The Texan Podcast - Currently Revolting: Smoke Filled Room Ep. 21

Episode Date: September 29, 2025

In this episode of Smoke Filled Room, Tony Ortiz of Current Revolt joins Senior Reporter Brad Johnson to discuss the current state of digital media, the ethical questions and challenges surrounding political journalism, insights into the Texas political landscape, and more.Listen to more Smoke Filled Room podcasts from our team wherever you get your podcasts. If you like what you hear, subscribe and leave us a review.Timestamps:00:00 Intro00:46 Tony Ortiz01:39 Current Revolt13:35 Texas GOP Dynamics and Leadership28:57 Paid Social Media Campaigns37:32 The Role of Media and Public Perception43:03 The Meme Bill and Paid Promotions44:49 AstroTurf and Internet Influence47:05 Grifting in Politics53:17 The Complexity of Legislating01:00:44 The Trans Issue01:14:07 Upcoming Elections and Candidates01:19:01 The THC Legislation Debate01:22:16 Conclusion

Hello, everybody. This is Brad Johnson Senior Reporter here at The Texan. For this month's smoke-filled room podcast, and this month we have Tony Ortiz of Current Revolt with us joining. Tony, welcome. I am so excited to be here today. We've been scheming this for a while. We have. And I've been excited. You've been excited. We're going to talk, first of all, current revolt and what it's like from, well, both of our perspective being in in media. We can talk about broadly speaking, the right, the shift we've seen, the personalities I'm sure we'll touch on. And then we might touch on the election next year if we have time. So let's get into it. Tony, first of all, just kind of give a brief

background of yourself and what you view is your role in the Texas media sphere. Well, there's a vacuum for gossip news, right, and trash media. And I'm not afraid to, like, lean into that. It used to kind of be ashamed of it, but we're like a national inquire slash TMZ, and that's the kind of news we produce. And we've had a lot of huge breaking exclusive stories, even some recently. And that's the void we filled. Nobody else really seems to want to fill that void. Some try. I look forward to hopefully more media outlets entering that sphere in the future. But there's a lot of stories out there that mainstream media or other other types of media just don't want to cover or it's just kind of too gross for them and we're willing

to be that output for that well i'm glad you're there because that way i don't have to do it get my hands dirty on that well so why did why did you start this why did you start down this path and and start current revolt yeah so like a lot of people in politics we started CR in COVID it was a COVID-inspired thing right i'd been working in politics since around 2015 2016 but this this project this newsletter that we created began out of frustration with COVID there was lockdowns group of guys and I were upset and one of them said I wish I had a place to vent to my frustrations we're just upset about the lockdowns and other things and so I created a website it was a originally a square space where we just

put in a bunch of editorial right and then our first major story was an allegation of an affair and we kind of just leaned into that and we've been going ever since What was the kind of stuff before that that you were right on? Yeah, I mean, that's actually like a topic that I'm not ashamed of, but embarrassed of. Maybe it's the same thing, but like we were pretty far right to the point where like I go back and think about the stuff we said and I'm pretty embarrassed by it. And yeah, kind of ashamed by it. It was like super right-wing stuff, very much like beating the drum of like, like, just pushing narratives and stuff without a lot, not a lot of like vetting of the truth and

things like that. So we were just kind of like, it was pretty gross. Like it was just not cool, not interesting, just very like edgy, edge lord stuff. And so that's what it started off as. The longer time I spent in media and learning the political sphere and kind of getting experience, the more serious I became, the team became. And, you know, I've been very public about it. And the kind of like, I guess not the apology, but kind of the explanation of what we did. and people seem to be relatively acceptable, accepting of it. Well, you know, every publication goes through changes as it grows, right? And it's business as well, not just publications.

Like, you know, we're totally different than what we were when we first launched. First and foremost in sophistication, I'd say. But, you know, when we started, you know, when I came here, all I knew was that governor habit was the governor. Now, I'm not from Texas, and I love Texas, been here six years, and it's a blessing. I'm very glad to be here. But that was the level of institutional knowledge that we had to work with at the beginning. And it just takes time to build that up and find your niche. And you guys have found that.

Yeah, we have. And I'm pretty proud of it. I'm proud of the team. I'm proud of the work that we've done. And I appreciate the people that support us, our donors and our readers, of course, our subscribers. But I'm really proud of where we've come. And I appreciate the grace that people have given us to kind of give us a second chance as far as, like, being at least acceptable or digestible news now.

Yeah. Yeah. What do you make of your reputation in this world, which is generally, you know, he's the one I go to to publish salacious stuff. Now, I know personally, you don't publish everything that you get because you get leads that turn out not to be true, right? Yeah, the amount of calls and rumors and stuff I get all day, it's a lot of it's just junk. It's either junk that's not interesting, and it wouldn't be interesting to anybody.

or it's fake news like and it's very obviously fake and so a lot of my time is spent the good the good stuff like it's able to you're able to dismiss I'm able to dismiss a lot of the stuff right off the bat like this is fake 100% like I'm not worried about it and then you'll get stuff that's like oh this could possibly be true and I have to chase that down there was a story somewhat recently I chased down regarding revolving around a private plane and some other allegations and I probably spent like two weeks on that stupid story And at the very last minute, like on the zero hour of publishing, I was able to find out the whole thing was fake, like basically.

And I was able to suss it out by doing a reverse image Google search on a document that I was given. And it turns out it was just totally, the whole story was just junk. And like such an almost a massive mistake for us. So yeah, a lot of the time has spent vetting stories, sources. What's your favorite story that you publish? I think the funniest one is the Myra Flores Grub Gates. story just because it made national news for like, I'm like, damn, I spent a lot of time on a lot of

these other stories and then something stupid like Myro Flores stealing food pictures and like reposting them as her own. It just made national, like, I had, I think the Washington Post, maybe it was Washington Post or somebody called me about it, like, and I'm just like, I've done so much work on other stuff. But that one's like really funny because it's so petty. Like who, you know, who does that? Who takes Google, who goes online, searches for old food photos and then passes them off as their own you know and what was more embarrassing is like she was passing them off as like latin american food and that she had cooked them and then you you reverse image search some of these and they weren't even latin american dishes they were like completely different countries and and

ethnicities and types and so that one was uh that's probably the most that's probably one of the most fun ones i think one of the one i lost the most sleep on was the uh the ballot story rinaldi's ballot that that was stressful um not because i was worried that it wasn't true I was worried like the ramifications of that because it was just big and explain what that that was and yeah we published a story basically uh well we published rap to be blunt about we published former chairman matt rinaldi's ballot like that's the craziest thing as far as i'm aware and i'd love to be corrected on this like i don't think anybody's ever done that like anybody's ever published a person's ballot before um and you know it it all started because he

He had a led, or he claimed that he had voted for Donald Trump. And he was calling people stupid online and saying they needed to get mental help. I think it was Tray Trayner, he told that too. And then I think Traynor was just like, yeah, I don't think this is accurate. And then the next day we publish his ballot. And it was it. He voted for DeSantis, right? And, you know, I don't know why you would lie about something like that.

But, I mean, the signs are always there. Rinaldi's never been a fan, at least privately, a fan of Trump. And I get it. Trump's not everybody's cup of tea, of course, and for many good reasons. but yeah that that was a that was a source of a lot of stress I think the the morning we published that the RPT the general counsel RPT threatened or threatened to look into suing us of course nothing came of that so that one was it was pretty stressful and then I think that was at the you dropped that at the convention right the first day of

convention yeah I almost lost my media credentials because that story that was pretty funny and then of course the most recent one Representative Giovanni Capricillon, that was a really huge story that I had been working on for about a year, about a year. And I was glad to be able to put a bow on that and be done with it. Has there been any updates on a lawsuit on that? No, and I don't imagine there will be. I mean, you know, it's, there's a lot of reasons why there wouldn't be. But yeah, you know, we published that story where a woman alleges

that she had a fair with the representative, the representative admitted to an affair, but denied the rest of the route allegations in the story made by her and then threatened to sue us but we haven't heard anything and as far as like the process of that story you know I reached out to well the I hadn't even published a story and the lawyer for I guess represented Capri Leone had lowered up he'd gotten counsel counsel text messages me at somewhere sometime late very late at night and it's like basically like if you publish a story we're going to you. And I was like, what story? Because I haven't even said what this, like I've said at least publicly what this story is going to be about. And, um, you know, so I sent it to my

