A NASA Hero’s Plan to Bring Ethics Back to Washington | A Conversation with Terry Virts

of the Space Shuttle over your shoulder. You were the You did not command a Space Shuttle mission, but you were the pilot of the Space Shuttle.

also Node three, which is a living module. So the coupla is every astronaut's favorite place on the ISS.

flying it was really cool. Flying in space is very different than flying in air, and there's a lot of thing we could talk about ronevous and orbital mechanics if you want. And then coming back, the computer flies it most of the way. But I actually grabbed the stick and flew it in the air before landing, and then I handed it over to Zambo George Zamcam my commander, and he actually did the landing. But it was a rocket, it was a space ship, and then it was an airplane.

So amazing vehicle. We're never going to have anything like that again. On over thing.

that very strongly. Even though I retired from the Air Force years ago. I still take that oath seriously. And what I see happening today is crazy and it's evil. And I just the last couple of elections I supported folks, you know, with my social media or I did some speaking on a couple of different candidates. Behalfs. I just got to I can't stand to just sit around and do nothing. So this is my turn to get back. There's a Bible verse to those who much has been given, much,

we'll be expected. And I feel like I've been given a lot by this country. I've had the opportunity to fly F sixteens and to fly space shuttles. And so this is my chance to give back unless we do something different. Like you said, you know, we're not going to win as Democrats. So the Democratic Party needs to have a wake up moment. We would say we need to have a debriefing. Right as a fighter pilots or an astronaut, you need to debrief what went wrong so you can move forward.

serving people. I did a video today about my faith as a Christian, and I think I'm a Democrat because I'm a Christian, because I believe in things like do unto others as you'd have them do under yourself, you know, treat others the way you want to be treated, and serve the least of these, not the most of these. And that's the Democrats I know here in Texas are awesome. They want to govern, they want to get stuff done.

They want to fix the flooding problem that we have here on the coast, obviously, that we have in central Texas. They want to get people healthcare, they want to actually do practical things to help people out. And I think the Democratic Party nationally needs to follow the Texas model, come learn from us. So the other thing, Steve, there's a saying in the military, you go to war with the army you have, and the army we have in

America is Republicans and Democrats. We're going to pick congressman, senators, presidents who are either Republican or Democrat. That's just the reality that we have today. So you have to pick a side. And the Republican side is lost its way. He used to work for Republicans. That party's long gone, obviously, And the Democratic Party here in Texas, there's a lot of awesome Democrats, And I guess that's why I'm a Democrat.

changing that. And I'll give you a lot of credit because you went out and you said something that a lot that I think is deeply true, but like not a lot of your your peers have had the guts to say. And what what you've said, unless I've heard it wrong, is that under no circument what you said was that the first vote a a new senator takes is for their parties leaders, and under no circumstance would you vote for Chuck Schumer to remain as the as

the leader of the of the Democratic Party. And you you also said, as I was getting ready for this, that senator from Texas ought not to work uh functionally for the senator from New York, which seems like common sense, but you know is a revelation in these days, and

so I just wanted to ask you about that. Is that right that you would not support Schumer to be the Senate to be the Senate leader, and and and that and that too, you know, broadly, broadly speaking, you know you are you are pretty critical of the team that has lost two elections over the last whatever ten years.

more than they trusted Democrats. I just had breakfast with one of our leaders here in Austin, in the state Democratic Party, and he was like, Terry, I just got new polling data. We're at twenty four percent popularity. We have to change a bunch of poll numbers came out yesterday. I was looking at Donald Trump, is unpopular. Americans don't like most of what Trump stands for on every issue,

but they like Democrats even worse. And I was just in DC recently Stee a couple months ago, and the vibe at the National Democratic Party level, which is very different than Texas Democrats. These are not Texas Democrats. The National Democratic Party level thinks two things. We can't win the Senate, so let's raise a lot of money in Texas and forced Republicans to spend money here, but we're

