golden age. We just have to go through this pain first. There's going to be some pain first. Essentially, the administration is saying that if all of y'all are willing to go through some pain now, then we're going to have just this incredible economy. Six months from now, a year from now, and by the way, we'll be into midterm elections by then. What a roll of the dice, but why is this woman allowed to even be on TV talking this way? Well, you saw her during the cabinet meeting.
earlier this week and when it comes to donald trump you can't be doing what ted cruz was doing which is kind of questioning and acting as if oh hey boss this might be good and boss that might not be so good No. Trump wants his yes men and his yes women. This was Brooke Rollins. at a cabinet meeting that was at least part of it was tele...
Sir, first, we are, I would say, more than friends. We've all become family. And I think that what you have assembled in your vision is a turning point and an inflection point in American history. And so just being a part of that is... Of course, you want to talk about the greatness of the great leader at first. I like how she said there.
Moda in France. Go ahead, Jeremy. No, I'm just thinking, like, Trump had, you know, it wasn't just Brooke Rollins. Like, it was member after member kept doing that. They all did that. And I just kept waiting for Trump to say, okay, okay, this is too much. Even for me, this is too much. Even for me, Mr. Golden Escalator, I can't handle this. Y'all are going way over the top and I know what you're doing now. You're just kissing my butt.
And I want to kind of drive home this point because this isn't just my numbers. This is from the U.S. Office Trade Representative's Office. That's part of the White House. They have control over these numbers. Just to make everyone clear, this is beyond the United States issue of these tariffs. I want you to understand, Texas exported $455 billion worth of goods in 2022, the latest numbers. That is more than every state in the country. Like no state sends out more exports.
than this state. It's like we have more to lose or gain from this. And just what NAFTA and all these free trade agreements have done since 2014, that's a 60% increase from where we were in 2014. It's like this is – like exports have become such a vital part of the Texas economy. That like we stand to lose and suffer more than almost every state in the country. That's right. Because of this.
fight going on. And that's why you see this battle, right? You see this battle in the heads of Ted Cruz and Brooke Rollins and John Cornyn and all of them because they see that the The complexity of this thing, well, it's – in Brooke Rollins' case, maybe there's a way to remake this economy that completely changes everything and helps everybody in a different way, right? But then there's this reality of the sitting senators who are sitting there going.
Whoa, it's like our economy now relies so heavily on exports and tech. It's like, we've got to be worried about that. And it's like, and I think that's going to tell us a lot down the road because you could, you know, there's one other problem that's been bugging me all week long.
As I've heard Trump administration people celebrate the barrel of oil dropping to closer to $60 a barrel. That is such – That's great for Texas. That is terrible. You can't drill baby drill and – drive down the price of a barrel of oil to 60 you can't do the they don't they don't work together and only texans understand this you know it's like The more that number goes down, the more people in the oil patch who are going to be out of jobs.
You know, it's like, and I think, and when they go out of jobs, guess what? That hits Houston pretty seriously. You know, it's like, and all of us like are affected by it. It's like, it's still- Yes, it hits all of Texas really hard. The point you're making is so on target. I mean, we're looking at oil this afternoon as we record on Friday.
It's at for West Texas Intermediate is at 6152. It's up just a little bit. So it's up just a little bit. I'll tell you, you know, for the for the Texas economy, for the Texas budget. It is still the case. that the single best indicator of the overall health of Texas economy is
the price of a barrel of oil, even though we have more of a diversified economy than we did going back to when the oil bust happened in the 80s and all of that. But if you think about the commitments that Texas government is making right now, we'll talk about the budget debate here in just a little bit. But when they say we have a surplus in state government, when they talk about how much money the state's going to have to spend on all sorts of programs over the next 24 months.
