Bulwark Takes - Terry Virts: Paxton is Evil & Corrupt...And He'll Win

Episode Date: August 26, 2025

Lauren Egan talks with Terry Virts, the former astronaut and fighter pilot running for Senate in Texas. Virts says he won’t back Chuck Schumer, calls Donald Trump a fascist, and argues Democrats need to refocus on middle class issues to win.

Hey guys, it's Lauren Egan here at the Bullwork. Today I have Terry Verts with me. He is running for Senate in Texas. He's a Democrat. He's running to potentially take on a Republican incumbent John Cornyn. Of course, he's also facing his own primary. So a lot's going on in Texas these day. Terry, thanks for being here. Thanks for having me on, Lauren. Yeah. So I want to talk about your campaign launch video. I found it to be really interesting for a few reasons. But the first thing I want to start out with is that you not so subtly took a bit of a jab at Democratic leadership in your video, particularly Senator Chuck Schumer. And so I'm curious if you were to win this primary and if you were to get elected to the Senate in 2026, would you vote for Schumer

to be the leader of the Democrats? Well, first of all, one of my favorite parts about that launch video was that I was in a World War II, one of the very first World War II, G. which was a lot of fun to film, and in the space shuttle cockpit, to film the video there. But the direct answer to your question is no. The Democratic Party is in really bad shape right now. On this moment demands that we get in better shape. We've got Donald Trump, and I say this very deliberately, is a fascist, and he's taking this country down the path of fascism.

And the only way to fight back against him is with a healthy Democratic Party. and the party is anything but healthy. Right now you look at all of the numbers, every poll that comes out. Trump is unpopular. He's historically unpopular on every issue, and the Democrats are worse on every issue. So we have to do something different.

I use an analogy, like I like sports. I'm a baseball guy. Or a football or whatever the team is. If you've got a talented team and you're losing badly, it's time for a new head coach. And I'm running for the Senate. And so Senator Schumer is our current leader in the Senate, I think we need new leadership. And I think it's insane to continue to try to do the same thing and hope for a different result.

And also, if the current crop of Democratic senators would take that step and replace their leadership, that would tell voters nationwide that, hey, as a party, we understand that you don't like the direction we've been going in, that you understand that we need a course correction and that we're doing that for you. I hate to take this long answer, but in my launch video, I talked about debriefing. And as an F-16 pilot, I was a fighter pilot after a mission, after a combat mission, you debrief. You figure out what went right, what went wrong. As a NASA astronaut, after a launch simulation, we would have a long debrief and figured out, you know, what went right, what went wrong, not to yell at people.

but to get better and to make sure we didn't die. And the Democratic Party has not had that debrief after the schlacking we just got a few months ago in the 2024 election. And that's something that we need to have. We need to have it publicly. And we need to tell voters that we hear you and we are getting better. Yeah. I mean, the DNC right now is conducting like a post-mortem sort of analysis on the 2024 election, which the chair, Ken Martin has said. He's going to release later this fall, I believe. But I'm curious, like, what else do you think the party needs to do? Is it like having an open and honest conversation about how Joe Biden was allowed to sort of run for reelection in the first place? Is it having, you know, more frank assessments about

where the party went wrong on working class voters? Like, what does that look like to you more specifically? Yeah, absolutely. And I applaud Chairman Martin for doing this. I think the time for the post-mortem was November of 2024, not November of 2025. My primary is in 190 days from today. Early voting starts in 176 days. So that we are well on our path to this midterm election. Look, Joe Biden hung on for too long. Everybody in America knew that he was too old to run again.

Everybody in the world, my friends in other countries were like, what are you guys doing? This guy's too old to be president. And yet we hung on for too long. And when it comes to Senator Schumer and other leaders, like you can't keep on hanging on to the same thing. We told voters he wasn't too old. The voters didn't believe us. They trusted Donald Trump more than they trusted us.

We told them that the immigration is not a problem, that if you're, you know, if you want to stop illegal immigration, you're racist. Well, right here in Texas, I was just down in the valley two days ago, a lot of Hispanic Texans said they don't want illegal immigration. They want legal immigration. Of course, they want to be treated fairly with respect as human beings, which Trump is not, by the way. But we kind of brush the immigration issue under the carpet. The economy, we said, hey, the stock market set an all-time high. 50% of Americans don't even own one share. So all the, it felt like we were gaslighting voters, and they trusted Donald Trump, which is unbelievable.

Voters know that he's a liar, but they still trusted him more than us. And that's a serious problem. And our numbers just keep on going down. They're not getting better. They're going down. And the time for course corrections now. Because unless we win this midterm election, Trump gets another two years to continue down this path of fascism.

