Patrip Cast listeners. Once again, we're taking a break for the holidays and are going to play you a conversation from the Texas Tribune Festival last month. This week's conversation features three candidates for statewide office on the Republican side, Nate Sheets, who's running for AG Commissioner, Joan Huffman, and Aaron Wrights, who are both running for Attorney General. The conversations will be moderated by Brad Johnson, formerly of the
Texan News outlet. We'll be back next week with a new episode featuring me and Eleanor.
Happy New Year, Good afternoon, Austin. Great to be here with y'all.
My name's Brad Johnson. I'm a senior reporter at the Texan cover statewide politics. I see GUIDs of the Tribune and all the other reporters in here quite a bit, especially with the legislatures and session. We got rapid fire interview setup today. We've got three republic Cans back to back to back, one for Agriculture Commission, two for the Attorney General's office. First up, we've got Nate Sheets, Republican running for ag commission.
Nate Welcome, Thanks Brad.
Great to be here with you. Thank you.
So you know you're new with this. You're a first time candidate. You never run for anything before. Actually, let me sit first. Say everyone, make sure you silence your phones please. You never run for office.
Before, that's correct.
You have had a pretty interesting background, to say the least. Once you run us through where you've been and you know how you made your keep.
Yeah, thank you. So it's fun to be back here in Austin. I grew up down in Hayes County with Southwest Texas. I was never smart enough. They wouldn't let me into ut and so I here we go, and so moved up to Dallas, where I met my lovely wife, Patty, where she's in here somewhere.
Patty's back there.
And right after Patty and I got married, she told us that we need a hobby together, and she was thinking jogging, working out. But I bought a bee high back in nineteen ninety six as a hobby and put it at my parents' backyard because we lived in a apartment. And that resulted in turning into what today is the
largest honey company in America called Nature Nates. But I also went on a mission trip that year and at the same time, wound up spending twelve years in full time Christian ministry, travel into eighty eight countries around the world telling.
People about Jesus.
And so I left there in twenty ten and started doing the honey company full time. And at the time, and honey, you know, people really didn't trust honey companies. There was a lot of confusion and fraud, and so I felt like we needed to be the most trusted honey company in the world, and the only way to have trust.
Is through transparency.
So I started testing all the honey that we bought twice for pest sides, rbside, fun sides, corn syrup, rice syrup, antibiotics, and so at first that really kind of annoyed the beekeepers, but over time they realized Nathan's going to pay more than anybody else, and he's going to pay early, and
he's not going to take any deductions. And so the benefit of doing that is over time, I started to motivate the beekeepers and how they produced honey, and all of a sudden, I started getting a lot more clean honey over the years, and so so we just did that and within just a few years we became the number one brand that honey in America, but we also created the raw and unfiltered sector of honey. Before that, no one had done that. And at the time honey
was like at three hundred million. Today it's at one point five billion, and it all came from that raw and unfiltered sector.
So, you know, I come at this.
Race is you know, thirty years of food experience, but we also have the calcaf and we do cutting horses and things like that, but really knowing how agriculture works, knowing how to scale a small company and help small producers become large producers and penetrate markets and have more revenue.
So when we think the agriculture industry in Texas, which is obviously a massive one, but typically we think crops, we think livestock. What's the share of the egg industry that is encompassed by the honey industry, Like, is that is that a huge section.
Or no, No, I mean the whole the industry is probably you know, if you included the ingredient side, you included the industrial and the.
Food service side, it's probably two billion.
You know, the egg industry is one hundred and fifty eight billion, so a little bit a little bit broader when you start.
Adding in corn and cattle and wheat.
What are the biggest challenges facing the agriculture industry today?
Yeah, let me ask you. Anybody in agriculture in here? Okay, oh, we've got one very nice all right. Anybody eat food today? Now here's the real question. Who believes that the food that you eat is related to your health?
This matters.
So I think we are today at this day and age in America where we have a president who understands the relationship between.
Agriculture and our health.
Because we have issues like seventy percent of all Americans having one chronic disease or more. We spend five trillion dollars a year treating symptoms of diseases related to the food that we eat. We have seventy eight percent of kids eighteen to twenty five who can't even serve in the military. And yet at the same time, we're losing small agriculture. Last year, we lost one hundred and twenty two thousand farms in America. That's seven percent. That's a
pretty alarming statistic. We actually lost eighty percent of the bees and Texas this past year. Sixty five percent across the United States. Last week in Texas we lost sixty eight farms. So we did this week and the week before. All the way back to twenty eighteen, we've lost seventeen
thousand small farms. So, you know, the issues that we have in agriculture today is really the intersection of consolidation and food and how do we start to deconsolidate big agriculture and have smaller agriculture that really cares about the food that they produce.
Where's the ag Department fit into this? What's its role with the industry.
Yeah, so in nineteen ninety four, when I got into the honey business, I was a member of the Go Texan program. And the Go Texan program is part of text Apartment of Agriculture, and it's this little logo that looks like a brand of the State of Texas, and you know that is there as the TDA is to try to help small producers, you know, grow. Having been a member for many years, they don't do anything to
help you grow. I'm not belittling their efforts, but they never helped me penetrate a store, They never helped me do marketing.
They you know, there was nothing there.
And so I think that the role of the text Department of Agriculture is to help farmers and ranchers not just thrive or survive, but thrive, and so being able to go and utilize tools like the Texas Department of the Go Texas program and know how to really use that as a way to help farmers and ranchers grow that product by penetrating retail, by creating a more robust direct to consumer platform, so you're selling it full retail.
Because the issue that farmers have today in nineteen eighty they made forty cents of every one dollar food forty cents. Today they make fifteen cents. Now, any of y'all, but I don't want to really have a job where I make sixty percent less forty five years into my career. Farmers the ranching side, they used to make seventy cents. Now they make thirty. You know who does make seventy cents? The four packers, Tyson, Cargill, JBS, National Beef.
It's been reversed. And so we have these types of issues where the TDA.
Really needs to be more thoughtful about how do we help people stay in business, how do we level the playing field? And so, for instance, in in nineteen seventy we had about eight hundred meat packing plants across the state. They could make seventy cents of every dollar because packing was a commodity. We need to get back to that so people that are small producers have the ability to go process their beef and to be able to sell it to consumers direct. Actually just got a text message
just a little while ago New Hampshire. New Hampshire just passed a law that there don't require ranchers to have USDA approved certification on their box beef. They can just sell it anywhere in the state and they don't have to sell it by the quarter or by the half. And so New Hampshire's one up to us here in Texas to help ranchers be able to be in business more easily. And that's what the TDA needs to do. We need to help people be in business better.
When I think of two more external problems that the agriculture industry is facing in Texas, I think of water that's a problem the entire state has to deal with and is coping with right now, and then the screw worm. Where do you see those two issues on the list of top priorities for the states in the agg Department specifically.
Yeah, it's hard to grow crops or animals if you
don't have water. So it's pretty important. And having been out on the campaign trail, it doesn't matter where I go, North, southeast, or west, people are upset about water, either someone coming in taking it from them, like in East Texas or up in North Texas where there is imminent domaining four hundred thousand acres of fifth, sixth, seventh generation of farmland of people, so they can make an aquifer or a reservoir, you know, to be able to provide water to the
city of Dallas. And so I've got a ranch out in West Texas. Water out in West Texas is pretty sparse right now. So it's a massive issue. No one's got a silver bullet, candidly, but it's going to take a lot of really smart people. And I think at the end of the day, we're going to have to do some things as consumers that maybe none of us want to do. No one wants a restrictive waterhead. That's California, not Texas. But if we all do something, I mean
there's going to be some issues. The new World screwworm.
You know, obviously everybody know what that is. Yeah, yeah, So the New World screwworm is a fly that lays an egg, typically on an open wound on an animal, the umbilical cord of a newborn calf, or an orifice on an animal or a person, and the fly lays it looks like a blowfly, that big, ugly kind of green blowfly, but it lays an egg and within seven hours that egg hatches and then that pupa burrows, screws itself into the living host, and it eats living flesh,
not dead flesh. So we had an outbreak here in nineteen seventy one, caused billions of dollars of damage, and it's coming back. The way it was stopped in nineteen seventy one was through they sterilized male flies. The female mate one time and she doesn't know if she mates with a sterile male or a fertile male, but they would produce about five hundred male flies a week, drop them into the infected areas, and eventually they just burned
them out. So we had down in Panama sit facility the sterile insect, and so that was kind of our line of defense. But during COVID, and then also with the immigration issues and even cartels utilizing cattle trying to
use it as a way to ferry people up. We've had that New World screw worm within the border of seventy miles, so the USDA has the border shut down, and so the cattle, the feeding industry of cattle really relies upon inputs from Mexico, Mexican cattle to be able to go into the processing facilities to be able to provide beef to McDonald's and Burger King and everyone else.