Jeremy, that's not money that's in the bank. That's money that is estimated to come in over the next two years. Right. When the comptroller puts out those numbers, that's his estimate for what's going to happen over the next 24 months. So if you have and this has happened before.
where the comptroller, that's the state's accountant, when the comptroller has to come out and revise their estimate, it's because of changes in the economy. And don't you think that at some point in Texas, if you're going to commit yourself... To the trade war that we're talking about, that they're getting into, that is terrible for the Texas economy.
If you're talking about deporting a huge portion of our workforce in Texas, because we have enjoyed, you know, despite what so many of these Republican voters think, we have enjoyed the benefits of having what's called an elastic workforce, people who can come in when there's jobs and they can leave when there's not. And all that sort of stuff, our economy has built on this.
And the revenue estimate is based on having a good economy going forward. So if they're going to put us into recession, guess what? All that's going to change. Now think about this on the world market. And I'm not an expert on this stuff. I just play one on your favorite podcast. When you look at that number, 61 for a price of a barrel, if you look at the other governments around the world and the commitments they have made to their people.
They also need the price of – they'll say, oh, we can crank up production. OPEC can crank up production, so we can drive the price all the way down to whatever. You've seen it drop precipitously at certain points where it would be down to $15 or $20 a barrel, which is terrible for Texas. But for those other governments, they also, because of commitments they've made, they need that price to be higher too. They can't have it at.
you know, at $20 for very long, they can kind of do that to us in the meantime to, you know, to put us in a pinch in the United States and in Texas specifically. But the Saudis also need it to be between $55 and $70, something like that. When you get up to a price around $100, something like that.
That's, you know, we love it because that's a boom time around here, but that's not sustainable either. There is a balance to be found in these things. And let me tell you, the economic policies of these experiments that they're doing at the national level and at the world level, these experiments. it doesn't lend itself to any kind of stability when it comes to those numbers.
Yeah, the thing that keeps me up at night other than a good Sturgill Simpson concert, which, you know, definitely happened. We did that last week. Yeah, absolutely. But the thing that keeps me up at night when I think about the Texas economy is the idea that oil could be under $60 a barrel and China could stop taking our goods. It's like the combination of what we just saw this week is exactly what's happening.
It's like it's what makes me nervous as I think about Texas as an economy in our politics, right? Which shows you the difficulty. Like, you know, Cruz is going to have to be a great ambassador. going forward as he negotiates with the Trump White House because he knows these things too. He totally gets this, and he has better access to Trump than probably Cornyn.
So going forward, we've got to hope that crews can kind of make that White House understand how much fire they're dealing with with just tech. like how damaging this could be for Texas if these two things keep happening. If this goes on for another month, it's like I don't like where we are.
So file this away, y'all. If we end up in a recession here in Texas and nobody else does, you'll know where it started right here this week. Yeah. Abortion update for you at the Texas Capitol. We had some emotional testimony in a hearing. Earlier in the week, Representative Charlie Guerin was presenting to one of the committees in the Texas House. It's this proposal that we've told you about here on the show that has to do with clarifying medical exceptions for abortions in Texas.
And when we first talked about this, Jeremy, it seemed like Republicans and Democrats were all in agreement. This was all good. There are now more questions about this from certain parts of the Democratic Party specifically. Some of the more progressive folks have said, actually, this is a big screw up.
I think if they're being charitable to Republicans, they would say, you know what? Y'all screwed that up in the first place. Y'all should just pass that on your own. You don't need any Democratic votes, which Republicans could do, by the way. They've got the votes to pass just about anything they want other than constitutional amendments in the Texas House. But on this deal, Representative Guerin, who is the administration chairman in the House, and as we played here on the show.
Representative Guerin has said this is the most important bill that he's ever carried in his decades of the Texas legislation. He said that it's also, and this is right, it's one of the first, I'm trying to remember when there was a bill like this before, Jeremy. He said it's one of the first bipartisan abortion proposals in Texas.
Maybe ever the life of the mother act has brought together all of the major pro-life groups The doctors the hospitals Republicans Democrats and people that are on both sides of the abortion issue. It's simple. We do not want women to die from medical emergencies during their pregnancy.
