The Texan Podcast - Political Rhetoric and Political Violence: SMSS Ep. 20

Episode Date: September 15, 2025

In this episode of Send Me Some Stuff, Cameron and Rob discuss the shocking assassination of Charlie Kirk and the subsequent arrest of the suspect announced by Utah officials. They delve into the timeline of events, the internet reaction, and the political implications, including potential upcoming legislative actions. The conversation shifts towards the evolving political landscape in Texas, particularly the entry of James Talarico into the U.S. Senate race and its broader implications for Texas politics.Listen to more Send Me Some Stuff podcasts from our team wherever you get your podcasts. If you like what you hear, subscribe and leave us a review.

Hello, and welcome back to send me some stuff. This is episode number 20, joined once again by my co-host, assistant editor, here at the Texan, Rob Laughes. And I'm joined, and I'm joined by my co-host, reporter Cameron Abrams. Just the two of us here. Absolutely. And we're recording this on September 12. It's currently 1108, and we are recording this right after the announcement by Utah law enforcement, Utah Governor Cox, and Cash Rettel saying that the suspect in the killing of Charlie Kirk has been apprehended, and there was a number of details released regarding this individual. we're going to run through all of that.

We're going to go through what occurred, what was going on just here in the office as we were trying to figure out what was going on. So this has been a rough couple days, though, for everyone here at the office. We ran through a little bit on our weekly rundown with me, Brad, Mary Elise. talked a little bit about how we felt after the video started circulating. But this is the first time we've got to hear from Rob here. What was your initial reaction to what was being reported at the time? You know, we were all sitting in the office together, me, you and Brad, and we started seeing ex-posts about shots being fired and then video started circulating.

Just tell us what was going on with you at that time. I mean, you know, we're finally in the legislative interim, and I think we were even on Wednesday morning making jokes about how we would finally have a slow news week, which, you know, when the tweets started coming in, you know, a bunch of people were tweeting stuff like Charlie Kirk just got shot. I remember seeing one tweet that stuck with me of some guy who said, I just watched Charlie Kirk die. And my initial reaction was skepticism because, you know, after all of the tweets about Trump dying, you know, it's very clear that these, these viral rumors can just take off on the internet. I mean, somebody can make a post that is just messing with people

absolutely fake, but people can't tell. It gets picked up. Other people can't tell. You know, Twitter will grab it and say that this is trending, gets more people to view it, bots start picking it up. You know, on the internet, or especially on a website like Twitter, you know, a lie really can get halfway around the world while the truth is putting its shoes on. And that was my first thought was, we have no idea if any of this is true. Then the first grainyer video of the shooting itself came out yeah the the zoomed out right and you see it you know it looks bad but you didn't have any specific details but then um when the much clearer video of kirk getting shot in the neck and all the blood just bleeding bleeding profusely it yeah it looks very very

bad it was yeah it seems to have hit like an artery yeah you see he loses so much blood in just a few seconds um yeah that's i think the moment where it went from it went from you know obviously with the picture we had proof that he'd been shot but obviously you know being shot depending on where you're shot you could survive something like that but that was um it looked pretty unsurvivable the moment you saw what what had happened yeah and it was absolute chaos um as we were trying to figure out what was going on because like you said there was all sorts of different reports flying around where people are saying he was in the hospital and hopefully he was being treated and that there was a possibility he was going to pull through and he was going to be stabilized there was and then

finally we got first just the news said that he had died and then president trump confirmed that and it was I'm much more composed now after having you know less than 48 hours to try and sort it out but I'm still very shaken from it and as it was happening I was telling you guys I was teetering and it was a very rough situation I think for a lot of people you know charlie kirk meant so much to so many people and um lots of people that we know knew him lots of people that we know went to his events um and then a lot of people just like myself who didn't know charlie kirk he never went to an event but felt like we knew him because of his videos and because of what he did with touching young people um

with this conservative message. And what was so important about Charlie Kirk is he did everything the right way, both personally and professionally. He was someone who was going to college campuses and promoting free speech and the free exchange of ideas. Over the course of these past almost 48 hours, it's just been an outporn.