going to lose. That's what they think. They're wrong. And the other thing is we're going to to pick up some House seats because Trump is going to be a disaster, and the opposing party always picks up house seats, so we'll get the House majority back. It's not let's change, it's not let's listen to voters. It's not let's give voters what they want, which I think is growing the

middle class and focusing on middle class issues. It's we're going to win the House, and if we in the House, they'll pat themselves on the back and talk about how great they are. That needs to change. That's a fatalistic that's not a leader that I want to follow and I think we need We have great people in the Democratic Party, Melissa Sluckin, Ruben Diego, Corey Booker, Mark Kelly. I could go on and on and on. There's some really great Democrats out there. It's time for them to lead.

To your point, Schumer's been in office for fifty years. Fifty years is too long. It's time for new leadership.

And the real question, there's one question for Democrats here in Texas. Who do we want on the ballot next November. Do we want the same guy that just lost he's running again? Do we want to try the same thing again. We haven't won here in thirty years by running kind of traditional democratic politicians, or do we want to run somebody different? And it's not like personally I'm some great person or a candidate, but my background's really unique as a fighter pilot, as a test pilot, and as an

ash or not. I have a perspective and my way of focusing on things is to get the mission done, is to just like, let's get the mission done, let's do good for the people of Texas, and that let's be a politician who's just on one side or the other bashing the other guys. So the real questions Steve, and it's one question, who do you want on the

ballot nex November? Who is John Cornin or probably Ken Paxson going to worry about more another traditional Democratic politician who just lost, or somebody with my background.

a whole spectacle that's that's playing out. But but honest to God, I mean this, if it was a type of Olympics and you were looking for the obvious gold medal candidate in a competition of the worst of the worst, and you look at that, and you look at that, Maga senate, uh, teaming with scumbags. In my view, maga scumbags. You have some of the worst in the worst, a guy like a Ted Cruz, dishonest, self interested, uh, dishonest,

self interested. And what you have to appreciate about Ken Paxton is the moment, the moment he got there right in a in again of thieves. He's the worst guy there, right, He's the he's the oussin bolt right of of crookedness, right, takes the place.

And so when when you think about this, what what is it that you're gonna say from you know, the west of the state in l pax you know l Pass, so all the way across to to Shreveport, from the you know Panhandle to North Texas, right on down to the to the southern to the Southern Tech. What what is it that you're gonna say to Texas voters that is different than what Dave heard over the last couple couple of years.

It's a giant state. The issues that affect the Premium Basin and the Eagleford Basin are oil and gas issues. The issues that affect ranchers and agriculture are the Ogolalla aquifer is drying up, you know the issues that affect Houston, our logistics, medical space, you know energy. So there's a lot of different issues in Texas and I want to address them all. I want to focus on what Texas voters need and not what the folks in watching and DC need. But I always want to bring it back

to the middle class. And Democrats have such a terrible brand, and there's a lot of people that just would never vote for a Democrat because all they ever hear is that, you know, we're left wing Marxists, we're radical communists and stuff. I can't wait for all these ads that Paxton is going to make about me. But I'm going to go out and talk to people and meet them where they're at. I'm not just going to stay on MSNBC. I got a call from Fox News about fifteen minutes ago. They

wanted to be on right now. I said, no, I got to talk to Steve Schmid. I can't go on Fox News. I'm gonna go on Fox News. I'm gonna go on AM talk radio. You talk about Ken Paxton, That's who he is. He's a He's a AM talk radio guy. He has never did anything interesting in his life. He's a he's good at talking loud and bloviating. But I'm going to go on those shows they're gonna call me a radical Marxist. I'm gonna be like, what are you talking about? I joined the Air Force to defend