lawyer and thank God he was up late at night. And I was just like, what are we going to do about this? And he's like, well, you know, we expected this. And I was like, well, I'm going to call and get comment. So I call, uh, representative's lawyer. And I'm just like, look, we want the truth. Like, I would love to take a statement. And he goes on about how I can't afford to tell the truth. And he's going to break me, like he's going to make me broke and he's going to ruin my life. And he's to ruin my life or something to that effect just all this horrible stuff and i'm just like okay like we just want the truth like i just want to hear you know the representative side and give him a chance of talk and he uh you know he gave me an email to send him questions and we reached out for comment

i think at least one or two times received no comment we published a story and then he gives another uh journalist i think it was uh renzo downy i think he gave him a statement yeah i think he gave him a statement, which is like, man, we wanted to give your side. We reached out to you plenty of times and you never got back to us. So whatever. What are you going to do? You know, part of the part of your job is, I'm sure, especially given the general topics you cover is angry feedback and people pissed off that you ran a story on one thing or another. What's the most memorable example of that for you? Oh, there's two actually. There's two stories I published that cost me a lot of money in the sense of like subscriptions right because you know how it is like we run off of paid

subscriptions per month and there was two stories specifically that cost me money the first one was the brian slate and we were the first one to break the news that he had uh slept with his staffer uh and and she was not i think 19 at the time he'd given her alcohol and took her out to get plan b and a bunch of just also horrible awful stuff and we broke that story and you know i lost a lot of subscriptions for that uh had a bunch of former like even sources is like call me a Democrat like they were done with me and like blah blah blah and I'd been taken over by the liberals and the funniest thing from that though was the at the time I think it was either I think it was the chairwoman for his county called me and she demanded not only that I take

the article down but she demanded an apology like a formal apology so she's like I want you to take the article down I want you to apologize to Representative Slaten's family and I said okay I'll make a deal. If this turns out to be fake, or if this turns out to be fake, I will not only apologize and take the article down, but I'll also donate to your party. I'll donate, give a sizable donation to the county party. I said, but if it's true, you'll give me a donation and you'll apologize to me. And of course, it ended up being true. And she apologized. And she did donate. And we're cool now. Like, everything's fine. Like, she's totally, she called me and she was like, I didn't realize it was like this. She was like, I had no idea this would be what it is. And

So that was one. And then another one similar to that was the current chairman of the RPT, Abraham George. We published the police report and the 911 call where his children had called 911 because him and his wife were having a domestic dispute. And he, I guess, was alleging that or accusing his wife of having an affair with another man at, I think, a church. And there was a gun involved. And I think the report, it's been so long.

I think the report, and I would love to be corrected on this. fact check but I think the report alleges that he was grabbing a gun to go do something to the guy and the police showed up we published the police report the 911 call and this was before the his election I think before the RPT chairman election and the amount of people just doing Olympic level gymnastics to justify continuing to vote for a guy that's like probably not fully stable is just crazy but yeah same thing people are like oh he's a democrat we're voting for this guy no matter what because Ken Paxton endorsed him like blah blah blah and it's just whatever and they've all come back like all these subscriptions have come back of course but

that's the kind of stuff you deal with when you work on a specific side and we do we cater to the right so when you don't push out news that that pleases the right they'll hit you back off topic a bit you know george has had an interesting time running the party you know things have gone differently than I think most people probably expected going into the session not at least because things in the house went differently than most people expected. What do you make of his tenure so far? I mean, it's, what's the biggest thing that's been interesting is the flip-flop, right? Like, we went into specials, or we went to a session, basically, like, the RPT was, like, gung-hole against Burroughs and, like, against the establishment.

Everybody's horrible except our handful of reps and, you know, the Democrats run the house, all this stuff. And then now you've seen, like, a complete 180 on that where, like, he's doing pictures with. boroughs he or speaker boroughs he's complimenting him he's doing photos with other reps that have previously been called rhinos and the he was previously like beating the drum of like we're going to we're going to remove all of these reps from the ballot they're all going to be removed and now this is not the case like he is kind of in some ways even voting against some of these these censures privately have heard that they're kind of like not wanting to push the removal anymore and you're like I think I think you a lot of people called it and I was one of them but a lot

of people said this like nothing's going to happen the party can't afford the lawsuits and nobody's going to get removed from the ballot people get censured of course and it's already happened but you know it's been interesting seeing the flip-flop and I'm just curious I am curious and some people have said that he's not going to run again he's for for chairman he's going to for office again but who knows I guess only he knows and his team well you know to be fair on their part it is they had what over 40 of their priorities passed yeah you know from so if you're coming at it from that perspective you have to be at least somewhat happy with what happened in in the legislature this year right and especially given the one chain distinctive factor was

boroughs at a speaker versus feeling a speaker right and i think that has they saw that they got stuff that they never thought they would get before to this morning the governor signed the bathroom bill you know how many years did that take for them to get that passed and so they're now like well you know the the the base or at least a portion of the base has been revved up so much and they want blood uh because of the original sin of joining uh electing a speaker with a majority democratic coalition and now they're like well we got the results we wanted so why don't we all take our ball and go home yeah I don't know it's it's it's a tough situation to be in

it's particularly given the way they went into this session the Republican Party of Texas has created this this Frankenstein or zombies of grassroots activists and they're gonna get mad at me describing this but kind of what it is these zombies of activists that are just angry like you said they just want blood they want to be pissed at somebody and whether it's burrows or another you know moderate Republican rep they want their heads and now that the RPT is struggling to find things to complain about because we've had what's the mean the most conservative session ever every session the most conservative

session the we kind of have had a very very good most conservative session the they're trying to rein in these zombies and say hey hey hey hey calm down like actually the speaker burroughs was pretty great you know this there's been a great session like we've got a lot of wins but they're pissed like they they want to be angry at somebody and the person who has really capitalized on now controlling those zombies has been represented Brian Harrison like he is awesome at it he can take them and he can he can probably tweet out that Trump's a traitor tomorrow and he would have a substantial amount of people just being like after Donald Trump I guarantee it that's where he's out right now he's

nobody does social media better than Brian Harrison he's very effective at it yeah and you know some people have brushed it off as oh it's it's just bots and it's certainly a chunk of them is bots right absolutely but i've no idea how much but there are real people behind those yeah if you're out there in the field talking and i know you are for sure but like you meet these people out in public right i we wrote an article um making fun of the fact that uh representative harrison had co-authored a bill to basically like legitimize gay sex right which whatever like i'm actually i don't have any beef with the bill personally. But it was just funny coming from a guy that's like always against the LGBTQ lobby. And he co-authored it, I think, with Representative Phelan and

other Democrats. And so here's a guy who's on Twitter nonstop complaining about the Democrats, the LGBTQ lobby, and Speaker Phelan. And here he is joining a bill or co-authoring a bill with those people he's been complaining about, about gay sex. And like we wrote an article making fun of it. And I had like a substantial amount of like big supporters of mine that were just like, shouldn't you be attacking other people? Like Brian Harris is the most amazing thing in the world. Oh, and I'm like, well, can you explain this? And we're like, we don't know, but we're going to let it go. And I'm like, okay, all right, that's fine. Whatever. Everyone has some slack for the people they like and no slack for the people they don't like them. Absolutely.

So it's kind of politics. Yeah, yeah. That's the, that's the big thing is like we, we won't hold people, We won't hold the people we like accountable for the things that we hold the people we don't like accountable for. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, I guess that brings us into the next general topic of discussion, which is the right. And obviously, you know, you come from that and you focus a lot of your coverage heavily on, generally speaking, the right, whatever that is. What do you make of where things have gone over the last 10 years of your time in politics, both Texas and nationally, in the direction of the political right? Yeah.