of messages and eulogies from people talking about how well Charlie Kirk dealt with the media industry just generally and how open he was to other voices and bringing people in and accepting of dissenting voices and just talking with everyone and just being an overall great guy he was a good person and just the just the context of the situation where he is sitting there taking on a debate from someone he disagrees with and for someone to kill him in this way it has just been devastating to so many of us um i don't know if you've talked with family or friends about this, Rob, what sort of things are you hearing from people regarding this killing? I mean, I have family and friends who were Charlie Kirk fans. I have

friends and family who were definitely not, and pretty much everybody is on the same page that the murder was absolutely horrible, that it shouldn't have happened, that I think any principled person of any political stripe would have to agree that this was horrific and should never have happened, you know, it's, it should be the easiest thing in the world to condemn a politically motivated assassination like this of a person who wasn't even a politician, who didn't even political power, yeah, an activist, a commentator, you know, someone who, yeah, wasn't even, didn't even hold elected office. Yeah. And somebody who, as you mentioned, I mean, he would go to these campuses and he would have people he would ask them come he'd say come up and you know he had his

on where he was killed on that tent it was written you know prove me wrong and the whole the whole point of his of what he was doing was saying come up here and give me your best argument and and i'll give you mine right and that you know you you obviously you know you don't you know a lot of people say stuff well i didn't agree with him you know but nobody deserves this and it's like you know it's you don't even have to say, I didn't agree with him. You just say nobody deserves this, you know, because it doesn't matter if you agreed with him or not. That's not the important thing on whether or not he deserves this, because in a free society where people are allowed to voice dissenting political opinions against other people they know or against the, you know, administration

in charge at the moment, if you don't have that ability, then you don't really have. a free society yeah or a participatory government and so many of the details of how what led to this we finally got some clarity on but there was so much speculation so many rumors flying around there was two suspects that were initially taken in to custody but both were released after being interrogated by the FBI. And we finally got some clarity on what happened in the suspect here this morning. Just to run through some of these details here, you know, we got a chance to see surveillance footage that was during a press conference.

On Thursday, showing the suspect, climbing down, from the building, which overlooks the sort of courtyard at Utah Valley University. You know, there was 3,000 or so people there, it seemed. There was a lot. So this was a giant event that was happening. And, you know, Kirk, while he's answering audience questions, he's shot, he slumps over. the video show he's just bleeding you know it's a horrific video he's rushed to the hospital and there's like i mentioned multiple reports of individuals taken into custody their release

press conferences are held asking for the public to get involved to help identify the suspect. There's a manhunt for this individual. The police had recovered a rifle and other evidence spent and unspent cartridges, bullets. Yeah, the bullet casings. The bullet casings. It was a bolt action rifle that he used. And there was rumors circulating that there were certain engravings. Wall Street Journal reported that. Then they sort of walked that back. But in this morning. We got the name of the suspect, this is a 22-year-old male in the area and said, and Governor Cox, Utah Governor Spencer Cox said that with the help from the family, family friends, they were able to recognize who this individual was.

Was it that they were able to recognize him, or was it that he told them that he did? or they they he made insinuations that he did insinue yeah he had essentially confessed to that to the killing and um the i believe it was the father is the one who actually turned him in and then the local law enforcement was able to get um uh discord messages talking about the rifle and hiding it in the woods and or placing it in the woods and yeah he was messaging it in the woods and Yeah, I was messaging one of his friends, I believe, about, you know, where he was going to, or about the fact that he had to hide the gun, wrap it up in a towel, which is what they found. Yeah, and I believe that friend also, like, that shared that with the FBI.

Right. So they were, it has been, you know, even in the midst of a very bad situation, I think good to see that the family and friends are still willing to share this, information with law enforcement, you know. And you have to also sympathize with the parents themselves, you know, to see that their, um, their kid would be capable of something like this. So it's, it's a heart wrenching situation all around. Yeah. And there was a lot in one of the things I'll mention as well, I think that we can get into is there was lots of speculation beforehand about, um, the motivations of this individual. Everybody on Twitter suddenly knew what was going,

You know, right after everybody had their opinion and spreading lies about all kinds of things, you know. Yeah, and we got some information that can help us create a better picture of what might have been motivating this individual's, Utah Governor Spencer Cox, again, during the press conference, spoke about the engravings here, And I'll read what he said on the spent casing. It said, notices bulge, capital O-W-O, what's-this question mark? He then stated that three unfired casings also had inscriptions that read, hey, fascist, exclamation point, catch, exclamation point, up arrow symbol, right arrow, symbol, three down- arrow symbols. Oh, Bella, cow, Bella, chow, chow, chow, chow, chow.