So that's just another issue on top of historically low cattle population numbers lowest in seventy years, and one of the highest prices that you've had, and all the input costs continue to go through the.
Roof low in large part because of the droughts we've seen in recent years.
Right, Yeah, the cattle population, yeah, and the input costs. I mean, I've got we have this conversation internally inside of our team. So if you have a how that you want to hold off until the spring and have her have a calf, you have all that cost of feed and everything else between now and that spring, and so it becomes a utilization, you know, time value of money. So do you send that cow off to get processed and buy her back, you know, pregnant or by a by one back pregnant in the spring.
And that's what a lot of people are doing.
And so we really have to help figure out and incentivize producers to hold back heifers and calves so we can birth them and grow that population.
So back on the screwhere, we've seen some butting of heads between the federal government and the states on the issue of how exactly do we fix this. You mentioned the sterile flies, there's also fly traps. What do you make of at least somewhat of a disagreement between the state and federal government on how to address this.
I don't know if it was so much of a disagreement as it was that we had a leader of the Texas Department of Agriculture that was viewed as wasting time and resources and coming up with a plan that was more about him using it as a way to promote himself and coming up with three hundred and fifty traps and having a I think it's called swarm bait that wasn't even an FDA or EPA approves lure, and out of those three hundred and fifty traps they deployed,
they got one fly, not even screwworm. And the USDA has nine thousand traps scattered along the border, and they have USDA employees. And so Brooke Rawlins candidly got tired of seeing how my opponent was dealing with it, and so she did a public SmackDown on him by just saying, stop wasting time of money and get out of the way. So the adults can handle this. And so that's so they're working hard on it. And even this morning, I was meeting with the local association and they gave me the car.
And I had talked with these people previously.
But there's a company called three M and they can produce a mobile sterile fly facility for ten million dollars that can do like two hundred and fifty thousand flies a week. So you know, I've done that quick calculation. For about one hundred million bucks, we can get enough facilities to you know, to be able to have our five hundred million flies. So I'm going to go reach out to their CEO and talk with them, and I provide it to Dan Hunter, who is the farm service agent for USDA here in Texas.
Have you talked to Secretary Rollins about your candiacy? I have she backing you or she staying out of it?
Is this just between me and.
You'd be a pretty big endorsement if you can get it.
Well, you know what, Honestly, I think her position is it's not her place to endorse. She's on Donald Trump's cabinet. But she did tell me that she's working in the background and she's she's glad that were in the campaign.
Let's let's get to the campaign side of this. You know, you famously were one of Sid Miller's biggest donors before you decided to run against him. I remember hearing the story of out the conversation you had when he was in his mind hopefully vuying for the USDA spot and he was being considered for that and didn't get it. Ultimately, there was a conversation between you two and you talked about this. You talked about your desire to run, and
according to you, he says, do it right. I asked him about that the other day and he said, well, Nate conveniently leaves out the second half of that, and that's.
If I didn't run. If I didn't run, what do you mean respond to that? Please?
Yeah.
So you know, I try to live my life according to the biblical principles. And there's this verse in the Bible says give honor to honors due. And since I've been one of his donors, and actually my buddy Rick Sandtrum, we have been up in Washington, d C. And we're having lunch and Rick said, because I was the CEO of Nature Nates until November of last year and I stepped away and I was just on the board and
so I was just talking to Rick. I said, Man, I'm just trying to figure out where I can go invest my life next and go make a difference, you know, for God's kingdom and people. And so Rick said, why don't you go be the act commissioner. I was like, you met governor or senator. I mean, so it's so we started talking about that, and he said, you know, you've been in the agg industry. People are getting sick.
You understand that part. Go make a difference. So I came back talk with Patty about that, and we looked at the job description and candidly, I was quite surprised what the responsibilities were. Because I've been a donor of his for a long time, didn't realize he was in charge of feeding five and a half million kids in school lunch programs.
And so Patty said.
Man, I could really see that because she said a lot of the things I was attempting to do at Nature Nate's. I was trying to, you know, do a lot of those things that the act Commissioner's responsibilities were. So I called sit up, took him lunch in March and asked him what his plans were. And he actually said he was thinking about running for John Cornet and see for Senate. And I said, I think that's a
great idea. And I said I would like to run, you know, praying about running for agg Commissioner, and kind of laid it out, and he said, I think you should run.
And I asked him if that was an endorsement and he said no.
And so so you know, I didn't go to ask permission. I just went to tell him what I was thinking about doing. Again, that was in March, and so then April I filed. May. We went out and had a big launch party up at our farm up in McKinney, and then after Ken Paxton announced that he was running in June or July, Sid announced that he was.
Going to run again.
So this did not I didn't go down this road as an anti SID rant, you know, candidly, but I will tell you now that I've gotten into it, the unethicalness, the corruption, the things that I've seen that go on at TDA. I'm not anti SID, but the guy needs
to be fired. It's time to replace him. If it were my company and he was running that company for me, I would fire him and all his leadership team because it's not the way that you would run a company, and it's certainly not the way that you stewed taxpayers dollars in the opportunity to make an impact in the agriculture and all of Texas and ultimately America.
We made an accusation. Let's get in specifics. What is it about the TDA that you think is corrupt or going awry?
Yeah, it's you know, Sid calls me a rhino in elitist rhino, and I would just say that there's even ambiguity and how he talks. I mean, when he was in the state legislature, he actually voted to give illegal aliens in state tuition. You know, he was against Donald Trump's border wall and said that the Mexican government needs to have more input on the on the wall. When he left the legislature, he became a lobbyist, you know, in between that and running for text Department of Agriculture.
But the ethical issues beyond him using state resources. I mean the one article about he went and got the Jesus shot or something, you know, and the state took away his budgets, as Texas Department of Agriculture actually told me at lunch, he goes, you know, I only have like a two thousand dollars travel budget as a state legislator, as a state agency head, I thought, huh, that's weird. You didn't tell me the rest of the reason why they took it away, you know, because he had abused it.
But you know, his campaign manager and this is where the whole thing, you know, when the whole HMP thing came about. The TDA was responsible for writing the regulations for the state. I think that they did kind of leave this crack in the door that ultimately became the divide between the governor and lieutenant governor. But his campaign manager, guy named Todd Smith went around and told people they're only going to be fifteen licenses in the state for
HMP growers, and that licensed one hundred dollars. But if you give me twenty five thousand dollars, Todd said, I will make sure that.
You're one of the fifteen.
So after I guess he had about one hundred and fifty one hundred and fifty thousand dollars sent to his bank account. He was arrested and charged with commercial felony bribery. And then in November of last year, he plgged guilty to that because they had subpoena SID to come in and testify again. But he negotiated since he plaged guilty, negotiated a deferred sentence. But he wasn't allowed to be a lobbyist anymore. I think four years he couldn't be
a lobbyist. So now Todd, Poor Todd's out of work. So SID hired him as the chief of staff the Texan Department of Agriculture today, where he gets paid two hundred and twenty thousand dollars running the very agency where he was defrauding people that customer base. Now go back to my example of if this was your company, and you had a guy that was running that and hired a consultant that did all that. You would make their head spin so fast. So it's just it's just the
boldness of them. And Sid says, well, they were after me like Donald Trump. They were after Donald Trump. And Todd only plaged guilty because he was here in Travis County and there was a Soros DA down there. He plgged guilty to a felony people. So you know this is continued, you know, to happen. He's now, you know, go up and see the music festival that he sponsored two weeks ago up in Waxahachi that now all of
a sudden it's the Go Texas Music Festival. He's got banners around the eleven sound stages of himself and he's the announcer and gave himself created some award and gave it to himself. So he's just you know, they're just using state resources like it's their own private company. And I think it's atrocious. You know that that's how things are run. And they've had one hundred and thirty people
leave since March. One hundred and thirty and a lot of those have been fired by Todd and a lot of them have left by choice, but they have gutted the organization of people who really know and care for the agriculture community in all of Texas.
So I know we can do better. You know.
Culture for me is always Sacker saying, you know, in a company, because it's the people, They're the lifeblood, they're you know. So as the CEO of Nature and A it's my job was cast the vision, help them as a leadership team, figure out what we're going to go do,
and then I serve them to be successful. So it's an inverted leadership org chart and that's what we need inside Texas Department Agriculture with both consumers Texas families, farmers and ranchers at the very top, and all this down below serving them to be successful.
The ethical concerns there you just voice are clearly one wedge issue in this race. Another one maybe it's now moot after what happened at the federal level, but the hemp issue was huge in the legislature. Commissioner Miller was against the perspective ban. Where do you fall on that policy issue?