Man, that's interesting. I don't, I don't think that, like, you know, I've been in Texas politics for not super long, but I don't think it's that the right has changed. It's just my realization of, or the seeing how the sausage is made. I hate that phrase, but, like, using that phrase, like, seeing how the sausage is made is me and me realize, like, how the right is controlled and operated and who's controlled, who, like, pulls the strings on the grassroots, right? And, yeah, I don't think it's changed much, but a lot of what,

the grassroots operated off as of fear anger those are like the biggest motivators right you always need to be you always have to have a group that's like constantly angry in order to push like the overton window a certain direction or the fear of something right fear of democrats fear of you know the the texas becoming blue those types of common fears right and so that has stayed the same it's every year uh texas turning blue we've got uh we've got to do this you know uh you know it's a battle cry for both sides. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's definitely a battle cry for both sides, but the grassroots is like really susceptible to the anger stuff. And I think that the biggest struggle now, as we've talked, is like the RPT is wondering how do we manage these people that are really angry about

things that we're not angry about anymore. Because, I mean, the basic factor, political factor of Texas over the last three, four cycles is it's gotten redder. You know, since 2018, which was a very high watermark for Democrats, it has become, you know, our partisan index has shifted from R-54 after the 2020 election to after this recent one, R-58. Now, it's no Oklahoma, but it is red and getting redder as of this moment. And so you have to figure out after having a juxtaposition of just opposition, basically, to now how do we deal with getting these things we want, which we are? Yeah, and, you know, the grassroots are really keen on removing a lot of these reps or primaring them.

You know, they run a lot of these really goofy candidates against these incumbents existing reps that are just like really solid in the sense. And I mean solid in the sense of like they're solid in their base and they're in their district. Like they're not good. It's very unlikely to have them removed. But they'll run the goofiest people and they'll insist that these guys are going to win and they waste all this time and money and credibility supporting these really junky candidates and then they get stomped. And this happens, it feels like it happens every cycle. And, you know, it's not my job to be a consultant or anything, but I almost wonder if it would behoove the grass streets right

to just kind of try to bury the hatchet with these existing reps and try to get a few more things past versus just scream and be angry and try to primary them with these goofy reps. Well, because, you know, the base, whatever we're calling it, classifying that as these days, it is the most, motivated and disciplined voting base in the Republican Party, but they're far from the only voters. And so look at the Senate race. You know, you have Ken Paxton, who has a massive following among the most avid Republican voters, but he's going up against the guy who has a lot of

crossover appeal for people who are more apathetic and who don't really like the grunginess of politics, the twist that it takes off. And so the question is, what's going to weigh more when, on election day? But it's pretty clear the two lanes that these candidates are taking. And one of them has a lot more room to grow, Cornyn's, than Paxton's. But that doesn't mean that having that very large, you know, motivated base won't be enough for him, you know? Yeah, you've got, and I think, and I'm ragging on the grassroots lot, and I don't mean to, because they're all, like, their heart's in the right place, of course.

It's just kind of the methods or who's leading them is kind of goofy. But I think a lot of them haven't realized that they don't make up the majority of the Republican Party, or like the voting base. And you basically said that. Some of them are realized that. They're like, okay, yeah, we don't. We're kind of the outliers here. And, you know, the average voter, I think that, especially at least the average Republican voter, can't even name the mayor of their city. Like, they don't even know who their city council people are.

They go in, they vote Donald Trump, and they vote for everything that has an R next to it. And then they go home. Like, that's their day. The amount of times that I hear someone who's a state rep described as a congressman or a senator, someone described, who's a very low-level elected official, described as a U.S. senator. I mean, it's just like, wow. They don't even know. They're about to beat a dead horse, but they've described you as a state rep.

Yeah, I know. Like, these are your, this is your voting base, you know, this is your voting base. You know, it's happened to me. I've been yelled at, like, shouldn't you be doing work? And it's like, this is my work. What do you want me to do posting on the internet? But yeah, that's the voting base. And I think that a lot of them haven't realized that they're the minority here.

And they've got a lot of work to do to get the average Republican voter on their side, or at least inform them, make them informed about what they believe in. And yeah, in this case, you've got Cornyn v. Paxton. And if it was just the grassroots, it would be a total blowout. It'd be like 90 to 10, but it's not. And it's not super close, but it is close. And getting closer. I was going to say, yeah, I think Cornyn is gaining ground, which, you know, it's, I don't think a lot of people expected that.

Yeah. Well, and Cornyn, I saw the other day, ad impact, which tracks these media buys. The amount of money put in a Cornyn's race so far for Cornyn is larger than any other candidate across the entire country. And that includes Republicans, Democrats, and includes swing states. he's at double the next person. He was at, I think, 18.6 million as of last week. And the next closest person who I think was Ossoff, the Democrat in Georgia. And that's a swing state.

That's a battleground state. So it's just wild the amount of money that they've pumped in. And that has enabled them to close the gap a bit. I put the race at like 7 to 10 points. Some polls are saying like 5 or closer. I don't think it's quite there yet. And Paxton hasn't spent money And then they've got a general to worry about

Like Tala Rico getting in is interesting Right? Like all right's done like he's not gonna He's not gonna no there's no way Tyler Rico taking it I just just the just the The way Democrats are talking and what they're engaging about Like the guy's boring like he's super boring Nobody even like he played football nobody even knew I don't know was he good I pretty sure he wasn't that great actually I could be wrong I'm not a football guy

I don't think he was yeah he sucked at football and so He made the NFL which is something neither of us Yeah, that's true. I never do the NFL. But I think that, like, he just has no real presence. And whereas Tala Rico is, like, doing everything. He did Rogan. He's doing all these other right-wing media outlets, and he's traveling, and there's lines for him.

And you can say the same thing. You could say it's a one-off because Beto is like this, right? Beto is everywhere. And he's still lost many times. And this could be that, that too. But I don't think Oliver has a chance now. Yeah. Nobody knows what next cycle is going to look like, chiefly, economically.

You know, that drives a lot of decision-making at the ballot box. But, you know, I covered the All-Red Cruz race a lot last year, and people were saying from the very beginning, oh, this will be the year that they take out Ted Cruz. And obviously that didn't happen. But it struck me the strategy for All-Red because of the candidate that he is, which is basically what you were getting at there, he's not very compelling as a speaker.

And so it reminded me of back in school, when Richard Nixon ran, I think, in 72. He had lost, no, maybe this was 68, I think it was 68. He had lost for president a couple times. And he was just not a very, he's not a guy you'd go and want to have a beer with. He's not, there's no standing on tables and getting the crowd to, you know, have all eyes on you, like there was for Beto. And so what they did with that Nixon campaign was they set up these scripted town halls where they got people there. They made it look like it was a grassroots gathering.

but it really wasn't. It was just activists there that were asked to be there with scripted questions so he didn't get caught off guard. I don't think Allred was quite to that level of manufactured. But they did focus heavily on paid media, which is messaging you can control. It's not messaging that it's not earned media. It's not him, you know, it's not Talarico going on Joe Rogan. Right. Right. It's just a totally different dynamic. And so we're going to see a test, I think, between the ability to focus on fundraising and lean heavily on paid media versus Tala RICO, who's going to have plenty of money himself, Tala RICO's ability to find attention because of how compelling he is as a speaker. And I would probably lean to what you said. Allred's not going to make

it, but he was on the statewide ballot, all right, right? So that is an advantage for him. Yeah, yeah. Let's see where it takes him. Yeah, so let's go back to talking about the right. So one of your, and you kind of got up this with the Harrison thing, one of your hobby horses is exposing hypocrisy. Stipulate up front, everyone's hypocritical at some point. 100% right. It's impossible to be human and not be hypocritical.

But there are more glaring instances than others. you know why did that take such a foothold in your area of coverage was was there one thing that annoyed you that you're like all right i need to start exposing this more or did it just gradually develop i think i think especially with the affair stuff we cover a lot of affairs and you've got a party that that i subscribe i vote republican like i've i've always voted republican my entire life i vote in every primary and runoff that's available but but you've got to an entire party that is based off the Christian right and preaches morals and values. I mean, we even put the Ten Commandments back in school.

And yet I meet all these reps. I meet all these activists. I meet all these political celebrities that are out there just doing the circuit across Texas or locally with people that are not their spouses. And that just annoys the heck out. me just because it's like if you're beating the drum of the right and you're not pushing like the Christian ideology stuff I can understand like it's okay like you're not holding yourself to those morals I guess but like you're out there like pushing for these things and then you're also like

hooking up with your staff like it's like give me a break and it does it's a source of frustration and the hypocrisy is so glaring there that yeah it's been something that we we cover pretty extensively and something I do get annoyed about and people were like well you know you're not covering the left stuff and I'm like yeah because they're open about it and they don't hide it generally and like what's it called they don't they don't hold themselves to Christian values like I was covering that that youth summit this this last weekend and like any meeting or any event like they start off with you know doing the pledge allegiance and doing the national anthem and a moment of prayer and I'm in the press pool and you know and I like these these press outlets I'm not going to name

But, like, you know, I get up and I put bow my head and I put my hand in my heart for the pledge. Nobody else in the press will did. They stayed sitting down. It was amazing to see that on the house floor. Yeah, so you've probably seen it too. Yeah. Well, I've seen reporters confronted by members of the body for either not putting their hand over their heart and the Pledge of Allegiance or not bowing their head for a prayer. And I'm just, even if you don't subscribe to that, just like act like you're kind of doing it so you don't get yelled at.