And he is taking a sledgehammer to the foundations of our country and our democracy. And we can survive for a time, but we're not going to be able to survive indefinitely. And the time to start winning is now. and the time to make those mid-course corrections, like I've said, when I was an astronaut, I flew rendezvous and you don't just stay on the same orbit. You have to make mid-course corrections to your orbit in order to make it to your rendezvous target. We need to make those changes now and not wait and do a post-mortem after the 2026 election. I think unless we make those changes now, I think there's going to be a red wave.

The Democratic national leadership thinks that Trump's unpopular and will pick up a few house seats and they think we can't take back the Senate, well, that's no strategy. And I think rather than us picking up a few house seats, I think Republicans will, unless we make that change now. What do you think are the biggest changes that the National Party could make? And I mean, I think in your video,

and you've talked elsewhere about how you feel like Democrats are out of touch with Texas values. So I'm curious, like, to you is that the party moderating then on cultural and social issues? Like, what would those changes really look like? ahead of 2026. Sure. I love the Alyssa Slotkin model, the senator from Michigan. She's awesome. We need to stop the culture war stuff. Voters have voted. They don't want that. And we need to focus on the middle class, the working class, on strengthening our middle class. It's being

eroded terribly by billionaires. This big, beautiful bill was a giant handout to billionaires, and it's more erosion of the middle class. We need to give working class people, and we need to give poor folks the opportunity to make it into the middle class. I'm a product of the middle class. My parents were not, they weren't born there, but they made it into the middle class. I went to a public school, and that public school education is what gave me the opportunity to go to the Air Force Academy, which is what allowed me to be an F-16 pilot and test pilot, eventually astronaut. I want all Texas kids to have that opportunity. So as a party, we need to stop the culture war stuff. We need to treat everyone with kindness and respect, which by the way, this

president, Trump is just evil. They're racist. They're horrible when it comes to that. But our focus needs to be on middle class issues. That's what people care about. And we need to get back to that. Just like it worked for Senator Slotkin and in Michigan. It'll work here in Texas. I'm going to add one more quick thing. There's 3,200 counties in America. Two thousand of them are rural. Like most of Texas is rural counties, right? Bill Clinton in the 90s won more than half of the rural counties. The Democratic Party appealed to working class people. That number has been going down. Kamal Harris won 8%. And we just saw the New York Times had a story that came out that There's 30 states where you can actually register as a Republican or Democrat.

Here in Texas, you don't, but in 30 states you do. In all 30, 100% of the 30 states, Democrats lost ground in the last two presidential elections, and Republicans gained ground. It was a net 4.5 million voter loss. If I was flying the F-16, that would be a giant red warning light going off in my cockpit, right? That red warning light's going off for our party. We need to stop on the culture.

war stuff that plays well in San Francisco and Manhattan. That doesn't work here in Texas. And we need to focus on middle class issues, the middle class that's getting gutted, income inequality and all that, health care costs, education. There's a lot of issues we need to focus on. That's what voters want. And that's as a party, we need to make that change. You're obviously, you know, running a primary first. And there's going, it's probably going to be fairly competitive primary. Colin Allred has already announced that he's running. You've got other folks like maybe Beto O'Rourke who might get in the race, James Telerico. So what's your plan or how do you kind of think about how you can break through this like attention economy and all those folks

have pretty high name ID and you're a relatively, you know, you're a newcomer to politics. So what's your plan and how do you think about running this primary race? Well, the ground game plan is to get out, see the state. I've been all across the state. Last week, this week, I'm going to Austin and Dallas and Midland, and there's going to be a lot of miles put on my truck. And there's going to be a lot of podcasts I go on, a lot of AM radio. You know, I'm going to be on NBC tonight. So I'm going to do all those types of things. I'm going to get out there and connect with voters.

But the reality is, and this is another kind of tough love medicine, we haven't won here in Texas statewide in over 30 years. The great Ann Richards, you know, don't mess with Texas. she was governor here the last time a Democrat won in Texas. Pearl Jam was at the top of the charge the last time a Democrat won in Texas. And so we need to do something different. Yeah. Yeah. Well, what do you do differently, too?

Because we've been talking, I literally feel like every election cycle I write a story. This is the year for Texas. Everyone writes a story. Yeah. Like, you can Google it. I read that story too many times. So why is this year actually different? Well, a couple things.

I think, A, running the same candidate who just lost is not the right answer. I think running a proud, progressive person that can win in the very blue suburbs of Austin is not the answer for a state like Texas statewide. I think running somebody with a background like F-16 pilot and astronaut is very unique. That will connect very well across this state. And we need to try something different because if we don't, we'll keep on getting the same results. And I think the message shift to let's focus on the middle class, let's focus on economic issues. That plays really well here in Texas.