Well, thank you Donald Trump. He took care of it all. So it really doesn't matter. You know, I'm a CBD user. I put it on joints and you know, it's amazing. And so I know that the governor and the Lieutenant Governor were kind of on different sides of that. And you know, it's the compassion of the governor of wanting veterans to be able to have access for PTSD, you know, utilizing that. And so I don't think we'd ever want to intentionally create harm to people who valiantly saved our
country and who suffer from challenges from that. But again, Donald Trump took care of all that, and it's not something I'm gonna have to worry about.
And how did that happen? Can you can explain what the federal government did in that?
Yeah, so there was the crack in the door that I referenced earlier. Is Delta eight or Delta ten, and so there are synthetic components of hemp, and so those by themselves are inert if they were just sitting there. But if you take delta ten and go and spread it on a hemp joint, which if you smoked it without the Delta eight, you're just smoking a hemp cigarette. But you apply delta eight or Delta ten onto it and now once you apply heat to it, it gets you high, just like THHC does.
And then there were a lot of edibles and things like that.
There was a lot of confusion, and Sid's talked about this, and he was always, you know, pro these vape shops around.
The state that sell all of these edibles.
And yet at the same time he talks about how tragic it is that we have, you know, junior high kids go in and buy these things and bring them back and they sell them in school. So it's like, what way is it? You know, you can't have it both ways?
Said, you've never run for office before, and obviously this is getting to be a pretty heated race. What's the adjustment been like coming from being a donner, not someone who's in the fight explicitly at least, to now being the one not just receiving punches but delivering them.
You know, I used to think he got stung a lot in the bee keeping industry. Welcome to politics. No, honestly, I love it. I mean it's so fun. I love going out and meeting everybody, and Patty and I we drove across the state.
The other night.
I actually ran out of gas going heading towards af and you know, I was too focused on the phone. But and I told Patty, I said, well I can't. I can't do this on video because then Sid can go. Look, this guy must have run the text Apartment of Agriculture. He can't even get to a campaign event without running out of gas. So there you go, said you can
use that one. But but you know, honestly, going around and meeting people, hearing a lot of heartbreaking stories, people losing their land, losing their agriculture businesses.
But it also gives.
Me more hope that I believe that we genuinely can turn this around. You know, farmers and ranchers have a revenue problem today. All the expenses continue to go up. Like I said earlier, they make forty cents in nineteen eighty fifteen cents today. And the one thing I've spent a career doing is figuring out how you grow revenue.
You know, how do you penetrate retail?
How do you go sell more product and more customers for more money. And so yes, farmers and ranchers have an expense problem because they don't have any hope for their revenue going up.
But we can change that.
We can go in and we can you know, create an industry to where you know, small producers can go and get their own animals butchered and to go sell it as box beef and sell it direct to consumers through the new coming go texting program, where you're going to have a viable platform that they can actually utilize
to be profitable. And so once you're able to do that, that's full retail and we can get agriculture back to this place where kids actually look at that as a viable place to be able to invest their life and bring back rural Texas because you drive through these small Texas towns, y'all do it, drive in South Texas, West Texas. They are dying and we need to help bring life back to them.
And the only way we're going to do it is to help farmers or ranchers not survive but thrive.
What's the industry telling you about your candidacy?
Man?
We've had so many endorsements, it's hard to keep track of all of them, which is really exciting. You know, they got Randy, Travis and Mac Do I need anything else? You know?
Down out I don't think they're in the industry.
I mean, but we've got you know, Senator Sparks out in Midland, West Texas. He actually hosted a fundraiser in Midland night before last for us UH with a bunch of oil and gas folks and my own cousin out there. We've got Angela Paxson who's endorsed us UH. Tons of s r C members, maybe a dozen or so, a lot of county chairs have endorsed US. We've got Texas Eagle for him. We have Grassroots America, Joe Ian Fleming, we the people. We've got the Kingwood Tea Party, the
Fredericksburg Tea Party. It just there's a lot of energy and enthusiasm behind, you know, the campaign, and because people have been hopeless and and now I was actually over at Pete and Missy Bonds. He's the former president of the Texas Cattle Raisers and and their lead government guy was there and he whipped out his check book wrote a check to me. He said, I have to wait for cattle Raisers to personally endorse you.
Here's a check. I'm gonna endorse you.
And miss he's on the board at Cattle Raisers and she's an endorse you and then we're going to have a fundraiser for you. And so when I see the industry start to get excited and come alongside because they realize, you know what, this guy doesn't know how to farm wheat, but we don't need to have him know how to farm wheat. We need to have him help us figure out how to sell more wheat for more money to more people, and that they believe I can do.
So it's it's been awesome.
Last one for you.
People have tried to take SID out before and been wildly unsuccessful. We saw James White, a long time stay rep who had a pretty extensive resume. I think he barely cracked thirty percents in the primary against SID the last time this was up.
Why are you different?
You know, I'm all about team and so we have a great team, very robust. We've got Travis McCormick who's back here. He's on our team, heads up our communications. We've got Elliott Griffin as our consultant. We have Cynthia Whedaman and Kathy Scott. Kathy's leading the chart on our finance side. We've got a great digital team that's actually doing all the digital for the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary, and so we went and got the right people, the right team to be able to get us across the
finish line. SIDS never had an opponent who's got thirty years of food experience, who took a single beehive and turned it into a honey company that is will bout one hundred million pounds of honey this year, and we've got one hundred and twenty thousand beehives. And the the b industry and the beef industry are almost identical, just in terms of process and things that we did in the honey industry, we can go do in the beef industry.
And so I would just say that Sid's never really you know, and I don't know all the other guys who've run against him, but he's nervous. I've had a woman come to my she was an SRAC member, and she came to a fundraiser we had in Dallas a few nights ago, and she said, he's called me three times in the past week, you know, telling me to endorse them. You know, I think people are just ready
for a change. And I will say that I think where we are in America right now with Brooke Rawlins, Bobby Kennedy, and Donald Trump seeing this as an absolute critical nature. Listen, this doesn't matter if you're a Republican or a Democrat, what your color is, what your ethnic you know, what your background is, what your socioeconomic level. Everybody's getting sick from the food that we eat, and we all eat food, and so we've got to fix this, and we can fix this, and so that is that
I think that's what changes everything else. And also those other guys, they hadn't had the Todd Smith thing play all the way out. So at the time when James White ran, he had been arrested and was being you know, prosecuted, but he hadn't gone fully through. And had he been prosecuted and played guilty and gone off on the sunset.
It might be a little bit of a different picture. But he's not in the sunset. He's at the TDA headquarters.
So you know, again, we lost eighty percent of the bees in Texas this year. So if you want to save the bees, go plant. You know next you're producing flowers. If you want to save our health Texas farm families and agriculture in Texas, vote for Nate Sheets Fragg Commissioner.
In neat Sheets, thanks for joining us.
Thank you, God, bless you, God bless great state of Texas. Well.
Next up, we've got Senator Joan Huffman, Republican, running for Attorney General. Senator Huffman, you've how long you have been in the Senate.
Since I was elected in December of two thousand and eight, so over sixteen.
Years, and you have a lot of extensive background before then. Can you run us through that?
Sure?
So I started my career actually as a secretary in the Harrison County District Attorney's office in nineteen eighty one, so that's a long time ago, and went to law school at night. Worked as a secretary and as an intern at the DA's office during that time period.
And when I graduated from law school and.
Passed the bar, I was hired as a prosecutor and I worked there for fourteen years as a Harris County District Attorney prosecutor. Prosecuted over one hundred jury trials during that time period, served some time as the Special Crimes Gang prosecutor. I was assigned to the Organized Crime Narcotics Task Force for eighteen months, where I was embedded with law enforcement worked their cases with them, and then when I decided I would move on, I ran for Criminal
district Court judge was twice elected. So I served as a criminal district Court judge, presiding over tens of thousands of cases, and then ran for the Senate in two thousand and eight in a special election when Senator Janak stepped down and was elected and been elected several times since then.
I'll get to the ag race. That's probably what everyone wants to hear about, but I'd be remiss. We didn't talk about session because it was first of all grueling, right, A couple of specials.
Yes, lasted a long time.
Yeah, But your biggest responsibility during that was the budget.
First of all, what's that? Like?
How extensive of a process is building a massive state budget?
Well, it's quite extensive.
