The Dana Show with Dana Loesch - BONUS: The Midterm Message - What Reaches Voters And What Doesn’t?

Episode Date: October 5, 2026

Craig Collins sits in for Dana. President Trump spends the weekend campaigning for congressional candidates.  Texas Senator Paul Bettencourt joins us to give us a lay of the land for midterm elections, Paxton vs. Talarico, GOP messaging and more.Thank you for supporting our sponsors that make The Dana Show possible…AMAC https://amac.us/dana/pdocastAMAC is the conservative alternative to AARP, and now you can get 5 years for just $35.  One payment, spouse included, money-back guarantee.  HomeServehttps://HomeServe.com/DanaJoin the millions of customers who trust HomeServe and save 50% less your first year. Savings compared to renewal price. Void in Florida.PreBornhttps://PreBorn.com/DanaIf you’re looking for a way to stand for life and make a real difference, a $28 donation can help PreBorn provide one life-saving ultrasound. And if you’re able to give $140, you can help provide five ultrasounds.Alliance Defending Freedomhttps://JoinADF.com/DanaIf you believe your freedom is worth defending, now is the time to act.  Donate to Alliance Defending Freedom at the link above and have your gift MATCHED. Ghost Bedhttps://GhostBed.com/DANAIf you’re waking up tired before the day even starts, check out GhostBed.  Now get an extra 10% off their lowest prices of the season with promo code DANA. Relief Factorhttps://ReliefFactor.comBe the next person sharing a Relief Factor success story. Get started today with the 3-Week QuickStart for only $17.76 and tell them you heard about them on The Dana Show. Patriot Mobilehttp://PatriotMobile.com/DANAMake the switch to Patriot Mobile today. Visit online or call 972-PATRIOT and use promo code DANA for a FREE month of service.Byrnahttps://Byrna.com/DanaTrusted by law enforcement, security professionals, and everyday Americans—defend yourself and your family with Byrna.HumanNhttps://Humann.com/DanaGet the limited edition HumanN Watermelon Flavor and find out how to get a FREE 30-day supply before they sell out.Subscribe today and stay in the loop on all things news with The Dana Show. Follow us here for more daily clips, updates, and commentary:YoutubeFacebookInstagramXMore InfoWebsite

That's right. This is The Dana Show. My name is Craig Collins, filling in, thrilled to be with you. So much stuff out there to talk about. So little time. It feels like occasionally. Although this is the start of the show. We have all the time right now. The president is doing an amazing job out there campaigning because he loves doing this. I will tell you first and foremost, the reason that President Trump is a valuable person to try one to get to have all the midterm elections, just be about him. there's been a lot of discussion. It seems like mostly on the right as to whether or not it's a good thing if voters show up at the ballot boxes thinking about Trump and only Trump. And a lot of people in the conservative side of the aisle on the conservative side of the aisle will say yes. Yeah, go ahead. I make this about Trump. And he likes it. I do think that's kind of funny that he'll probably campaign harder, be out there more, enjoy himself quite a bit if he is the focal point of a lot of this.

And case and point is right here, when he reminded everybody of what he went through in order to get elected just a couple years ago. They've tried to smear us, slander us, persecute us, demoralize us. They've attacked me. They've impeached me. They've arrested me. And they even tried to kill me, I guess. That's true. But with you at my side.

I love that he says, I guess, still. Like, there's something that's kind of amazing about that because, yeah, I'm pretty sure they tried to kill you more than once, sir. We have always prevailed and prevailed by a lot and got record-setting votes and record-setting victory. True. We've won every battle. We've defeated every hoax. We've overcome every threat. And now we are on the cusp of beating the communist, socialist, radicalized lunatics and villains.

Once and for all, we're going to put them down once and for all. All right. So that's where it's interesting to me. And none of that was inaccurate. That's all 100% correctly the way to describe Democrats, especially now. The funky thing, I don't know, funky's the right word, it's the one I went with. The odd thing about the time that we're in in history is that the left in my lifetime has never been more communist, more all the things we don't want them to be Marxist, even though that's been a version of rhetoric, a talking point that's existed on both sides of the odds. for several years.

