Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 1355 | Can Talarico Take Texas? Troubling Polls & the Moral Dilemma

Episode Date: June 3, 2026

Allie examines the Texas Senate race between Republican Ken Paxton and Democrat James Talarico and tackles the tough question: How should Christians vote when both candidates have serious flaws? She breaks down Paxton’s moral failings and past scandals alongside Talarico’s radically progressive positions—including his claims that “God is non-binary,” strong support for abortion, gender transitions for minors, prison abolition, and open-border policies—while evaluating their records on life, family, borders, and justice through a biblical lens. Additionally, Allie interviews her brother, Justin Simmons, who is the US Attorney for the Western District of Texas. Justin details his mission to crack down on drug smuggling, human trafficking and fraud, while urging others to improve their communities rather than choosing a life of self-gratification. Gov. Abbott declares CAIR a terrorist organization: https://gov.texas.gov/news/post/governor-abbott-designates-muslim-brotherhood-cair-as-foreign-terrorist-organizations Ken Paxton’s Impeachment: https://ballotpedia.org/Impeachment_of_Ken_Paxton,_2023 Share the Arrows 2026 is on October 10 in Dallas, Texas! Tickets are on sale now at: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://sharethearrows.com⁠⁠⁠ Share the Arrows is sponsored by: A'del Natural Cosmetics: AdelNaturalCosmetics.com Range Leather: RangeLeather.com/ALLIE We Heart Nutrition: WeHeartNutrition.com Buy Allie's book "Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion": ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.toxicempathy.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ – Time Codes 0:00 Introduction 1:11 Can James Talarico win in Texas? 39:14 Interview with the US Attorney for West Texas 1:09:57 Closing Remarks – Today's Sponsors: We Heart Nutrition | Check out We Heart Nutrition at ⁠⁠⁠WeHeartNutrition.com⁠⁠⁠ and use the code ALLIE for 20% off. A'del | Visit AdelNaturalCosmetics.com and enter promo code ALLIE for 25% off your first-time purchase. Good Ranchers | To support a company that honors America’s past, present, and future, visit ⁠GoodRanchers.com⁠ today. When you start your plan, you’ll get to pick a free meat that will be included in every order for life, and you’ll get $25 off your first order using my exclusive code, ALLIE. Legacybox | Visit Legacybox.com/ALLIE to take advantage of Legacybox’s Spring Cleaning sale and preserve your family’s story. Alliance Defending Freedom | Every dollar you give to ADF by March 31 will be doubled by a special matching grant, only while matching funds last. Go to JOINADF.com/ALLIE or text ALLIE to 83848 to have your gift matched to protect brave Americans. Episodes You May Like: Ep 1315 | James Talarico Is More Demonic Than You Think https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-1315-james-talarico-is-more-demonic-than-you-think/id1359249098?i=1000754075488 Ep 1305 | Is Trump Targeting Talarico? Colbert’s Lie Exposed https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-1305-is-trump-targeting-talarico-colberts-lie-exposed/id1359249098?i=1000750390293 Ep 1221 | Rebutting 'Progressive Christian' James Talarico’s Bad Theology https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-1221-rebutting-progressive-christian-james-talaricos/id1359249098?i=1000718715520 --- ► Buy Allie's book, "You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love": https://alliebethstuckey.com/book ► Subscribe to the podcast: iTunes: https://apple.co/2UVssnP Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2FwkXxj ► Connect with Allie on Social Media: https://twitter.com/conservmillen https://www.instagram.com/alliebstuckey/ https://facebook.com/allieBlazeTV/ ► Relatable merchandise – use promo code 'ALLIE10' for a discount: https://shop.blazemedia.com/collections/allie-stuckey

Can Talleyicoe take Texas? The Cookey Progressive may have more of a chance to become the next Texas Senator than you think, but we're taking an honest look today at the two candidates, Paxton, Talleyco, both personally and politically, as well as talking to my brother, U.S. Attorney Justin Simmons, about what is really still going on at the border. We've got all of this and more on today's episode of Relatable. It's brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to Good Ranchers.com. Use code alley for a discount. That's goodtronchers. com code alley. Hey guys, welcome to Relatable.

Happy Wednesday. Hope everyone is having a wonderful week so far. If you love this podcast, would you please leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you listen, subscribe to YouTube if you're not already subscribed. And if you haven't shared relatable with your friends, especially your friends who are trying to figure out what the heck is going on

and they want to leave feeling a sense of clarity, but also some encouragement, then I encourage you to share relatable with them. and you all can have good discussions about everything going on in the world. Today, as promised, we are going to talk about what is going on in the state of Texas. Now I know I've gotten a little specific some of the past few episodes. We talked about Southern Baptist Convention. Now we're talking about Texas and you might be thinking, Ali, you're just talking about things

that you like that are relevant to you, the circles that you are in. But I will tell you the same thing about the SBC that I will tell you about Texas. Not only does the SBC matter for larger Christendom and really America. in politics, but also the state of Texas. I am a born and raised Texan. So yes, I do really care about this, but it really affects the rest of the country. And of course, the makeup of the Senate really matters. We don't have very many senators. And so how they vote and whether or not Republicans are in the majority, it matters for Trump's ability to carry forward his agenda, for us to pass legislation. That is actually good. So in the state of Texas, we have finally

we have finally found out who the candidate, who the Republican candidate is going to be that goes against the Democrat James Tolariko. And his name is Ken Paxson. If you don't know, Ken Paxson is the former Texas Attorney General. Now he is the Republican candidate for the Texas Senate. He won in a runoff primary election against longtime Republican incumbent John Cornyn. This was quite the surprise for a lot of people. Now, for a long time, Trump really didn't want to get involved in this. I think he kind of wanted to see who was going to win. He didn't want to burn a bridge with whoever did win the election and gotten to the Senate. So he kind of declined to endorse a candidate. But this changed abruptly when one week before the runoff election,