Europe from communism. Literally, that's that's why I joined the Air Force. So we Democrats have to get out there and talk to people where they're at, because, as you know, if you're in your little information ecosystem, you're never going to hear anything other than what you're listening to. So our duty as Democrats is to go talk to the people in Middle and I'm going to Middland here in a few weeks and kind of meet them where they're at. Talk to me about the concept of duty. What does

that word mean to you? Well, we had to learn a lot of quotes about that duty then as a sublimest word in the English language, that was a quote we had to learn it there Force Academy. Duty is well with respect to the country, it's asked not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. As Americans, we've been given a lot and by the way, as Democrats, we need to take back patriotism. Republicans don't have patriotism, they're actually very

anti patriotic. Democrats need to be patriotic. I love my country. I am blessed to live in this most nation and human history. So I'm very patriotic. I'm very thankful, and my duty is to serve the country. Now that might be raising a good family and working hard and just contributing to society. That's a huge contribution that most that's kind of your duty. My duty as a man was

to protect my family and provide for my family. But I've been given a lot now, you know, as an Air Force F sixteen pilot and as an astronaut, so I think there's going to be a lot more expected of me. And in this case, it's running for Senate because I see, I see the disaster like to your point of what Ken Paxton is going to be, and I see a Democratic Party that can't get out of its own way and can't put forward a candidate that

can actually beat them. So this is where my duty, at this moment in my life is to jump in the battle. And you know, running for office is not necessarily the most fun thing that you could possibly do. You've seen it up close a lot more than I have. But it's a duty. And at the end of the day, I think we all, everybody listening to this who's an American, we all owe a lot to our country and we should think about how we can give back to that.

It might be working as a as a volunteer at polls, you know, helping people vote, might be working at your church or serving at a soup kitchen or whatever it is, but we we should all think about how we can give back because this country's given all of us a lot.

And I asked that because right before we were on you were talking to me about this obligation you feel around the American dream, that it was a lived experience for you and it's something that's fading too dark for a lot of people.

I had a poster of the old Red, white and Blue IF sixteen on my wall. When I was thirteen, a friend said, hey, you should read the right stuff. So I read Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff. The book The movie, by the way, is spectacular, and it talked about how those guys had been fighter pilots and then test pilots and astronauts, and I didn't know what to do. You know, my mom was a secretary. My parents were divorced. She never graduated from high school. I grew up in

poverty and my dad never went to college. So I was the first person in my immediate family to go to college. And I followed that right stuff path through F sixteen's test pilot and I was at Edwards Air Force Base as a test pilot, and the application process had taken a year. Everything was really delayed for a lot of reasons, and everybody knew I was one of the finalists at Edwards Air Force Base. Everybody told me that I had no chance of getting picked because I

was the youngest guy by far. I was too young, I wasn't experienced enough, I wasn't good looking enough. So everybody knew. And the phone call came in and if you got a call from the chief astronaut, you got selected, and if you got a call from the HR lady,

you didn't get picked. So I get this call, you know, and it's from Charlie Precourt, the chief astronaut, and I was in a room we were debriefing our mission, and there was all these engineers around me, and I was talking about this F sixteen sorty I had just flown and like I turned bright red and I was on the phone, yes sir, and he goes, hey, Terry, are you still interested in coming down to Houston? And I

was like, let me think about that. Yes, and anyway, so he said, but don't tell anybody because Congress still needs to approve it. It's secret, but you'll show up blah blah blah. So yes, sir, yes or yes sir. And I hung up and everybody was staring. There's like ten guys starring at me. What was that? And I was like nothing. And then about a minute later, on the loudspeaker, you know, celebration party for Captain verts in the ten minutes or something. So that's how I found out. I

went home. There was a lot of screaming and crying and excitement. That was a pretty cool That was a pretty cool day. One of my one of my favorite.

political candidates backstage before debates. I've always said, right in that awkward moment of silence, right, whether it's John McCain getting ready to walk out national debate stage, whatever, you know, I'll say, well, do you know do you know the Alan Shepherd prayer? And invariably they go no, And I and I tell the story about Alan Shepherd's prayer over the open mic, which was not relayed precisely to the audience by the news pastors because because the prayer was