Everybody calls everybody a fascist. Everybody lobs around these terms that are ridiculous. And yet, right now, you actually do have a bunch of Democratic Socialists of America running on a message that is just definitively communism. There's no mystery there. It's exactly what you and I think it is and what people have accused it of being of forever or for a long time.

And you know what's interesting? I feel like that's the message that's working the least. and I don't mean with people that are already on a certain side of the aisle. And this is tough for a lot of us to understand, for me to understand sometimes, candidly, especially when I broadcast for a living. Like most of the audience of Dana's show, of this show, this very fancy radio show that has a giant freaking audience, I think are people that do care about all the things I just said,

about men not playing in women's sports, for example, about everything that is communist, ridiculous, current, democratic positions. And yet to win elections, there are people that are in the middle, even if they vote more on one side of the other, that you want to reach differently because they've been hearing that for too long. It's almost, I guess the way I've been thinking about it recently, it's almost boy who cried wolf.

Like both sides, not just the Republicans, have been accusing each other of hating America as it is for years now. Like that version of the other side wants to upend the entirety, the fabric of our society, of the things that make us special in who we are as a country, they're going after them. You've heard that message before, but it's never been this true before. And so I debate something. I'll tell you this. And honestly, my co-host and I of a morning show I do at a Dana affiliate in Houston, a KSEV radio in Houston who facilitates me even doing this thing that I'm doing right now for you hopping in on the Dana show. I will tell you that one of the debates we have is

like what's the right message to actually win the election? What's the part that's missing? Is it the effectiveness of the Trump administration? Because that's a message we can talk about. There are things that are going well. Is gas as cheap as you want it to be right now? No. But is there a myriad of different signs that things actually are going to be okay

and are going in the right direction and decisions that are being made are helping to drill baby drill once the war in Iran does end, that these numbers will go back. to a place that we want them to go back to? Yeah, like that data is out there. People dismiss that all the time because they hear that all the time too. And maybe this is the most interesting discussion to have about this topic. And it's a long rant on just a simple thing that Trump said. Trump said that the, you know, Marxists and leftists and a communist are coming after us. And he's

telling the truth. But the thing I keep thinking about is, is how much better it would be if we could inform people without using rhetoric that they're used to. And whether that's even going harder in the paint, being stronger, demonstrating even more how this side is radical and the other side isn't. There's the crazy people and the rational people. Or doing something else. Some other version of the same basic sort of discussion, there has to be a way to reach people that seem like they're not reachable.

And I'll tell you, I don't even know, this is a good way to say it, like a smart thing to say on the radio. I don't even know. They're just leaving it at that and then just move on to the next topic. But now, what I'm thinking is I'm not even sure how much of the polling data that I never really take seriously anyway is going to wind up being accurate. I would have thought, this is the best way to say this, and then we will move on to other topics. I would have thought if one side of a political system in our country or really anywhere else, when as hardcore communist as our Democratic side is going,

that they would fail in a bunch of countries like ours. No country is exactly like ours, but a bunch of countries that care about, say, freedom and lack of state control. I would think a lot of places we would know going in, like that's a message that's not going to work. But according to a lot of the polling and data, it is working. There are people that are like, well, I want free stuff. I want all the free stuff.

And I want the government to give it to me. Because none of these mean other people are doing it. So I want somebody else to give me that sweet, sweet handout that I've been looking for. And bad news, government's not going to give it to you. If you give more money to them, they're not going to hand it willingly any more or less willingly than a entrepreneur or business owner is. They're not going to give you free stuff. They're going to claim to do that and then keep a whole lot of stuff for themselves. Here, I will move on, though, but I just find it fascinating, that I'm in a debate with myself all the time as to how much I focus on what to me is the obvious.

the ridiculousness of the left, and then how much maybe I focus on a different message, a message that might break through to the people in the middle, if there really are people in the middle. I always think there are nobody, there's nobody in the middle. I'll tell you that, too, it's always hard for me to believe that in 2026, with the way that politics goes and how many people that walk around and identify with their political party, actually have people who are really in the middle, who just don't care. There is a don't care crowd, but those people, they don't even want to vote at all. They're not, I can't mobilize them to do stuff,

because they don't care. All right, let me play this. This is President Trump crapping over Talafrico and calling him a vegan, which I'm not sure what this is intent. I know vegan is, of course, the thing he's adding in here. But like, what's the actual undercurrent of this shot? Is it gay?