And if you read this, you are gay, L-M-A-O. And these are, the initial references on the spent casings there are indicative of sort of online memes. These are, as we described in our article, like, you know, fringe internet memes. The up arrow, right arrow, three down arrows is believed to be a reference to a video game called Hell Divers 2 in which this is a, it's like something you can type into the game. It calls a, you know, it's like, it summons a very large bomb that kills a lot of enemies. So it's a, it's something you would use in the game to clear a lot of, clear a lot of enemies. So it's clearly a reference, you know, to that. obviously to murder.

And then the Bella Chow is a Italian song that became a reference to the Italian the Italian leftists who were fighting against the Italian fascists during World War II and has since become a kind of symbol of leftism, socialism. And I believe it has recently taken off as kind of a TikTok sound. like a meme, something like that, you know, as an anti-fascist symbol. So clearly indicative of if, you know, this, obviously, this is the guy's a suspect. He hasn't had a trial yet. So we cannot make a definitive claim, you know, that he is the guilty party in this.

It hasn't had his trial. But taking all this as fact, then it would be pretty clear and also given the fact that Utah Governor Spencer Cox said that this individual had become more political and more explicitly critical of Charlie Kirk to his own family, that he was motivated by a hatred of Kirk and a belief that he was a fascist, as he put on his bullets. So, I mean, yeah, it, it, a lot, again, we're recording this. right after the press conference a lot more is going to come to light in the coming days coming weeks and I just want to get back to how important Charlie Kirk was to so many people

and there was a you know so so much love being poured out in the hours after his assassination nation. There was Glenn Beck and Megan Kelly, who were in tears, talking about how much Charlie Kirk meant to people. And, you know, even people, you know, like Tim Poole has been talking quite a bit about this. I even someone, even people in libertarian circles that I listened to were just saying how great of a guy Charlie Kirk was and how devastated they are by this. And I've just been reading tons of articles from a variety of different outlets, just expressing their admiration for Charlie and everything that he's built. And I think now the question is, what happens next?

Because we have a suspect. He's apprehended. There's going to be a trial. But in the last, he doesn't, if he doesn't plead guilty, which is a very good chance that he'll plead guilty, you know. Yeah. I guess I don't know if there's a good chance or not, but it seems pretty, it seems like taking this to trial, you know. The evidence seems clear cut, certainly. Yeah.

And I think the larger piece now is what is going to happen next. You know, from the federal level, what is going to be the response? Representative Chip Roy has called for a select committee to investigate this radicalization that has occurred. In this letter that I published on X, people can go check it out, he calls, he identifies individuals, groups saying that they're putting people's lives at risk by the money and the organization that they have. leading to people dying and he's calling for a full investigation into this we also you know i'm i read a piece here um in the federalist um by mark emingway called the left has never been held accountable for political violence and that must change and in this piece he he says um i'll get to this section here. He says, I am done. If you have ever excused or condoned violence or

knowingly consorted with those who have and don't care with if you're someone as lofty as Barack Obama, you need to be driven from polite society. So there are calls from major outlets calling for individuals to be identified and held to account for leading to this sort of radicalization further, and the PC says here, I do not want to live in a society where half the country simply uses whatever power is available to them to go after the other half. Because as we've seen, you know, an example, I've seen other people mentioned and something I've thought about as well as after January 6th, there was no trial held for many of those people that were held in prison for months and years before they were given due

process. And that's under a Democratic administration. And so, you know, what's going to be the response from a Republican administration in this case when people are saying this has been happening for years and years and years? So I think that's all still sort of up in the air. We saw comments this morning from President Donald Trump. He was on, I believe it was the Fox and Friends program, and he was asked about the tensions right now between the, as the interviewer said, the far left and the far right. And he said, I'll get in trouble for this, probably.

