You're listening to comedy central. M Better, welcome back to the day show. Thank you for having me back. You are back on the campaign trail, this time for a different position, governor of Texas. It is uh yeah, it's an interesting time to be dealing with politics in Texas, because I feel like everything is happening in and around Texas. So let's let's jump straight into it. You know, you run before. You came super close, you didn't take it. What do you think will be different this time and why?
It's really about where Texas is and what Texans are willing to do about it. So, Um, you mentioned all these things that are coming to a head in our state. We have the most extreme abortion ban in America, no exception for raper. Incest begins at conception. Um, speaking of democracy and the right to vote, it is harder to cast a ballot or get on the roles in Texas and any other state in the union. It's been seventeen weeks since those nineteen kids and two teachers were killed
in Uvaldi. Gun violence the leading cause of death for kids and teenagers in that state. But instead of succumbing to the temptation to despair or submitting to this. Texans are rising up and they're volunteering on this campaign, they're knocking on doors, they're turning out in record numbers and they're gonna win this election in November, which is really
a referendum on all these issues. Are we going to be defined by this extremism and our hatred and the way that we make each other afraid of one another? Are we gonna come together and do big things together? So it's it's an exciting time to be doing this and a great state to be in, and we're gonna win. You know, there's there's no there's no denying that you. You've always had a charismatic way about you. There's no
denying that you've been really popular on the national stage. Unfortunately, sometimes it feels like the majority of Texas isn't exactly on the same page that you. You know, a good example is is the busting stunt that's happening right now, you know, with Greg Abbott, bussing people to all over the country to prove a point. You're against that. You've spoken out against it multiple times, but more than fifty of Texans go yeah, this is the right move because
it sends a message to Washington D C? How do you? You know? How do you how do you work that in your mind, the idea that you are opposed to so many Texans where they say no, this is actually what we want. I actually think that this extremism that we see in our current governor and government in Texas is reflective of the fact that we have a badly broken democracy. Seven million Texans didn't vote in the last election.
In seven million who are eligible to did not. And if a majority right now thinks that busting migrants to D C or Chicago is a good idea, maybe, as you suggested, it's a reflection of the fact that our immigration system is so badly broken and people want to
do something. What I propose, though, is, instead of these stunts, which are so cruel and unkind, not just to those migrants but to those of us who live in Texas, to the Border Patrol agents who we put on their backs this entire immigration system that is so badly broken, what if instead, we had, for example, a Texas based guest worker program or the ability to join family and not wait twenty years in line, which is the back of the line in Mexico or India or the Philippines
to come to the US today. What if you were trying to claim asylum, you didn't wait six years for your claim to be adjudicated, which is the current way time? What if Texas led the way in rewriting our immigration laws to reflect our values, our interests, in our needs, and we say look, you want to come to this country, you must follow our laws, but our laws will follow our values. I Want Texas to lead on that. It's it's admirable. You know I I think. I think it's admirable.
I I think you're proposing solutions, but it seems like America is getting to a place where people are less enthused by long term plans and more riled up by an immediate idea that seems like it will work, even if it may not. So you know you're out there, you're speaking to people. I know that you knock on
doors and talks people personally. So I'd love to know have you met a person who doesn't agree with you on immigration, doesn't agree with you on these issues, and has changed their mind, and what was it that made them change their mind? It's interesting. We we were in a town called hemp hill in East Texas and in that county. They literally have about three percent high speed Internet access, so huge infrastructure problems there. It's a very
red Republican Rural County. So half the group that comes out is Republican. You know, twenty or wearing make America great against shirts and Donald Trump hats on and this guy stands up and asked a very legitimate question. He's wearing a trump hat. He said my mom immigrated to this country from Canada and to renew her green card we had to stand in this line every so often. She worked three jobs because my dad, who was disabled in World War Two fighting for this country, could not work.
I started working when I was fourteen years old. We we played by the rules, we followed the law and I don't know why Batto people are coming in between ports of entry right now and and not following our laws. And I think his anger was legitimate, his experience was valid and he asked a really good question. And so we talked about you know, is busting migrants fixing this problem at all? Will know, is building a mile and a half of border wall, which is what Greg Abbott
has done, helping anything? Well, no, I guess it's not. Well, what if we address the fact that people have legitimate reasons to want to come here to work or to join family or to seek asylum in a country that is comprised by and large, of asylum seekers and refugees. And what if we in Texas, you, as a Republican and I, as a Democrat, actually lead on this issue?
And he's nodding his head and comes over at the end of the meeting, shakes my hand and says, you know what, you might have earned my vote by coming out here to Hemphill and having this conversation. So it works, so it dialogue works. How do you then bring people together true solve an issue that you know you talk about in this book, the fights for voting rights. Where America is particularly divided right now is how the policies
view the issue of voting. You Have Donald Trump and the Republicans saying that the re election was stolen, there were millions of illegal votes. None of this has been proven. In fact the opposite has been proven, you know. And and then at the same time you have Republicans saying, well, if if Democrats say that we should accept the elections, why don't they accept the elections? You know, after they lose. Stacey Abrams will say it wasn't legitimate. You know, how
do you then break that? How do you get beyond that dialogue to even begin the conversation of having everybody votes? It helps for me at least, to understand that not only can we do what you just described, Um, we've done it before against much longer odds. One of the stories that I tell in this book we've got to try, is about a black doctor, Nel Passo Lawrence Nixon, who never missed an election until the democratic controlled legislature in
outlaws voting by Black Texans. Nonetheless, he pays his poll tax. The next year shows up, they say, Dr Nixon, you know we can't let you vote and he says, I know you can't, but I've got to try. For the next twenty years he fights this battle, a very lonely one, takes it to the Supreme Court, wins two signal victories there and by ninety four he's helped to integrate elections once again in Texas and has laid the path for lb j to work on and ultimately signed the Voting
Rights Act into law in nineteen sixty five. So if that guy could do it against those odds. And who are we now in Texas who have inherited his sacrifice and his service and his struggle? We can't squander it. We have to build on it and make sure that we win it back. So in our campaign we're targeting the very voters who are themselves the targets of suppression intimidation, to bring them in and make them the margin of victory on election night. We're gonna get our democracy back.
That's above difficult. Marsters are trying well, so the best of last tanker someoney's drinning on the show and trapping out to try M hm. The daily show with Trevor Noah ears edition. Subscribe to the daily show on Youtube for exclusive content and stream full episodes anytime on paramount plus. This has been a comedy central podcast.