Trump endorsed Paxton, praising him as a loyal ally, criticizing Cornyn for not supporting him. And then during the original primary, there was also some talk about Trump endorsing Cornyn. So it seems like he went back and forth just a little bit. But right before election day for this runoff, he said, yeah, Paxton is my guy. And apparently that worked. It proved extremely effective. Paxton won 64% of the vote. There are a lot of interesting things I could say about this. Texas election. Mays Middleton won the attorney general debate or the attorney general election. You might remember that I moderated the attorney general primary debate. And it's interesting that you Ken Paxton won, but the guy who was very Ken Paxton-esque. So Aaron writes, he did not win

the primary. There was also a runoff for the Attorney General of Texas between Chiproy and Mays Middleton and Mays Middleton took it away. So lots of exciting, interesting things happening in the state of Texas. So James Talleyico, Ken Paxton this November. James Talarico is a very progressive Democrat. You have heard me talk about him many times before. You have probably seeing him on social media. And depending on what side of Instagram or TikTok or X you're on, you have either heard him say things that are kind of reasonable sounding and you might think, okay, this guy seems like a nice guy. Maybe you're even thinking you would consider voting for a moderate seeming guy like this. Or if you're on my side of Instagram and X and TikTok,

you have seen the absolutely out there things that he has said. For example, God is non-binary. So that is one of the, that's one of the battles that we're having here is that there are two very different sides of James Talleyico that a lot of people, especially Christians, are seeing and debating. What's interesting about James Talarico is not just that he's far left. It's not just that he says these very out there progressive things that a lot of Democrats are actually running from right now. But he regularly uses his version of Christian theology to justify his liberal stance on things like abortion or gender, immigration. and his support of the abolition of all prisons. Literally, that's one thing that he believes, which we'll get into. Now, you might wonder when you hear all of that, like, why even talk about this to my Christian conservative audience? And the reason is because Talarico's brand of Christianity is very palatable to some of your friends who are maybe deep feelers, they have really good intentions,

and they might believe that the biblical approach to politics is one that outsources our generosity to the state, or our theology to politicians. And then you have people who, for a good reason, just they don't like Tala Rico, but they just aren't jazzed about Paxton. And that's because Paxon has a litany of allegations in his past. So what I want to do today is I want to take an honest look at both Paxon and Talariko's character,

what we know of it, and then they're policy positions. And then I will talk through how I navigate choices like this one. It's a very familiar discussion, if you remember any of the debates around Kamala and Trump in this last election or Trump and Biden or Trump and Hillary, you have this kind of dichotomy that plays out in the media that yeah, you know, someone like Talarico, he's got some out there policy positions, but he's a really, really good guy. If you remember my debate and discussion with David French,

that was something that he said. He wrote an article saying that Talarico is so Christlike. He represents Christianity so much more than all of these other politicians. And I want to get into today whether or not that's really true. But first, let us look at Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the Republican candidate, because he does have significant allegations against him that I think are worth talking through. So if we go back to 2018, he confessed to his top staff members that he had an extramarital affair with an aid. Then in 2025, his wife, Angela Paxton, also a state Senator in Texas, she filed for divorce. The Daily Mail recently issued a report alleging that Paxton had had an affair with Tracy Duhon, a married Christian influencer and mother of seven.

According to the report, they met at the Kentucky Derby in 2004 and then later entered into a relationship. The report claims the affair contributed to the breakdown of both of their marriages. is now Paxton has dismissed these reports claiming they are tabloid lies. I do find it interesting that when Paxton's team responded to this report, they didn't talk about the specific allegations. They just talked about, you know, the fact that the Daily Mail is a tabloid and trying to distract people from this particular race. And so again, I just want to say this is an allegation. We don't know if this is true. The previous affair in 2018, does seem to be verified by Paxton himself.

It's not just the affairs and alleged affairs and the divorce from his longtime wife that has made headlines. Back in 2023, the Texas House of Representatives voted 121 to 23 to impeach him. He was eventually acquitted by the state Senate. And the reason they impeached him is because they cited a longstanding pattern

of what they called abuse of office and public trust. The investigation stemmed from Paxson's request that lawmakers approve a $3.3 million settlement in a whistleblower lawsuit. In a whistleblower lawsuit, we could go into so many details of this and we can link some sources in the description. So you can check it out yourself. But in the interest of time and conciseness, I'll kind of summarize it that way. For former aides alleged he fired them after they reported suspected bribery and abuse of office. Again, state senate ended up acquitting him of these charges, but he doesn't have a squeaky, clean

record when it comes to some of these things. Now, we will get into his policy wins or his wins as attorney general, rather, and those are very significant too. But I also wanted to tell you why you might have some friends who were uncomfortable with Ken Paxton or who just felt like they could not support him in the primary, even if they didn't like Cornyn because maybe they're looking at some of these things. Then we have our good friend James Talariko. Now, James Talariko, I do just want to say, I'm sure he's not the biggest fan of relatable, maybe he's never even heard of relatable, but I would love for James Talariko to have a

conversation with me. Obviously, we are on very different sides of the issues, very different side of the aisle, but I really do think that it would be a productive and polite and very intriguing conversation between two people who love Texas. Both of us say that we love Jesus and we love the Bible and we land in completely different places when it comes to policy and social cultural issues. We've been trying to do this for a long time. We have invited him. I understand that he might not want to do that, especially in the middle of an election, but I just want to put it out there one more time. I would absolutely love to have that back and forth. But until we can get him

unrelatable. Unfortunately, we have to talk about him. I'd rather talk to him, but we've got to talk about him and talk about where he come from. Let's talk about a little bit of his personal life. We know less than Kin Paxton, but we know some that paints a picture of who he is. But before we get into that, let me pause really fast and remind you to come to share the arrows. Share the arrows this year is brought to you by our very good friends at Range Leather. It's going to be amazing, y'all. I cannot wait to worship with y'all with Shane and Shane. Alisa Childers is back. She's been there every year.

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You'll get 20% off. Weheartnutrition. com code Alley. Okay. We've got James Tala Rico. It's so interesting that Democrats decided to put out another person like this because they tried better at work. They tried.

They really tried. They tried the skateboard. They tried that against Ted Cruz. cruise. And it did not work. He had ton of support. He had celebrity endorsements and all of that. And it just wasn't effective. But what is different about James Talarico, Beto also tried to the whole, like, I'm going to be crass, I'm going to say the F word and things like that to see if he could be cool with the kids and cool with millennials. Millennials love profanity and marketing. Not me, but millennials in general do. It's like one of the cringiest parts of millennials. You go somewhere and you

see these products on the shelves. And I saw something yesterday that was like manifest that S. And it was like, F this, I'm going to write in my diary about it. Why? I don't know why millennials like stuff like that. It is so insanely cringe. It didn't work with Beto though. He didn't appeal to enough people. And so now they have someone who is totally different than that, who appears to be very clean cut, who appears to basically be a priest. And so they're trying this persona to see if it'll work because Democrats know that they've got to win over. the Christians. They tried for a while to just demonize the Christians. Well, that didn't really work. There are just too many of us. And so they've got to chip away the evangelical support for

Republicans. So James Talarico, he attends a church called St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in Austin. It is radically progressive. It was recently exposed by the Daily Wire for having explicit LGBTQ books in its bookstore aimed at children. And when we say explicit, like we are talking about sexual stuff for kids. Like this book is gay. We've talked about a lot of these books in the past that talk about sexual interactions between teenagers that are aimed at minors. So just to give you a taste of what this church is,

their church bookstore is carrying basically pornographic LGBTQ books aimed at kids. I won't even go into all of the things that are in these books, illustrations, of sexual acts, again, in a church. The church is also an ardent supporter of Planned Parenthood. You can go to their website in our SC, or go to a website, nr-sc.org that shows this. Their supporter of Planned Parenthood, they set aside some of its budget to fund them.