It actually starts in the fall before session, so usually in August September October we start having Boards of Review, which really means doctor Bondon at the time. The appropriations chare from the House and myself sit in a room with about fifty other people who are from the Legislative Budget Board, our staff, the Lieutenant Governor's staff, the Governor's staff, and just really go line by line through the budget. And I know a lot of people think how does
this get made? It actually is made by a line by line process. There's kind of a base budget we start with at LBB presents based on what we had done the previous by anium, but we do go through those and we make adjustments, and we make quite a few adjustments either from observations and issues that maybe doctor Bonnen or I or staff or LBB has encountered in the previous by anium, and there's adjustments that need to
be made. As you know, most of the budget is written on projections, and sometimes those projections are off, and sometimes.
Off quite a bit.
That's why the supplemental exactly.
So we do the supplemental and then LBB presents a lot of scenarios to us as to what they believe the projections will be at that you know, at the time when we have to make the final decisions, and many times it does affect, you know, kind of what our bottom line looks like. And I've been there when we were way off and when we were we didn't spend enough. Other times when we projected quite a bit
more and then we had a surplus. So it really can go a lot of different ways, and a lot of that is because, for examples, through the Foundation School program, you're making decisions based on enrollment growth, property tax of values, and so forth, which really affects the bottom line as
to how much money is left and so again. So we make those types of decisions, we go through several boards of a review, and then of course the budget comes before the committee when we get into session in January. In the Senate, we meet for several weeks daily long grueling days where we listen to that different agencies present their request and we hear from the public and then, you know, then the real work gets done, you know, trying to get the budget written and then finding the votes.
I will say that the last budget was able to pass out the Senate with thirty one votes, which I think is a sign of a really good budget because it does mean that you have, you know, buy in from both parties and a lot of different interests start met. And I think if your priorities are correct and you work real hard at trying to bring everybody into be part of the processes, that's that's you get those successful results.
So my first session covering the legislature was twenty nineteen, and I remember one of the first pieces I wrote was two hundred and fifty billion dollar budget passes. Now I understand things a lot better than I do than I did then. But the budget y'all passed this time was three hundred and thirty eight billion.
I believe about three thirty big increase right right.
Yet I see all this messaging about a fiscally responsible budget.
Yes, you walk me through.
That, sure, well, I will say it is a physically responsible budget. And the budget is, you know, well below all three of the spending limits. And the budget has grown for several reasons. A lot of it is the state is growing. So and then the COVID era, i'll call it the COVID nightmare or whatever you want to call it. That era really kind of changed the budget in several ways. And part of it was that there was a huge influx of federal funds that came into
the state. It didn't just come to the state, It actually went to a lot of local entities, even hospitals, but counties and cities, schools, and some of it was accounted for that we could sort of follow it and see where it was. There was some money that went in that we never really could track through our tracking systems about where this money came in. But a lot of money came into the state of Texas. We were one of the probably largest recipients of federal funds during
the COVID era. So all that money, you know, they were printing a lot of money in Washington and they were giving Texas quite a bit of money. So a lot of it was billions and billions of dollars, So a lot of that money kind of came into the treasury. What also happened was after COVID there was a pin up demand for people to spend money because people some people had gotten stimulus checks or different types of checks, or many people took quarantine very seriously, right and they
stayed home. They didn't buy a you know, they didn't buy anything, and so they started spending money. And so we saw sales tax revenue really just go up like this. So we were just flush with cash now, so it elevated the numbers in a lot of ways. Now, what we did with the money was at the state level, we were very careful about not investing the money into projects or concepts or whatever you want to call it
that would be ongoing expenses. So we did try to dedicate start funds that would be long term, like with the the Texas University Fund, where we set up a fund for U of H and Tech Texas state, you know, not exactly like what UT and A and M have, but an endowment type of fun We did things like this. We invested big money in water, in mental health hospital construction two and a half billion for that, over four billion for water. We did a huge amount of property
tax relief. And I know that a lot of folks still complained about property tax, and I get it, and it's a work in progress. But over the last since about nineteen, we have put in about fifty one billion dollars in property tax.
Really now that's recurring.
Everything that's recurring.
So we we did things like that, but a lot of it had to do with the state growth, with our economy growing. As you know, we continue we're the seventh largest economy in the world.
Now.
Just yesterday we were again to sign you know, the best Business Climate in the in the United States, you know, place to do business. We continued to have those awards, those accolades, and people continue to come to Texas and invest in Texas, and because of that, our economy is growing and so our budget grows. But we have been I think it's a conservative budget because we have made these long term investments. We spent more on public education
this last session. One hundred billion dollars went into to public education than we ever seen before. We gave teachers to substantial pay raises, would put more money into special education, just things that make the state better off as a whole. And I think that's conservative in my book.
Fair enough, nobody knows what next year will look like economically. Obviously I'll have effects on the election itself. But you being the budget writer or one of the chief budget writers, and if you don't make the jump to AG, you'll remain in the Senate and presumably share finance.
Again, that's what the Lieutenant governor has said.
Yes, does it keep you up at night if there's an economic collapse and all of a sudden the state doesn't have a bunch of money in surplus and we actually have to cut spending.
I think that if we had some kind of major economic collapse, we know we still have the rainy Day fund right and it is at twenty eight billion dollars. It's actually maxed out just about probably as we speak, it's very close to maxing out, so that transfer will not be made into the Rainy Day Fund, so that money will stay in gr general revenue actually, so there will be sort of more money coming in and we still have the Rainy Day Fund because the severance taxes are still producing.
I think I heard Hancock Controller Hancocks.
Say recently that the sales tax revenue was up about five percent, which is a little higher than it happened. So, you know, as far as taxes goes, we still look pretty optimistic as we talk about, you know, are the economy of this state. But I will say that the commitments we've made for property tax relief, to public education and those types of investments are ongoing, long term investments, but to the benefit of all the all of our citizens.
But I think we're in pretty good shape. Were the safeguards you put in, We have safeguards put into the system, and so I think we're in good shape.
Okay, let's get to the age race.
Sure you're both in your extensive resume, but also the fact that you're running from cover. You don't have to give up your Senate seat, right, unlike Center Milton who does yes.
How does that affect your run for the seat?
Well, I'm running full speed ahead, one hundred percent, whether you know. I just feel blessed that my when we drew the beans at the beginning of the decade, I got the cycle that let me do this. And but I'm running to win, honestly, and but I if I lose, I'll be you know, excited to continue to represent the people that I have the privilege of representing.
So why'd you pull the trigger?
Well, because I think that I'm the most qualified person to be a g I think that I have a very unique background. You know, I've told you a little bit about it. I don't think there's ever been anyone in any Attorney General who has been a prosecutor with extensive you know, litigation experience, one hundred jury trials, you know,
worked very closely with law enforcement. Never been one that's a former criminal district court judge that presided over thousands and tens of thousands of cases, tried death penalty cases both as a prosecutor and a judge, and been a conservative state senator who's you know, I've been chair of state affairs were all you know, a lot of the big major state legislation, conservative legislation, and other important issues that affect the state of Texas go through. I chaired
those committees. I've been on criminal justice pretty much NonStop the whole time, and I chaired redistricting, which is an important function of the AG's office to defend the maps.
I drew the maps.
I've been, you know, testified in federal court several times about the maps, and then as Chair of Finance for two terms, I know a lot about every state agency. I've served on Sunset before, so I've really deep into the state agencies, know where you know, all the issues are where you know, when you follow the money, you kind of figure out the policy, right you kind of know what's going on. So I'm very qualified, and I'll
add so it's kind of a mixed audience here. You know, i'd be the first woman, and I'm not running because I'm a woman, but I think and i'd be the first mother who was ever the Attorney General of Texas. I think that brings some other qualities to the to the table, and I'm ready to serve.
I really, you know, I.
Could have run for this office earlier in my career, and I was actually offered it, not offered the office the office, of course, but you know, people said, well, why don't you run, you know, and I felt like I was wanted to stay in the Senate. I was doing important work. I love what I did. I passed a lot of heavy legislation in the Senate while i've been there, whether it's pension reform, you know, the bail reform that I worked seven years on that the voter's
just approved. So I've been working on heavy issues for a long long time, and I'm glad I did all that. But now I think that I have something to offer to the people of Texas and to the voters of Texas that i'd be a really good Attorney General for them, and I focus on the people.
Yeah, you mentioned the bail reform thing, like you said, that's something you've been pushing for for multiple cycles. With what passed, is that enough or is there more that needs to be done on that issue?
Well, I think it's we're in a wait and see mode, right. I think a lot of this is going to depend on how the judges respond, how the prosecutors use the law, the tools that they've been given, how the judges respond, and then we'll see. There were some pieces of legislation that did not pass, as you know, that passed the
Senate died in the House. One was the process of those who were here illegally, who committed a serious felony could be held automatically without That's still I think something I'd like to look at again and talk about, especially as we go, you know, another two years through through this or another year i'd say of this process with kind of seeing how the ICE is working and so forth,
and the two eighty seven G that we implemented. Now all the counties have to participate in the two ad C seven G process, which is, you know, working with ICE to report individuals that are arrested.
