No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Trump screws himself with stunning admission on air

Episode Date: May 21, 2023

Trump screws himself while tacking right in his primary fight against DeSantis. Brian interviews US Senate candidate in Texas, Democrat Colin Allred, about his response to Ted Cruz’s stance on abortion rights, how he plans on overcoming Beto’s margin in the state, and how to bring Texas’ Latino voters back into the fold. And Democratic candidate for attorney general in Mississippi, Greta Kemp Martin, joins to discuss the massive scandal that Mississippi Republicans are dealing with right now and why that deep red state might actually be poised for a flip this next election.Support Colin Allred: https://colinallred.com/Support Greta Kemp Martin: https://www.gretaforag.com/Shop merch: https://briantylercohen.com/shopYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/briantylercohenTwitter: https://twitter.com/briantylercohenFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/briantylercohenInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/briantylercohenPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/briantylercohenNewsletter: https://www.briantylercohen.com/sign-upWritten by Brian Tyler CohenProduced by Sam GraberRecorded in Los Angeles, CASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today we're going to talk about Trump screwing himself with a really misguided comment during his primary fight with Ronda Santis. I interview U.S. Senate candidate in Texas, Colin Alrett, about his response to Ted Cruz's stance on abortion, how he plans on overcoming Beto's margin in the state, and how to bring Texas as Latino voters back into the fold. And I'm joined by Democratic candidate for Attorney General Mississippi, Greta Kent Martin, about the massive scandal that Mississippi Republicans are dealing with right now and why deep red Mississippi might actually be poised for a flip this next election. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. So Ron DeSantis is reportedly jumping into the race this week. I've seen dates of the 24th, the 25th, the 29th, all of which is to say it is very likely happening within days.

And what's especially significant about this is the impact that it's having on Trump. Because thanks to this perceived threat by DeSantis, Trump is now forced to continue running to the right. And so because of that, this is a little tidbit that we got just days ago. And I want to ask also, do you think that six weeks is going too far? Is that going to doom Republicans with the moderates in this country when it comes to 2024? Rob, first of all, I'm the one that got rid of Roe v. Wade, and everybody said that was an impossible thing to do. I put on three Supreme Court justices. Very few people have had that privilege or honor, and they are terrific people,

and they happen to believe that Roe v. Wade should not be there. It's been now brought back to the states. And what I've done is I've given the pro-life people who are wonderful people and loving people. I've given them the power of negotiation because now they're able to negotiate something that's going to be very important. Yeah, nothing like the frontrunner for the Republican nomination coming out and owning up to the least popular decision in modern American history. Like, let's be clear, because of the Dobbs decision overturning Roe, which Trump just took full credit for, Republicans turned a midterm election cycle where Democrats had full control of government, which history almost always promises would be a route for Republicans,

and a dismal approval rating for Biden, they turn that into the worst midterm performance for a party out of power in our lifetimes. Their big red wave devolved into failing to flip the Senate and taking the House by a margin so small that Kevin McCarthy is forced to cling on to people like George Santos. Like that's how slim their majority is. So the notion that Trump would take credit for that for overturning Roe doesn't exactly bode well for the guy if he eventually heads into the general election.

And yet, this really isn't a surprise, given the fact that the only way to win a Republican primary to even be able to get to the general election is just to sprint so far to the right that you fall off a cliff. Even on the off chance that DeSantis comes out of this primary cycle ahead of Trump, the guy also signed a six-week abortion banning to law just a few weeks ago. And that's to say nothing of his don't say gay law, banning the acknowledgement of the existence of LGBT Americans in the classroom. It's to say nothing of his voter fraud task force, which has been rounding up mostly minority Floridians

and arresting them when they thought they could legally vote. And the list goes on, right? So these guys will continue to outflank each other on the right all while racking up these records that are so far off the cliff, so extreme that they are making Ronald Reagan look like a communist. And so as we head into 2024, we got to be able to tow the line of recognizing that, A, yes, Trump and DeSantis are not making their lives any easier

by trying to outflank each other on the right right now. but also B, they still can win. And I know it's easy to be like, damn, these guys are just screwing themselves in the general. And to be clear, I wholeheartedly believe that they are. But we would be crazy to think that either one of them couldn't still win a general election. These things are decided by like a few thousand votes in four states.