Yeah, just fit in. Or just like, I don't understand. Like, you can hate. you can hate the ideology of the group whose event you're attending but you can still show respect for your country and for prayer even if you don't subscribe to it but like yeah I get up to like

do the pledge and all that stuff hand over my heart for the national anthem and head down for the prayer and all that stuff but I'm looking back and like everybody's sitting down they're tapping away on their like computers and stuff and I'm just like man this is so disrespectful you know because I've been the Democrat events I've been invited to them right I've been invited

to Democrat events to cover them and they'll do like a pledge or something very rare but they'll do one or like a prayer that's very more a little more common um and i'll participate even though i don't subscribe to the left at all as far as ideology and so uh i don't know how we got on topic but that's that's been a source of frustration too um that and like the paid the paid posting on twitter has been like yeah let's talk about that a hobby point for me yeah um you know we've talked about that quite a bit just in our text chain over the last probably couple years i'd say yeah first big one that you broke was during the

the Paxton impeachment and it was pretty obvious what was happening but you actually managed to prove it yeah you know walk me through how you managed to get that and in what the details were yeah you know a lot of my time is spent making contacts right um I talked about this with a colleague of mine over the weekend and this person was a little frustrated that it wasn't like actively writing and covering this event I'm like no I'm like interacting with people I'm shaking hands I'm talking to people introducing myself because I need to make context. So my my goal was to make as many context to get stories later on. I'm not not there to really 100% cover the details of a summit. And so that that being said when the Paxton impeachment came up, I and many others,

everybody that had a brain noticed it, you had people that had never talked about Texas politics. And if they did, they certainly didn't know what they were talking about. These are a bunch of e-celebrities and they're all saying the same thing about attorney general Ken Paxton and I'm like this is weird and then so a good handful of the context I made and personal friends and e-celebrities I knew I reached out to him like hey were you we've talked like you're kind of dumb when it comes to Texas politics like and they've admitted they're like I don't know what I talk they talk about national stuff like why are you talking about this very like local thing and one of my buddies was like dude they gave me I think it was

like 250 or 400 bucks to make like a 30 second Instagram video he was laughing it was like this is the quickest couple hundred bucks ever made in my life he's like I did it in between making lunch like and he's like I don't give a crap about this stuff and then I had another friend do it and so eventually there one of them sent me the work order for this so like for those listening that haven't seen it they e-celebrities were being paid per tweet to defend Attorney General Ken Baxon in his impeachment trial, right? And so we broke that, and it was a big deal, and it became blaringly obvious now. The interesting part about this, though, was the grassroots right totally dismissed it. They hated it. In fact, they were mad at me for even covering it,

because Ken Paxon is their guy. How dare you, right? It doesn't matter if they're being paid because, you know, he's a great guy. And my retort to that is like, yeah, like, as somebody who's of the right, Like, Attorney General Ken Paxson is the best Attorney General that we've had. That's in my opinion, personal opinion. If you're a right winger, like, he's phenomenal. And I agree with that. But I was like, this is going to come back to haunt us one day when, like, a foreign country does it. Or when somebody we don't like is participating in it, right?

And that has come to fruition in the last, like, 60 days, right? You had rumors, and, you know, I've been told, and one thing I've been told another that, you know, people that had supported Speaker Burroughs were now doing paid posts on his behalf or to support him, right? And I don't think the speaker himself was paying for these. But you saw a lot of interesting characters coming out of the woodwork who had never talked about Texas before, talked about Texas before, and they were talking about Speaker Dustin Burroughs. And if they had, they were maybe not condemning Burroughs himself, but the general conditions that brought Burroughs to Pat. Right. And one of them on name, just because I've reached out to him and he's basically admitted to in public is Gunther Eagleman.

He's like a source of somebody I just absolutely annoyed about. But he's a guy, when we posted this online, he was talking about how horrible Speaker Dustin Burroughs was. And then the next day, how amazing it was. And then I guess once he finished his payment, like he went back to hating on him. And so this happened all within the period, right? And then you had that fast. Yeah.

And then you had internet celebrities, even some Texas ones that were doing paid posts to defend taxpayer-funded soda. That was a big one that we exposed. And then the most recent, recent one is you've had a lot of these internet celebrities now promoting the country of India. Like, they're defending and promoting India. And so, like, yeah, now you have what some people would consider bad people being promoted and foreign countries being promoted. And none of these celebrities are disclosing that they're being paid. In fact, it's funny last night I had an organization reach out to me.

They offered me $120 to do a 30-second clip about some AI program. And it specifically says in the work order, do not label this as an ad or a promotion or give any idea that this was a paid post. Like, they don't want these people doing that. So they're just looking for anybody with a following, not anybody that has actually discussed the thing they're talking about. Yeah, I've never promoted any, like, AI products ever. I use AI for like image generation, but never promoted it. And they reached out to me and they're like, yeah, we want you to do this paid video post. And 30 seconds long, we'll give you $120 for one video that's under 30 seconds.

just don't label it as a promotion. And I'm just like, you know? Yeah. So you have a lot of that happening. And I'm hoping the ledge does something about it. There's a lot of people that are against it. And usually the people that are using this are against this. But I'm hoping it gets regulated.

And it's interesting that it does actively violate, especially Twitters or X's terms of service. But Elon Musk hasn't stepped in. And I have a couple theories as to why. But he hasn't stepped into regulated himself. And it's kind of interesting. There's another example that I saw that I think I flagged for you during session, which was about SB6, the large electricity load for grid bell. And, like, this is just such a weedy niche topic that nobody, unless you're in the industry,

knows or cares about. And you have these, you know, big accounts or publications running articles on how this is going to ruin Trump's, you know, economic renaissance for America. It's like, you guys have no idea what this even is. And it's just glaringly obvious And somebody writes it for them And even AI writes it from Because you'll see them

Some of them put out these tweet paid posts They have m-dashes in them And they've never used them before A big one with the India stuff Was What's his name from formerly From the Blaze Elijah Schaefer

Elijah Schaefer This guy, and I'm not joking You can anybody listens Can go onto his Twitter And just search India And he does nothing but post racist stuff about Indians. Like every stereotype about Indians, he, this guy posts, right, horrible stuff. And then on Gateway Pundit, he publishes an article out of nowhere, talk about how great

India is. And then the next day he goes, like, starts dumping on them again. Well, one of my buddies, he goes by, one of my internet maga, celebrity buddies, goes by BrickSuit on Twitter, and he's great. But he took every, a good chunk of the words or unique words in this guy's article and fed them into AI, cross-referenced it with his Twitter, and found that like 90% of these unique words were never used in his personal Twitter. So clearly he didn't even write the article, but gateway pundit published it. And so, yeah, and this is all just like, it's very frustrating. You've got these foreign countries now involved in American politics with as far as pushing propaganda. And, you know, it's all slop and people will, there's a group of people that

will consume this for sure well you know people will we see this at the national level with cable news outlets too um you know it's not always slop but oftentimes there is a lot of slop and it's because people will consume it partially out of you know blissful ignorance but also you know people have their own lives to deal with right and so they're not they don't do this every day they're not seeing you know firsthand sourcing things like that like we do as a job so it's just like the path of least resistance to believe what you see and the culture has changed right like when we grew up you know our parents are telling us don't believe everything you see on tv yeah right and i think you know we either fell for it sometimes like or whatever but now the same group that

was telling us age group demographic that was telling us that not to believe everything we can see on tv is falling for everything they really out of the internet like my father's guilty of this a few times where he sends me these videos and it's like i can tell it's a i i'm like that's a i'm like that's yeah like calm down like it's not it's not real like this is it real you know and and and but they they immediately believe it and they will start getting angry about it or tweet about it I think recently there was a video at AI video of Elon Musk talking about the shooter uh Kirk's assassin and um it was totally fake like Elon Musk had never made a video of it but people were putting it out like oh this is a real thing that Musk said blah blah blah and it created a bunch of now these