So again, the tithing dollars from the congregants in this church are supporting the slaughter of Texas babies. That is the church that Talley Rico is a part of. The church has also hosted events with the Muslim group CARE, the Council on American Islamic Relations. And this is not a friendly group to the West. This is not a friendly group to Christians. They're not a friendly group to America.

Governor Greg Abbott recently designated care as a terrorist organization. We will include the link in the description. So you can check out all of the reasons that he did that. Talariko earned his master's in theological studies at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Again, extremely progressive institution. And then he also has his own kind of person. scandal that we very unfortunately had to read about last November in the New York Post.

They found that he was following on his official account at least 10 only fans models. Talariko liked multiple photos posted by at least one of the accounts and exchanged private messages with another. Yikes. Okay. We don't know as much about his personal life as we do, Attorney General Paxton. and that's just because he hasn't been in the public eye for as long. He hasn't held as prominent of an office as Texas Attorney General.

More things may come out. I'm not saying they will. I'm not saying I'm not saying I hope that they do. I'm just saying like if we're already liking accounts and messaging only fans models as a professing Christian, like we obviously have a sexual immorality issue going on there. Now, you'll remember, as I mentioned a little bit earlier, that people like David French have praise his behavior as Christian, even if they don't agree with his policies. He might present his ideas in this kind of soft-spoken friendly manner. But at the end of the day, they're evil. They're evil.

Like he has repeatedly blasphemed God saying God is non-binary. And I think we have that clip. We can play it. He's advocated for the gender mutilation surgeries of kids. He has pushed for the killing of unborn babies through abortion. And these aren't just policies. We'll get to the specific policies, but they're not just policy positions. Like, this is Talarico's rejection of God's order, rejection of God's justice, his order of male and female, his desire to strip innocent babies of the right to life. It's a spiritual position. It's a theological position. And his politics are just downstream from the immorality and the corruption that's in his heart. So I'm fine talking about personal morality and personal failures and foibles when it comes to these

candidates. But I'm not willing to say that, well, Tala Rico is just this gentle and faithful Christian and his policies are kind of wacky. But then you have someone like Ken Paxton who has all of these personal failures, but as least policies are okay, no, we're looking at two centers. Okay. We're looking at two centers. I don't think the Tala Rico's personal life is any cleaner than Ken Paxton's. Okay. So let's just settle that score. Let's make sure that we're on the same page there and realize that we're not talking about a squeaky clean person. versus a dirty guy. We're talking about two people that got some questionable things in their

background. So let's look at some of their policy positions because Talarico has been very forthright about them. Talariko is very pro-abortion. When you look at his voting record as a state representative, he votes on the side of lax abortion laws and against any measure to protect the life of unborn children. And here he is when he's asked about, hey, do you support any restrictions on abortion, this is how he responds, not one. I trust Texas women to make decisions about their own bodies, to shape their own destinies in consultation with their family members, their doctors, their faith leaders.

I don't believe that's a place for government. That's a belief I hold not despite my faith, but because of my faith. Jesus never talks about abortion. The Bible... is silent on abortion. And when that happens with a social issue as important as abortion, we Christians have to take scripture as a whole,

and we've got to try to make some kind of ethical determination. I just want to remind you that Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So don't allow his humble, seeming, gentle, sounding disposition and tone a voice fool you into thinking that this is reasonable or biblical. Just reminding you what abortion is, is it is the poisoning and the starving and the dismembering of living innocent babies inside the womb. That's what he's talking about. And he's saying that he trusts Texas women to make that decision. That is a euphemism for I don't believe in restrictions. We trust them to make that decision.

Well, obviously if a woman is having an abortion, we can't trust them to make the decision about the baby inside the wound because that's a bad decision. That's an evil decision. You are choosing to end the life of an innocent person and that's always wrong. The Bible isn't silent on abortion, thou shalt not murder made the big 10. Babies inside the womb are humans. All humans are people. And in order for you to support the position that some humans are not people, therefore, it's okay to murder them, you're going to have to tell me how that distinguishes you from a Nazi. You're going to have to tell me how that distinguishes you from anyone who has ever justified any atrocity in which you dehumanize someone in order to justify killing them.

Okay? Just because he sounds nice doesn't mean that what he is saying is right. I'm glad that he is not using the story of Mary now to justify his stance on abortion. You'll remember on Joe Rogan's show, he said, oh, because Mary consented to the conception of Jesus, then that makes him pro-choice. Mary didn't actually, he just, she just said, okay, it will be done to me as you say, let it be done to me as you say, she didn't actually say, yes or no, let me think about that for a second. And also, she was consenting to, or you could just say that she was us senting to conception. She wasn't deciding whether or not she was going to kill baby Jesus

inside the womb. So he's a wacky, wacky guy. Now, on abortion, he likes to mix abortion with his stance on transgenderism by saying things like this, Sot 2. I want to acknowledge that our trans community needs abortion care too. Defending trans Texans is something we have to do every day. Okay. Do I even need to say anything about that? I mean, I think we got it, right? Okay, then we look at Paxton. And Paxton has been pretty consistently pro-life. He supported and defended the 2021-Texas Heartbeat Act banning abortions after six weeks. He has sued out-of-state abortion providers for allegedly mailing abortion pills into Texas. He's additionally sued the Biden HHS for guidance requiring hospitals to provide abortions in emergency rooms overriding state pro-life laws. He just

a lawsuit with Florida suing the FDA, trying to stop the circulation of abortion pills, which are now responsible for the majority of abortions in Texas and in the country. And so his record has been one of fighting against the abortion lobby. And I really appreciate that. The same cannot be true of Talariko. Let me pause again and tell you about our next sponsor. It's Adele Natural Cosmetics. If you are looking for clean, beautiful makeup that you can feel really good about,

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You get 25% off your first time purchase. Adele Natural Cosmetics.com, code Allie. Okay, here is Tala Rico and the infamous God is non-binary clip, Sod three. God is both masculine and feminine and everything in between. God is non-binary. Okay, come on. He's obviously trying to make a point there. The truth is that God is spirit and does not have a body like man. God, the father. That is the truth. He is referred to exclusively, though, as he, as king, as father. Jesus is an embodied. man. He has a male body. We know that about him. And so this idea that God is this political identity that rejects the binary of male and female when it is God who created us male and

female in his image. Of course, it's blasphemous. I mean, this is making God in your own image. Like this is using God, making him as an idol for your political ends. And it's really, really gross. But it makes sense because he says that one thing that he loves so much is kids who block their puberty using dangerous chemicals sought for. I love, I'm just saying this because it's on my mind, the trans children who showed up yesterday at the state capital to advocate for their humanity. They shouldn't have to, but it was an inspiration to watch.