Like, what are we saying with a vegan? Here we go. And you know, when I see that Talafrico in Texas, so he's been a vegan all his life, he's campaigned and he's a vegan, vegan. I didn't even know what the hell of Vigin. was, a vegan is vegetables. A vegan is eating a piece of lettuce all day long. Yeah, I love the vegan. He says, vegan is his newest favorite thing, and that this guy's a

vegan, which also says one other thing about President Trump. He absolutely likes meat in all of his meals. If he says vegan, if he's not sure what that is or how that even works, he definitely has never been close to being it himself, which I love. But I feel like there's like an undercurrent of he's he's gagging or something because a lot of people I live in Texas not trying to take an inappropriate shot get mad at me if you want to and say I'm anything other than woke there's a lot of people who wonder if tallorico and his maybe fake girlfriend are actually covering something else up there's another thing going on there from a a romantic relationship whatever standpoint I don't care about that to be honest with you it doesn't matter to me at all if he's gay or straight I care a whole

lot more about whether or not he would ruin my country with his socialist ideas. I think those are the thing. That's the thing that I most care about, but I think it's weird if you lie about stuff like that. I honestly, too, like, I'll say this, and then we probably should take a break. I know there's debates out there. I know the political people, the pundits or the, you know, consultants who influence people on these campaigns. Some of them might tell you, like, oh, a gay guy can never get elected here. He could never win over there, maybe in Texas or something. I don't know how to say this better. I'm a straight white dude who's happily married to my wife.

I would never deny who I am as a person to win an election. I would never do. I don't think I deny who I am as a person to get along with like my friends and family. It's just who I am. And I know other people do. But I'd never do that. And so it never makes sense to me that if you're a politician, someone who I think needs to sell us on authenticity first and foremost, the age of the YouTube generation, the people who grew up watching YouTubers

run into stuff and fall over and embarrass themselves on purpose and I have some stories about that. We might touch on a little bit later, one idiot in Florida doing something inherently dangerous for YouTube clicks again. You see that all the time, but this generation really likes authenticity. And if you went out there and pretended to be straight and you're gay, even though I didn't care about the subject to begin with,

I don't really care what you're doing behind closed doors in your own home, now I care that you lied about it. Now I care that you're willing to change anything about yourself to win an election. And a lot of people are saying that Tala Rico is absolutely lying about a bunch of other things. And there is a really good campaign ad out there that I'll play. I don't want this to be an all Texas show. I know it's a national show, even though I live in Houston. And I have some Ken Paxton audio I want to play.

But there are other races. There are other things going on. And Vivek Ramoswami, I thought also did awesome in Ohio. Well, he was campaigning with President Trump. I think Scott Jennings is great. I'll just say this one more time for the cheap seats in the back as far as the debate of this first segment of what the hell is going on in politics of what we should do, what we shouldn't do, what we should say, what we shouldn't say, is that it feels like nothing is off the table as far as what people are capable of behind closed doors, now behind scenes in a political environment. I mean, I'm not talking about the other thing anymore. From a political sense, someone like Talafrico can say the right thing publicly for just a month and a half when he's been saying a crazy. wrong thing that no Texas person believes in for years as a politician. And then the minute he gets in office, we'll do the worst possible version of turning our society into a communist,

a communist dictatorship. Like that, that really feels like it's on the table in 2026. And that terrifies me. A quick break, a lot more. Craig Collins filling in on the Dana Show. Home repairs have a way of happening at the worst possible time. A water heater breaks, your HVAC quits, or you have a plumbing or electrical problem, and suddenly, you're dealing with an expense you didn't plan for. Homeowner's insurance doesn't cover day-to-day wear and tear repairs with plumbing, electrical, or H-VAC failures. That's where HomeServe comes in. HomeServe offers repair plans for as little as $4.99 a month on select plans. It's like a subscription for your home. You select the plan that fits your budget and your needs, and when something breaks,