Many of the women who showed up to testify said the state shouldn't be regulating this to begin with. Intruding upon the private and personal decisions of Texans and creating such an atmosphere of confusion and fear that people do not see. Out of state care, like I was forced to, is ghoulish. I remember being in the airport in Colorado, bleeding in a diaper, scared to come home to Austin that I would be arrested upon my arrival. But I guess that's what the intention is, isn't it?
If this is your definition of helping and protecting women, I think you have fundamental misunderstanding of those terms. You are leaving Texas women with no choice and doctors who cannot help. You are willing to let women suffer and die while you hide behind a facade of plausible deniability and get a pat on the back for doing your best.
These bills are ignorant at best and deliberately cruel at worst. This woman who testified said the legislation is tricky because in her opinion, and this came up earlier in the year and a little bit last year as well, Jeremy, in her opinion.
And she's not the only one to think this. The legislation that they're considering now could end up reviving the state's ban on abortion that goes back to 1925. 100 years ago, which if you think that we have very strict rules in place now, if you don't think it could get any stricter, then you should look at that. I mean, what they were passing 100 years ago looked very different, right? And she also pointed out that Attorney General Ken Paxton has said we ought to just go back to that.
some senate republicans said that months ago right that a year ago or whatever um and so she said this is a potential opening of the door to, you know, moving everything back on the calendar to that, you know, to rewinding the clock and turning back the clock. to the days of 100 years ago. Listen to this. This is not a solution. It is a political compromise. It could help some women survive, but it could also take away one of our last legal safeguards.
After Roe fell, Paxton said that the 1925 ban was 100% good law, and a judge had to block him from enforcing it. The judge warned that if the legislature amends that statute, it could then make that ban enforceable. HB 44 does exactly that. So no, I'm not really an expert, but even I can see that this could open the door. Yeah. So after Roe was struck down by the Supreme Court is when they started talking about that 25 ban. Now Representative Ann Johnson.
who's a Democrat from Houston, one of the representatives on that committee, she pushed back on this idea that the 1925 idea, you know, that that ban from 25 might come back. And she asked Joe Poyman. about it. He runs one of the anti-abortion groups here in the state. That kind of statement could be misconstrued as an attempt. to affect that 1925 law. We're asking for the amendment to make it very clear that this is not about
conforming the 1925 law. I think the intent of the amendment is good. We want to make it clear that no one should have a fear. that the 1925 law is any different now than after this law, than before the law. With respect to prosecuting women or assisting anyone to have an abortion, it does not change it.
one iota. And Dr. Deborah Fuller also testified on behalf of other doctors and OBGYN. She said, where we are in Texas, and you heard this from the women that we just heard from a little bit ago, Jeremy.
that this is complicated you heard one of those women say that she's very concerned about parts of that legislation but she also said this might actually save some people's lives right that that's how complex this is at this point So Dr. Deborah Fuller, who's there to testify on behalf of the medical community, she said that, you know, forget all that stuff for just a moment.
that this clarification legislation is absolutely necessary. I'm testifying for this bill because I know this bill will help save women's lives. I'm a practicing obstetrician and gynecologist in private practice in Dallas, Texas. The Life of the Mother Act will bring much-needed clarity to our existing laws to support physicians in providing the best evidence-based care for their patients. This bill presents a thoughtful, necessary step in protecting the health and well-being of women.
I also believe it will go a long way into making OBGYNs believe they can practice evidence-based medicine in Texas. and thus improve our ability to keep and recruit. high-quality OBGYNs, and to train and retain these residents in Texas. Now, that last part is key, Jeremy. We've talked about it here on the show, where you have doctors, OBGYNs specifically. who don't feel like they can train here, work here, start a career here. We have shortages of these folks.
in the state to provide care for women. And when the medical community does not know with some certainty about what they're allowed to do without facing a civil lawsuit or jail time, I mean, this is how extreme all this has become.
for people who do that for a living. And they would just say, I'm not doing this anymore. And just anecdotally, I can tell you that I do know some, we've talked about those who might be starting their careers. I know some who are at the end of their careers who said, I'm just not going to do this anymore. And, you know, the decision to retire. from whatever profession is very personal.