All right. There's other thing as a trans child. Okay. it's not possible to transition genders at all. It's definitely not possible for a boy to say I'm a girl and to become a girl by declaration or vice versa. And purposely infusing children with that kind of confusion that leads them to the procedures that will sterilize them forever is evil. It is evil. I don't care how clean shaven he is. I don't care that he looks like he is a priest. It is evil what he is advocating for. And he even says that these men in women's locker rooms or

taking women's scholarships, that it's all just a conspiracy that we should. didn't care about sub five. And then in terms of other issues, Governor Abbott has filled this special session agenda with far-right conspiracy theories about trans children causing problems on sports teams, which we know does not occur in the state of Texas, or critical race theory,

which we know is not being taught in classrooms in the state of Texas. Critical race theory is being taught. It was being taught. That was a conspiracy theory that the leftist gend up, just like him, saying that that wasn't something that was going on. And he specified there in the state of Texas because he knows this is something

that is nationwide, that there are absolutely boys and men competing against girls and women and taking their scholarships because boys and men are generally physically a lot stronger and faster the women and girls are. And there is nothing ever, ever, ever that is going to change that. And then if we look at Ken Paxton and what he's been like, in this arena. Paxson sued the NCAA for allowing men in women's athletic events. He also sued doctors for providing puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries to minors. He recently reached a historic settlement requiring the Texas Children's Hospital to start the first ever detransition clinic. You'll remember we had Vanessa Sivage. She won the first chair of the arrows award.

She was on our show. We had the wife of Etan Haim, who was the doctor, who was the whistleblower, they both worked at Texas Children's down in Houston, and they were like, hey, these kids are illegally being prescribed things like puberty blockers and hormones. And this is not good. And so the Texas Attorney General Paxton did something about it and reached this amazing settlement. And so now those who are detransitioning, we've interviewed so many of those detransitioners

who need help, now they can go there. And they can actually get the help that they need. Talariko voted against a bill when he was a Texas representative saying that referring to a child's biological gender is not considered abuse. Okay, so he apparently thinks it is considered abuse for a parent, for a teacher to call a boy he, if that boy is confused about his gender. So could not be further apart, further apart when it comes to that. And then when it comes to immigration, this is a really big issue. Yes, for the nation, but also for the state of the state of the state of,

Texas, got a really large border that is connected to Mexico. And we'll be talking more about that issue specifically with our guest in just a minute. But Talariko's position is that our border should be like our front porch. It's not six. We should treat our southern border like our front porch. We should have a giant welcome mat out front and we should have a lock on the door. Those two things are not mutually exclusive. You have a right to know who's coming into your house. And you should be welcoming the stranger into your home and providing that hospitality. Okay, but you're not. Let's think about that.

If you had 100 people showing up on your front porch, James Tolariko, you didn't know them. They just said, look, I need something. I need some food. I want to come in here. I want to sleep in your bed. I want to sleep on your couch. And I want to hang out with your girlfriend. You probably wouldn't let them in, right?

Like, you'd probably call the police. Or you'd probably say, I can't have all of you in. I can have one of you in. after I get to know you and after I understand who you are and why you're here and what it's going to be like for you to be here. But I can't let all of you in indiscriminately just because you're strangers who say that your house isn't as good as my house or because your neighborhood isn't a great neighborhood. And so you can make that metaphor all you want to. But unless you are living out that application in your own life, I'm not really interested in it. So many of these

politicians aren't affected by the consequences of their bad policies. He just, wants, he just wants us to let them into our front door on our front porch, but he's not willing to do the same. And then, of course, when we look at Paxton, he's filed multiple lawsuits against Biden-era immigration policies. He sued the Biden administration in 2023, alleging it weakened a federal law that bars immigrants from obtaining green cards if they're likely to rely on government assistance. He also joined an Arizona-led lawsuit that required the Biden admin to continue enforcing Title 42. The emergency health policy, used to expel migrants to Mexico without processing asylum claims.

The illegal immigration issue is so important. And thankfully, under Trump and thanks to the DOJ, it's gotten a lot better. But it's really important that we have people in the legislature, that we've got people in Congress who are representing the interest of the American people. When it comes to something like voter ID, which Congress has been really hesitant to get passed. We need more support for voter ID, not less, and Talarico is against it. Sadie. Are you okay with voter ID? So voter ID is currently required in the state of Texas. I opposed having to have to have a driver's license to vote. How about having to send your ballot in? Should you

have to prove who you are? Because that's what Democrats are opposing. Pete, I just said I oppose voter ID. Currently it's a law in Texas, but I oppose that law because I think you don't need voter ID. You don't think the most sacred obligation of our republic, you should have to prove who you are in order to vote? So there are a lot of Texans, actually hundreds of thousands who don't have a driver's license. Okay, well, they should get a driver's license. There seems to be a pretty easy solution to that rather than truly disenfranchising American citizens by saying you don't even have to prove your citizenship that you have a stake in this country in order to vote. And so obviously, the SAVE Act is not going to pass with Tala Rico's support. And so if you as a Texan

don't want your interest represented in Congress, then you should definitely vote for Talarico. Okay. So there we've got the two candidates. We've talked about some of their moral failures and then we've talked about their policy positions. And I could go on and on for each of these. And we could go through all of the biblical responses to Talarico. But honestly, I feel like I've done that so much. And we can link past episodes. so you can go back and listen to me, respond to him in detail with what scripture actually says about these theological and political issues. But instead, I want to talk about a couple things to end this segment before we get into our interview.