contact HomeServe's 24-7 hotline. They'll schedule a local licensed contractor to handle the repair. Say goodbye to panicking over the cost of every home repair. HomeServe has served more than 4.5 million customers for 20 years. They have an A-plus better business rating, 4.8 post-repair rating, and an extensive network of contractors. Join the millions of customers who trust homeserve. Visit homeserv.com slash Dana for 50% off your first year. That's homeserve.com slash Dana. Savings compared to renewal price. Void in Florida. And now, all of the news you would probably miss. It's time for Dana's Quick 5. That's right. It's time for Quick 5 on D-Lash, Dana Lash Radio. A great place to stay connected to her on X.

Follow everything she does there. A producer Stephen, a bunch of people put up really fancy good content. At Radio Craig C. If you want to follow the filling guy who has nothing on social media, I need to promote that better. I want you to go there and then I'll put more stuff there. It's like a vicious cycle. Anyway, I saw a couple different silly things, including this one. A survey that claimed the most played out for the least popular Halloween costume in 2026 is the sexy whatever, meaning a sexy then blank you fill in. It doesn't matter what it is.

People don't like it. I think that's insane. I immediately thought of the drive-by disagreement on Family Guy, which is something I like a lot, which I think was what I would do. If I heard this getting talked about in public, I would just drive by and yell. I disagree. I would just yell, I disagree, and then drive away,

because I love that a lot. I don't think you could really hear that. I probably had that too quiet in the mix. Yeah, let's try it again, just to play my stupid little drive. Disagree! I disagree! And then you drive away. I don't know.

Don't do it again, family guy. Also, I know that mean girls went viral in reaction to this and what they said on that TV or that movie about the sexy Halloween costume. Let's go ahead, play that. Halloween is the one night a year when a girl can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it. Yeah, that's right. That's a thing that a lot of people seem to believe is true. And I'm fine with that. I don't know why this is a problem. I don't know who's trying to change it. I don't think it's a lot of dudes, whether it's sexy, whatever you pick, even if it's a thing that's oddly sexy. Like SpongeBob should not be attractive, but it is for some reason in the case of this costume. Yeah, you don't have to go home and change. You can be fine. I also sound like a perv when I say this this way. I'm not like I'm one. wandering the streets, trying to see as many of these dirty costumes as again.

But I'm not telling anybody to change their attire. That's the whole point of the message. And I think anybody who voted that way is someone that's grumpy, that somebody else looks better in a costume than they do. All right. Other things out there that I just thought were kind of silly and funny, the right time to have breakfast is the latest weird thing that people decide online. There's like a definitive answer to.

7 to 8 o'clock in the morning is when people say it's the best time to have breakfast. I am on the radio in Houston, Texas for the entirety of that hour. I'm not going to be eating breakfast. That probably won't go well. So no is going to be the answer for me. But I love that the entirety of this message, too, was just have breakfast at normal early hours. I don't eat it at 11, 12. My wife loves breakfast.

She'll eat it any time a day, even though she's somebody who gets up early and I'm somebody who likes to sleep in if I can. But I think this entire thing was just to admonish us that I don't want to wake up at 7 or 8 o'clock for anything, even free breakfast at the hotel, which is never as good. As they tell it, every time you check in at a hotel that has free breakfast, they're going to oversell it to you, and then you could have done better on your own, is how that usually goes. And then one final thing I saw that I can't get over. An AI radio DJ is on the path to stardom, according to, I think, NBC News.

This is a DJ out of California who broadcast on a Spanish language station, and as an AI DJ in that specific atmosphere, doing super great. I don't know if it'll be great everywhere else. and I have my thoughts as to why, but we'll get to that later. Craig Collins filling in on The Dana Show. Our partners that bring you the program, it's our friends at Alliance Defending Freedom. The fight for America's Freedom happening right now in our courts and in our state legislative houses, the decisions that are made are going to help shape the country that we leave to the next generation.