That's all. And who knows what can happen between now and November 2024. So let's not pretend that we have anything in the bag. But our job throughout all of this stays the same. It is to keep calling this stuff out, to make sure everyone is aware of the extremism that has pervaded the GOP from abortion bans to book bans to LGBT bans to college campus voting bans to student ID bans to even right now trying to make the U.S. default on its debt.

The damage that they can cause with even the smallest amount of power is remarkable. And the damage that they have caused in places where they do have power is unmistakable. From Florida to Texas, these Republicans are turning their states into these little cristo-fascist fever dreams. So if Trump wants to brag about banning abortion to win the primary, we should all make sure that everyone remembers that when the primary is actually over. Next up is my interview with Colin Allred. Now we've got Texas congressman and now candidate for the U.S. Senate in Texas, Colin Allred.

Thanks so much for taking the time. Yeah, thanks, Brian. Ted Cruz has come out in support of banning abortions in all cases, even in cases of rape or incest. Is that where the people of Texas stand as far as abortion rights are concerned? No, it's not. And, you know, my wife and I have had two babies in Texas in the last five years. And, you know, you hold your breath throughout that entire process.

Every time you have to go to the doctor and have a test done or an ultrasound, you're hoping that the doctor's going to tell you that it looks fine. And I can't imagine if during that process we had run into a problem that then needed to have some kind of action taken. And the question wouldn't be whether I was the best thing for my wife's health or even maybe for the baby's health, but what politicians in Austin or folks like Ted Cruz think should be done. And it's the extremism of the position that if you're raped or a victim of incest, there's nothing you can do about it.

And also just the fact that it doesn't trust women to make their own decisions about their bodies. Texans have a long history of believing in leaving folks alone, and we're building independence and basically going our own way. This is the opposite of conservatism. It's reaching into these most intimate and important decisions and telling folks what they can and can't do. Has there ever been a moment since you've been on the campaign trail, which I know hasn't been long thus far, but where the people that you've spoken to have had trouble reconciling, even people on the right have had trouble reconciling this idea that they are for small government, and yet now all of these Republican politicians like Ted Cruz are just espousing the most

big government policies that you can possibly imagine, inserting themselves between the people of Texas and their doctors. That's right. Well, it's come up quite a bit over my time in Congress and my campaigns, and of course, as part of this, that there's a growing discomfort between folks who actually do believe in small government or small C conservatives and who recognize that this, I guess you can call it a MAGA movement,

whatever the direction that they're going in is, is not consistent with that. You can also extend it to, you know, banning of books and saying, well, we're going to tell, you know, individual school districts what they can and can't teach. It's not, our state has 30 million people in it. And we have some of the biggest cities, literally in the country,

and some of the smallest and most rural and kind of isolated places in the country. There's no one-size-fits-all solution for a state like that. But what we've seen repeatedly, of course, particularly most damningly, I think, in the choice context, is our state trying to tell individual cities, individual municipalities, everything that they can do, taking over every single function. Right now they're trying to take over basically elections in Harris County, which is where Houston is, because they know it's one of our biggest and most diverse counties where so many Democratic votes come out of, and they're afraid of it.

Now, you know, Ted obviously made headlines by running off to Cancun during a winter freeze. He cheered on the mob on January 6th. I guess what's your message to Texas voters just on who this guy has shown himself to be? Well, it's that we can't afford six more years of this, and we don't have to. And one thing that I feel strongly, and that comes up a lot when I talk about. the folks, that they're embarrassed by our senator. And as I said in my opening in video, we don't have to be embarrassed by our center. We can get a new one.

That's the beauty of our democracy, is that if you prove during the course of your term that you're not fit for the office, then when your next election comes up, you should have a tough race and you should lose. And that's what we're going to do here. You know, the fact that Ted Cruz left our state when Texans were freezing in the dark is funny and it makes people laugh. But it's also deeply not funny because there was so much to do during that freeze that a United States Senator could have done to try and marshal resources, working with FEMA, working with our state organizations responsible for public safety to try and help people. There are people in my district who were dying from carbon monoxide poisoning because they were bringing generators indoors to try and keep their power running.