all these conspiracy theories people are saying your Israel did it and some people are saying the government's why it's just all it's it's exhausting the amount of like conspiracy theories gets so tiring to hear and frustrating i just uh but you're right like they're not like this is our job is to source this stuff out so we do kind of have a responsibility to like correct these people and be like and put out news and say like hey this is what's real and this is what's not it's why we have to be accurate um but there's a lot of people internet celebrities that are beating these these drums to make people upset in exchange for cash yeah on the paid tweet stuff do you think you've been effective in, I hate the term raising awareness, but for lack of a better terms

coming to mind right now, raising awareness about this issue. Yeah, I had a conversation, and I can't say who with, but a representative for an organization that pays people to tweet, I had a conversation with him, man, maybe two weeks ago, because I was trying to figure out who was behind the pro-India paid tweets and he he says it's not us it's not us I swear it's not us and I said okay I believe I mean I'm not going to assume you're allowed to me and he's like can we just have a conversation like yeah and so we talked and I was like look here's the deal I was like you're working on this paid tweets outside of Texas I don't care I'm busy with other stuff but the minute it and there's Texas territory I'm going to cover it and he was just like he was like yeah

we stopped doing political stuff in Texas because we just don't want the drama for me so So, yeah, I think maybe I've been affected. I think people have noticed, right? And I think people are aware of it. I know that the legislators have definitely noticed. But getting notice is enough. We need, like, actually stuff done. So I'm hoping that something gets done about it.

Yeah. I wonder how you would even fashion a law with that. I don't know. And we saw what Date Filens attempted, quote-unquote, meme bill. It wasn't really about memes. What it was really about was an altered image on a mailer that was sent into his district but that didn't go anywhere no the execution on that I think in my opinion was horrible and but but like yeah and there's obviously a good chunk of groups out here that are against

it because they use a paid promoting to do it right and some are some are obvious and some aren't you've got you've got like literal payrolled employees or 1099s that work for organizations that are out there beating the drum and people they're not they don't just they don't hide that they work for these organizations but people take what they say is like oh this is like this is natural like this is this is something that somebody truly believes and it's like well maybe that's true but also like they're making like 10,000 a month from this organization to say this like do you you got to wonder would they believe this if they weren't making 10,000 a month? It's really easy to justify it when you're making that much money. Right right. And so

you know you've got some of that and then you've got like some people that work for politicians that are getting paid by taxpayer dollars and they're on Twitter all day defending the person they work for and uh you know that's like it's people are like oh this person's so great well they it's like yeah well like you know this person's getting paid for it every time i buy a coffee like a little bit of tax money goes to that person's salary like yeah they're getting paid to defend this person because that's their job and if this person loses like where do they go um and so you've got a lot of that and so you know people don't people don't i think realize this naturally and and that's fine like like i said like we're we're on twitter and news all day whereas everybody else is

checking it between their lunch break or their water break at the office so yeah do you think it's always been this way it's just maybe a force multiplier because of the internet you mean the paid posts uh you know pay for play has always been a thing right but yeah yeah i mean more just the general phenomenon of um uh you know not false flags but uh astroturf oh astroter stuff yeah um i think it's always been there i think that with the with the with the internet and everything now and people kind of doing their own research even when it's not great like a lot of this stuff has been made more obvious so I think that this stuff is coming to light a lot easier it's a lot harder to hide right because you've got more people now more than

ever that know how to file a PIR or look at financial DEC reports or FEC reports right you have definitely more now than you did in the past and so people are kind of like naturally you know getting excited about and following money trails and seeing who's paying who and so some of this stuff is coming to light a little more than normal but again it's all about like is any anybody do anything about this and I've said it publicly I'm not against like people getting paid to promote stuff like we did an ad for the the THC lobby during during a special session like we did it and we were very obvious about it and I said it was a sponsored post so it'd be hypocritical for me to be against it I'm not

what I'm against is people not disclosing that this is in exchange for something and you know people make the argument like oh well you know even though I guess got paid it's something I would have said anyway and it's like well maybe maybe yeah but you know again like the the most wildest one was like you had all the it was i think uh senator middleton and i can't remember who from the house was trying to ban taxpayer funded uh snap for soda snap for soda and you had some like Texas MAGA celebrities that were like attacking for and they all use the same language too yes they all did they all linked the same article right and one of them who has been caught twice doing this, of course, lied and denied it.

And then I called the organization that did the arrange that payment. They're like, yeah, he was on the payroll. And I'm like, why are you lying? Just admit it. But it's so shameless and it's gross. I hate it. Like, just say you're being paid. Nobody's going to care anyway.

Just say it, you know. How rife is our world with this kind of griftiness? Oh, man, the grifters are exhausting, man. You know, you just had the assassination of Charlie Kirk, and I was thinking about this the other day, I was getting really grossed out by the number of people grifting off of his death. And when I say that, I mean, like, do you have people making ads and shirts and fundraising and starting organizations and all this stuff? And, you know, I was getting mad, but, but then I was like, you know what, though? like in all honesty like if charlie grigg was still alive and had a choice to decide if he wanted people to do this he would want them like he would i think i think i think i think

he would want people to grift off of his death and like politicize highly politicize it really i think he would i think he would want the right to use his death as a tool to push policy i know that i know that a lot of people have said this too like that he would want that but you know we'll never know but i think i think he would want that but yeah the grifting is but back to topic like the grifting's out of control and how do you define grifting i think grifting is when you are saying something you wouldn't always necessarily believe in order to make money or you're making you're making money off of something or an issue where you're clearly like overblowing its importance to to somehow bent personally benefit you right um

That's probably the best definition of it. I'm trying to think of, like, a good example. But it's just, it's almost like there's just so much. It's just, they all just become like a soup of grift, and you just can't even label one. But it's out of control. And, you know, I think people are noticing, but we'll see if anything gets done about it.

What's the worst example you've seen? Worst example of grifting. I think, like, hmm. Yeah, I can only think of, like, recent ones, but, like, the India stuff's kind of out of control, only because the people, that have been pushing the pro-India stuff, we're so insanely racist about Indians. And then they're out there, like, after they get their payments allegedly, and then they're

out there, India's a great country. Like, we got to, they're our greatest ally. We got to defend them all the ball. And then as soon as, like, they're, I guess, like, when you get paid on this stuff and the work orders, it has to pass a certain period. And then, like, you're free from the contract in the sense. At least that's what mine have been when they've approached me about them. But you have to keep that tweet up forever. You can never delete it. Somebody it deletes a lot of hers is uh isabella um the lucca she just moved to texas so she's become fair game we're actually talking about she's in texas now i haven't figured out where in texas but she's in texas now but she does this a lot she does a ton of pay for play so a woman doesn't get out of bed

unless she's getting paid for it and she'll put out a paid post and then um time will go by and she'll delete it so like you can't you can't keep track of like what all she's pretty smart um but yeah you'll see these people that are like say something horrible about the topic and then they'll They'll promote the topic in a very generic, horrible, robotic way, and then they'll go back to hating on the topic. Gunther Eagleman, a big one with Grows and other things. And it's just so glaringly obvious, and it's just gross. That and, like, the craziest one, I think is one that you even, like, kind of highlighted

was there was an organization that was promoting wind and green energy in Texas, and they were paying MAGA celebrities $12 per petition signature that they got. from people that signed up at their link and Gunther Eagleman was promoting this this petition and when you go to sign the petition even though it's for wind and green energy it has like oil well machines in the background there's nothing it's totally anti-oil actually but it's got because they just want the signatures and it had racked up quite a lot of like clicks and then he took it down because we called him out of it but he took it down but yeah he's a He needs a Texas resident.

Wow. DeLuca is an interesting example of, we were talking about this this morning. This, like, it's really fashionable for those on the right to move to Texas now because it's, you know, the biggest red states and they're passing a lot of conservative stuff and they can, you know, it's a good thing to, you know, rally the troops over, get likes and comments. And I saw it, what brought it up was I saw a tweet of hers this morning and it said, I've been here in Texas for a month.

and now something like a, I only eat brisket, and I say y'all, and I'm like, okay, I'm a transplant, I've been here six years, so I would be hypocritical myself to say, no, no one can come here ever again. But that is just absurd. You don't learn this, you don't have this much about Texas ingrained in you in a month, let alone years, you know? Yeah, it's everything, and I've met her. I've, like, met her in person, and everything about this woman is fake. Like, there's a reason she doesn't show up in person to events because she looks nothing like her photo. My buddy, it's like, I think Milo Yanopoulos tweeted this out, too, because my buddy filmed it.