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Visit join ADF.com slash Dana or text Dana to 838. 48 and have your gift to Alliance Defending Freedom Double. That's join ADF.com slash Dana. Text Dana to 8384848. This is the Dana show. My name is Craig Collins filling in. Thrilled to be with you a bunch of stuff out there to talk about. I want to bring in a state senator Paul Betancourt.

He is one of the hosts of the amigos, a incredibly influential show in Texas off of KSCV, a Dana affiliate and the place where I do my morning show. He's also called The Taxman. and one of the big fights that he has all the time in Harris County, but I think a lot of Republicans are facing in a lot of very deeply blue crazy places is ridiculous tax hikes and property tax hikes. Senator Betancourt, welcome to the show.

Good afternoon, Craig, yes. Nothing like fighting leftist progressives in urban cities across America. Hey, you know, for this interview that I plan to do with you, I just Googled it and I forced Google to subtract the city. so I just wanted to see all the places. And every like blue run place right now, Harris County and Houston among them, is hiking property taxes at ridiculous degrees. Democrats are running on a message nationally that claims that they'll make your life more affordable. And anywhere that they have power, we're seeing the exact opposite happen.

How do you fight that fight in your community? How do you fight that fight in Houston? Well, you've got to point out the incredible hypocrisy. it's just a two-faced operation because they're pounding Republicans from left coast to west coast on affordability, but yet where they're in charge, and we'll say Houston is the nation's fourth largest city, third largest county, they have raised property taxes by 41% in three years. that's a tune of at least $650 more that the average home is paying. And they're, quite frankly, they don't care.

They're unapologetic. They're plastering homeowners. And they're just as unapologetic about plastering Democrats and independent households as they are Republican. Well, and what's even more amazing, Senator Betancourt, is I hear them all the time say that it's Republicans' fault, which is the craziest version of insane thinking. I've ever heard, but they claim that, like, President Trump cut back on the amount of federal spending in someplace somewhere, so because of that, you have to pay more money in your property taxes. It's total political propaganda of what's going on in these urban cities. And I call

these blueberries, because whether they're in a red state or not, they're still, you know, functionally, you know, left as progressive socialist. And it's just, it's actually progressive propaganda. That's really what's going on here, Craig, because they know that they're the ones making the vote. They also know that it's not like the rugs getting pulled out from underneath them in our county. They've got two billion dollars of reserve in the hospital district and another billion and a half of the toll road authority. It's just highway robbery, and they're doing it on purpose. And they have zero regrets. No, there's just no sympathy for the actual taxpayer.

So the national message of Republicans are terrible on affordability. And these individual cities are just blowing, you know, like a, you know, literally, you know, blown past all the stop signs, stealing the money. That is a reduction in the big beautiful bill or in Texas. Lieutenant Governor Patrick had worked to lower property taxes along with the entire legislature on schools. They're just taking the money right back, hand over fist. Yeah. Let me ask you about another thing that you broke, I think, this week in Texas about voter registration and some voting records that were kept, I think, from ever reaching election offices.

This is another exact. I think you've found a couple of these just within Texas and in Harris County where we're kind of worried that there's. definitive proof of election fraud, or at least the potential for a avenue toward election fraud, even in places as deep red as Texas itself. Give me a little bit more context to what you broke over the last week. Well, unfortunately, this is a two agency snafu in Texas between DPS and Secretary of State. Most people understand this as motor voter registration. And unfortunately, the DPS was collecting files. They had an update from a vendor. that knocked that automatic transmission off.

And then Secretary of State's got a problem with their vendors who should have been pulling it. The bottom line is we had several hundred thousand registrations that were delayed getting onto the rolls. The counties are actually cranking it up. In fact, I just got off the phone with the county voter registrar. And here in Harris County, the nation's third largest, and they caught up with the backlog of about 100,000 of these. Now, here's the problem, Craig. Whether it's, you know, bureaucracy, snafu, pick a number. That's always a cover for election fraud.