And it's indicative of sort of the arrogance and the callousness in which he has served in the Senate. That's also why he's doing three podcasts a week, Ryan. He's probably one of your biggest competitors in terms of the amount of content that he's putting out. He's got something else to be doing and he's got a job to be doing and he's not doing it. Well, a big part of why I think politicians like Ted Cruz, among other Republicans, feel like they don't have to is because obviously at the same time that they're promoting all of these anti-democratic agenda items, they're insulating themselves from any accountability. So Republicans in the Texas state legislature have moved to ban polling places on college campuses.

What does it say that Republicans are so afraid of young people exercising their rights to vote? Yeah, well, I was a voting rights lawyer after my NFL career and before I came to Congress. And I've seen this building for years, systematic attempts to make it harder for young people to vote, whether that's in the vote by mail context, knowing that a lot of these kids are going to try and vote by mail or now directly banning, trying to ban, putting pulling places on campus, and saying that it's for their safety, while at the same time voting to allow guns on those campuses with no restriction. So which one is it? It's obviously not about safety. It's about trying to target an element of the vote that you think is not going to vote for you. And that's just not the way

politics works. It's the way a democracy works. And a democracy, you allow folks to come out, express themselves, be engaged in their democracy. And if you don't win that one, you come back the next time. You change your ideas. You change your candidates, maybe some, and you go again. What we're seeing consistently, and I've seen this build over the last decade, really, the floodgates opened after the Shelby County decision, you know, gutted the Voting Rights Act, is instead of trying to change your positions or change your ideas to match the electorate,

trying to change the electorate to match what you think you want to get away with. I guess the main question here that I think a lot of people would look at is, for example, Beto came close to winning his races, but couldn't quite get there. How will your campaign reach the last few percentage points of people in Texas that Beto couldn't reach? Yeah. Well, Beto was a great candidate who worked his tail off, and he showed that Ted Cruz can be beaten. He came within about two and a half points of doing that. And for us, what this race is going to be about is Texans talking about. Texans, neighbors, talking to neighbors, we can't afford to have 9.5 million registered

Texans not voting in 2024 like we did in 2022. So we are going to do everything we can to expand the electorate, to target folks who maybe have a hard time engaging in our democracy or maybe need a little bit of help complying with some of our draconian voting rules, expand the electorate in that capacity, but also appeal to the folks who don't see themselves represented in this version of the Republican Party or who don't see themselves able to vote for a Ted Cruz. And there is, trust me, a segment of the electorate that falls directly into that category, that regardless of how they voted in the past, they are not someone who thinks the Ted Cruz should be their senator for six more years. And so this is going to be a tough

race, but it's not a long shot race. And I think that's the one thing I've been, you know, when I talk to folks establishing with them is that we're talking about someone who was barely re-elected in the last election, who has since then left our state during a statewide freeze, who has led an insurrection, who was, as I said, it seems to be too busy podcasting to do the job, and in a state that I think is changing rapidly, and that every year, for us in terms of the electorate, is a better year than the one before. There's a swath of the electorate in the south of Texas, Latino voters who Democrats have largely lost these last few years. How do you plan on kind of reaching those people and bringing them back into the Democratic Party that's seen

a lot of them disappear? Well, what we've seen in South Texas is not that we've lost them. We're still winning in those areas. It's just that we're not winning at the same levels that we have been. And we have to have campaigns that are putting in the effort down there because it really does matter, the time spent, the money spent, the resources spent. Both Texas Republican Party and the National Republican Party have spent a lot of money and effort targeting those voters, mostly with misinformation about what the Democratic Party stands

for and what it has it done. Because when they look around their community, they are represented by Democrats at almost every level. They're represented by folks who, you know, we need to support in terms of making sure they know what they are actually doing for their community. So we're going to put the time and effort into pushing our message and also what Ted Cruz has not done. Because it's also an area that needs help. It needs help in terms of it, having some of our highest uninsured rates, which we have the highest uninsured rate in the country in Texas. And it's particularly, you know, disproportionately worse in South Texas. They need help with their schools, need help with their infrastructure, need help dealing with, yes, the surges of the border that do create additional

burdens for our border communities. And so, and what has Ted Cruz done about that? He's had, you know, now 10 going on 11 years in the United States Senate, in which he's, He's ignored these issues and not been somebody who's been an advocate. He's been too busy trying to get on, you know, Fox News and podcasting. And so I'm someone who's different. In my time in Congress, I think we've shown that I try and, you know, bridge divides, find solutions, but ultimately deliver, deliver from my constituents. If there's an issue, take it on, head on, and try and find a solution.