And one, the question is, can Talarico win? And then two, like, how do we think about some of these moral failures versus policy positions as Christians? So first, let me look at these polls. So out of the 12 polls conducted in the last three months, Tala Rico has led Paxton and Cornyn in every poll but two, one which had Cornyn leading by plus one and one that had Paxon and Talleyco even. Okay, so that means people in general, according to these polls, are a little uncomfortable with Paxton. A Texas public opinion research poll had James Tala RICO leading Ken Paxton, 46% to 41%. Tala Rico had an even greater

edge with moderate voters by 49 points, 19% of self-identified somewhat conservative votes. said they would support Talleyko over Paxed. That is really troubling. James Talleyko had a plus seven net favorability rating, while Paxons is minus 10. For comparison, the Republican Party had a plus two rating. Donald Trump had a negative two rating, and the Democratic Party had a negative 12 rating.

21% of voters ranked affordability and the cost of living is the most important issue. That is something to Tala Rico's credit that he talks about a lot. I don't agree with his solutions, but he talks about it in a way that people resonate with. Higher, so that ranked higher than immigration, democracy, voting rights, abortion, and reproductive health issues. People really care about affordability.

I would just say, Talarico's not going to change that for you. He's not going to make that better for you. I promise he's not. And January Democrat was able to flip Texas's ninth Senate district, which Trump won by 17 points in 2024. So I would say it is possible for Talley Goodwin. It is possible. I personally still don't think it's plausible. I think it will be close. I think he is too

kooky, cookier than Beto to win. I think he said too many weird things. Honestly, you might think that's a superficial reason that can win or lose elections. He has raised $27 million in the first quarter of 2026, bringing his total fundraising to over $40 million. Paxson raised $7.6 million. Not surprising. That is not necessarily a determinant of who's going to win. Again, you look at Beto, he was able to raise millions of dollars as well. Tala Rico is still considered the underdog. It's the state of Texas. And people have overlooked things on both sides of the aisle.

People have overlooked issues like the ones that Paxton has had. And so I think that it's going to be possibly a nail biter. And so I will just say, like, we got a vote. That I believe is a responsibility here. So let me just kind of lay out how I think about. this, and it's very similar to the Trump-comal election and the conversation we were having there. So moderate pundits posed this dichotomy that we've talked about a lot that paint the Republican candidate like Paxton or Trump is less insane policy-wise, but completely intolerable morally.

And therefore, the inferior candidate to someone like Tala Rico or Kamala Harris, whose radical policies they downplay in light of their pristine moral character as they presented to us. that is not an accurate description of these candidates. It's just not. It is true that Paxton and Trump have better policies, obviously. When it comes to law and order, the border transgenderism, duh, it's also true that they have serious moral flaws. I take the Paxton allegations actually even more seriously as a Christian because Paxton professes Christianity consistently, and Trump doesn't really do that. But it is not true that Tala Rico or Kamala Harris or above

reproach morally, both professed to be Christians. Talarico was caught following and allegedly messaging the only fan stars last year. Kamala used an affair with a married man, Willie Brown, to advance her career. Both of them are avid defenders of everything that opposes what God calls good, right, and true. They were fierce defenders of murdering babies in the will. They support chemical castration for minors. Their history on immigration is defined by a total lack of concern for the issues that come with illegal immigration. Talarico believes in the abolition of prisons.

We didn't even get to that. Sorry, we are running out of time, but we'll play that soon. We'll be talking about Tolariko a lot. He believes in the abolition of prisons, and Kamala advocated for releasing criminals in the 2020 era and the George Lloyd season. So I see that both publicly and politically, Talariko is opposed to so much of what Christian should support. And even when it comes to things like poverty, Talariko's position is not the Christian one.

It's not the Christian position to outsource our generosity. to the state. That's not generosity by definition. Taxes are not generosity. And the tax-funded programs that disincentivized work are not actually loving. They're not actually productive. Now, my preference will always be to have a candidate that is morally upright and politically solid. That's actually why I haven't voted for Trump in a primary. That's one of the reasons. I voted for him in all the general elections, and I'm glad that I did. I don't regret a single one of those votes. But in the primaries, I voted for Rubio and I voted for DeSantis. When it comes to the general election, I have to choose between two centers, one whose policies support order and liberty and one whose policies support

destruction and depravity. So in this case, just like in the 2024 election, I'm going to choose the center with the better policies. That's how I think about it. And when it comes to one of these policies that is so important, especially in the state of Texas, but to all of us to immigration, I really want us to understand what's going on there. I feel like the immigration issue doesn't make headlines as much, but there is a lot that is going on at the border and specifically in the Department of Justice. So for that conversation, I wanted to bring on my brother, whom you have not met. His name is Justin Simmons, and he is the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Texas covering the entire border, everything that's going on there with the cartels. He's got

some fascinating facts that we really need to know and that we need to keep in mind when it comes to elections because when it comes to elections, it's not just about that one person that you're voting for, but everyone and everything else that follows that one decision. But before we get into that discussion, let me tell you about our next sponsor. It's Legacy Box. So Father's Day has this way of making you think about the people and the moments that shaped you, all of the memories, wanting to capture them as much as you possibly can. You probably have a lot of those memories stored up in some box, somewhere in the attic or in your basement. You're you've got a bunch of pictures, you've got a lot of home videos, you don't know what to do with them.

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Well, Justin, thanks so much for taking the time to join Relatable for the very first time. We always ask at the top, tell everyone who you are and what you do. Yeah, thank you, Allie. Really appreciate it. My name's Justin Simmons. I'm currently the United States Attorney for the Western District of Texas. The Western District of Texas covers 93,000 square miles. I sit in San Antonio. That's where my main office is, but we have seven offices across the district, Waco, Midland, Alpine, San Antonio, like I said, Austin, El Paso, and Del Rio. That also covers 68 counties in Texas and one third of the entire U.S. border with Mexico. So that's about 660. miles of Mexican border. So we've got a lot of area to cover a lot of cases that we that we handle here in the Western District. And I'm really honored to be in this position, having been put here May 30th of last year by then Attorney General Bondi. And then later that appointment was continued by the district court judges, which I can go into that process if you want to. But yeah, been here almost a year now. So really, really enjoying the job and the good work, the folks in the board.

Western District are doing on a daily basis. I can't believe it's been a year. And most notably, you are my eldest brother. You didn't include that, but I'll include that for you. Okay, I think most people don't, yes, I don't think most people understand that border control is not just border patrol, that it's not just ICE, it's not just deportations, it's not just the people standing at the border, making sure that no one enters illegally, but that the DOJ, and specifically your office, the Western District of Texas has a lot to do with making sure that our border is secure. So I know this is like down to the basics, but what exactly do y'all do to make sure that illegal aliens aren't coming in here and committing crimes?