And if you don't have a voter role with integrity, the public will not accept the results. And that's something that I've been campaigning. Well, I've actually haven't been campaigning. It's been part of my life. I mean, 20 years ago, I testified in the federal Congress for, guess what, Craig, photo ID, and a citizenship list. And we still can't pass that, you know, blank to be blank, simple, one in 20 years. I know, it's crazy. I know.

And Ken Pax, this actually perfectly pivots us to the other discussion that's going on in Texas. And nationally, it's been catching people's attention for a while now. The Senate rate there, the Senate race there. Ken Paxton is a guy that would absolutely be a conduit to helping pass the Save America Act, which would force voter a hundred percent forward. Yeah, Keny out for it right, Greg. Right. And Cornyn is one of the first people that you can think of who is blocking it, who's in the Senate seat right now, and Talafrico, Tala Rico would absolutely go after it.

Are you mystified that we're in October and the basic message that Tala Rico is so far disconnected or so far removed from simple Texan values that he actually is still potentially going to put up it close, if not maybe even win the Senate race? Like, are you as surprised as I am that it's this close, this close to the actual. midterm election? Well, I may not be happy about it, Craig, but I'm not surprised. The problem is all of this got baked in during the summer, and it wasn't just this Texas race. We've got nationally, you've got problems in Alaska. You've got problems in, let's see, Iowa, you got problems in North Carolina, you got problems in Maine.

I mean, you know, pick a state, Georgia looks like, you know, Hoff and off is coming back. The problem is is that the playbook was wrong. They shouldn't have let these leads bake in during the summer. Now we're pouring in what is apparently a billion dollars to try to chisel all this out nationwide. And the problem is it takes 50 to 75, maybe $100 million to chisel points back once people made up their mind. So that's why turnout is so important. That's why everybody understanding, you know, what's really going to happen here. My wife got so frustrated after watching everything over the weekend.

She listed everything that was wrong in the Biden administration. And once you know, right. Great. There you go. Well, because people have such short memory spans. Yes. But, you know, the problem is, you know, it's an affordability election. And the headwinds are tough.

Yeah, no, I think I saw on ABC this week. They shared a poll that said two years ago, people were much more likely, I think, even, you know, the majority of people to say Republicans would do better for you financially. And now that that lead is completely wilted. And Democrats seem to have a small margin of people believing that they would actually benefit you more. How is your memory that short was my reaction to? It's been literally just two years. And for the four years that Biden was in office, your life got much. most people listening, your life got much worse financially the entire time. How can it only take this short of an amount of time for people to be like, you know what? Let's give them another try. Well, the problem is that we should be reminding people of, you know, the big, beautiful bill, how much it saved them several thousand dollars. And oops, you know, a socialist county judge in, in Texas is taking $650 bag. We should be reminding them. of, gee, you know, the big beautiful bill saved you on this, and, you know, some crazy in an urban area near you is ripping you off, okay?

Yeah. You know, we should be talking about the fraud that exists. And you've got to make the connection in a damn draft what you're going to do for real people. Like, it's really simple. You know, we've got 61% of seniors, 39% of all. homeowners in Texas are now paying zero school taxes. Well, we want to do better than that. Sure. It's up now. There's only about a month left to game time. And all the Republicans out there have got to sharpen their message and say, you know, bad guys, you know, to the left,

what we're doing on the right for good people. You know, it's really amazing about hearing you say that Senator Bettencourt. And I just love how easy it is for you to, to, you know, rattle off all the numbers is the taxman. But when you talk about the big, beautiful bill specifically, $2,272 was the average savings in just 2026 for a taxpayer and a business 1541. So the average filer, $3813, $3,813 in total that was saved per taxpayer in the United States of America by one big, beautiful bill. I've heard a lot of people, even on the conservative side, say that Trump hasn't gotten a lot done, that we have the majority, we have the House, we have the Senate, and not a lot's been done.