Or in your jail that may be here illegally.
So I think we would look at that more carefully moving forward. But I think a lot of this is going to depend on if the judges do their job. They have the tools that they need now to keep folks safe, and remember these are the most violent offenders and so but I'm hoping for the best because it could only get better.
Yeah, you might see it come back up again next next cycle. Yeah, certainly in your estimation. What makes a good Attorney General.
Well, I think it's someone whose best interest is with the the folks they represent, that's the all, all the citizens of Texas. I think that you want someone who's gonna be a fighter for you, who's going to defend your freedoms, who's going to defend your rights, but will also aggressively prosecute and go after those who harm you
or your families or your communities. And I think that you know, Paxton has been very aggressive at going after corporations or those that may be trying to steal, you know, our information or our privacy, and he has been very aggressive in that since I would like to see them be there be a focus on working with local law enforcement, local prosecutors, and being a real resources resource and a
tool for local law enforcement. Over the years, it used to be one of the core functions of the AG's office, and that was to help local prosecution with complex cases, with you know, complicated prosecutions and so forth. But somehow over the years there's been a trust that's been lost between the local government, whether it's you know, local prosecutors, local law enforcement. In the attorney General's Office, and I think with my background, I have great relationship with law enforcement.
I've been endorsed by CLEETE, which is the big certified law enforcement association of Texas. I have endorsements from sheriffs around the state. You know the Houston Police Department, Dallas Police Association, you know Amarillo Police Association, so throughout the state.
And that is because I've worked with police officers and district attorneys for many years, whether it's you know, I passed the defund so that cities couldn't defund police officers back the Blue Act, the one that allows you to go after rogue prosecutors who just refuse to prosecute the law. So I've worked with these groups for many years to come up with legislation that they were that they could live with, that was going to work for the people
of Texas. Including remember years ago, bad police officers were just sent from one jurisdiction to another, get fired, they get hired somewhere else. Well, I passed the law that doesn't allow that to happen anymore. Well, that didn't happen without buy in from prosecutors and law enforcement. And I work really hard with law the law enforcement from across
the state to make that work. And it works now, and so the bad apples don't get to be, you know, shifted around the state to actually get fired and they can't combat. So I give that as an example of if you, if you build trust with people and you work with them, that.
You know you can do great things.
And so I would I think of it as turning my face kind of back towards the people of Texas and say, what can I do for you? How can I make your businesses more successful? How can I make you feel safer? How could I make the state better for you? And that's the way I.
Look at the position.
And again I think, because of my background and my relationships and my qualifications, my work ethic, that I'd be the type of Attorney General that the people of Texas would be pleased with.
On the so called Rodier Bill, we haven't seen any of those lawsuits brought forward actually work in that regard. Is that law working in your estimation?
Well, it can work.
And I'm going to say this because I think a lot of us throw around this term rogue prosecutors and bad prosecutors. The truth is, the vast majority of the prosecutors in state of Texas do a dang good job, right and there are probably some people in this room who disagree with me. I think there's you know, two
or three that aren't doing a great job. But the way the law is set up, you know, you have to have a person in that county to under the constitution, you know, file a complaint and goes through a district court. There have a right to a jury trial, so there's a process to remove. Some states have you can have a legislative impeachment or the governor can remove.
We don't have that.
Our constitution speaks very clearly to how a prosecutor can be removed. And so I think in the right situations, yes, the bill can work. It's just and I think the threat of the bill has actually worked. I know El Paso had an incident. I think that that individual resigned on their own. Some people have been voted out of office.
You know, there's still you know, if you're convicted of a felony, then there's kind of an automatic removal once the judge reports that to the proper authorities and so forth. So there's things built into the constitution. I think the law can work in the right circumstances.
Yeah, this Attorney General Ray is, particularly the Republican primary I think is the most interesting on the ballot next year, and a lot of tensions obviously going to be paid at the US Senate level, but the dynamics here are fascinating to me. What is your assessment of this primary so far?
Well, I'll tell you, Brad what folk I've decided. I'm just getna, I look straight ahead. I'm focused on my background, who I am, what I've done, what I think I can do, what I want to do, and I'm going to let those guys do their thing, and I'm going to be joan and I'm going to work really as hard as I can, and we'll just let the voters decide who what kind of attorney general they want, what they want, who they want to stand up and represent them in the state of Texas as their attorney general.
The polling array of pulling i've seen, obviously it's very early, right, lock and change. A lot will change, but it looks like Chip Roy is up top. He's the most recognized name, right. Everyone else doesn't have that yet. Is that what you're seeing? And how do you make up that ground? As a candidate.
Well, I think again, you just have to work hard. You have to raise money. He'll be perfectly up front on that, because it takes money. The tech Texas is a very large state. It's a long way from Olpaso to Beaumont, and so to get the message out takes money.
So I'm trying to raise money.
I think I have a very good message that I want to get out, and I think that's helpful. I have something to say, and I'm just going to work hard to raise money and to go to as many places as I can. Yeah, Chip Roy starts out with am I d You know, he's been in the public eye a lot in Fox News and so forth, so people kind of know him, and the rest of us
are I think, fighting for to be known statewide. You know, people in the Houston area of course know me more because I represent a lot of those areas and out in the rural to the west of you know, Houston and along the coast where I recommend uh. You know, represented folks for a long time. But you know, to get get into Dallas, get into West Texas, get in East Texas.
I think we're all, you know, fighting to do that again.
I just hope that my message is the best and so that'll get me to that runoff that I think is what I'm coveting. So you think it is a sure fire runoff, I think it's that that would be my prediction.
I no, you know, I would say that there will be a runoff.
Yes, and I'd be happy to be in a runoff against any any three of those.
So politics today, it pays to be aggressive as a candidate. Right, your persona has not been that. It doesn't mean you're not firm. There's a difference, but you haven't been outwardly aggressive. Does that put you at a disadvantage in this dandage?
Well, I guess that time will tell on that, you know. I guess it's how you define aggressive. I'll say something to you and maybe the women in this I don't know if there's any women my age, but maybe there are. You try going from being a secretary to being the chair of Senate Finance to the state of Texas right in a three hundred and sixty four billion dollar budget, I'm only the thirteenth woman in the history of Texas to be a Senator. Okay, you try that and then
then label me as not effective or not aggressive. I dare someone do that, because you just go back and look at it, and it's not an easy road. So I'm perfectly capable, competent, aggressive enough, assertive enough to be the Attorney General of Texas.
What's your competitive advantage in messaging against your three opponents?
I think that my.
Secret strategy is just to be myself and to stand on my background. Look, I've taken over, you know, fourteen thousand votes in the Texas Senate. You know I was a prosecutor. I've got case results, I've been sued, I've been you know, ACLU didn't like me. You know this defendant didn't like me someone you know, people protest at the office. You know I've made I have a history and a record, and I'm just going to stand on that.
I don't have anything to hide. People know who I am, and I think they know what they'll get if they vote for me.
Should you win, What are the top priorities as AG?
I think sort of what I've already stated that and that is I really want to kind of beef up the law enforcement side of the office, reach out to local law enforcement, local prosecutors, and sort of turn up the volume on that side of the office really kind of you know, there's so many things that need to be worked on. You you look at the national level, whether it's the fraud through the what's being dug up
through doze, right, or you look at human trafficking. I've wrote written most of the legislation that's been passed in Texas in the last decade on human trafficking, but honestly, the results and the data, there's not enough prosecution, and I would like to see the Attorney General's Office really ramp up that prosecution and work with the locals on human trafficking. You know, the FEDS investigate transnational gangs and crimes,
crimes against children, fentanyl trafficking, they do that. But my experience with the FEDS, and I've been working with them a long time, back to my days as a prosecutor as a secretary, even they like to handpick the premium cases, right.
They like the easy wins.
And I'm not being nasty about any you know, US attorneys here, but that's just the name.
That's the way it works.
They're not going to take all what's left the crumbs, but the crumbs might be one hundred million dollar fraud case. It might be a human trafficking ring that has fifty women their trafficking. That might be the crumbs to the Feds, and a lot of that those issues are just being left behind. The locals don't have the resources or the time to do it. So I will really focus on getting you know, on that. That would be my top
priority is the safety of Texans. Anything else you like that, well, I'm going to work hard on everything that's important, but that would be my top priority.
Senator John Huffman, thank you for joining me.
Thank you, thank you for having me. Thank y'all.
Um.
Last, but not least, we have Aaron Rights, Republican running for Attorney General, one of the four candidates.