Well, there's a lot we do. You know, when border patrol or our folks at CBP, which those are, you know, two different things, they both fall within DHS. Basically, CBP watches the ports and makes sure nobody comes through a port of entry or brings something in that shouldn't be here. And then Border Patrol monitors those areas between the ports. So if you cross at a place that's between a port of entry, then Border Patrol is the one who's going to pick you up.

And once one of those entities picks you up at the border, then it's our office that's going to prosecute you for the crime of illegal entry. If you're somebody who has entered previously and been removed, you will be prosecuted for illegal reentry. And a legal reentry actually extends beyond the border. you can catch an illegal reentry charge anywhere within the interior United States. So while most of our cases at the border in our border offices like Del Rio and El Paso,

we get a lot of illegal entry cases. We get a lot of illegal reentry cases at our interior office in San Antonio, Austin, Waco, and those offices, Midland as well. So that's really the role we play in border enforcement. It's not just the illegal entry. either. It's also all the spin-off crimes that go with that. We have a lot of alien smuggling that happens in the Western District of Texas. These are groups usually associated with a cartel that are paid by these individuals who want to come in the United States. They're paid by those individuals to be

brought into the United States. So we get a lot of those cases as well. They catch large groups of people that are coming across, although I will say overall the numbers for illegal crossings have gone down, significantly. You know, when I first started this job last year, the Border Patrol chief in the El Paso sector told me that they had gone from 2,500 encounters a day to 60 or 70 encounters a day, which is an amazing one that we ever had that many folks that we were encountering, and two, that it reduced that quickly. I mean, that's just within, you know, five or six months of President Trump being inaugurated. we had already seen that much of a decline in the number of encounters.

So it was just amazing work they've done. And then obviously, with border crimes, you get a lot of drugs that come across from the south. Coming into the United States, you also get a lot of guns and money going from the United States into Mexico to both fund and arm the cartels. So we handle a lot of that as well. But understand, it is illegal immigration and alien smuggling that facilitate. a lot of the money that the cartels earn on a on a regular basis that's where we can really hit them hard is right in the pocketbook by stop stopping the illegal immigration and the alien smuggling that comes across you know we had a case here now this is a long-witted answer but

we had a case here a couple years ago we just had the sentencing last year we had 54 illegal aliens that died in the back of a semi-truck here in San Antonio They were being transported from Mexico into the United States in the back of a semi-truck in June in Texas. So it got really hot and they basically all died from hyperthermia. So really, really sad situation. But we learned that each one of those people paid $12,000 to $15,000 apiece to this alien smuggling organization to be brought across. So if you do the math and you think 10 million people have come across over the last several years, Let's say it's even half that.

Let's say they didn't pay 12 to 15,000, only paid 5,000. That's $25 billion to the cartels. That goes to them buying more drugs to bring into the United States, buying more arms, paying off more politicians. I mean, it really does probably constitute most of the money or a significant portion of the money that the cartels bring in, just the alien smuggling operations they facilitate. This is, it seems like it's a totally different subject, but we had the head of a persecuted

Christians organization called Open Doors on just a couple weeks ago. And he was talking about actually one of the most surprisingly hostile countries towards Christians, specifically evangelical Christians is Mexico and how the cartels sometimes will terrorize these Christians. They kidnapped a bunch of Christians, put them in a church, basically made them die there without food. or water for several days as an example to everyone else, that if you're like these people, then we'll do the same thing to you. And that's just to make the point that what the DOJ is doing here, specifically in the Western District of Texas, to try to stop that illegal trafficking of guns and money and people over the border is trying to target the pocketbook of the cartels that are then

using that weaponry and using that money to terrorize all kinds of people in Mexico and in America, too, and specifically targeting Christians. And so just the ripple effect everywhere is actually kind of incredible. And then also this U.S. Sentencing Commission, they just came out with some recent numbers that are showing the number of sentences in fiscal year 25. I won't even get into the numbers. I have them in front of me, but you explain it better. Tell us what this report shows about non-citizens and illegal aliens and the kinds of crimes they're committing. Yeah, let me just comment real quick on what you just said about the persecution of Christians. I did hear that interview last week.

That was really good and really important. But I think what that really comes down to is that these cartels have zero value for human life. Even the lives of their own cartel members, much less their countrymen who aren't cartel members. There is zero value for human life. There's a lot of kind of like voodoo type religious practices that they engage in, like Santamerte and things like that. that are just purely evil. And that pure evil plays out in their day-to-day lives and how they treat people. I've sat across the table from multiple cartel members that recount for us the horrible things that are done to intimidate others to, if not fully joining the cartel, to at least cooperating or keeping their mouths shut so they don't say anything in the future.

So the complete unvaluing of human life, the lack of value for human life they have is so apparent in so many things that they do. Not to mention how they use and treat children on a day-to-day basis. I mean, they recruit these children to work for the cartels. I mean, people get outraged about child soldiers in Africa. We've got child soldiers two and a half hours from where I'm sitting right now. They work every day for the cartels, either as lookouts or sometimes. Sikarios. We've had folks tell us of Sikarios as young as 13 years old, being given a machine gun and going to work for the cartels. It's an awful, awful situation going on with these cartels

just a couple hundred miles from where we live. It's really terrible. There's a lot of good work that needs to be done there. That's why this mission that we're on to eradicate cartels is such a righteous mission. It's not just about drugs. It's about really transforming, hopefully transforming Mexico into a place where people can thrive, which if Mexico is a place where people can thrive, then America is safer. America is better. And that's why it matters, you know, for us to be doing this work that seemingly only affects things in Mexico, but in reality affects us here very, very directly, actually.

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Go to good ranchers.com. There's a Father's Day gift box with free Wagyu burgers that you should check out. Use code Alley at checkout, good ranchers.com, code Alley. So on the sentencing commission, and this ties into the illegal immigration conversation we were having earlier, the sentencing commission, first of all, the sentencing commission is a commission built up of practitioners, judges, and other folks who they set the sentencing guidelines for federal sentencing in the United States. And so it's way more complicated than we want to get into here, but there's all kinds of different things that go into determining how long of a sentence someone should get when they're

convicted of a crime. Now, judges don't have to follow the guidelines. They are advisory, but it is something that they weigh heavily in determining what a sentence should be. So the sentencing guidelines are very, very important. And the folks on this sentencing commission and the rules that they set are very important to determining how long folks go to prison, at least for federal cases. And the Sentencing Commission releases stats really on a rolling basis, but they release annual stats every year. And a few weeks ago, they released stats for fiscal 2025. And one of the stats in there said that of the 66,000 people sentenced in the United States, 28,000 were non-citizens. Now, not 28,000 were illegal aliens because there's a difference.