I mean people – there is a retirement age where you start to get Medicare benefits and stuff like that. But people retire based on how they're feeling about their careers, where they want to keep working. Some people want to work. until they drop dead, right? And then other people, and some people just have to work until they drop dead. And then other people want to retire as quick as soon as they sign the Medicare papers, they want to be done. That's other folks, right?
I have heard from these doctors who say they can't do it. Some of these guys who are in their 60s or 70s would have been happy to just continue on and said, but because of the – regulatory climate now because of the uncertainty and because of the fact that I wouldn't even be able to maintain a practice because I might get sued over the whole thing, that they say,
Well, and especially in those rural communities, you know, it's like we've talked about this on the show before. This really kind of scares me. It's like it's already like an incredibly long drive for a lot of expectant mothers to get to an OBGYN who will take them. It's like there's some – we've just had so many providers and clinics shut down over the years in these rural parts of Texas that there are already so few options. And to think that more people might give up that profession.
because of the legal situation, that just adds an added level of stress for so many people who legitimately want to have children, who are just trying to get the proper care. So if you're in like... In some rural parts of Texas, I think of the pain handle. You could be looking at an hour drive to get an OBGYN in Amarillo who will still take you. It's like if you cut that number down in Amarillo, what's going to happen to that mom? I just don't think sometimes we think about
You know, like this is a huge state and we're very different in different ways in every part of the state. And I just don't think sometimes the lawmakers kind of think about that ramification of, OK, in places where it's hard enough to find an OBGYN, are we going to make it harder? Answer the question. Right. Yeah, just answer that question. So I am punchy, as I mentioned, because I was up until at least about four o'clock.
Got back home after I walked out of the Texas Capitol just after 3 a.m. After a 15-hour debate on the Texas budget. And while Jeremy had to eat a little crow about Ken Paxton getting into this race, I have to eat a little crow because I had reported, based on good sourcing, that that debate might go a little faster. I've been there when the debate on the budget would last until 10.30, 11 o'clock, something like that at night.
And these debates are, they're never short. But this one was especially long. And I think that my source, and this is something that happens all the time, Jeremy. When a source tells you something in the moment, they may have every reason to think that that's right in the moment, and then something else happens, right? Yeah, correct. Happens all the time. In fact, on this one, and I had said, and you know I never make predictions on anything. Maybe every once in a while.
It's very rare for me to say, oh, hey, this is what's going to happen. I went out of my way to say this is not a prediction, but I'm telling you there are some Republican sources who say this could wrap up by 4 or 5 o'clock this afternoon. And, of course, it took until 3 a.m. the next day. Okay. Happy to be wrong about it because I would not trade the late nights in the Texas house for anything.
It's – I mean I watched this debate and compared to some past budget debates, I got this question from a few people who are newer to the process. some newer members of the legislature and some you know people who work on various issues who who just kind of got started in their careers they said well how would you compare this to past debates i would say It was unnecessarily long and boring. All right. It was boring. I've been on the floor for debates, Jeremy, that lasted...
Just about as long as this one, where the members of the legislature got so agitated with each other that they were cursing each other out on the mics and not just off to the side. They were cursing each other out on the record. In the House record, there is from years ago – I'll leave out who it was, but I'm going to get questions about this, which is part of the fun of the show. Years ago, there was a debate where one member of the Texas House from Houston –
called a member of the house from North Texas. He called him full of shit. That's in the record. And he called him that. He said that he was full of shit because this guy was trying to cut welfare benefits for people and the state representative from Houston wasn't having it.
So there was nothing like that last night, but a lot of little mini debates break out, right? During a budget debate, what happens, Jeremy? A lot of show votes, a lot of Democrats making their point, Republicans making their point. This is a $330-plus billion spending plan for the next 24 months, and there were, I think, almost 400 amendments filed.