I think people wildly misunderstand how the big, beautiful bill did a whole lot all at once. I imagine you agree. Absolutely. Because look, the fact that the matter is that people, you know, that's something the congressional candidates should have been harping on. And if that's just shocked, I don't see congressional candidates that are Republican saying, you know, cut the gas tax in half. Cut it out. I mean, whatever, okay? They need to be taking this message, and that's our real weakness right now, is we're all focused on these Senate races, okay? And that's, and while those are really thrillas in Manillas, but under that, on every ballot, to everyone we're talking to right now across the entire country, the next thing up is your congressional race. And that's what we should be really pushing is how well we're talking to. we're doing here. Okay? That's, you know, how much we saved you, you know. I mean, I can look at, you know, in Texas, we saved people 13.5 percent last year on their school property tax. The average

bill is down to $896, okay? That's unheard of, okay? In Texas, much less than the country. So these are things that people are running, and they've got 30 days, and they need to sharpen the message and pop this balloon, a propaganda barrage balloons that the Democrats have, because if you pop them, there's nothing but hot air there. They don't have a property tax plan. They don't have a, you know, an economic plan. They're just not Donald Trump or the Republicans. That's what they're running on. Yeah, no, they're actually behaving as if suddenly they have the same financial sensibilities that we do, and we know they don't. We know that when they're in power, things go horribly wrong. It's so interesting. Go ahead. And their Democrat Party is upside down on approval

ration, just like the Republicans are, Craig. So we, that's what these congressional ratios should be all about is pushing the message. Okay. Amen. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Before I let you go, is there anything else you want to say, I'd like to just throw the floor open to you if there's something I missed. No, I think the bottom line is that you've got, got to get incremental people interested in voting. So use facts. Okay, they've got plenty of emotion on the screens. Okay, this is the most frothy year I've ever seen in politics.

So just repeat that, hey, the big beautiful bill got you off $3,800 to start with. Don't let these local Democrats and these urban blueberries pop your wallet for the money that you got back on the big beautiful bill. Start with that message. Oh, that is awesome. I love that. Just lead with the facts. It's that easy if we all do it. Senator Paul Betancourt, a state senator at a Texas, the main host. I'm going to say the primary host of the Amigos, a influential show throughout all of Texas on KSEV radio. I look forward to talking again soon, sir. Thanks for having me on. Of course. This is The Dana Show, D-Lash, Dana Lash Radio, all over X. A quick break, a lot more after this. And the folks who make the program possible, it's our friends at Relief Factor. Relief Factor, can save.

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It's his life mission to make bad decisions. It's time for Florida man. That's right. It's time for Florida man on the Dana Show, D-Lash, Dana Lash Radio, and X, a great ways to stay connected to this really awesome radio show. A Florida man was accused of filming men in Florida truck stops, so already a creepy dude. He was then caught. He was pulled over on the side of the road. Inside his vehicle, they found meth, which I'm not surprised about. They also found, I don't know if I can say this.

I know I can say this in the radio. They found adult toys. So the dude driving around filming other dudes in truck stops throughout Florida, has meth and adult toys in his vehicle. This dude is hopefully going to be in jail for a while because I don't want him anywhere near me or anyone else I know. I want him to stay very far away. Another Florida guy that I saw that went viral apparently was accused of selling peyote

mushrooms on Facebook marketplace, which is hilarious. hilarious. Like I do think that there's a guy out there, apparently at least this one, but maybe more, who think to themselves, usually this is illegal, but it's Florida. So let me see if I can go ahead and sell some drugs on Facebook marketplace in Florida with my name, my face, and a location to meet me. Like this makes it as easy as possible for the cops. They go to the marketplace. They type in peyote. They type in mushrooms. Like, oh, it's Hank. He's selling it over here. Let me just go ahead and set up a meeting with him. I'd love it if one of the cops did it. on a profile that was evidently a police officer. Like they do it with like the Facebook for the county department. And he still shows up. He's like, I don't know. I thought they wanted drugs.