Like, my buddy met her in person and filmed it in a video interview, and she looks nothing like her video, or her videos or her profile picture. It's all AI edited and stuff or filtered. And so, like, that's fake. her tweet promotions. There's a lot of that going around. Oh, there's a lot of that going on it. It should be, do you remember? Do you remember?

I forget what triggered it, but like, I think it was, Attorney General Paxton was suing Facebook. And for like, I think a day, Facebook filters were illegal or Instagram filters were illegal. Like, they disabled Instagram filters in Instagram. Like, if you were a girl and you're trying to get a filter, like, it didn't work in Texas. It didn't work in Texas. And I'm like, we, if you're a state replicent recently like, you need to, like,

you need to pass a bill where if somebody takes a selfie with an AI, filter, that it has a little thing on the corner that says this was AI generated. You know how many people would be upset about that overnight? Yeah, there's a lot of people that benefit from AI-generated face filtering, for sure. What's one thing being so close in Texas politics following it day-to-day? What's one thing you wish people understood about this world better? Oh, man. That's a good question.

I don't know. I think, like, go ahead, yeah. I'll give time to think. So mine would be there's always either more to the story or more nuance to the arguments. And yes, like broad scale level, you can have competing worldviews that are very black and white on a lot of stuff.

But when you get in the nitty-gritty of legislating, you realize how many ways there are to kill a bill. It's almost infinite. And there's very few ways to effectively pass. the bill. And so when you see stuff fail or pass, there's always intricate behind the scenes fights going on between all 181 members of the legislature plus the lieutenant governor and governor. And, you know, there's people who have asked me here and there about why this ex-bill died and I tell them, well, here's X, Y, Z. And here's the tension between

these two members who are generally on the same team about everything except on this issue for either personal or policy reasons and that all that stuff affects everything so it's never as simple as oh this didn't pass now I'll say on the other hand like we ran out of time is often you know maligned as a as a crutch and it is a crutch it is used as a crutch but it's also legit at that times like there is a reason that it's it is difficult to pass things to get everything you want done in a five-month window in an effective and well-reasoned manner because you want these bills that are going to stand up to legal scrutiny, right?

So if you're rushing through it all and you pass everything just to pass it and it all gets shot down in court, what's the point? Yeah. You know? So there's always more complicated backgrounds than meets the eye in this world. Yeah, that's a good one.

I think mine would be, I think that people should talk more to each other versus screaming at each other online. It's really easy to throw blows on the internet. It's really easy. I've often found that the people and people screaming at me or yelling at me on the internet when I meet them in person,

they're totally like puppy dogs, right? There's some exceptions to this. But I think people need to engage in dialogue a little bit more, less online and more in person. You know, we've interviewed, C.R. has interviewed several, talked to at least, and interviewed at least one Democrat, like a pretty pretty popular one Olivia Juliana very pretty big celebrity on the internet leftist celebrity on the internet progressive liberal whatever um she made that a point

yeah she's liberal she's not liberal yeah she's not progressive i gotta correct that she'll she'll put me she'll dm you she like what the heck um but like we've had good conversations and like we don't agree on a lot of things but like we've had decent conversations and come to like terms on stuff right and i think a lot of the people in the part of the part that are like activists or you know not even not legislators but active in the party like grassroots activists or whatever they just want to be angry at a group and and vice versa that that group wants to be angry at them and we just like sat and chatted we could maybe figure some stuff out because I think at the end of the day and I wrote this the other day like everybody I think I think

that regardless of where you stand left or right like we want a solid middle class because it's shrinking we want to feel safe and secure in the places we live and frequent and we want to be healthy and we all we just have different definitions of what that means right but I think we all want at least those things together and then but but we're so focused on the minutia of like the really crazy stuff and I say crazy not to demean it but just like the outer layer stuff but you see like the reps work together there you see the reps the grassroots will hate to hear it but a lot of the strong conservative reps out there are talking to their colleagues or having drinks with them or hanging out with them or you know working with

them to pass bills and you know I've had grassroots activists just scream at me they're you talk to a Democrat there's actually this weekend I had a person that I've friends with come up and they're like hey there's there's a rumor going around that you you you talk to Democrats sometimes I'm like damn that's crazy because that's true that's crazy dude and I'm like yeah I'm a reporter like and also like we can like learn more from each other. So, yeah, that's just, I wish people would do that more. Yes. So I spend a lot, many hours on the house floor and just basically stand in the back, people watching, watching stuff happen. And there have been many times where I have seen a very

conservative member run to the printer on, to my, if I'm looking at the dais, to my left side, print out what looks to be a point of order, walk it over to the Democratic side, the collection of Democratic deaths and hand it to one of the Democrats, which then they go up and use that to kill usually a leadership bill or try to kill that. And then you see, you know, members of leadership on both sides, whipping votes together or organizing the whipping of votes. You know, Joe Moodygo talks to the Democrats, get their support on something, you know, whether it's Will Metcalf, Morgan Meyer, who Cody Harris does a lot, talk to shore up the

Republican side of things. It was interesting seeing Mitch Little and Cody Harris and Cody Vassout all like be the facilitators in a lot of discussions on stuff on the floor, Tony Tinderholt as well. These people are a lot more complicated than you see online the personas either they give themselves or that are given to them. And you have to be in order to get stuff you want or kill stuff you don't. want you need the votes and you're not always going to find the votes in your own party or in your own faction of the party yeah look at the speaker race exactly exactly and then

look how that turned out where there's a lot of Democrats that are really pissed off with how things have gone during this session because they expected it to be you know a lot more liberal the session policy wise and it just did not turn out to be that it's so funny that you say that because I went to a grassroots event a couple weeks ago maybe more than that. And an activist got up and was speaking was like, this was the most liberal session ever. This was a disaster. The House is run by the Democrats. And I'm just like, okay. And then I went to a Democrat event, like, later in the week. And they were like, this was the worst session ever for Democrats. The Republicans got so much. Like, it was a total disaster for Democrats and a total

victory for Republicans. And I'm just like, I think I'm in crazy world. Like, I can't. Like, both sides are just like, you know. These two entirely different worldviews that just cannot coexist whatsoever. No. Cannot find any common ground. No, they can't. And I think it's just because we're all focused on the wrong things. Like, I'm going to rag on the Democrats for a bit since I've been ragging on the Republicans

for a while. Like the Democrat Party is such a disaster. Like, they have managed to raise an entire party built around stuff that now normal people find repulsive. like the the sexualization of children the transitioning of children whether it's hormones or surgery and people are tired i'm tired of talking about it but like people don't want that anymore they finally realize that this is crazy and i think and the party instead of moving away from that or even they don't even have to move away from they just stopped making it a front facing topic for them

you know to try to get votes they continue to like they continue to fly around that goofy flag with like 20,000 colors on it in shapes. They continue to talk about age-LGBQ stuff and like that's clearly a losing issue for them. And normal people, the average person doesn't want to at least hear about it or even see it anymore. But the problem is they've raised this party

that's like beholden to that group. And now you're having at least a several, at least several very highly prolific shootings and crimes being committed by people of that demographic. And I'm not saying that I'm not even leaning in are saying that they're likely to. I'm just saying that these have been high profile. And more people are just like, yeah,

we don't want anything to do with this stuff. And I've talked to Democrats that were like, yeah, like we want to get away from this stuff, but like we can't. And I think that if like if you're a Democrat and you want to grow that party now, like you gotta stop with the trans stuff. It's not, it's not a winning issue anymore.

We're gonna, I guarantee you 20 years from now, we're gonna look back and we're gonna be like, what the heck were we doing with this stuff? like, what were we doing, like, chopping off girls' body parts, hacking away body parts and stuff, or injecting kids with hormones. We're going to look back at it with, like, a lot of shame. And there might be precedents in the future

where a lot of these doctors and counselors and teachers that have convinced young kids to do this to themselves are going to get sued. And I hope it happens, but we'll see. Yeah, that general trans issue was a very effective wedge issue for Republicans last year. It was not the biggest factor in how Republicans performed so well, but it was a significant factor. And then we saw, you know, take Gilbert O'Hinajosa, the chair of the Democratic Party, former chair, get basically ousted because of the position he took or the statement he made that basically was, you know, we have to realize that some of our positions are not popular.