Aaron, welcome, happy to be here. Thank you.
The first time we met you were running for Texas House in twenty twenty. I think it's safe to say they didn't go as you planned.
No.
I had the same hairstyle back then, though it was a little done to a couple heres.
Where have you been since then?
Oh?
A lot has happened, you know. Several years ago I ran for State rep. Blessedly in God's providence, lost that race and was elevated to serve as Attorney General Ken Paxson's deputy, and I served as his he likes to call me as offensive coordinator, leading the Texas v. Biden
docket during the Biden administration. Did that for three years, served as Senator Ted Cruz's chief of staff before getting my job offer from the President to serve as the presidentially appointed Senate confirmed head of the Office of Legal Policy at DOJ. And they spent the spring season in the Trump administration before launching my bid for ag So.
Here we are.
It was what like seventyeh days that you spent those three months there? Yeah, what did you do there?
So? The Office of.
Legal Policy under statute has a very open ended mission statement, and it says the Assistant Attorney General over the Office of Legal Policy shall plan, execute, and coordinate matters of high priority to the President and the Attorney General of the United States.
That's the statutory charge.
Now, what it ends up looking like in reality is that any of the executive orders that the President promulgated in which the Department of Justice or Just Justice related issues were implicated, my office, the Office of Legal Policy at DOJ, was charged with crafting the blueprint to effectuate
that executive order for the Justice Department. So, for example, when the President wanted to reinstate or increase the proper use of the death penalty, well, obviously the Justice Department and the various US Attorney's offices around the country need to receive guidance on how to do that, and so the Office of Legal Policy will draft the initial sort of white paper internally circulated with the AG's new guidance.
Or another example, when the President drafts an executive order that says, hey, I really want to unleash American oil and gas and energy, and I want the Justice Department to revisit its various investigations or lawsuits that during the Biden era were intentionally used to disrupt or frustrate or
thwart the domestic production of oil and gas. And so then the Office of Legal Policy would go and do a full scale review of all the outstanding litigation or investigations and appeals that had to do with the energy sector, coordinating with the Environment and Natural Resources Division, and then come up with a Justice Department wide blueprint to bring life to that executive order. And so I can continue to give other examples of that that was the main
mission at the Office of Legal Policy. We also were responsible for judicial vetting, so a lot of the district Court or the Court of Appeals judges that were sort of getting floated before anything was public. We would do all the background investigations. We would do the interviews about their jurisprudence, and a lot signment with the justice related
matters that the President ran on. And then I was also sort of the third component of my job at the Justice Department under President Trump was I was sort.
Of the chief regulatory officer.
So the Justice Department and its various component parts promulgate hundreds and hundreds of pieces of federal regulations throughout the year, and our office was sort of the clearinghouse in terms of both form and substance on any regulations that were going to leave the Justice Department to get published into the Federal Register. So all of those things were things that I touched. If it was sort of a headline
making matter that came out of the DOJ. There's almost a near certainty that I was involved with Attorney General Pambondi, the Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, and various other senior leaders about crafting what would the Justice Department wide legal policy be on those particular issues.
So it was a blast.
And then look, Attorney General Ken Paxton, the you know, in the middle of the spring season, announced that he was going to be running for Senate, and as someone who served under Packson as his deputy and someone who had, you know, on behalf of the state of Texas, led some of the most consequential pieces of litigation and appeals and investigations and then done similarly at the federal level under the Justice Department, and the Trump had been you know,
I thought, you know, I wasn't there at DJ for very long, but I can't not consider this. And so the first conversation I had was with Attorney General Pambondi about what it might look like from early and then from early April to mid June when I announced, that was a period of very prayerful and deliberate due diligence. You know, what would the path to victory be? Who else is in the field, what is it?
What is it?
How do we find a replacement for me at DOJ? Is the money going to be there? What about endorsements? What does Ken Paxton think? What is et cetera? Et cetera. All the due diligence that you would imagine needs to happen before somebody steps into something of this scale was completed, and by the time mid June came around, it was green lights across the board. It made total sense politically, financially, from a grassroots perspective, Blessings from the White House, DJ,
et cetera, et cetera. And then we launched a mid June. We've had an incredible time since then.
When you first launched, a lot of the reaction I heard was dismissive and pointing back to the twenty twenty race where you'd finish forth and that seemed to be how people thought you would perform in this race, and I think it's pretty clear that it hasn't been the case. Why is this time different for you as a candidate versus twenty two.
Well, look, there's always going to be haters and losers and doubters out there, right, I mean, it's always going to be the peanut gallery, those who whether you're in politics or business, or you're an entrepreneur, whatever it is that you're doing in your life, and this applies to
everybody in this audience. You know, when you muster that courage to do something and put your name out there, there's always going to be the armchair quarterbackers who are like, man, you know whatever, we'll see how this goes or whatever, and they'll they never have what it takes to be the ones that step out right. They're always just whispering in the background. So ignore the haters and the losers. But I'll tell you, let me answer your question more directly,
A couple of things happened. Number One, I ran for State Rep. Having no clue what I was doing, no clue what I was doing right, And I went through years of additional not only life experience, but legal experience, professional experience, and political experience, having been the senior official staff leader for both Paxton during his twenty twenty two reelect and Senator Cruz as his chief during his twenty four reelect. And you learn a lot about statewide politics
at that point. And so while I jumped into this State Rep race because I just love the game, you know, I mean, I'm passionate about it, I jumped in no idea what I was doing.
Of course, it didn't work out.
Now, after nearly a decade after that launching for this bid. We've got the know how, the experience, the message, the relationships, the money, the statewide infrastructure. So there's a huge just in terms of campaign mechanics difference from back then. But really what put all of the doubters to shame is the fact that in my first two weeks as a no namer, zero percent name id, never won or held elected office.
Nothing.
Just I mean somebody with I think a pretty good resume and a good background, somebody who you would want to hire as your attorney, but somebody who's never been elected to anything. In my first two weeks as a non incumbent, non officeholder, no committee, no subcommittee, no nothing, I don't get to sit up here and say I'm gonna be Senate finance chairman, whether you like it or not, give me your money, right, I mean, some candidates in
this race can do this, right. I had no incentives to give anybody anything, and in two weeks from two hundred and fifty individual donors, I raised two point one five million dollars. Now this is not just record breaking, it is in fact record setting. No one in modern Texas politics as a no namer going from zero zero dollars and zero percent.
Name ID has ever achieved that.
Kind of fundraising from so many donors in that amount of time. Why Because when people hear about what I offer the supporters, both in terms of grassroots endorsers, small dollar, big dollar, they flock to this flag. They're excited about it. I've not been the kind of guy that's waiting in line for the next thing. Oh, I've climbed through the ranks.
I run for House, I ran for Senate, or I've been in Senate for so many some idears, I've been a chairman where we just in Texas politics often resign ourselves to prefer the person who has been waiting in line the longest.
What I offer is a degree of.
Energy around a vision for this office and the credit to back it up. And people are excited about this. I'm not a conventional politician. I'm somebody who President Trump described as a true MAGA attorney and a warrior for the Constitution. I'm a candidate for office that Senator Dick Durbin, the senior Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee when I got confirmed, described me as a danger to democracy and a menace to the rule of law, which is obviously insane,
hyperbolic left wing talking points and it's nonsense. But there's a reason why, and it's because people are excited about what I have to offer. And I think that is one of the distinguishing things about this campaign, in my candidacy in particular, is I'm the only one in this race with actual recent and relevant experience litigating, investigating, suing, defending, and appealing on all of the major issues on behalf
of the state of Texas and Texans constitutional rights. No one else in this race canssibly suggest anything approximating that the person that was just up on the stage wants to talk about a prose prosecutorial experience.
I think that's great.
Number One, that's from the early nineties, Okay, it's not recent. And number two, this job is ninety nine percent civil law. Now, I don't want to get too wonky, but look, if you're at the Texas Tribune Festival, you're a little bit wonky. Okay, So I will for just a second, All right, ninety nine percent of what the Attorney general does is civil litigation, not criminal law. If you're running on your prosecution experience, run for district attorney. But if you're running to be
the Attorney General of the State of Texas. I want to hear about your record litigating, investigating, suing, defending, and appealing on the First Amendment, the Second Amendment, the Tenth Amendment, the Fourteenth Amendment, religious liberty, redistricting, election integrity, border security. I want to hear about the appeals that you've run. I want to hear about the cases that you've brought
up to the United States Supreme Court. That's what I want to hear about, not about the bad guys that you booked in nineteen ninety three. That's great, but it has nothing to do with the job for which we are applying. Article four, Section twenty two of the Texas Constitution says, quote, the Attorney General shall represent the State of Texas in all courts and pleas. This is a legal executive branch law enforcement job.