All these Republicans and Democrats want to make their point. The leadership of the House was trying to expedite the debate. It was not their plan to be there until 3 in the morning. One thing that happened was Representative Briscoe Cain from the Houston area, he pulled a sort of new trick as far as how you slow things down that hadn't really been done since I think the late 70s, early 80s.
Without getting into the weeds of it, I don't think leadership anticipated that, that it was going to take that long because some of these moves that were made. So one of the many debates, I'll give you an example here. This happened late in the evening. And I knew better than to walk on the floor of the house before about 10 o'clock.
Because that's when they really start to get agitated with each other. So that's when you might get something that's really entertaining. So I walk out onto the floor and some of these debates that are happening was something like this. John Busey is a Democrat from Williamson County. And he's been pushing, in good faith, he's pushing this, the expansion of Medicaid. Now, we know that's not going to pass in the Texas House.
Republicans are not going to vote for that just because he's on the floor and he's giving the real world, real life examples of Texans. who are suffering with no health coverage. Sometimes the most urgent truths are not the ones spoken in statistics, but the ones felt in the silence between breaths.
It's the father in Alpine working two jobs and praying his child's fever breaks because they can't afford a trip to the emergency room. It's the mother in the Rio Grande Valley who rationed her insulin for months. and never told her kids how close she came to losing her life.
It's the young man in East Austin who skipped a cancer screening because the bill cost more than his paycheck. It's the woman in rural Texas who gave birth alone, uninsured and hemorrhaging because her local hospital had shut down. These are Texas stories. Jeremy, I've got my thumb out. I could either put my thumb up or down. Do you think it's going to go up or down as far as whether that passed the House? Did Republicans suddenly vote for that?
Of course not. No, that did not go anywhere. That did not work out. Here's the opposite. So the House did vote. To put 70, 70, $70 million into what they call those crisis pregnancy centers. This is supposed to be something that's an alternative to abortion. They voted to do that even though. The guy who was proposing that, Representative Tom Oliverson, he couldn't answer any specific questions about the proposal. Listen. This program's been around for...
longer than I've been here in the house. And it's been highly successful. Who are the providers of these programs? There are a variety of providers to this program. Could you name one or two? I'm sorry. I know there's quite a few. You can't name one or two providers. There are several crisis pregnancy centers, literally pregnancy assistance centers throughout.
park, state, and various locations. So no specific services you can name. 200 physical locations. No providers you can name, but you want to put $70 million and you want us to vote on that. I do, yeah. That was Democratic Representative from San Antonio, Barbara Gervin Hawkins, asking the question. And it was very serious stuff, I think, around...
I'm trying to remember what time this was, Jeremy. It was close to the end of the debate, so maybe closer to 3 a.m. One of the freshman representatives, Janice Holt, She proposed – she's from Liberty County, I think. She defeated Ernest Bales in his primary last year. Janice Holt proposed that the legislature go ahead and officially call it the Gulf of America. This has been a thing lately, right? We're going to call this body of water the Gulf of America.
a democratic representative aaron zweener from hayes county she wanted to ask representative holt one question about that will the gentlelady yield for some questions the jelly yield for questions yes sir gently yields Because Donald J. Trump, our president, changed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. That's why. Accuracy. Thank you, Representative Holt, for...
perhaps the biggest waste of time this evening. Thank you, ma'am. That was a high bar for waste of time yesterday. There was no reason for them to go until 3 a.m., really. And I will just say this, and we'll get on to the up and down of the week in just a second, Evan. Be spring-loaded with that music. Are you ready? His finger is trembling over the button, ready to hit the music, but I will just say this. Some Capital Observers, and this is a tease for next week, Jeremy.
Some Capitol observers thought that since the leadership was trying to corral the members of the House and get them to basically move quick on that budget overnight last night, and then that didn't happen. Some longtime observer said, well, I wonder if that is any sort of a. You know, an indication of what some of the really tough debates are going to be like in the house.