And for me, it's personal because my family is from Brownsville. My mom and my aunt, her sister grew up in Brownsville. I grew up spending a lot of my summers, down in Brownsville, visiting my grandmother there. I think I know what those communities are, and I don't think that they are what Ted Cruz represents. What would your priority as a U.S. Senator be? Well, there's so many priorities for us in Texas. We have got to deal with our, as I said, our uninsured right and our health care issue. We have some of the best health care in the country, but we also have some of the big disparities.

And so for us, having highest insured rate in the nation has so many knock on effects. And so we have to do something about that. We also have to expand and protect our democracy. Texas, unfortunately, has been ground zero for most of the worst voting laws in the country. And they start in Texas often, and then you see other states adopt them. I became a voting rights lawyer because the idea that the Supreme Court once wrote the right to vote is preservative of other rights. Every other right springs from that fundamental issue. But also, we need to have somebody who can help bring us together. We've had Ted Cruz now

on the scene for over a decade, being one of the most divisive figures in American politics. Whether you vote for him or not, you would agree with that statement, that he is somebody who has tried everything he could to pit us against each other. If you see him in his media appearances, He's not somebody who is ever going to be reaching across the aisle to get anything done, never going to be focused on solutions. He's a blamer. He's somebody who I think has been unaccountable for so many things in his career up to this point, led an insurrection, and nobody is really even spending much time talking about that. Well, I was there, and I saw him objecting to the results in Arizona, and I was wondering what my senator from Texas knew about anything that was going on in Arizona. We have a diverse young state that is booming.

People are moving a thousand people a day are moving to the Dallas area. They're moving in at incredible rates. But it is all put at risk by our political extremism from our state legislature, but also from in particular, from folks like Ted Cruz who were sent into Washington, who are presenting us with the worst version of what Texas is.

And it's not the one that I grew up in and it's not the one that I think we are. When I've spoken to Beto in the past, he said that Texas isn't necessary, it's not that Texas is a red state, it's that Texas is a non-voting state. And you alluded to that as well when we were speaking earlier in this interview that there are so many people in Texas who don't vote. What do you say to those people who, if they didn't vote in 2016, 2020, these elections with massive implications for the country for, you know, everything, how do you get them off the couch to go and vote this cycle? Well, number one, I think that we have to help them. We have to help them comply with their voting laws. And as a voting rights lawyer, I know that that does have a component to it.

But we also have to counter. One of the things that happens when you have sort of generational voter suppression is that it becomes, voting is no longer, you know, part of sort of the cultural touchstones. And so it's just not something that's expected anymore. that you're gonna, once you come of age, you're gonna start becoming somebody who'll be a consistent voter. And we have to counter that

by giving folks real proof points about the differences and what it will mean to them in their lives for having a senator like Ted Cruz or having a senator like me who'll be an advocate for them. And that's hard work. And it takes a lot of effort to break that message through. And I've done it in my congressional races where we look at an area and say,

this area is underperforming in terms of the turnout. I am in a tough race. If we are not able to do better in this area, we're not going to be successful in this next election. And it takes many, many, multiple touches through the mail, at the doors, on the phones, on their TVs, when they open their computers, to make sure they're continually and consistently driving home a message

of what I'll do. And then we have to have a really all hands-on-deck effort to turn out the vote. In my congressional races, we've been lucky enough to have volunteer armies that allowed us to really have inspiring, you know, not only, you know, field and ground game efforts, but families and communities coming together to say, we're going to be involved in this election. I want to replicate that at our statewide level. And also a good thing to point out that we've seen in the last few years is that whereas the Democratic Party used to be a largely general election voting party, more and more it's gone into the fabric of the Democratic Party that we vote

in off-year elections too. And that it just became, you know, as Gen Z's, as millennials come of age, to vote in every election, to vote every single time has kind of shown itself more and more. And so I think that's as part of the reason also why Republicans have moved so aggressively to block voting on college campuses, to block voting in minority-majority precincts and on and on. They're recognizing those changing patterns within the Democratic electorate. Now, you did allude to the fact that Ted does his podcast three times a week. So I guess the question will become, how often do you plan on hosting your podcast? Well, you know, I like joining podcasts like this and letting you do all the work.