Dear God, please don't let me fuck this up. And so when you think about the Alan Shepherd prayer, and you you apply it the politics, and in a two party system where one of the parties is the playground of Donald Trump, and so by necessity the other party must oppose that, and the other party has failed in that mission to stop it. What I would say is

that the Lord did not hear their prayer. Uh. You know, to say, to say, to say the least, and and so why why do you think that in the state of Texas, which produced Lyndon Johnson and Ann Richards and Barbara Jordan, that the Democratic Party in the age of Trump, who has a thirty eight thirty six percent approval level and some polls forty percent, which also sucks in the in the latest one.

What was your call? So I was I was Flanders like Homer's I should have my first call signed Flying callsign was cave Man and I was probably a lot more of a Homer Simpson kind of guy. But they call me Flanders, which is Homer's Christian neighbor. It was, Yeah, anyway, there's a whole story there. So, like I said, before you go to war with the army you have and the army we have. You're either on Team Trump or you're a Democrat. I mean, you could be an independent.

You're not going to win a statewide election in Texas in twenty twenty six. The primaries in two hundred and fifteen days, so we are on the clock. And the Democratic Party traditionally, I know you're a historian. I'm a JFK Democrat. You know, we choose to go to the moon and do the harder things. It's the party of the working people. And my fat both my grandfathers were

union men. They talked about it their whole lives. Both my parents were in unions, briefly, my cousin is a longtime union person, builds drones for north for the Navy, for Northrop Crumben. So my family is a Union family and that Traditionally, the Democratic Party has been the party of the working class. Unfortunately, in recent years it has devolved into kind of a coastal elite, you know, college educated, out of touch party. A friend of mine Adam Frish,

he ran against Lauren Bobert in Colorado. He has a great statistic. There are thirty two hundred counties in America. Two thousand of them are rural, you know country out in the country counties, two thousand. Bill Clinton in the nineties won fifty two percent. Bill Clinton won a majority of rural counties. That number has been going down to where Kamala Harris won eight percent eight percent. Basically none the entire middle of America has given up on the

Democratic Party, and I want to help. I want to be a part of leading the party back to the people because the policies that I'm going to have as a Democrat, I think that the Democratic Party have actually help working Americans. They help farmers, they help mechanics, they help policemen, and we need to get the message out that we're going to be the party for them, and that Trump and the MAGA Republicans are the party of billionaires, because that's actually what they are. They lie and they

say they're the party of the working people. They're not. The policies they have benefit the wealthy. And I want to bring the party back to just a middle class. None of the culture war stuff. You know, I'm the Democrat you don't have to be afraid of. I've got a nine mil sitting right next to my bed. It's locked, it's safe, the magazine's not in the weapon, But I'm not afraid of guns. That's the kind of Democrat that American needs to get back the middle of the country.

And once we do that, if we do this right, we'll be winning elections two thirds to one third. But we need to have leaders that have the right message and that have the right beliefs.

national broadcast, but really it's an earthwide broadcast. And in this grainy black and white imagery coming from the spacecraft is the three astronauts and they read from the Book of Genesis, and they take and show the world the

first image of the Earth. And that photograph is this, and if it was taken by Bill Anders, if you passed away, I think this past year in in this picture of the of the Earth, is the first time the planet is seen set as a sphere against the blackness of space by human eyes.