It is not a legislative job.
And my three opponents are, for the most part, running on their legislative experience. Oh, I got this amendment through, I passed this bill, I co sponsored that thing, I killed this bad bill, I sat on this committee. Great, are you applying for a legislative job. I have no legislative record of which to speak none. You can't rape me,
you can't do any of that. However, what I do have, and what no one else in this race has, is a legal record fighting and winning on behalf of the issues that Texas cares about, Texans care about at every level of state and federal court. And so what have I learned since that time? Over the past decade or so, I've learned how to fight and win in court. I've learned how to lead litigation teams. I've learned how to
lead investigation teams. I've learned how to succeed and win at the federal, state and local level in court on behalf of Texas and on behalf of Texans. That's why President Trump looked at my record and said, I want to bring.
This guy to the senior most ranks of the DOJ.
I'm going to call this guy my true MAGA attorney and warrior for the Constitution. My opponents they wouldn't have even gotten an entry level job at the Justice Department or the Office of the Attorney General. Why Because they have no legal experience that is relevant to this position.
I do.
And that's why people are fired up about my candidacy and it's why so much has changed since those many years ago.
President has not weighed in in this race yet there's no guarantee does why not in your estimation?
Well, look, I think that he is going to want it, but President Trump typically will wait until his endorsement, his weighing in has the highest impact, and right now it's still extremely early. There's still a lot of campaigning to do. But look, it's true that he has not weighed in contemporaneously on this race, but he has weighed in on three out of the four candidates and their fitness for an office of this nature. Okay, so let's review Joan Huffman.
He doesn't have a clue who Joan Huffman is. And John Huffman I don't think has suggested any fealty or align or even alignment with the America First Law and Order agenda. Now, folks in this room might think that that's great, Republican primary voters don't. So I don't think Joan knows who he is or cares or anything. So Joan,
I would say, not even Maga credible at all. Mays purchased for himself a legislative endorsement in two thousand and one and is sending mailers around the country, quoting President Trump from twenty twenty one praising his legislative record, to which again I say, well, that's great. Are you applying for the legislature? Why do I care about your legislative record? This is a legal position. And by the way, that was almost six years ago, five years ago.
I'm a lawyer, not the math.
Okay, you know this is pract I think it's about five years it's five years ago on a legislative record.
Now, what about.
Chip Roy or Chipsoy or Flip Roy as many people call him.
I think it's a little bit mean, but people call him that. I don't know.
You can go to chipsoy dot time I tweet something, Yeah you like that. Yeah, And you can actually go to chip soy for that.
You're welcome.
Yeah, you can go to chipsoy dot org, actually, where we chronicle his run ins with the Trump administration and with President and with Attorney General Packson.
We know what President Trump feels about Chip Roy.
As late as December of twenty twenty four, President Trump, less than a year ago, President Trump was calling for Chip Roy to be booted from office. President Trump has called Chip Roy a rhino, a grand stander, a blowhard, not very talented, not very smart, egomaniac, self serving, do nothing, congressional loser. I'm not making those things up, chipsoy dot org. We got all the receipts out there if you want to see him. So we know what President Trump thinks
about Chip Roy. We also know what Chip Roy thinks about President Trump. Remember in January of twenty twenty one, when Attorney General Paxson and I were fighting to stop the stolen election, chip Roy was calling for President Trump to be impeached. He sided with Mike Pence to stop the steal. He sided with Liz Cheney when Republican leadership
was calling for her to be removed. We also know that Chip Roy was the very first United States congressman not just to campaign for Ron DeSantis for the twenty twenty four presidential cycle, but was the first Republican in Congress to recruit Ron de Santis to run for president, citing President Trump's inadequacies to serve as the next president of the United States, and then campaigned around the country
with Thomas Massey as one of his chief surrogates. Meanwhile, chip Roy was also the very first elected official to call for Attorney General Paxton to be removed from office. In that swirling month of October of twenty twenty when
what I call the coup happened. Not only was he the first elected official to call for him to be removed, but he was also then went on a speaking tour and a news media blitz from the spring to fall of twenty twenty three when the House impeached Paxton and then was in the trial with him in the Senate and was urging everybody to convict him and impeach him.
That's chip Roy.
Chip Roy will betray you, he will flip on you, he will betray this president. He will betray Ken Paxton. So yes, you are right, Brad that in the year twenty twenty five, President Trump has not weighed in on this race, but in the past several years, Trump has weighed in on the individuals that happened to be running. What has he said about me when he nominated me to the senior post of the Justice Department. He did two things. Number One, he described me as a true MAGA attorney.
And a warrior for the Constitution.
And let me be clear, that's exactly what Republican primary voters want as their next attorney general. But the reason why he called me those things, he said it in his nominating statement. He specifically praised my vast legal experience under both Attorney General Ken Paxson and Senator Cruz litigating, investigating, suing, defending, and appealing on all the major issues, in particular the fact that I led the Texas v. Biden Dockett from
twenty twenty to twenty twenty three. And I'm proud to say that I sued the forty six president forty six times and I won eighty five percent of those cases. That's why Republicans are excited about my candidacy. That's why President Trump has trusted me to lead legal teams.
My three opponents.
Not only would neither President Trump nor Attorney General Packson ever entrust them with any position of any sort of legal authority, but you wouldn't hire them as your personal attorney. Why because they have no legal experience whatsoever, and yet they're applying to be the chief legal officer of Texas. We should evaluate the criteria and fitness for the candidate
based upon the job description. The chief legal officer ought to be a very experienced attorney and I'm the only one despite being the youngest in the race, I've got the oldest hair style. Well, no, Chip, Maybe Chip's got a good haircut. I'll give him that. I'll give him that. But Maze is the only one with nice hair in the race. I'll give him that too. You know, well, Joan has nice hair. I mean for the men, Joan
looks great. But my point is, no one if you look at the criteria for this office and you put just the qualifications right, Texans are hiring the state's lawyer and I'm the only one with the background that you got the proven battle scars to show you I can do it.
You've been very aggressive in attacking each of your candidates, your opponents so far, I mean putting it lightly. Campaign one on one is usually if you're the front, you're ignoring your opponents. Sure you're not doing that. What is your assessment of the race?
Are you? Are you behind? Where are you?
I think you know on your panel that you just had you know, a few with with Joan a little while ago. I think there is like a clear like general campaign dynamic right now. Right Chip Roy is starting on day one with astronomically hired name ID. That's just a fact, right, And then depending on the poll that you look at.
You know, some camps have put up poles.
There have been some public polls, there have been some internal polls that have come from each of the camps. I'm willing to concede that there's this kind of like teen, you know, low single digit name ID where it's flipped depending on the poll. Maybe you get May's Joan rights, and maybe you get Rights May's Joan. It's just we're kind of in that sort of that cluster, right, And
so look, I understand Chip has that advantage. I think that what at least my polling has shown, and we've put the polling out on this, is that while he has high, his negatives are catastrophic, and I think that they're going to prove fatal. Are they going to prove fatal prior to March third or or instead in a runoff. I don't know, but I can tell you that they
are fatal. And when Texans learn about the things that he said about the President, or said about Paxon, or the betrayals that he's done serially over the past several years, they will not vote for him, and they become unpersuadable never chippers. Right now, the other ones my hope. Look, we're we are here in this race to make distinctions. I don't think anything that I've said is unfair. And by the way I make these distinctions in the context of the strength that I bring to the table, I
want to be clear. I'm running on my legal record. I'm running on my record litigating, investigating, suing, defending, and appealing on all of the major issues that we care about. Whether you're in this room and you care about the Second Amendment, the First Amendment, religious liberty, you know, the the ESG anti energy agenda, whether you care about you know, the woke offication of schools or the transification of our
kids K through twelve higher education. You pick your issue in this room, and I guarantee you that I have either personally litigated, or appealed or led legal teams and directed them in legal combat to deliver wins for Texas. That's something that is I have uniquely in this field. And I don't have a problem, you know, sort of dancing around the issue that there are other opponents in this field. I'm not saying anything cruel or made up.