We can talk for a few minutes and then I can get back to work. You know, I honestly, I represent, you know, a little bit less than a million. Texans. Tech Cruz represents 30 million Texans. I am so busy. I honestly, I cannot understand where he finds the time to do this much podcasting. Because as you know, it's not like you just sit down and start the podcast. You have to prep for it. And then you have to record it. It's a lot of work. And I do one episode a week. I'm completely fried for hours and hours and hours on this thing. This takes multiple days to do. I do one episode a week. I cannot imagine how much time it must take for for somebody to do three three

episodes a week and and then pretend to have a job other than that right and like with the going to cancun it's funny and it's also not funny because it shows that your priority is not being a United States senator it's not trying to help folks who are struggling we have a lot of Texans who could use an advocate who could use somebody who'd be on their side who could maybe use a senator who even if it's not through legislation is using their office to help them with constituent services. That's not something that we've seen from him.

It's just it's the arrogance and it's a callousness. And that, I think, is also why Ted Cruz is going to lose. Also, unseating Ted Cruz would give him time for his true priority of content creation. So that would be a silver lining for him. That's right. You were a linebacker for the Tennessee Titans. Why did you leave the NFL? Well, like many of my friends and folks,

I played with. It wasn't entirely by choice. I had an injury. In my fifth year, in my fifth game in Dallas, I had a severe neck injury. It led me to have neck surgery. And so I had an offer to keep playing. I decided that it was probably best for a lineback for not to have a bad neck. It's kind of like a pianist who has a bad thumb and to go to law school. But I really, you know, I really enjoyed my time in the NFL, but by the time my career had come to, you know, an earlier end that I had hoped for, but, you know, after a decent run, I felt like it was a good time also for me to move on. Yeah, man, I get, I get, I get injured in the shower sometimes. Just, I can't imagine, I can imagine what your body must go through in the NFL. How can we help your

campaign? Sure. Well, it's going to take everybody. And, you know, one thing that we know is that when we're talking about, you know, helping an expanded electorate, we're going to need as much help from folks all around the country as possible, particularly, of course, for our Texans to get engaged. But if you're listening to this and you think that, you know, something that Texans and Americans can't afford six more years of Ted Cruz in the United States Senate, you can go to Colin Allred.com, get involved with our campaign, and help us deliver for what I think is the real Texas, which is not the one that TechCruz presents us as. Great. And I'll make sure to put that link in the post description and the show notes,

whether you're watching or listening. For anybody watching or listening, I think that we can all agree that if there is one person that we would like to see lose this race, it is Ted Cruz heading into 2024. So please go all in. I mean, Texas, like we said, it's not that it's a red state. It is a non-voting state. And as long as we can help good candidates like Congressman already here, reach those voters, then we can have a good shot at flipping the state. So with that said, Congressman, thanks so much for taking the time. I appreciate it. Yeah, thanks Brian. Thanks for having me. Now we have the Democratic candidate running for Attorney General in Mississippi.

Greta Kemp-Martin, thanks so much for taking the time. Thanks for having me, Brian. Now, you're running to unseat an attorney general in Mississippi that authored and argued the Dobbs decision that ultimately overturned Roe. Can you speak about the impact that the Dobbs decision has had in a state like Mississippi? Yeah. So in Mississippi, here's what Mississippians know, right? They know that they have leadership that is completely ineffective, that has allowed and permitted a level of corruption, that has historic levels of this state, and that we live in

one of the states with the most healthcare and maternal care deserts that probably exists in the country. So when I'm going around the state and I'm talking about Dobbs and its impact, Mississippians want health care freedom, period. They know that this is not just about abortion. This is about controlling and limiting people's health care freedoms. And in a state like Mississippi, when we have failed to expand Medicaid, we have rural hospitals closing at every turn, we have corruption going unchecked by our state leaders, money that's supposed to go to the poorest people in the poorest state, they know it's time for a change. Can you speak about whether there's a majority of Mississippians who do support Roe? Because even Roe unto itself, even in these red areas, I mean, you look at a place like Kansas, it's not exactly a liberal bastion.