Because this would have been the first test for leadership to really kind of move the members in a certain direction. And the House is rowdy. It's 150 members. It's not easy to just get them all on the same page and get them to kind of go off the same script. Things can turn sideways on you. very quickly. So when the voucher debate comes up, when the school finance debate comes up and some of these other things,
that are going to be more consequential. It's not that the budget debate isn't consequential, but the budget is really written a little bit later. The House and Senate have now both passed their versions, and so they'll have to reconcile the differences. That's when the budget really gets written for the state of Texas.
But when some of these other debates come up in the House, I think what happened yesterday, Jeremy, raises some questions about how leadership is going to handle those things because so far in the session, they haven't really hit any rough water just yet. Yeah, and I think – I'm glad you brought that up the way you did too because like I think this really kind of illustrates the difference between the Senate and the House.
For our schoolteacher listeners out there, and I know there's a bunch of you all out there, this is the difference in the Senate. Dan Patrick runs the Senate, and he has 31 students essentially. So you can imagine running a chamber with 31 students is a lot easier than 150 and you're the house speaker. That should tell you right away what the problem is when these two chambers are meeting at the same time. Who has the tougher job?
Absolutely, Dustin Burrows. 100%. And every speaker, everybody who has been in that job, it's a unique position. To be the person who has to preside over that, you have to strike that balance between, as you put it, the students. You've got to strike that balance between dealing with them when they have their hand raised.
about something, strike that balance with also trying to achieve the mission, which for Republican leadership is some of those things I mentioned, the school finance, the vouchers. and a whole bunch of other things. Let's get to it, Evan, the up and down of the week.
Each weekday in his newsletter, Jeremy lets you know who's doing well in politics and who's flaming out. Who's the up and who's the down. And you can check out his newsletter, by the way, on his X page. It's the pin post there, Jeremy S. Wallace.
And on the show, each week, he does Up and Down of the Week. So who do you have for the up this time? Well, as much as I want to make it Sturgill Simpson for doing two shows in Texas in 24 hours, I will instead... which was great by the way yeah definitely go check him out but i'm gonna go with ken paxton on this one you know it's not just that ken paxton finally pulled the trigger to get into the race
But the numbers look really good for him early on. Look, I hate polls. I hate polls this early out. That poll that he put out was weak. That's a lame poll. I don't trust anything. 25. Points over Cornyn? No, no, no. Now, the only thing to his credit that I'll say on that is I had some Democratic groups trying to sell me a poll that showed something similar.
Because they clearly want Ken Paxton to be the candidate they want to go against. But look, regardless of the numbers, it shows you that going into this race, John Cornyn has a real battle on his hand. Ken Paxson has a legitimate shot at taking him out. so and i think that makes ken paxton my op
And just think of all the shows he was on this week. Ken Paxton was on more shows. It wasn't just the Lord Ingram. He went on like the Newsmaxes and the American Eagle TV or whatever. Okay, now you're scraping the bottom of the barrel. You know, when the Democrats will basically they're chanting. We want Paxton. It reminds me of the New York folks and the others are screaming.
We want Houston. And then they got their ass kicked. Yep. Right? So just careful what you wish for. Who's the down this week? Okay. I'm going to go with Houston. And it has nothing to do with the Houston Cougars. It can be that too. It has to do with the fact that Houston is going to be down one member of Congress for the next 245 days.
The biggest city in Texas is going to be short a vote in Congress for 245 days because Governor Greg Abbott just now has set a special election for November. That means like from Sylvester Turner's death. till that day it'll be 245 days which is really a long time. In the last two years, like with all the openings in Congress, I think there was 14 of them. On average, it was 100. No, the worst was 120 day wait to fill a seat.
Abbott is going to 245. This is an extremely long amount compared to the averages. And you go back further to the year 2002, and this is way above the average. It's almost double the average. Again, one of the poorest parts of our state without a representative, no vote in Congress for the rest of this year, which I think is kind of rough. It sucks, and here's what I'll say about it. I wish people cared about that, but they don't.