You can be a resident alien and have legal status here. So 28,000 were non-citizens, but of those 28,000, 91.6% were illegal aliens. Now, I will say, most of those illegal aliens were charged with those immigration offenses we talked about earlier. Illegal entry, illegal re-entry. But understand, it also encompasses a much broader group of criminals. It's those people who engaged in alien smuggling. It's people who are engaged in some kind of immigration documents fraud. So it's important to understand the full context of what all is included in that number.

But 91.6% of that 28,000 non-citizens were illegal aliens. So this mission that we're on to stop illegal immigration is so important. You can see, you can just imagine how much money we would have saved if we didn't have to incarcerate all those folks. who have broken the laws of the United States, who have shown their unwillingness to follow the laws of the United States upon entering this country. Save us hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars every year. So it's just such important work that we're doing on this immigration front and the sentencing statistics really bear that out. Yeah. I mean, if you look at some of these, and we can put up when we put out this episode, actually, the chart that it shows. So these are all

non-citizens. And we're looking at things like murder, manslaughter, sex abuse, child sex abuse. The vast majority of those heinous crimes among the non-citizens are being committed by the illegal aliens. So not the non-citizens with legal resident status. Very few of these crimes, the majority of them are being committed by the legal non-citizens. Most of the most heinous ones, stalking, harassing, kidnapping, drug trafficking, the vast majority of those are being committed by these illegal aliens, which just shows how dangerous the situation is. And why this really is, it's a human rights issue. Because, you know, I hear a lot people say, well, there are more crimes that are committed by citizens, maybe by legal non-citizens too, than illegal aliens. But I say

the difference there is, even if that's true, I don't even know if that's true because these people largely are undocumented, so they're a little bit harder to track and to count. But even if that's true, every kidnapping, every rape, every assault, every manslaughter, every instance of drunk driving that is committed by an illegal alien should never have happened in the first place. It was preventable. For the most part, not every single crime is always preventable. We do what we can, but it's not always foreseeable or preventable. But when it comes to the people who should never have been here in the first place, who have no right to be here in the first place, we are talking about largely preventable crimes. That's why it matters so much who's in office, but also why it matters so much who is in

your position. Because not everyone has the same values and the same priorities when it comes to protecting America's border and protecting us against the cartels. No, you're exactly right, Ali. It is so important. I'll tell you another thing, too. We tend to see folks that have worse criminal history when we picked them up for illegal reentry offenses. So these are in our interior offices. What I've seen just anecdotally looking at the criminal history of these folks, those folks that are in and around the Austin area, which Austin is one of those cities that has a reputation as being maybe not a full-on sanctuary city, but definitely has policies that are there to benefit those who are in the country illegally. We see a,

much worse criminal history for those folks than ones we find elsewhere. And it stands to reason. I mean, you would be attracted to a place that has more lax policies on immigration enforcement. And that matters even at the state and local level as well. But you're exactly right. This is such an important issue because it does affect us in so many ways. And like I say, we've got enough criminals in the United States. We don't need to import others. Yep. That's exactly right. I've heard you talk about the flood of a habeas petitions that are being filed by those in immigration detention. That's lawyerly language. Break that down for us. What does that mean? And why does it matter? Yeah. So habeas is a, it's short for a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. And that's simply

somebody saying, hey, I'm being imprisoned wrongly and I should be let out for these reasons. And what has happened over the last several months is we've had thousands of habeas. petitions filed by folks in immigration custody across the country. But the most have been filed here in the Western District of Texas, and that's because we have multiple immigration detention facilities in the Western District. So we've got, I think as of last Friday, we had just over 5,000 petitions that were filed since about October 1st of last year, which is just an amazing amount of volume. And our folks in our civil division, which most folks, don't know in the U.S. Attorney's Office, we prosecute crimes, but we also represent the United

States and civil litigation. So this is one of those things where we're representing the United States in these habeas cases. And it has been just a ton of work for those folks. They've done admirable work. They've been proven right on the law by the Fifth Circuit on one issue already as an interpretation of a statute, which I won't go into detail on for fear of boring everyone. We have another issue in front of the Fifth Circuit right now related to due process and how much process folks who are here illegally and an immigration detention are entitled to. We'll see how that comes out. I think there's probably there's already circuit splits on that issue. So I imagine the Supreme Court will ultimately have to decide this.

But we're waiting for at least for now for the Fifth Circuit to decide the due process issue. And hopefully it'll come out our way. what we can have and what some courts have held is that these folks who enter the country and evade detection, they enter illegally and then they evade detection for a long amount of time, get more due process rights than you would if you were caught right at the border. And that, to me, is just a preposterous place to land. It makes no sense that if you're good at crime, you get more due process rights as an illegal alien. When the reality is Congress for illegal aliens has set the due process, the process that is due to illegal aliens.

And that's the way our system works. If you're an illegal alien, you do not have the full panoply of rights that is available to American citizens. You can't vote, for instance. You cannot own a firearm. There's all kinds of other restrictions on what you can and can't. too. You can't work without authorization. I mean, there's all kinds of things, ways that we limit the rights of illegal aliens. And the process that has been laid out for our immigration system has been laid out by Congress. And that's what we should follow. That's what we believe we are

following. And we'll see where the Fifth Circuit lands and ultimately where the Supreme Court lands on that. But in the meantime, we're working really, really hard to represent the interests of the United States in this area. Yeah. What can you tell me also about this? a new national fraud enforcement division. Does your office have anything to do with that? What do we need to know about that? Yeah, so this is born out of all the fraud. We saw that, as Mr. Shirley pointed out in Minnesota,

with the folks saying that they had these child development centers and really it not being anything but a door or a storefront, nothing else. It was really borne out of that. I know I saw in the news this weekend or late last week that indictments have been filed in Minneapolis on folks who were committing that fraud. And so this is really borne out of that. It's a main justice program, which main justice is what we call the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. But all the U.S.

attorneys offices have point people that are part of that effort. In the Western District of Texas, we see most of our government fraud, which is what the fraud enforcement division is really focused. on. Most of our government fraud is like Medicare and Medicaid fraud. So we see a ton of that. However, we've had some big cases related to military contractor fraud as well. I know one case I prosecuted as an AUSA. I was in a USA down here for four and a half years before I was elevated to this position was against a woman named Janet Mello who worked for the army as a civilian and over the course of about six years stole $109 million from the army. So, you know, there's lots of different ways that people defraud the government.