This is Florida. And you get in a lot of trouble for that sort of thing. Another story that I saw out there that I thought was interesting. A Florida man was arrested after blocking a train and attempting a carjacking, which is two very unique moves, both of which probably don't usually work out well for you. But I get the thought process, a little, especially if it's Florida. to, hey, you flag the train, get it to stop to where people can't pass, then all the cars organically stop. And if you don't have the ability to get up on the train and rob from them,

because you're not, you know, like riding a horse and in a Western, but you want to steal from somebody, you try to carjack somebody else. And then the most hilarious part about it, not just stealing things out of the car, but trying to take the entire vehicle, is you're then also stuck at a train. Like once you get in, if you get the guy out, and you're like, I got it. I got the train. Man, or I got the car. Why won't this train? move becomes your next complaint and that's an all you think and then you might try to do a you turn but anyway the guy got arrested because this was a horrible plan and a plan that I love. Here's the thing. I do really enjoy stupid criminals and I never want them to do their crimes

better. So I always debate whether or not talking about them and making fun of them is in fact a good idea because somebody out there is going to try to think a little harder next time. Quick break a lot more. Craig Collins filling in on the Dana Show. Pre-born is a great organization that saves women's lives. Saves women's lives when they're facing unexpected pregnancies, and they're trying to figure out what they're going to do in the whole world is whispering in their ear that they can't handle it. Preborn offers emotional, practical, and faith-based support centered on compassion

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A bunch of stuff out there to talk about. I did think a couple sort of silly things were interesting too, including a Trump-promoted gas station chain that's open to Detroit locations. I think this is fine. Like at least Trump doesn't know. the gas station. It's just a freedom fuel version of a thing. We had a burger joint in Houston, Trump Burger, that got a lot of trouble and, like, people were obsessed with it. And I think the owners actually got unique other problems. I think like one guy was actually here illegally,

which is sort of surreal, but he got kicked out. But I remember like the drama. And it's hilarious to me because the left wants to actually own the gas station and then tell us how much gas to charge. occasionally people on the right just decorate their gas station to be hardcore MAGA. And people are mad about that. Like, who cares? Get your gas somewhere else. There's a thousand gas stations all over the place. And the gas is expensive at basically all of them.

So if you don't want to go to the MAGA one, don't go to the MAGA one. That'll be fine. But I love that people are up in arms and mad about this. Like, how dare you business owner do a thing that you want to do that I don't like? Also, superpowers are racing to put a nuclear reactor on the moon. this feels somewhat similar to people also talking about whether or not we should put data centers on the moon. Look, I think people talking about what goes up there that doesn't have to be a part of down here, but helps us down here, is just getting going.

That's just going to be an ongoing conversation that will continue to talk about for a variety of reasons. I don't know if all of them or any of them will be good, but I sort of don't care because I'd like to see it done. Like, go ahead, put stuff on the moon. I have it benefit me and have it be up there instead of down here. that's fine. This is somewhat kind of tied to that story, I think. But a question was asked of OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman, in which he said that he differs from some other AI leaders and how much they're calling, like to warn people. They're saying the dangers of AI are obviously going to ruin society. Like, I think everything's going to explode at some point, according to some of those

people. Sam has a somewhat different perspective. I'm sure at least one thing he said, not everyone want to like, though. Oh, wait, hold on. You can't hear that audio, can you? Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir. Let me fix that. Let me hit this again so that we can hear this correctly. Always been a big believer that this technology has to be democratized and put in people's hands. I think one of the biggest differences between us and some of the stricter, let's say AI safety people, is we believe that the world should accept some bad things happening for the benefits of this technology and people having the... I think you got to say it a different way, but I think you can't say it that way. I might

talk about this more after the break because I find it fascinating that some bad things happening in far as good things also happening sounds okay as long as the bad thing isn't like nuclear abomination quick break a lot more and now all of the news you would probably miss it's time for dana's quick five yeah rapid fire quick five maybe even just a quick one on the dana thing right now the dana show the dana thing right now this is her segment i steal it on the show that i do um is it possible to harass a bear. An Aspen man has pled not guilty to harassment of a bear, not the other way around, not a bear that was harassing him, but one that apparently he was making mad. I don't know what's happening. John Miller is the guy's name, of course it is,

and he's saying, I'm not guilty, I do not deserve to be held accountable, and I do not want to pay my $250 fine for the claims that this bear that was in my yard was someone that I harassed, which I find hilarious. There's probably people picketing on the far left with blue hair, saying, you know, the bear deserves to be heard to.