Even the people who live there don't care. If you have Christian Menifee, he should say what he's saying. If he says, oh, we're going to be without a vote in Congress and all that, and you're not represented in Washington, he's right. But even people who live there.
Don't really pick up on that. And I saw it just politically. It's not a great argument. We don't have a congressman. Everybody hates Congress. So here's the thing about it. The excuse that Abbott gave. You saw this for why he didn't just call it earlier? His excuse was nonsense, and I think he was asked about this on a television show. In Houston, where I saw it was on, I think it was one of the lesser TV stations, maybe Channel 39 or something. I'm just going to say, you know.
Not known for the great newscast. But anyway, I'll get a note about that, I'm sure. But he was asked about it. And this is what he said. I mean, yes, he's making a political argument. But then he promoted the answer himself on his own social media as if he was proud of saying this. Listen, there's going to be time to do it. Know this, and that is.
That election is in Harris County, and Harris County is a repeat failure as it concerns operating elections. Had I called that very quickly, it could have led to a failure in that election, just like Harris County has failed in other elections. They need to have adequate time to operate a fair and accurate election, not a crazy election like what they've conducted in the past. I don't remember any Republicans saying that after the last election when Republicans were winning judicial races there.
in Houston and Harris County. And the Democrats, of course, across the state and across the country were getting their asses kicked, you know, when Kamala Harris and the National Democratic Party just collapsed. But, I mean, if you're going to say that, why not just never call the election? They can't run elections in Harris County. We'll just never call the election. We'll never have another member of Congress from the area. I'll say he is doing – well, this is a longer opening than average.
what he's doing isn't unusual. And what I mean is that when you have a representative of the opposite party who dies, it typically takes longer for that governor to then appoint. I go back to, like, it was just a few years ago up in Michigan. John Conyers was the congressman for a long time. He ends up resigning. They waited 359 days.
to get a replacement. And then it's not just Republicans now. Democrats do this too. Gavin Newsom, just a couple years ago, when Duncan Hunter, he ended up resigning and he left the seat open for 356 days. In fact, he didn't even call a special election. He just said, I'm not going to do it. The next regular election. Why not do that? Because it helps your party.
You know, up in Congress. And so Abbott's doing exactly what those governors did. It may not be right for the people of Houston, but it's the right thing to do for his party. Well, forget whether it's right for them. Or why doesn't he just say that?
Why doesn't he just say – here's the thing. I mean we're in the era of, as you know, and I've said this over and over again. It's become a theme here. We're in the era of the death of shame in politics. Exactly. They could just say anything. Why doesn't he just say, you know what? We should deny the Democrats a vote in Congress. All of his base would love that. Just say that instead of, oh, Harris County can't run an election. Or he could say both. He could say, you know what, they've had.
A terrible record with elections in Harris County. And guess what? This allows us to screw the Democrats. And all of his everybody who has voted for him. Would love that. And all the Trump, you know, all the MAGA people love that. Could you imagine Trump's reaction? He said, you know what, in order to help Trump.
for the next two years, I'm going to not fill this seat. So you have one extra vote in Congress. You're welcome, Donald Trump. Yes, he would get, if Abbott, and here's a good test of whether they listen to the show, and you know they do, over in Abbott's shop. If Abbott just came out and said that, Trump would put that on Truth Social. Trump would immediately say, thank God for Greg Abbott.
Screwing the Democrats in Texas, keeping them from having another vote in the United States Congress. All right. That's enough. That is enough. I think, you know. We have solved all the problems here, Jeremy. Yeah, everything's taken care of. That's it. Check out the up and down of the day in Jeremy's newsletter on his X page at Jeremy S. Wallace. You can follow me there as well.
At Scott Braddock, you should be a subscriber at QuorumReport.com. And HoustonChronicle.com. And we'll see you next time.