And he said, the far right, is radical because they don't want crime. And they're radical because people are being shot in the streets. And the far left is not that way. And so if the president of the United States is saying things like that, we already have, like I mentioned, Chip Roy calling for a select committee to be organized for investigating these far left

agitating groups, individuals who are funding these organizations something is bound to happen here what shape or form that takes does it is it left at investigations will a select committee even be called but it seems as though there is a lot of energy right now where people just want something to happen are you seeing the same things that I'm seeing online? I've seen stuff to that effect, but I also think it's worth commenting on specifically, you know,

based on all of these kind of obscure internet memes that this individual, you know, wrote on their bullet casings. I think this is ultimately a cautionary tale of the danger of becoming too sucked into like online politics in general, right? is when you're in these spaces where, you know, you're talking, you're not talking to, like, friends and family about politics, where you still have to maintain relationships with these people,

even if you disagree with them politically. On the Internet, you can talk to anybody about anything at any time from anywhere. And it's like this breeding ground for increasingly radical and extreme opinions where the more extreme and radical you become, the more successful your opinion becomes because it can just spread easier. It's more attention-grabbing. You know, there's always been ignorance and people with extreme opinions, but it's all the extreme opinions can congregate in the same small number of places.

And really, you know, people like this assassin can see it and really fully internalize that and come to the conclusion that it's all true and start thinking that, you know, assassination is a valid response to, you know, what they believed, you know, they believe, you can be convinced if you spend enough time on, you know, some online in these spaces that, you know, people who disagree with you politically

are an existential threat to the country. And that's the, as, as Governor Cox said, you know, people, need to at some points you need to log off you need to he said touch grass you know which is itself an internet meme referencing the need to go outside and step away from the computer for a while because if you are too if you just spend too much time in these spaces it can really warp your your whole perception of reality which is unfortunately what happened here yeah and it'll be yeah it's it's difficult to talk about

out because we've seen over the past decade a ramping up of this political extremism. We've seen riots occur during the lockdowns after BLM was at its height and burning down buildings and people dying as a result. Um, we get an incident like this where it, it's not going after a, um, elected official. It's going after a commentator. Mm-hmm. And it's going to be interesting to see what the, what the response is going to be. Um, and yeah, it's, it's difficult, difficult to talk about, um, right? now. So what else are you seeing online in regards to the response? Because I've been seeing

it's been interesting lots of individuals who, whether it be on TikTok or Facebook or X, and I've been seeing this from, you know, just moderate people saying they've even seen that this as well. Other individuals are celebrating this killing and which I think is another aspect that is causing people to want to see a response because I think part of the problem with the internet inherently is that you see all this stuff and you can't you cannot share the same what am I trying to say here when you see all this this terrible tragedy, right? It's like you can't, it is difficult to expend emotional energy on all of it. And if you do, a lot of people will go, you know, they'll just, they'll, they'll go ballistic,

right? But it's, it's, it's, it makes it so easy to treat things like this with utter callousness, right? Because not only do you, you know, if, if you didn't like Charlie Kirk and you see other people, again, you're online, you're not using your real name, you're using, you're using, like a username, you know, you can, you can, if there's no consequences for saying it, a lot of people will say it, right? It's, it's like the Mike Tyson quote. I think it was Mike Tyson who said, you know, the internet has made a lot of people comfortable saying things that they said that to somebody in real life, they would get punched in the face. So it's, it's, you know, I have a, I have a family member who is not a Charlie Kirk fan at all. And they told me, though,

they said, you know, the majority of people on their side are not celebrating. In fact, they said the majority of people on their side are very unhappy this happened, but the problem is you have that, you have those small, you have the small number of very radical people who are, you know, create a disproportionately large number of the posts on, you know, social media that are really, you know, turning the temperature up and whipping themselves into a frenzy and sharing how happy and excited they are that this happened. But of course, you know, um, the problem is that if, if one political activist or commentator can be assassinated for their views, that kind of endangers every political activist or commentator. And that's exactly, we're hoping there's no,

you know, retaliatory violence because I think that's the big concern right now. Is that something like that's going to happen? So it's, you know, it, it, it endangers everybody's ability to, uh, express their opinions freely when anybody can be murdered for it. Yeah, and I've been seeing, you know, the Daily Wire folks are saying they're not going to stop their campus tours either, and they're going to continue speaking publicly. And, you know, that's what a killing like this attempts to do is shut down the ability to speak freely. Right. And so hopefully we can continue having conservative voices be able to speak

safely in public and it's it's something that I've continued you know it's like the very first like four or five newsletters I put out had to deal with free speech and yeah for you redacted yeah and just the

