The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - April 12, 2024

Episode Date: April 12, 2024

Show off your Lone Star spirit with a free "Remember the Alamo" hat with an annual subscription to The Texan: https://thetexan.news/subscribe/The Texan’s Weekly Roundup brings you the latest news in Texas politics, breaking down the top stories of the week with our team of reporters who give you the facts so you can form your own opinion.Enjoy what you hear? Be sure to subscribe and leave a review! Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on a future podcast.This week, the team discusses:Donald Trump asserting that abortion regulations should be left to the statesRepublican lawmakers and nominees rolling out their “Contract with Texas” proposed reforms to the HouseAnswers from the two Republicans in the May runoff to run for Senate District 30 in NovemberThe Texas Democratic Party criticizing Texas’ law banning DEI offices for public universitiesFalling illegal immigrant encounters on the southern border in MarchThe State of Texas suing Harris County over its guaranteed basic income pilot programTesla and X owner Elon Musk’s meeting with Argentine President Javier Milei in Austin

Brad, we're finally coming back to you. Here we go. You're such a swagger. I don't know what we would do without Cameron, and you're just over here. You're right. Just tweeting and stuff, you know? Just tweeting. The tweeting's important.

The tweeting is. I dare you to tweet on a day off. If he is tweeting. Yeah, you were tweeting. Yeah, Brad had a day off yesterday, and he was still tweeting like crazy. Can't stop, won't stop. Ron, don't stop. I do feel very passionate about you guys taking time off.

Oh, we're not going to get into this again. Yeah, it's okay. We're going to let it go. Huh? Brad takes a day off and doesn't know what's been going on behind the scenes. Nothing. Cameron said we're going to leave it, so we're going to leave it, Brad. Gosh.

Howdy, folks. I'm here with Cameron and Brad. I looked at Cameron and Brad. Brad and Cameron. Yes. How are you guys doing? Well, it is a day that ends in Y. Although this day no longer has OJ Simpson as part of it.

It's a sad day. No more Twitter. What's up, Twitter world videos. It didn't seem like a, I didn't know that until about five minutes ago when I was walking in here and Robin Aslan alerted me. It does feel kind of like a cultural moment. Like, that's wild. You know, good news is that now the Ford Bronco is out again, the new version. And so they just have to get a white Bronco, and that can be the hearse.

Yeah, well, they can release a special edition, the OJ Simpson edition. You're right. Right? You're right. Cash in on this. What do you guys think that would look like from a PR standpoint, if Ford released an OJ Simpson edition? They would sell so many.

I think so. You think so? Oh, yeah, definitely. I don't know. People would do it for the joke. They would sell so many. I think so. Do you think so? Oh, yeah, definitely. I don't know. That's on the edge. I feel like that's just on the edge for me. I mean, there'd be a lot of people that pro-clutch anger about it, but I think most people would think it's hilarious.

So they should do that. Free tip to Ford. I should have known today was going to be a weird day because i came in this morning and the fire alarm was just going off oh yeah talk about that it was going off for hours yeah right when i walked in and it only shut off what 30 minutes ago so it was going for four hours maybe so at least yeah it's been a weird morning we left we came back now we're recording yeah it was like okay we need to redirect and make sure we're coming back or going brad i swear when he sees something funny and we're in the middle of

podcasting starts laughing and covering his mouth so brad i don't know if i trust you i just saw a tweet that said finally oJ can rest knowing his wife's killer is dead. I'm really glad we're recording today. We'll see if that one makes it in the final cut. Yeah, we're going to noodle on that one. I don't remember what I was saying. Oh, regardless, we were going to leave, do remote podcast, and then y'all were like, hey, the repair guy is here.

I think it's going to get turned off. The fire alarm is probably going to get turned off here. And then it did. So, yeah, did some U-turns this morning. Well, now we're here to talk about the news. So why don't we do that? Okay. Yes, we can definitely do that. Bradley, are you done with our are you done talking about our

yeah let's get to business lord in heaven enough small talk enough small talk cameron gosh we need to really get it together don't we yes okay great cameron i guess we're gonna start with the news let's do it okay great donald trump made comments this week about his stance on abortion the republican nominee the presumptive republican nominee for president. Tell us what he said. Yeah, so he posted about a four and a half minute video to his Truth Social platform. And in this video, he covered a wide variety of issues pertaining to his stance on abortion. And the thing that caught the most feedback online was when he said that abortion should be left to the will of the people. I'll quote here from the video where he stated, many states will be different, many will have a different number of weeks, or some will be more conservative than others and that's what they will be and so he

you know in classic trump style he totally goes in and out of it's interesting to quote him yeah because it seems like he'll be reading from something and then he goes off the cuff and then goes back to reading it's it's it's a unique style lots of little clauses in his sentences that are just random. Yeah. But he also made some comments about in vitro fertilization treatments, IVF. You know, that's been a topic of conversation with the Alabama Supreme Court ruling. Then we also saw Abbott make comments about IVF treatments being addressed in legislation here in Texas, possibly in the upcoming session. But what Trump said is he, quote, strongly supports the availability of IVF for

couples who are trying to have a precious baby. And Trump also expanded on his views on where exceptions for abortions could take place. He said, quote, like Ronald Reagan, I am strongly in favor of exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother. So this caught a lot of attention online, and I can get into some of those reactions. Yeah. Well, I think it's interesting him taking the stance or taking the approach of aligning himself very purposefully

with a very popular former Republican president like Reagan saying, right, you know, I'm not that far. It's very interesting to watch that happen, particularly considering the criticisms he's received. So yeah, talk about the reactions to the statement from Trump. Yeah, so we saw Texas Representative Matt Schaefer. He's not running for re-election. I'll make note of that. But he called Trump's will to people comments evil and cowardly. We also saw President Joe Biden release a statement on the abortion message saying that Trump is scrambling. So I thought that was interesting because Trump also made comments about how he assisted in essentially overturning Roe during his presidency.