There is still a majority of people who supported Roe as a decision as it was. So is that the same case in Mississippi? Yeah. So, you know, our campaign is really about meeting people where they are, right? And what, again, what Mississippians know is that what they have wanted for a very long time, which is Medicaid expansion, better health care, ability to keep doctors and nurses and physicians in this state, they know that to do that, the answer is not limiting health care in any way. And that is what I believe the majority of Mississippians are seeing.

And I know my conversations with them, it's just a scary thing when you start limiting people's ability to make health care decisions. And what they don't want is their doctors having to contact their attorneys before they're diagnosing or treating their patients. So again, Mississippians know that the current state leadership is completely disconnected from what we need in this state. To that exact point, obviously the current governor, Tate Reeves, has his fingerprints all over this welfare scandal that you alluded to. before his administration fired the U.S. attorney that was responsible for bringing the suit. He protected the Athletic Foundation, which is composed of a bunch of his donors from the lawsuit. His fitness trainer was reported to have received a million dollars that was funneled to him. This is just overt corruption.

Again, exactly as you mentioned, at the expense of the most vulnerable Mississippians, the poorest Mississippians in the poorest state. What should happen here? Very simple. the attorney general should do her job and initiate an investigation and prosecute where needed. The problem is that my opponent has positioned herself in the middle of this extremist Republican agenda. She does not want to anger her Republican friends. She does not want to anger her Republican donors or our NFL quarterbacks. She doesn't want to do that because she knows

that she is a gold star student for the Republican Party. And she won't in no way want to ruffle those feathers. So what that has caused her to do is completely shirk her responsibilities and go after this corruption. You should attack corruption, whether it comes from a Democrat, a Republican, an independent. The Attorney General is there to represent the people of Mississippi, and Mississippians were harmed by this scandal. I mean, you're talking almost $100 million in stolen funds from the temporary assistance for a needy family fund. That is things that Mississippians on the ground need. But again, my opponent doesn't know that because she's completely disconnected from the realities that Mississippians are facing. You know, to a broader

degree, this kind of underlies the problem here, which is that Mississippi ranks 49th in economy, 49th in quality of life, 50th in poverty. Is there no acknowledgement from Mississippians that there's a link between the current leadership that they've chosen and I guess the results of what that leadership has brought onto the state? That's a really good point. Sometimes I read this data and I'm like, are people reading the same things that I am? Specifically, are our state leaders not seeing the same data that I am? And I'll be perfectly frank, I believe that Mississippians, for the first time, in at least my lifetime,

have a slate of Democratic candidates that they can believe in. We have a top of the ticket with Brandon Presley who has brought such a dynamic movement to this state, an unprecedented polling this close to Governor Reeves this early in an election cycle. It's just been amazing to see the movement that he has brought. So my hope is that this will motivate Mississippians to turn out. You know, Mississippi had the lowest voter turnout of any state in the country last year. And we are hoping that we can bring both Brandon Presley, myself, Shawaski Young, who's running for Secretary of State and other Democratic candidates,

we can bring out those motivating factors because it is time to have a fresh start with our state leadership and dig out the corruption that's going on in Jackson. With this whole slate of Democratic candidates, how do you divorce the agenda that you're running on from the issue of identity, which for so many people is what their political affiliation is? And so, like, it's not just easy to be like, oh, I'm a lifelong Republican or a lifelong conservative, but all of a sudden to expect those people to just, you know, vote for a slate of Democrats. How have you reconciled that issue? So I truly believe that my background, I have dedicated my career to representing people.

That has been the keystone of my legal career. But I also come from a family who taught me that public service and community engagement and helping others is not about being a Democrat or a Republican. And that is so important when I'm out here talking to folks to say, you cannot look at the D or the R or the I after a person's name. You really have to dig into their ideas and how they're going to move Mississippi forward. You know, my father is a police officer. I'm like, I'm the third generation in law. Both my grandfathers and my uncle were also law enforcement.