My crewmates, Samantha Christoph Friday, an Italian astronaut, I think put it best. She said, we all need to be crewmates on Spaceship Earth and not just passengers, so we should work together. But the other thing is that It showed me the importance of having systems that work for people. When you look at Earth during the daytime, you can't see people, and if you know what you're looking at, if you're looking at London and New York and you squint at it, you can see the concrete cities, but

you don't really see people during the daytime. You see people at night time in city lights. And I think everybody has seen, you know, these astronauts from the space station images of city lights. And I thought about it for a few days and I realized that what I was looking at is not population. What you're looking at really as wealth, and really what you're looking at is corruption or lack of corruption, or a political system that works or one that isn't. Because in places like Africa,

especially Central Africa, there are no lights on. There's a lot of people there. There's a billion people in Africa, there's no lights on. Of course, most of those governments are terribly corrupt. North Korea, South Korea is the most visible one. South Korea is this bright, vibrant, you know, very modern economy. Birth Free is just a black hole with a little white dot where Pyongyang is. So I

never expected to see politics from space. But after I thought about it for a while, I realized that's exactly what I'm doing. And so in America we need to realize, let's have a system that is not corrupt, which, of course, this administration is the most corrupt administration in America history. They put Rockefeller in JP Morgan in the eighteen hundreds to shame. We need to get back to systems that work for people growing in the middle class. Really, those

city lights are a function of middle class. Like that means that there most of the people in that region have some basic level of wealth. I didn't expect that I'd see that from space. It's a lot more fun to talk about the beautiful oceans and mountains and rivers in the galaxy and the Aurora. The video I did yesterday on my YouTube was about seeing the Aurora from space.

But that's a perspective that's pretty unique. I mean, there's only been a handful of politicians John Glenn and Mark Kelly and Harrison Schmidt was a Senator for term who have had that perspective. And Howison Schmid walked on the moon right he did. He was Originally it was all fighter pilots back in the sixties, and he was like one of the first scientists astronauts. He was a geologist.

They actually made those guys go through pilot training, so they started hiring scientists, but they made him go through Air Force, you know, fighter jet pilot training, which is pretty cool. But he's a good guy like I like Jack Shmid a lot.

a man named Avner Less said. And he was a German Jew who became an Israeli policeman and was the man who interrogated at Off Hikman for two hundred and seventy five hours and twenty years after Iikman is hung, Less Is asked, did you have any takeaways from the experience, and he says, yeah, it gave me my faith in democracy because there are Atoll Hikemans everywhere. They're all around us.

But in the democracy they're perfectly harmless. They turn deadly in an instant in a dictatorship of the left and a dictatorship of the right. And really coming to that conclusion in the broader context about have there is no escaping politics. Even from space is a really remarkable is a remarkable thing. And I know you were in space with Russian astronauts, and I know you were up there when the war in Ukraine had started.

window in the Russian segment, which is pretty cool. And as you go over Western Europe there's a lot of lights. The further east you go there's less lights because obviously Eastern e is not as wealthy as Western Europe, and all of a sudden you could see these red flashes on the ground and it was like, oh my god, I can't believe what we're watching. We didn't say anything. Both of us our eyes got big, and we just watched these bombs. We were watching Russians kill Ukrainians a

decade ago, and we didn't say anything. It was a very profound moment. And when we got back to Earth, Sasha and also a lady named Ulna Suova that I was with in space, and another guy named Max Sarayav who I was also with in space on my first Space Shuttle mission, and also some other cosmots. But those three that I flew with, they went and joined Putin's political party, joined the DUMO, which is the Russian Congress, and are promoting the war. And it's the most profoundly

angering thing I've ever experienced. Because they know better. They lived in the West, they speak English, they know that America doesn't care about Russia. And there's all this propaganda there that we're out there get Russia, that the West is against someone or whatever. The reality is, we don't care about him. Just please don't invade Europe. And kill your neighbors. And yet so they know better and they still are promoting these lies. It's like my opponent John Cornyn.