the necessity for it And that is the liberal position, is free speech. That's true. The liberal position is a free exchange of ideas, hoping that two people can get together and debate these topics and then walk away, hopefully better educated on each other's perspective. Well, the whole perspective is that you don't know what you don't know, and that's why you have to talk to other people

who don't agree with you because there's always something you might be missing and, you know, that free exchange of ideas is how you learn. You don't, I mean, as Socrates said, to become the, what is it, ignorance is the beginning of wisdom? You know, the first thing you have to admit is that you know nothing,

and that's how you can actually grow in knowledge. And when you can't have a dialogue if one person isn't allowed, to speak. Yeah. And so something I think that should also be commented on though this is something we were talking about in the office was the candlelight vigil that was held at Texas A&M University that had college Republican groups, student Democrat groups, religious groups all came together to pray for Kirk, for his family. And that is the response that we need to have is, you know, this should be met with nothing other than universal condemnation. Now, there will be people who don't condemn

it. As we've seen, if you've been online recently, a lot of people are comfortable posting, you know, oh, Charlie Kirk deserve this, blah, blah, blah, under their real name and face. And the other problem with the internet is anybody can see that, find who you are, find where you work. And, you know, we've seen that this kind of cancel culture has been a phenomenon for a decade now of, you know, if all the information's online and you post something under your real name and face people can find it people can send it to your boss you can get fired for it and you know nobody is you know you when you're posting like when you don't don't praise murder under your real net don't praise murder at all but you know if you do it under your real name and face what consequences would you possibly expect from

that yeah and but it's an interesting dichotomy here where it where it where right-wingers were being canceled over the past decade for just voicing an opinion about a certain policy that they disagreed with or saying that they are opponents of certain ideological perspectives and then many people on the right were forced to create anonymous accounts and you know hide their identities and um but what we're seeing now is people openly praising under their like you mentioned under their real name yeah connected to all their other accounts um the killing of someone which is i think another factor that is radicalizing a lot of a lot of people online to how extreme some of these perspectives have gotten and how warped some

of these worldviews have gotten. Well, that's part of the problem when your whole political engagement is, I think, online, is that there's no, like again, when you're talking to friends and family, there's a natural check on the degree of extremism that can be included in any one statement because you still have to maintain relationships with people. But on the internet, there's no check. There's no limit other than, you know, terms of service for a social media site. And even then, as we see, those get violated all the time.

So it can just grow, it can go. It's like it can snowball without end because there's no, there's no, there's no check on it, you know. So you have to, you have to remember the person you're talking to is also a person just like you trying to, you know, understand things. And, you know, you can't condemn somebody as evil just because they have a different political opinion than you do. You know, everybody is ultimately just trying to make sense of things. And everybody has different knowledge, you know. Everybody, like, it's like everybody you meet knows something you don't know, right?

Which is why you have to get to know other people because otherwise you'll be essentially trapped within the limited perspective that, you know, above yourself so yeah and there's still a lot that is going to be coming out over the next few days weeks there's going to be a national reaction by the federal government we don't know what form that's going to take but i'm sure something will be coming soon um anything else you think we need to mention about this right now not at the moment No, I feel like we've covered pretty much the important stuff. I would say just, you know, the best thing everybody could do would be to not, you know, go on the Internet and post a bunch of stuff about how everybody who's on the opposite side is evil and is ruining the country. Now, I'm not certain.

I don't think that us saying that is going to stop that from happening. you know, if there is a message to take away from this, at least even just this little conversation we're having right now, it's to, you know, just remember that there is, remember you are talking about a person. I would say that's the biggest thing. Remember, you are talking just about a person just like you and, you know, just because somebody doesn't share your worldview, doesn't make them an evil person. Yeah, and I think that's the general consensus. among

But of course committing murder is evil. We should all be able to agree on that. Absolutely. Nobody should be murdered for their words

is the thing. Well, there's been lots of other news amid this assassination. One of the big things being that James Tala Rico,

a Texas House rep, he is going to be running for U.S. Senate. He is the second big Democrat to jump in this race, first being Colin Allred, everyone who's listening to the Texan or Reese the Texan knows Allred ran against Ted Cruz in the previous election cycle. He was defeated in that race, but he's going to be running for the Democrat nomination in this midterm cycle. But James Tala Rico entering the race now is an interesting development just for the fact that Tala Rico is a very prominent voice, rising voice, within progressive politics, democratic politics. What do you think Tala RICO jumping in in this race really means?