And it has always been my belief in the way I was raised that justice and the application of the law is blind. It does not matter if you're Democrat or Republican. And what we are seeing now in state leadership from the governor's mansion down is our individuals who are more focused on their party's agenda than what Mississippians have asked for. We have almost an 80% polling on Mississippians that want full Medicaid expansion. And we have leaders that have continually ignored that. As recently as a month ago, when our legislative session ended, they had operational. opportunity after opportunity to bring about a minutia of change in this state. And they just

turn a blind eye despite the fact that their constituents are telling them otherwise. Mississippians need people that will listen to them. And folks like myself and Brandon Presley, we are ready because we are from the real Mississippi. You know, we are from North Mississippi, working class families. And we are not, you know, living on our family's plantation in Holly Springs, Mississippi. We are coming from a working class group of people that struggled and we know what Mississippians are going through. What would your priorities be as Attorney General? Of course, as I've mentioned, first priority is going to be going after the deep-rooted

corruption that we have in our state. Future Governor Presley rolled out a very far-reaching ethics package yesterday on the steps of the Capitol that I'm in full support of, and I want to be a player in that. We have nearly $100 million that have been stolen from the state coffers that are supposed to go to the poorest people in this state, people who, we actually call them working poor, right? Because it's not that they're not working. They just can't make enough to live in this state. You know, and my opponent has just twisted this office into a tool for the Republican agenda, and that just has to stop. But I also want to focus on dedicating a fair labor division in

the AG's office. Mississippi does not have a department of labor. And in a state that is reliant and dependent on its workers, that is atrocious. Mississippi workers deserve representation and they deserve resources. And if the state is not going to develop a Department of Labor, the AG's office under my administration will have a division dedicated to that. And then finally, you know, I have a lot of priorities, but one that's very, very important to me, post-Dobs, my opponent established an empowerment agenda.

And I say that in air quotes because it's laughable. But empowerment is enforcing state and federal laws that protect women's rights, including laws against gender-based violence, laws against workplace discrimination, and using this office to push policies that benefit women and families, like paid parental leave, equal pay for equal work, affordable child care, the things that Mississippians need on a day-to-day basis. How has the reception you've gotten on the campaign trail been thus far, like when you've actually gone face-to-face with Mississippians and been able to speak with them? people are excited, but they're also desperate. They are desperate for state leaders that listen to them, and they are desperate for state leaders that will bring about positive change. They are tired of being the 49th state at the bottom of every list of things that are good and the top of every list of things that are bad. And that is where people like my opponent have put them. They have put them at the last of the line because Mississippians are not the priority of our

current attorney general. Mississippians are not the priority of our current governor. Mississippians, honestly, are not the priority of our current legislature. They need people, again, people like myself and Brandon Presley, that have lived the life they have lived. I'm, again, I'm from rural Tishamingo County, a very small corner of the state and come from a working-class family, and it would be a great honor for me to be part of the narrative that moves Mississippi forward because I believed in this state. I wanted to stay in the state to see a better Mississippi. And that's what I'm hearing on the campaign trail. That's what people want. And I don't think that Democrats and Republicans are far apart on that. We just know that we have to

get out there to Democrats, Republicans, and everyone in between. And we have to share our vision. That of me, of Governor Presley, of Future Secretary of State Shawoski Young and the others on this ticket, we have to get out there and share our vision, which is what we're trying to do, starting now early in this election year. How can we help? If anyone can join our fight at greta for AG.com, that will be the best help that we can get at this point in our race. There's a lot there on how to donate, what our issues are, our platform.

Of course, I'm on all social media, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, sharing and donating and just following along with our campaign as we push to November, that's the greatest help anyone can give us. Great. Well, we'll leave it there. Greta, thank you so much for taking the time. Best of luck in this campaign, and hopefully we can, you know, help move Mississippi forward a little bit with the agenda that you brought forward. So thank you again.

Thank you, Brian. Thanks again to Greta. That's it for this episode. Talk to you next week. You've been listening to No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen. Produced by Sam Graber, music by Wellesie, interviews captured and edited for YouTube and Facebook by Nicholas Nicotera, and recorded in Los Angeles, California. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe on your preferred podcast app. Feel free to leave a five-star rating and a review, and check out briantylercoen.com for links to all of my other channels.