And we have to rectify that. Talk about raising zombies, right? Like the Democrat Party has its own zombie problems. They're activists, the people that are involved in their party are all beating the drum about this. trans stuff and LGBTQ stuff and it's they're going to lose normal voters like that and so they want to be effective they should get away for a bit I don't I don't know if they can though because well the the factor that is at play here for Democrats that's not as much if at all for Republicans is that Democrats are very heavily reliant on small dollar donations Bernie Sanders was incredibly

effective at this and when looking through the the recent five from James Talarico, a thought that struck my head was, this looks like a Bernie Sanders type finance report because it was 7,000 pages long with a bunch of $10, $15, $20 donations. But those are the people that generally, that are motivated enough to give money in a significant number, but they're also the ones that care about these socially progressive issues.

Right. So that Republicans can cast that off. They don't have that issue where their money is tied to their activist base. And, in fact, that's generally been for the activist base the problem because they don't have the money. It's the donor class that does. And in a lot higher degree, that factor is at play for Democrats. Yeah. Talarico is so interesting.

I used to work a normie job. And so, like, a lot of my normie, I call them normies, like, non-political people. Normie's my normie co-workers former co-workers we still talk and you know I don't talk I never talked politics with them ever even though they knew what I did I never taught politics but I had a few of them message me a little after the Rogan stuff with Tala Rico and they were like these are independent like slightly moderate Republican voters and they were like man I like this Tala Rico guy and I'm like oh crap like this isn't good like you know you're a right winger like this isn't good right but he's he's doing the round like when is the last time

he saw any other state rep on Rogan or something like that like those, you know, I don't think, I don't think Talarico's going to win. I don't think he has a chance in heck at least, but at least far as in the general, I think if it's Paxson or even Cornyn, I think they'll be fine, but I think he'll be a force to reckon with, or he may affect the

down ballot. You'll have people that they had the Beto effect, right? Like Beto didn't win, but he destroyed the down ballot. You could have that situation. I don't know. I mean, the conditions could be there where you have an incumbent Republican in the White House. I haven't looked at his job approval ratings lately.

But I imagine there's some pretty high negatives there. So he saw that in 18 as well. Midterms generally do not go well for the party in the White House. And then you have the question of, is Ken Paxton a good candidate for Democrats to run against? Does that? Democrats certainly think so. and they are, they're praying that they get James Tala Rico or Allred,

whoever their favorite is there, up against Paxton. So you think the Democrats want Paxton to win? Absolutely. Interesting. Because they think that's the chance they have to maybe flip that seat. And if not that, then drive down ballot success. I wonder how the average grassroots would react to that, like a Democrat being like, yeah, we want Paxon to win because we think we can beat him.

I wonder if they would agree or if they would just laugh it off. or what like i don't know i don't know very weird that's interesting i hadn't realized that you know then there's also the rumor that hunt's going to get in yeah what do you think of that um i think there's a pretty good chance he gets in i know in private conversations with several grassroots leaders that they're they're hinting that they would like that yeah there a lot of people are especially with like the recent that daily mail article like you know you know It sucks, like, that this is a common thing that keeps happening. But I think that Daily Mail article hit a little bit more than what people want to admit,

even though it was on a Friday after a huge national story, right? Like, people are still talking about it. Like, they're calling me up. They're like, what's going on here, like, blah, blah, blah. And I've had several SRAC remember being, like, we're done with it. Like, we're tapped out. Like, going to just hold the nose and vote for the guy, right? And, you know, I get the argument.

Like, I understand the argument of I'm going to vote for somebody that's good on policy and good on legislation, but maybe not so great on this personal life because that's what really matters. I get that. I can understand it. So I understand why people can still hold and why they should, right? But there are some people that are kind of getting tired of like the drama behind that. Yeah. The constant drumbeat and constant new stories. Yeah, yeah. You know, and the media, of course, is keeping it in the news. Like now there's there's, there's statements about them trying to unseal the divorce record. it's right and they felt a lawsuit to try and do that yeah yeah you know and I was

talk about hypocrisy I was cracking up kind of a little side note the woman that they allege that they allege that is having or most recently had an affair with attorney general Paxton which they they put out a public statement as many noticed he didn't deny this affair she's a Christian influencer and so like I'm cracking up because like I see her Instagram posts and she's like oh God is so good we must continue to live virtuous lives I'm just like, oh my God. I don't know, man. I don't know.

I'm not even jolly wrote about this. This is one of the reasons to stop going to church. And it's a horrible thing to admit. It's a little embarrassing. But like the constant Christian hypocrisy of the right has driven me away from church. I still pray, still believe in God, still a Catholic. But like, I see this woman who just got blasted on national media for allegedly,

allegedly, Daily Mail alleges that she cheated on her husband. had an affair with a married man, did it for a very, very long time. And she's on Instagram, like, talking about how God is great, and we should, like, do this and this and this, and how she's a good Christian. I'm just like, I can't, I can't. It's so fake. Grosses me out. It's similar to the righteousness politically that we see in terms of, you know,

these people that are rock-ripped conservatives and everything they believe in and talk about. and then they either do something or say something that's totally different. Yeah, and you see this hypocrisy with the left, too. It's a little more obvious, which is why we guess we don't talk about it so much. But like, you see all these reps that are super against guns, but they have private security that carry guns, right? Or they're against, like, the billionaires and millionaires, but they're all billionaires and millionaires, right?

Or, like, I call it slave labor, but, like, the cheap immigration labor. like they benefit for their help the only people that benefit from h1b and from cheap immigration legal immigration labor are billionaires and millionaires like they love this stuff if you are a tech CEO you absolutely love h1b Elon Musk loves h1b because you can hire in somebody from a foreign country and i think recently it's like nine out of every 10 h1b are from india you can hire an h1b at 35k but like an american citizen won't work it for less than 60 and And so he wants it because he can hire two Indians versus one American, right? But the Democrats love this.

And it's like, why? You're the party that's supposed to be against the billionaires and millionaires, but you love this stuff. I went to a Democrat event, man, maybe like a month or two ago. And I was sitting across from four white ladies. And I say they're white because I crack. I always make the joke that I go to these Democrat events is mostly white women. And it's true, in this situation, at least. It was all white women.

And they're so excited to see me because I'm this brown dude sitting in front of them. And I'm very clear with them because I'm not there to spy. I'm like, oh, I'm a reporter and I'm right leaning. And they're like, oh, okay. So we get a discussion about illegal immigration. And one of them does the slip up where she's like, well, we can't ban illegals because who's going to pick the crops? Like they do it for really cheap. And I'm like, yeah, slave labor.

And she's like, well, no, it's not slave. They're getting paid. I'm like, yeah, but it's slave wages. Like you're paying them less than they would make it like a Starbucks. And she's like, well, but they want those jobs. And I'm like, do you think they really want those jobs? jobs, they just, their countries are so horrible. They just want to, like, they're willing to do anything. And she was, like, really offended. Like, she realized she had messed up. And she's

very embarrassed. And I'm like, no, I can understand the argument for slave labor. Like, I get it. I don't agree with it. But the Democrat Party is guilty of this hypocrisy, too. They want to, they exist to benefit billionaires and millionaires that they publicly hate. Well, and take Talarico, the, the messaging he has been putting out there is this working people versus the millionaires and billionaires. So they're actively trying to, you know, shift the messaging in a way that benefits them electorally, which, of course, like all candidates are going to do that. But it is – I've been on this hobby horse for a while, and I'm not sure it's, you know,

totally foolproof as a theory. But I've been seeing more and more. The Republican Party used to be the ideology party, and the Democrat Party used to be the coalitional party. traced back to the New Deal coalition. And it's kind of flipping. And you see Democrats getting more, becoming more rooted in their ideology and Republicans being more willing to look at Trump.