John Cornyan knows better. He knows that Pete Haggs shouldn't be Secretary of Defense. He knows that Tulsea Gabbard and Christy know him, and all the rest of them shouldn't be Who's the latest guy, Joe Kent. These guys shouldn't be in office. He knows that the Big Bill is going to hurt Texans, and yet he still does the wrong thing because he wants political power. These cosmonauts know better, they still want they do the wrong thing because they

want apartments in Moscow and jobs for their kids. So that's something I don't have tolerance for people who don't do the right thing. And like I said, you could see that in a certain extent from space in terms of city lights or lack of city lights. I'm going to talk about Ice will probably get to ice on it. But yeah, the Russian cosmonauts, there are a few good ones. There's very few good ones. Most of them are just

on team putin actively promoting it. We just launched a Russian Air Force officer who's you know, promoting Putin in the war launching them on our on our spaceships. We shouldn't be doing that. I think it's immoral.

violated the constitution and came back. And the Russians at that time were out protesting and there was this kind of army dressed up like Navy seals. They had mass son and they came out and I left and they dispersed the crowd. So the Russians have this, it's called mchis. They had different ones, and now in America, steep, we have the same thing. Guys who are not these are not the Navy seals, These are not green berets. These are kind of the bottom of the barrel. You've talked

about this before, wearing masks. Who wears a mask besides Batman? I mean, this is America. One of the laws, one of the first laws I'm going to vote for, is to outlaw masks. If you're a police officer, show your face and wear your badge prominently displayed. And here's the problem. In Russia, they've had so much propaganda. There's so many thousands or millions of men really that have served in these secret police organizations. Even when Putin's gone, it's going

to be hard to get rid of that culture. And we're doing the same thing here in America. We're exploding ice. The budget for ICE is just going through the roof, and we're going to have all of these people who are trained to be cruel, who are trained to be you know, plain clothes grab people off the street, throwing amarked cars. And so I worry about the future of our country now that we have this big group of

people who are frankly being trained to do evil. So that's that's something no one ever I haven't heard anyone else to talk about that. But I worry about the implications of all of these people throughout our government. Who, by the way, let's talk about that. If you get if you have a serious job in the government, if you're a top executive, you got your job by lying.

You had to pass this loyalty test. And as part of that loyalty test, my friends went through it, they had to say Donald Trump won the twenty twenty election. So every senior government leader we had literally got their job by lying. And now we have ICE, which is the secret police. Getting rid of that and changing our culture back to a truly American culture. That's going to be one of many challenges that the next hopefully democratic president has.

decisions on a split second during that time. And I think when you hire a congressman or that's what you're doing as a voter. You're hiring your leaders and your representatives. When you hire a senator, certainly when you hire a president,

you're hiring them for their judgment. Because they can have tax policies and healthcare policies whatever, they'll have their whole list of programs, but what you really need them is when something comes up, when there's some unknown thing, when nine to eleven happens or whatever, are they going to make the right decision? And that's what it's all about and are they going to decide what their party wants.

Are they going to represent the people or are they going to represent some guy in Washington, DC, some guy in mar A Lago. And unfortunately, too many of our politicians do that the only thing that matters for them is getting elected. And I'd rather, I've heard you say this before, I'd rather lose an election than say the wrong thing. I'd rather you know, do it. I'd rather tell the truth and talk straight about things then lie and gravel just to just to get a job. This

is about telling the truth and talking straight. And we need to hire leaders who are willing to stand up, to say something that might be popular, to say something that goes against their party, but to do the right things. Because John Cornyn knows that what Ice is doing is wrong. He knows that taking construction workers and farm workers off the streets here in Houston, Texas is wrong, and yet he's still voting for it. The entire Republican Party is

who is not in the Republican Party. Maybe Don Bacon. Is he the last one? You know a few years ago there was Adam Kinsinger and Liz Cheney and others. They're all gone now, and so we need Democrats who will do the right thing and not grabble to their party. And we need Republicans who will do the right thing, Like is there nobody left who's willing to serve their people? And I think when you talk about judgment, that's judgment. You're willing to do the right thing even when it's not popular.