What do you think he's going to be able to do it here? I mean, I think it shows that there's some real doubt in the Democratic Party as to whether or not Allred is really the right candidate to run after he lost Cruz in 2024. What is it? Cruz like squeaked out a win against Beto O'Rourke in 2018. Obviously O'Rourke had this huge down-ballot effect for Democrats across the state. But he was not able to beat Cruz. but Cruz improved his margin by quite a bit, I believe, from our article from the night that Cruz's margin of victory was 3.5 points above what it was in 2018. So I was at that watch party.

Yeah. And All Red was, you know, All Red was well-funded. All-Red was, you know, they had a big media blitz going on. but there was a one of the big issues that's that hurt the all red campaign was the association with um what was the the transgender like male to female transgender um athletes playing in women's sports this was a this was an issue that crews absolutely hammered all red on saying he supports this this is what he wants there was that ad of a huge like big bulky football player that's clearly meant to be calling

Allred running up and knocking women over on the field and it was a very visceral ad but yeah it's the fact that Allred was defeated and is now running again I imagine there's quite a bit of doubt about to his ability to

take down Cornyn who if I recall correctly usually enjoys higher margins of victory than than Cruz but there's also the fact that Cornyn is being challenged by Attorney General Ken Paxton. So I think a lot of Democrats believe that Cornyn would be, they believe that Paxton would be easier to defeat than Cornyn.

Paxton has set, you know, has established himself as being more so unlike the very conservative right flank of the Texas GOP. One issue that Cornyn got knocked for a lot was his support of the bipartisan. Safer Communities Act, which, if I recall correctly, the big point of contention in that law, this was after the Evalde shooting, was that it more enabled local communities to institute red flag laws, which is the idea that, like, if a person is, like, a judge can sign, I believe it's a judge, a judge can sign a warrant to have a person's firearms confiscated if they believe they pose like a threat to the community. Obviously, a lot of Second Amendment activists were very upset with this.

At the 2022, Texas GOP convention, Cornyn got booed on stage. I was at that convention. You could hear the booing quite a bit. But it was, so the point of all, I'm getting on topic here, but like the point of all this is that we don't know who's going to win this primary. You know, it's obviously Paxton is. On either side. That's a good point.

Paxton is leading Cornyn right now. And that's the thing. I think a lot of Democrats are thinking their calculation is Paxton will probably win the GOP primary, but there's a very good chance that a Democrat could knock Paxton out in the general election, considering the fact that Paxton also has a lot of controversy in his past, you know, the securities, fraud indictments, the impeachment trial. Now, of course, he hasn't been found guilty in any of those.

but in politics and accusations stick. Yeah, and so getting back to Tala Rico, jumping in this race here, there are some interesting pieces that were published in some different outlets here. I'll read from a Rolling Stone article here that describes him as a boyish 36-year-old with a mop of dark hair cut to Playmobile perfection. The former school teacher is one of the rarest creatures in democratic politics, a social media savant with more than 1.2 million followers on Instagram. How much do you think his social media presence is going to play into this? Because social media is a dominant portion of many of our lives.

It's where we learn about different issues. It's where we conduct our business. It's how we interact with the world is through the Internet and social media. Well, as we talked about frequently after President Joe Biden announced that he was not running again for re-election, didn't go to the New York Times, didn't go to CNN, he made a Twitter post. And that would be like unthinkable 10 years ago, you know, that that's how this announcement was made. But that's because it really is the public. square the public square and so will do you think in your mind social media in Tala Rico's dominant on TikTok do you think that transcends just the sort of

progressive base that he might be able to court more easily because of a social media presence you think that goes into the population that's over 25 years old maybe those who are over 50 years old 55 years old old, those voters that you need to win a primary race like this. I mean, it's, you know, I'm not an, I wish I was more of an, Brad would be better to talk about. Well, I'm just asking for your thoughts on it. Yeah.