You know, he's not, you know, the gold standard for a classical constitutional conservative. Right. But they're willing to bend in order to support him because he does things they want. And he's getting things accomplished some things they want. So I don't know. I don't what do you think any input on that is no I just like the ideology of the

Democrat Party is just so I I my mother and stepfather were Democrats in the 90s I remember that like big Bill Clinton supporters and all that then they flip for Ross Perrault after that but like I remember the Democrat Party growing up and it was less about I mean remember Obama was against illegal immigration Obama was against gay marriage like And then you had this big flip, and it's just, it's just become so kind of insane, like, all the stuff they promote. And you can make the argument that the right has some insane stuff, too, and I would agree. But, like, I don't think, I don't think that the Democrat Party is ever going to be able to effectively get away with it, like, get away from it. They'll constantly be haunted by these policies that they, I think they're now maybe regretting from being so front-facing.

But we'll see. Yeah. Well, next year is going to be fascinating. Other than the Senate race, any of the races next year that you find most interesting? I think that the replacement for Attorney General Paxton's going to be interesting. You know, Wright's is out there, man. He's, I was reading his, I was watching his Instagram stories today, and he had posted, like, event after event after event. I'm like, this is the Trump campaign style where, like, every day you're at some place.

Doesn't matter how many people are there, you were campaigning. Trump campaigning like that. So I think this guy has a chance. Chip Roy is obviously his biggest competitor. You know, Senator Milton, I like him as a senator. He's great, and I don't think he'd be a bad AG, but I just don't see him out there, right? Well, his strategy so far has been fascinating because he has the money. He can self-fund, right?

He can put another $10 million into his campaign if he wants. He might do that, given how things are going. But he is building up slowly and methodically a base of support from state reps, local elected officials and these conservative activist organizations. And I met them this weekend. I met them this weekend. Every single one of them was like, we support Senator Middleton. And they were like leadership people.

You know, I think that race is going to be interesting. Representative Kane's race. Okay. His race, he's running against Alex Miller. Yes, Miller. That's such an interesting setup. It's also one of the redistricted seats. Right.

So it's totally different than anything we've seen before. I like them both. it was kind of odd to see her announce because I figured he would just like walk it like literally just walk into the spot and then she announced it I'm like this kind of strange so I think that's going to be an interesting race

what else those are the ones that really come to mind you follow in the Senate race I've been DFW SD9 special election no honestly no I'm kind of guilty of not following the stuff in my own area you know what I mean

I don't know why that is like even like because I live in Carrollton I don't even follow much Carrollton city politics It's pretty horrible. Well, that one's going to be fascinating to watch because it is a proxy fight of all proxy fights on gambling. And you've got Lee Wams Gons, who is the Patrick-backed candidate. It's also backed by Texans United for a conservative majority, the Dunn funded group. And the other side, you have John Huffman, who is...

Former Collieville mayor, right? Yes. And I believe also TLR is backing Wams Gons. so that we're not seeing the tort reform fight there like we probably will in other seats. Right. But then you have Huffman who is getting bankrolled by the casino lobby heavily. And this is a Hancock, Kelly Hancock is another acting comptroller. He was seen by the gambling lobby as a soft supporter. Right.

Not someone who's going out there beating the drum on we need to expand gambling. But if the time came and there was a vote to be had, he would be for it. Do you think that the general public, given the opportunity, I mean the voting republic in Texas, given the opportunity to vote on legalizing gambling, do you think that they would vote for it? And I guess I shouldn't be asking a reporter to give predictions, but. Well, I can. I don't want to put you to the spot. No, not at all. So if you go just based on the polling, and I've seen no poll to contradicts this, it absolutely would pass.

Yeah. Now, stipulated, that is before any messaging has been done in a campaign. Of course. And it's also, it would not be during a presidential election because when these constitutional amendments are on the ballot, like there will be in a couple months now in November, they're the year of a legislative session. And so unless we have a special session that passes an expanded or a legalized gambling amendment during a midterm or an election year, an even year, then we're not going to see it on a main ballot. So the reason that matters is who's the electorate in a constitutional amendment election? I don't know, and who knows what you might see a lot of new people come out that have never voted in an off year November election come out to vote for that because it's such a big issue. The amount of Cowboys fans that I have heard, some of my friends who say they just want to be able to place a bet against the Cowboys.

That way they can be happy either way of the outcome. it's so many of them have said that and so the the question is who shows up who does a better job of getting their people out to vote and that's a question in every election but here I don't know like if I just go on the polling it passes two-thirds percent yeah at least but if you if you dive down deeper it's more complicated and it might still pass but yeah I'm not sure it's it's as straightforward as some of the polling would indicate Interesting. Yeah, I think I definitely agree with that. I think it would definitely pass. Yeah. I think it would pass despite what people say or want or say they want.

Well, you know, the thing is with legislatures is their job to pass what the people want or is their job to apply their conscience and do what they think is right for the state. Right. Depends on where you what you want them to do. Like if you hate what they're doing, then of course you're going to say, no, do the right thing and don't pass this. And if your thing is popular, you're going to say, of course, do what the people want you to do. Kind of like with the THC stuff. Exactly. Yeah, during what, during session, you know, it was going to get banned and then special session comes up and maybe lieutenant governor doesn't have strong hold over these guys anymore and it doesn't go anywhere, you know.

And every normie I talked to was like pissed about this. Like every single one. I did not, I met the only people I met out there that were wanting to ban THC. were grassroots activists. Everybody in Normie jobs, people I talked to on a day-to-day that weren't political, they were like, yeah, I don't care about this stuff, right? And I understand the arguments for and against.

But, like, I just don't, to this day, I still can't understand why it was a priority issue. Like, I talked to a lot of people. I've never met somebody that was like, look, my number one issue, the thing that is stressing me out the most in my day-to-day life is THC. Like, I wake up and I think about THC.

Like, I've never met anybody like, well, mine's a pothead. But, like, I don't, I haven't met anybody like that. So I don't understand why it was a priority issue. People are mad about the property taxes and a bunch of other stuff. But, like, T.C. is not there. But it was a priority. It was a strange. During this legislative fight, you'd look up in the House gallery and you'd see, of course, you'd see the suits, the lobbyists who were there to go one way or the other on it.

Then you'd see the pot heads that are there, the activist, the pot activists. and I struck me like the worst or the the thing that is running against the the the the HC lobby the most are their own consumers because it you just look up you look at these people and you're like I don't want that yeah anywhere near smell you look funny yeah I don't my my society to be like that yeah of course and you know I get it too like where have I been that I like you walk around and you just smell it like Austin you walk around and you kind of smell it in the street that's gross And I don't, I don't want family that are visiting or friends.

I don't want to smell it myself. You know, so I understand that stress. Like, and I can understand as a reason, like, wanting to ban it. It's like, I just don't want to smell this out in public. But, you know, people, I just, I think the average voting base does not care about it. Yeah. It just don't. Well, I mean, you mentioned, you know, why is this a priority? I think Patrick and Charles Perry are personally convicted on this.

And this is something they're willing to spend political capital on to get across the line because they care about it that much. And everyone has it. Abbott had that with a cool choice. Yeah, but the question is like, why do they care about it? It was like, the lieutenant governor, was he bullied by a podhead? Like, that's what I'm wondering. Like, did you get bullied?

Like, I get it, you know? There's the things that I've been bullied about that. Maybe if I was like, you know, at a position I'd try to lay the law on. You know, so maybe, I don't know. But it's weird that it was a priority. It was weird that it was a priority. And clearly it didn't go over well. And I think if you're a lieutenant governor, you're kind of like,

I'm not embarrassed, but you're like, oh, shit, this should have passed, you know? Yeah. Anything else you want to add before we end this? No, no. Thanks for having me out. I appreciate you having me out, and I appreciate the people that listen and subscribe to us. So it's a big deal to me to talk to people that read us.

And I went to the summit this weekend, and I had so many non-Twitter accounts that, like, have the fake profile. Not the fake, but either cartoon profile picture or like some kind of character, right? And they don't use a real name. They come up to me like, hey, I'm so. and so on Twitter. I'm like, oh, man, that's awesome. So, like, I got to meet a lot of these faceless people from Twitter this weekend, and they were all awesome. So I do appreciate the people that read. And if I'm out there, you know, just say, hey. Yeah. Well, we appreciate you coming, and you can subscribe at

current revolt.com. Right, current revolt.com. You can follow me on Current Revolt at Current Revolt. But we were a free newsletter during the week, but, like, you know, we were funded strictly on, or mostly on subscriptions and it's seven books a month. Thanks for joining, Kevin. Thanks for having me. Thank you.