We have a big ranching economy and a farming economy, and we have these problems with screwworms. While Trump is completely gutting the federal government, we had measle outbreak here in Texas a few months ago. The news just came out today that the local officials were trying to call the CDC and no one was answering the phone because they were a fireter. They were afraid to talk about measles. And so we need a government that works for Texans. And I think that messaging, plus having a different type of person, I'm not a politician. This worked in Arizona with my friend and colleague Mark Kelly. And look, if Arizona has an astronaut senator, then Texas needs a lot.

Texas can't go without one. Yeah, I was going to ask, have you and Mark Kelly had any conversations about this? Has he given you any advice about how to run? We have, yeah. And he's talking through it. He told me, you know, I was deciding, do I want to do this or not? And he had a lot of great things to say about the job of senator. The job of senator is very different than the job of astronaut, but it's an important one.

And, you know, when I was 17, I went to the Air Force Academy. I raised my right hand to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic. We have that domestic enemy today. And we have lots of foreign enemies today. And I feel like my service needs to continue. This is the time that the country needs it. This is not necessarily. I didn't spend my whole life thinking, well, I want to go through steps A, then B, then C, to be a politician.

That's not why I'm doing this. I'm doing this because the country is in bad shape. And I'm afraid if we keep on doing the same thing here in Texas, we're going to have Senator Ken Paxton. You'd mention John Cornyn. John Cornyn is the weak and pathetic Republican who just does whatever Donald Trump tells him. Ken Paxton is the evil, mean, and corrupt man who's going to win the Republican primary. He's been indicted. He's been impeached.

He survived his impeachment by one vote in the Texas Senate. Think about that. The Texas Republican House impeached this guy just a few years ago. That's how bad he is. And he's way ahead in the polls. So Texas is going to have Senator Ken Paxton unless the Democrats do something better and actually step up and win for the first time in 30 years and doing the same thing, I don't think is going to win. If I thought so, I wouldn't be running, but I don't think it will. I think we need to try a different type of

candidate like me. Yeah. Well, when you say that too, you know, different type of candidate, we need to try something new. And you kind of alluded to this in your announcement video that you felt like the national party kind of played too much of a role in picking candidates. Talk to me about like what you mean by that. And if you're worried that the DSCC, which is the Senate arm of the Democratic campaign, like, how, like, are you worried that they're going to get involved? Have you had conversations with them? What does that process kind of look like? And do you think, you know, just to push back on that a little bit, like in a state like Texas where, and in the Senate map right now that Democrats are looking at, like, they've got to pick up

every single state that they possibly can because it's not, this map is very, very challenging for them in 2026. So, like, is there a place for the party to kind of step in and help make sure that, you know, the best candidate does emerge from the primary, especially with some of these races, you can sometimes lead to a more liberal candidate coming out of the primary that maybe isn't the best fit for the state nationwide. So talk to you about how you're thinking about that and kind of what you meant in your announcement video. Yeah, so I think the Texas voters ought to pick their senator. I think most Texas voters would object very strongly to a guy from New York picking their next senator.

I think the National Party needs more Texas, and Texas does not need any more Washington, D.C. That's for sure. Colin Allred is Chuck Schumer's hand-pick candidate. The National Party has a pretty bad track record of picking candidates. You know, they're trying to get involved in the Michigan race. Voters don't want that. They're trying to get involved in the main race.

They're trying to run somebody who I think will be 78 come election time. voters don't want that. So I think the best thing for them to do is to let the primary happen, see what the voters want. We've got 47 senators. So basically, we have lost. And so we need to let the voters choose. Look, the Democrats have tried going without a primary, and how did that work out for

us, right? Like we parachuted Kamala Harrison. We said, democracy, democracy, we have to save democracy. And then we didn't even have a primary. I think if Kamala Harris had gone through the primary process, and if she had won, we would have President Harris today. But American voters, and most of them are not Democrats, most of them are not Republicans, too. Most of them are independents. But they looked at that and they went, well, they're telling us democracy matters and we're not even having a primary.

And sometimes the National Party tries to do the same thing in Senate races. And I think it's time to let Texas voters decide if they want to run the same guy again and try the same thing. or if they want to try something different, run a fighter, pilot, and astronaut. And I think that's up to Texas voters and not up to the senator from New York. Well, Terry, thank you for being here. Good luck with everything. And keep us updated on your campaign. Thanks for having me on.

If people are interested, my website is terryverts.com. So I hope come check it out. Check out that cool launch video with the World War II Jeep and the Space Shuttle cockpit. Thank you.