I'm not slandering anybody, but I think the contrast in light of what I bring to the table right my background, even before I was a lawyer, as a Marine officer, as an Afghanistan War veteran, still still in the Marine Corps Reserve, as a major, the fact that even as a law student, I was leading nationally recognized student activist organizations. I was editor in chief of Conservative Law Journal, president of the Texas Federalist Society. I clerked up in the
Texas Supreme Court for now Chief Justice Jimmy Blacklock. I spent several years in private practice before becoming Ken Paxson's right hand man than Ted Cruz's right hand man, and then go in to doj to help build out the blueprints for some of the most consequential justice related things that the President ran on and then launched in his
first one hundred days in office. That's what I'm running on the fact that I also provide that in contrast to the totally inadequate, totally inadequate records of my opponents, I don't think that that's an indication of being unnecessarily or needlessly harsh against my opponents. I think they're nice people. Here's my bottom line. I think they're all nice and decent people. I like Joan, I personally get along with her. I like Mays, I like Chip. It's fine, I get
along with I've done work with all of them. My bottom line contention, though, is that they're applying for the wrong job. You don't see me applying to be a railroad commissioner. Why not because I don't think I'd be able to figure it out, but because I don't have a bad I'm not an oil and gas guy.
You don't see me running to be the lieutenant governor.
Why Because I'm not really the guy to help manage, you know, legislative processes and procedures. There are others much more qualified for that. I'm not a doctor either. You don't see me applying to take over a medical practice. That would be absurd, right, And you know often I hear this from some of my opponents on the campaign trail. They'll say things like this. One in particular, he'll say, who better to defend the laws in court than the one who has worked to pass them, to which I say,
it really makes no sense at all. You know, I'm a marine and the M four service rifle is the standard issue rifle that's given to every marine. Cult Manufacturing makes the rifle. But when we have to go to war, when we're in actual military conflict, right combat, who are
you sending overseas to go fight the enemy? The manager at CULT Manufacturing who produces the weapons, or the marine who's been deployed a dozen times, vanquished many enemies, sustained many battle scars, and won a bunch of combat ribbons. And when you ask the question that way and you answer it, we all know intuitively what the answer to that question is. Of course, you send the marine to go use the tools that CULT provided him to go
fight with. Then you understand the difference between the legislative and the executive branch. I love good legislation. I like good legislators. I support them. I like when good legislation gets through. I don't like when good legislation dies. I like when bad legislation gets killed. It's all good stuff.
But at the end of the day, the Attorney General presides over a beautifully appointed armory of tools and weapons, and the question is who is best able to elect the appropriate weapon at the appropriate time, on the appropriate terrain to go fight and win on behalf of Texas and Texans. It's the legislature that puts the weapons up on the wall. Raytheon makes the F sixteen, But you don't send Raytheon to go fly combat sorties. You send the pilot. That's the difference. I've been in legal combat.
That's what sets me apart my opponents. Yeah, Look, it's a primary. We are choosing and we are making distinctions. That's what we're doing, and that's what sets me apart. So that's what I'll say about that.
Everybody knows what an attorney general in Texas a Republican does during a democratic presidential administration.
You see the administration.
What's the role for the Texas Attorney General's office when there's a Republican administration? And will you if you win, will you be suing? Will be seeing any law suits against the Trump administration?
So no, I think you're right.
Look, I came up through the cut my teeth as Paxson's deputy.
I mean, going to war every single day against the Biden administration.
And it was based upon the belief and the conviction that everything that the Biden administration was attempting to do through regulations, through the exercise of administrative power and unlawful executive power, harmed Texas and harmed Texans, and we on behalf of the state of Texas, in order to protect our interests and our rights and our way of life and our values, had to enter into legal combat to
vindicate those rights. We were overwhelmingly successful. You're exactly right, though, Brad, that like now that we have an ally in the White House, the dynamic is very different. We no longer need to point ninety nine percent of our guns toward a hostel in the White House. Right now we have a friend in the White House. And so what that allows us to do is to turn all of our
resources internally. But that also provides us with huge resource advantages because we now have an administration that wants to realize a similar vision to what I want to realize
as the age. And there's nobody better in this race than someone who's already been vetted, selected and trusted by President Trump and by this administration to be able to be the chief legal officer of Texas to help call upon all of those resources to come benefit Texas, whether that's law enforcement or dollar resources or even just you know, political support, the bully pulpit of having the Trump administration helped to weigh in and support on the things that
we're trying to do. It allows us then to really focus on the home front rather than just go on a war against the FEDI. You're really focus on the home front. And the way that this will manifest itself is I think that it is time.
To really treat.
The big blue cities and the big blue counties in Texas as the number one threat to what it means to be Texas. So when I'm elected Attorney General, of course I'm going to partner with the Trump administration to accelerate the identification, arrest, attention, and deportation of millions of illegal aliens, hopefully tens of millions. So I'll play a critical role in that, and I'll play a critical role in partnering with the FBI, with DHS, with DOJ to
advance the America First Law and Order agenda. But in my opinion, if Texas is ever one day going to become something that is not Texas, it will be because of the abuses of power and the fraud and the waste and the liberal insanity that is coming out of places like Travis County, Harris County, Dallas County, Bear County,
and another certain blue pockets around the state. And the Attorney General plays a mission essential role in supervising, if you will, to use a broad legal term, supervising the fraud, waste, abuse, and in many cases criminality of these big blue cities in big blue counties. And I'm not going to allow Harris County or the City of Houston, or Travis County, or the City of Austin, or Dallas County or the City of Dallas and so on and so forth to
turn Texas into something that is untexan. And as the Attorney General, I maintain vast constitutional, statutory, and common law powers to be able to go against them. You know, Joan was up here talking earlier about these rogue das, and then the question came up about well what do you do about them? And what I heard at least was well, there's not much that we can do. I don't think that that's true at all. Actually, and I have experience bringing what are called quo warrento actions, right.
It's a Latin phrase which stands for show me the warrant. And when I was Packson's deputy. I've successfully brought quot WARENTO actions. This is where you file a lawsuit in court, petitioning a judge to declare a public official after having committed serial violations inconsistent with their oath or city ordinances or constitutional provisions and other various laws, that they have functionally abdicated their office and should be removed. So I'm
going to seek the removal of all Jose Garza. Maybe in this audience he may even hear my voice. Jose Garza will be target number one when I'm elected Attorney General. At the same time, Shawn Tier and Harris County, two of the most crooked and corrupt and pro criminal district attorneys in the United States of America. I will seek their removal almost immediately when I take office. And I am familiar with the tools in that armory in order to be able to do so, and I'm excited to
do it. And so look, I'm running on my record, and what I will tell you is, in the middle of my term in twenty twenty eight, it's a four year term, I'll have two years with Trump and then there's a presidential election. Now, look, I'm optimistic that a Republican will win in twenty twenty eight, and if they do, we're going to continue that integration in partnership and sort of all the ores of the boat.
Rowing in the same direction.
But if God forbid, a Democrat wins in twenty twenty eight, We're going to war. We are going to war because whatever that administration is, I don't care who's in it, they are going to try to destroy Texas, And as has been proven in our recent history and I've been in the middle of it as Paxson's deputy, the Attorney General's office provides a mission critical fire roll, firewall around those attacks to keep Texas free and prosperous and a
place that's great where Americans want to be. And I'm going to go to war, and I'm going to be the firewall. And there's no one in this race who has proven himself more capable, more able, more experienced, more effective at waging law fair when it is necessary to do so against an enemy that is occupying the White House.
We're almost done, but I do want to follow up on one thing you mentioned, the quot warr into That lawsuit is still pending that's against representive gene Wu for allegedly abandoning in his office trying to declare his seat vacant. The All Republican Supreme Court has not addressed that yet, and the longer it goes on, it seems like they're going to rule against it or at least punt on it entirely. That's within your own party at least somewhat.
See.
Yeah, but I think I think that that's more legally complicated than I think a lot of people would would would you know. Look, I clerked on the Texas Supreme Court for now Chief Justice Jimmy Blacklock. Again, this is another sort of credential and experience that I have that none of my opponents have. I mean, I have supervise
at the very highest level sort of the statewide appellate process. Look, I don't know what the Court is thinking right now, and of course it's not appropriate for them necessarily to be like commenting in real time.
But there is.
I hope that they rule in in the state's favor. I know both Paxton and Abbott both filed similar causes of action, which I think the Supreme Court took up and they joined the case together under a single cause number. But there may be an argument if I could give credit to the Texas Supreme Court for a moment.
There may be.
A basis to declare the case moot with the underlying facts are no longer apparent, and the relief that's been requested would no longer actually give relief. Like they're not they're there and they're showing up to work, right, Like maybe there are other legislative mechanisms to inflict discipline or punishment on those members, but that's an a legislative function.
But if the question is a legal, you know, a judicial branch question, then you know, if I were to if I were to defend the Texas Supreme Court, I would just say, look, there's probably an argument that it's moot, like that that dispute is no longer live, and so you know, relief granted by a by a court wouldn't actually solve anything.
So maybe you say, punt.
I know that there's a lot of the grassroots my friends are frustrated by it. I mean, I get it, but like the dispute's not there anymore, if that makes sense.
So Aaron Rights, thanks for joining us, Thanks for having me appreciate it.