Medicare, Medicaid is very, very common. So we do a lot of those cases. But being a military city here in San Antonio, we also have a lot of contractor-related fraud as well. And all of that falls under that umbrella. Next sponsor is Alliance to Finney Freedom. What would you say if you found out that some of America's biggest companies, ones that you might use and support, are paying for gender transition drugs and surgeries for kids. I mean, this is life-altering, body-ruining stuff. It's really happening.

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Hermit Dillon talk about as well is just the need for more like-minded American loving attorneys to join the government, to join the DOJ. And that's tough, not just at your office, not just in your area of the DOJ, but when it comes to the Civil Rights Division, which Hermit Dillon is a part of, it can just be tough. So like, how does the DOJ approach that? How are you all recruiting attorneys? And what is your pitch? If there's an America loving attorney out there and they're thinking about it,

why should they join your team? Well, to me, if you love the rule of law and you love making America a place where people can live their lives, enjoy liberty and pursue happiness, this is a great time to join DOJ. I'd say if you're purely ideological, ideologically driven as an attorney, you probably should not join DOJ. I mean, as an attorney, you have a duty to represent a client regardless of your personal ideology. And what's sad to me is we've seen so many people leave because they don't necessarily agree with the president's ideology. And to me, those people fundamentally don't understand what it means to be an attorney. It means you setting aside what you personally believe to do what is in the best interest

of your client. You may not like that, but that is the job. Any of us, like myself, who've worked in private practice, we have represented people we don't necessarily like and don't necessarily agree with, but we have a duty to represent them and represent them in a way that advances their cause, as long as their cause aligns with the facts and the law. And if it doesn't align with the facts in the law, we tell them that as well.

And that's sometimes a hard conversation. But that's what we're doing on a day-to-day basis. You know, and if that's something you're interested in, you should come join us. I mean, every U.S. Attorney's Office in the country is recruiting heavily right now. Most of that is driven by the deferred resignation program. We had a lot of people that took advantage of that program. last year after the president was inaugurated.

And great program, great for them, away if you're close to retirement to get out, away if you were one of those people who could not align themselves ideologically or could not set your own beliefs aside to get out with a handsome payday as well. But obviously, with that many people leaving, now we've got a lot of openings.

I will say though, I heard a stat the other day, and I forget what the period is, but looking at the same period in the last administration versus the same period in this administration. In the last administration, they had filed 100,000 criminal cases. The Department of Justice nationwide had filed that many cases. In that same period, the following year, during the Trump administration, we filed 140,000 cases.

So that's a 40% increase with a significantly less amount of attorneys. So we're doing a lot of great work. We're doing a huge volume. We're doing it well. I'm proud of the folks that I work with, not just here in the Western District, but across the country. I've got to know many of them so well. And they just want to get in here.

They want to do their jobs. They want to enforce criminal law and just wake up every day, like you say, and do the next right thing. That's what I love about my job is that's all I have to do every morning. Wake up, do the next right thing. And that's it. I don't have to think about like finagling ways to try and keep my client happy or anything like that that might not align with the law.

I wake up every day, do the next right thing. And it's like a warm blanket every day that I get to wear coming to work. And it's a really great thing. So if you want that same feeling out of your work, then I'd say apply. Either here in the Western District, which is great, you're going to get a ton of great work or in the many other districts that are hiring. Yeah. And it seems like a little bit of a paradox to say that there's like a comfort in getting up

and doing a job that is kind of dangerous. I mean, you're dealing with dangerous people and dangerous things who have no moral compass, like you said, but the comfort is in knowing that you're fighting for the right cause and you're fighting against evil. I mean, there are a few clear examples of this is evil, this is good, this is the good side of things. And like there is something just so encouraging and comforting about that even when it comes with risk. And it also just reminds me as you're talking of what we say like politics matter because policy matters because people matter. You're not a politician, but for whom you vote matters so much because you're not just voting for that one individual.

You're voting for their entire administration. You're voting for every appointee, every judge that's appointed, every attorney that's appointed. And the worldview of the people in charge, it trickles down. And it really affects things like the border, which then affects children's lives and the lives of Christians here and abroad. So just realize that that the choices we make at the ballot box is a lot, it's a lot more than just that one choice. It has an effect on so many other things.

All right. Is there anything else like that you would just encourage people that you wish that people would know when it comes to either what the DOJ does or our involvement as people who aren't lawyers? We're not in the government. What we can do to support you guys and to help advance the kind of good change that you're talking about. Well, I think one of the things people can do is just really support their local law enforcement, those federal agents that are working in your areas. They are out there. They're just regular folks trying to do their job. You know, they don't have any. personal animus against anyone they're going after. They have a job to do, which is enforced the laws of the United States. And that's what they're trying to do on a daily basis. And that's what all my prosecutors here, all my civil litigators are trying to do on a daily basis. You know, many of them may not agree necessarily with, you know, ideologically be perfectly in line with everything this administration wants to do. But they've put aside those things and they've represented their client well, and I'm so proud to say that about them. And, you know, it's a very

difficult time to be in law enforcement right now. It's a very difficult time to be a prosecutor in many places, but our folks are committed to the mission. They see it as being worthwhile as something that is worth doing. And we really, at the end of the day, what everybody needs to remember, you only have one life to live. And if you're living your day-to-day life on a cruise, like you're on a cruise ship, like you're the main items in your schedule, or maybe you got a couple calls in the morning, but your main focus is lunch and whether you're going to play tennis in the afternoon or pickleball or whatever it might be, like there is more to life than that. And I would ask you to get engaged however you can. Maybe it's not working for the

Department of Justice. Maybe it's working for some organization in your community that is trying to push back against the darkness in the world because we only have one life to live. And pushing back against darkness is a great way to spend it. I love it. That's so good. I'm ready to take the bar exam right now. I'm sold. Justin, thank you so much.

That was so good and very enlightening. Thanks. Yeah, we'll have to do this regularly because, you know, we don't hear that much about what's going on at the border anymore. It's kind of like problem solved. But the truth is this is an ongoing battle for justice. So thank you so much. Well, thank you, Allie, for having me on.

Really appreciate it. All right, y'all. heavy episode. Hope you enjoyed that. I hope it gave you a lot of needed information. We don't have time for lifestyle pit or patter with our Hillary Clinton segment opener. We'll have to save that for later. We just have so much good stuff to talk about every time and I have a lot to say. And so we'll save that for next week.

Thanks so much for listening. If you've got ideas for what you would like me to cover in the future, guess you'd like me to have, feel free to send them my way. On Friday, we will have Seth Gruber here. There is none like him. is able to just bring the truth and clarity so boldly. And so stay tuned for that. We will see you back here then.