I mean, you know, Beto O'Rourke also had a huge social media presence, and social media was obviously pretty well established by 2018, you know, even though it's been seven years since then, and it's only gotten bigger and more prominent. It was still pretty big. And I think that the big question to me for progressive activist types is, you know, you can get a lot of TikTok follows. You can get a lot of likes. You can get a lot of attention, a lot of buzz on the internet from online progressives, but does that translate into votes? That's the problem. A lot of these people who are, you know, super excited about Tala Rico, a lot of them are not Texas voters. You know, they're not going, like, you know, there's 49 other states.

Texas often doesn't like to acknowledge that fact, right? But they're 40, I mean, there are probably, that's the thing is just because you have a, that's the problem is internet buzz does not necessarily translate to real votes. I mean, you know, again, O'Rourke came very close to knocking out Cruz, but he didn't, right? And, yeah, I think Tala Rico, and what is, Tala Rico is still several points behind All Red and a lot of polls, I believe. But he did just enter the race. That's true. Officially.

But of course, Allred was also a congressman. Congressmen always, I think, tend to have this more, you know, people in the U.S. House tend have more prominent people in the state house. You know, a lot of people in Texas, you know, a lot of people in general, they can't name their congressman, but they sure as heck cannot name their state representative, right? I mean, so Talariko has some catch-up. He has to play some catch-up, but he's a very good social media. And here's the other thing.

He was on the Joe Rogan experience. That is a big boost for him. The Joe Rogan experience is watched by, what is? It's the most popular podcast in the world, right? I mean, you're the podcast. You know more about podcasts than I do. But he was, yeah, he was on there. They had like a three-hour conversation.

And it was funny, you know, we're talking all about online radicalization and everything. And in that podcast, they talked about this exact same issue. Rogan and Tala Rico were agreeing on the fact. that, you know, these kind of long-form conversations are the solution to the problem of, you know, short-form, rapid-fire disagreement and, you know, reactive hatred. But, you know, those kind of long-form conversations are kind of the solution to that. It's funny that they were talking about that and we bring it up now with everything that happened with Kirk. But, yeah, I mean, I think Tala Rico will, I think he could very well end up being the Democratic nominee.

It's definitely possible here. And there was another article. If he continues getting, of course, all these pieces. Well, I'm going to mention another one here. The Atlantic ran a piece with him, essentially labeling him, they call him the Texas Pete Buttigieg, a southern style Barack Obama. He does have that sort of demeanor in speaking. cadence similar to both of them? Very clean, very polished, you know. And he routinely steps up on the Texas House floor to speak against conservative legislation, and it's delivered in a quite even keeled manner, and he really relies on

his theological training and using that as a foundation for not just his speaking style, but many of his arguments as well. I think that's an interesting dynamic to this as well, especially Texas being such a Republican state, a large majority of those voters being religiously inclined and very much basing their viewpoints on a religious basis, will a Democrat doing the same be appealing to those types of voters? Is that something you think about when you're trying to judge Tala Rico's possibility

of getting the Democratic nomination that he is able to speak to maybe more liberal or progressive Christian beliefs? I will say that my immediate thoughts are. are, you know, I see these articles where people say stuff like, oh, you know, he's a Christian. He can speak on a Christian basis. The problem here, though, is that not all Christians agree with each other on everything. And the fact that he can, the fact that he can cite a religious basis for his political beliefs does not, I think, indicate that he is going to flip really conservative, a significant number of conservative Christians who, will likely disagree, because they disagree with Talariko on politics, because they also disagree with his interpretation of Christianity. You know, I mean, there, a lot of people, if you see online,

will say, well, no, he's not even a real Christian. He's a fake Christian. It's, you know, I think that if you're coming from a more liberal, secular perspective, you might be reasonably convinced that a, you know, progressive Christian has an opportunity to change a, you know, more conservative Christians' mind on things, but I would say that I think that that can be a bit overstated if you don't acknowledge the fact as well that a lot of people, you know, will not interpret his, they will not interpret his religious beliefs to be like in line with theirs, you know, so they're not, they're, it's not going, in fact, for a lot of conservative Christians are probably making them less persuasive because they'll say, well, you know, he's, he's coming out

this the wrong way. He's misinterpreting scripture. So I definitely think that his biggest advantage is probably just the fact that, you know, whereas All Red already ran and lost, you know, Talarico can come out and say, like, I'm the new fresh face, right? And I'm going to run. Now, it is interesting to point out here in this Atlantic article, former Texas State Senator Wendy Davis said that she believes Talarico will lose the primary to All Red. Allred also already has, like, a campaign apparatus in the infrastructure. And they, I think a lot of Democratic strategists are betting that Paxton is going to win the primary. And then Allred, who is going to be able, they think, to finally, excuse me, flip a Senate seat by beating Paxton, who they view as, you know, from the Texas Democratic strategist perspective, they're saying, oh, he's so scandal-ridden.