came out of that into the middle class. When I was in fourth grade, they bought a house they couldn't afford. It was a great house, but it was old. Like I had a chop wood all summer and then we had a wood stove in the winter for heat. But it was in a good school district. So I literally from fourth grade on through high school, I went to really good public schools. And that's why I got into the Air Force Academy, and that's why I became an F sixteen pilot, and that's why I became a test

pilot and astronaut. So I am literally the best of the American middle class. My parents came out of poverty into that in public education allowed me to have the amazing experiences that I did, and I want to grow that. I want tax policies that are favorable for the middle class, not just billionaires. This big beautiful bill was discussing biggest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in our in our history. I want health care that's affordable

health care. In America, we spend more than twice what Japan and Europe does for worse outcomes, you know. I want families to have health care that if their kid breaks an arm, they don't go bankrupt, and a lot too many families are living in that situation. I want an education system that strengthens public education. Here in Texas, they're tearing public education down with this ridiculous voucher bill that Greg Abbott promoted. So, and I want a democracy

that works. I just saw a statistic. I'm always reading stats, eighty eight percent. Basically, everybody in America thinks our political system is broken. There's some things we need to do to fix that. I think term limits, I think getting money out. You know this crypto bill that just passed, and it had merits to it, but the crypto industry poured a couple hundred million dollars into politics, and all the politicians voted for it. Like that stuff needs to stop.

The worst of all is stock trading. When you serve in Congress or the Senate, you're not getting rich person salary. You're getting middle class salary. And yet too many people are coming out of Congress wealthy, beyond your dream. So that stock trading needs to needs to stop. The Republican Party got members are not voting for that. So those are the types of policies I want to support that will help the middle class. Last question I have for.

dot com, and it'd be great to interact. I'm making a lot of content trying to talk about common sense issues and things that people want to hear about, and also calling out the Mega Party for some of the for many of the ridiculous things that they're doing.

different Democratic leadership in charge of it. How imporant is that issue as as the as like the first issue I mean, one of the things that happened is, you know, you go to washing can everybody will say to you, well, that's a that's important issue, Senator Verts, but you know we have to we have to that'll have to wait

a little bit. Right, How how important do you think that ethics is and ethics reform and all of this is in terms of that suite of issues that are that are going to have to be dealt with.

all that stuff. And NASA there was a system called Saturn, and my buddies we laugh, like, imagine if there was a satur In question, you're a government contractor, are you allowed to give hundreds of millions of dollars to the president and then have him give you contracts. Is that ethical? Like? Of course it's not ethical. Of course the stuff we're

seeing is ridiculous. The Trump boys are going around the world doing multi billion dollar deals for his golf courses and his hotels, and now those countries get favorable tariff treatment, those countries get weapons. It's the basic conflict of interest, and we need to stop that because it's undermining our moral authority is a country. How can we yell at Ukraine for corruption when the very top of the American government is the most corrupt that we've ever had in

our nascentce history. Ethics reform, corruption reform is going to be I hate to say my top party because there's so many top parties, but it's absolutely up there. Anything you want to close out with This moment demands that we get our politics right. And if the Democrats keep on doing the same old thing, we're going to keep on getting the same old results. Here in Texas. We haven't won for thirty years. Unless we win in Texas, we're not going to have fifty one centers in the

US Senate. And until we get the fifty one, all we can do is give twenty four hour filibuster speeches, or all we can do is write angrily written tweets. We have to get a majority. That means we have to win in Texas. And the question is who do we want to put on the ballot the primaries in two hundred and fifteen days. It's March third. But the real question is who do we want on the ballot next November to beat Ken Paxton or John Cornyn or whoever it is. Because until we do that, we can't

fight back. And I think I'm the best candidate to put on the ballot. I think of all these other kind of typical Democratic politicians. A friend of mine works in the Paxston campaign. He's like, yeah, we could care less about these democratic names. They're not worried at all about the typical Democratic politicians. I think they worry about me. So the question is who do you want on the ballot next November. I think I'm the right candidate to put on that ballot to win in a year and

a half. Leave it there.