He's so, he's so super conservative. I think Senator Ted Cruz is also pretty conservative, and Beto O'Rourke was not able to beat him. So I wouldn't put my money on all red if it came down to Allred versus Paxton. Probably be close, but I wouldn't put my money on it. Yeah. Well, I'll just make one last comment. No, I think Tala Rico jumping in this race is just an interesting strategy by Democrats overall. It seems like they are really trying to build some sort of movement by jumping in to a lot of different races.

Tala RICO being the most prominent among them. We've yet to see if someone is going to challenge Governor Greg Abbott from the Democratic side. but Davis I think also says in this article that she she said Talarico maybe should have challenged Abbott instead or he said she she said he could have challenged Abbott instead so yeah and and so I think what will be interesting is if someone jumps into the governor's race from the Democratic side you know he's a he's a force but we've seen already some Democrats jump into the Attorney General's race. You know, who's jumped in so far?

We have Nathan Johnson, correct? Who's jumped in? Nathan Johnson's jumped into the Texas Attorney General race. Yes, I believe that's true. That's another, that's a big statewide race. A lot of people getting on there. A lot of people are jumping into that, you know, especially on their Republican side,

that's going to be a knockout, dragout pipe. Oh, you have, what is it, state Senator Joan Huffman, Mays Middleton, Aaron Wright, who was a DOJ, he's worked in the DOJ under Trump, and he was an aide to Paxton, is that right? And then you have, of course, Congressman Chip Roy. Brad has a good fourth reading about this, about the kind of log jam at the top of the Texas, because, you know, Abbott and Patrick, Governor Greg Abbott, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick,

are running for their, what is it, like third and fourth term now? I mean, they've been in there for a while. And so there's obviously this expectation that whenever the people, at the very top leave, you know, everything, everybody kind of moves up if they want to, if they want to, but they are, they don't appear to be going anywhere. So with Paxton leaving, a bunch of people have now jumped in for Attorney General. The comptroller race will also be interesting, seeing as the former comptroller Glenn Hagar left to lead the Texas A&M University system. There's a whole other issue we don't even have time to get into on this podcast is all the craziness happening. over there that's involving you know state representative brian harrison making all these posts

about this this stuff being taught that might be contrary to texas law regarding d i um LGBT so yeah i just it's it's it's going to be a very interesting election season um there's going to be a lot it's this is the first time we're seeing really in a while you know a ton of i think people really trying to move up you know into into higher office but that that that Texas attorney general race and that U.S. Senate race, both the primaries and the generals are going to be very exciting to watch. Yeah. I think I'm probably most excited to watch the Attorney General's race just because of Chip Roy running in that race along with Aaron Wrights, Mays Middleton running in that race as well, Joan Huffman. Lots of different personalities there,

especially trying to replace the current general, the current general, Ken Paxton. Big shoes to fill. Big shoes to fill. He's a prominent figure, if not. He's also very good at using social media, Ken Paxton, very good at, you know, promoting what he does on. So he's a very good self-promoter, Ken Paxton, you know, you can see all of his Twitter posts

that all the lawsuits he's filed against them. It was always, it's like every week there's a new lawsuit against the Biden administration. you know um and so yeah it'll be interesting to see how what he did i mean you've already seen on social media you know john cornon has the the crooked ken twitter account yeah it's it's a very it's a lot of mud slinging in that race it's going to be very uh very nasty i think so well i think that's going to do it uh for us here at send me some stuff um you know i appreciate everyone listening and given us an opportunity to to, you know, especially run through everything that's happened with the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

And, you know, he just meant so much to so many people. And hopefully we continue to get more answers over the next few days and weeks here. And we'll keep updating everyone over at the Texan as best we can. And before we officially sign off here, you know, we enjoy. enjoy getting to take a deep dive into all these topics. If you ever have anything interesting, you think we should cover on our next episode, send us some stuff. You can send that to editor at the texan.com. Thanks for tune. Thank you.