And then we saw the pro-life organization Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, they released a statement saying they are deeply disappointed in President Trump's position. And then Trump also made additional comments a few days later when a reporter asked him if he would sign a national abortion ban and he said he would not. So just some analysis for me reading into some of these comments. It seems as though he's attempting to run to the middle on this issue, maybe trying to court more moderate voters. We'll see if that will work out. We've seen comments online, many people upset with Trump's comments, especially many in the staunchly pro-life wing of the Republican Party

were very vocal about their disappointment in Trump's statements. But it appears this is more a strategic move by Trump, at least in my assessment, attempting to court those moderate voters, especially as we have seen with the more progressive wing of the Democratic Party pushing for expanding abortion availability. And maybe there are voters in the middle of the pro-abortion and pro-life camps that Trump is attempting to swing his way with these comments. So interesting thinking about it in a strategic standpoint. And certainly something that his most notable or formidable opponent Nikki Haley was criticized a lot for

her stance on during the primary. Not that the primary is still ongoing but regardless like that was something that she addressed very frequently and had a lot of very criticized positions on. But that appealed in some ways to the more moderate base. Yeah. And I think what's interesting as well is maybe there was a look at how when abortion was put on the ballot in many Republican led states, those ballot propositions failed. And so maybe this is kind of reading the tea leaves on how the country is feeling on abortion at this moment, not just the pro-life wing of the Republican Party, but like I mentioned, he's sort of running to the center on this issue, attempting to bring in a wider base of people that might be more willing to vote Republican if he would take a more moderate stance on abortion.

So a politically strategic statement is sort of my assessment. That still is receiving a lot of criticism from the base that willingly supports him. So fascinating. We'll definitely keep an eye on what Republican lawmakers have to say about all of that. Cameron, thank you. Yeah. Bradley, coming to you. A group of lawmakers and candidates made an announcement this week regarding the House speaker's race.

What are the details? Dubbed the contract with Texas. A letter was released signed by five incumbents, eight GOP nominees who are not yet elected to the House, but most of them are expected to win pretty easily in November. But the letter outlines 12 demands for whomever's going to be the next speaker to get the votes of the people that have signed this, outlines various reforms to the House, things like removing the House parliamentarians, establishing a GOP-only supported speaker majority, i.e. not coming to the table with any Democratic votes beforehand.

And most notably, and this has been an issue for a while, and probably the top hit on this is ending the practice of Democratic committee chairs. We've seen Tom Oloversen, who is running for Speaker, commit to no Dem chairs. We've seen Speaker Phelan double down on having Dem chairs. We've discussed why that is on this podcast quite a bit. It's going to continue to be an issue, and whenever we see more people jump in, they're going to have to comment on that. So that's something to note.

Five incumbents that signed this are Brian Harrison, Tony Tenderholt, Nate Schatzlein, Steve Toth, and J.M. Lozano. We talked about J.M. Lozano before and how he's kind of getting a bit of a rebel streak in the House when normally he's not that kind of member. The other four, they've been cage-rattling quite a bit in the House and openly critical of Speaker Phelan and in their minds the need for him to no longer be Speaker if he even wins re-election in the runoff. So overall, this list is kind of a blueprint for them and what they need to see from prospective speaker candidates whenever we get to that point. There were also, by Thursday, 11, now 11, more potential representatives signed on to it.

Or engaged in runoffs. Yes, either in open seats or challenging incumbents. And so I think that brings the list total to 23 or 24 people. It's a pretty big block of votes. And really, a lot of people are understandably focusing on what the demands are, how do you implement this stuff. But really, to me, the biggest takeaway is that's a block of voters that at least presumably at the moment will vote together, or at least they have the potential to vote together whenever we reach that point. And that's a pretty sizable chunk. You know, that's not just, you know, the four rabble-rousers in the house, right? It's a lot of people.

And we'll see how the runoffs, you know, affect this. We probably somewhere see not all of them win, so you won't have fully 24. But you could have close to it. And if that happens, you know, that's going to be an interesting dynamic to watch whenever we push comes to shove and we actually start getting, you know, not official votes, but people backing certain candidates and whatnot. I think speaks to the more frequent willingness of new members of the House to come forward and challenge leadership in some way, right? I mean, that's typically how that works.

The longer you're in the House, sometimes members lose that willingness to challenge leadership in any sort of meaningful way, at least in public way. And we're seeing with this new incoming class, which we talked about on our first episode of Smoked Filled Room of, okay, this is actually going to be a pretty sizable, quote unquote, caucus of legislators who are very willing and have publicly stated on their campaign trails, hey, I'm willing to sign something and go against the speaker or challenge the ruling of the chair, whatever it is. So a big group of lawmakers here. Yeah. And the last guy that signed on to this is the most interesting one in my mind, Trey Wharton in HD12, he's facing Ben Bias, who also signed on to this before him. But Wharton is, he was, I think, the first, other than Hillary Hickland,

I think he was the first person Abbott endorsed in these races. And so it's interesting seeing, you know, quote-un, Abbott guy jump out on a limb like this. I think he's also backed by TLR. And it's just an interesting dynamic. Clearly he's trying to get out ahead of it and not let bias beat him to the punch on this issue, prevent bias from having a competitive advantage in this respect. So we'll see if anybody else joins this. I think that's pretty much all the races that are on the ballot in the runoff. But there are some incoming freshmen or presumptive freshmen

that have not signed on to this. Hillary Hicklin's one. Joanne Schaffner. We'll see if they do. I don't know. Yeah. Just interesting to follow. Yeah. And I am remembering, I think Mitch Little comes to mind, some of these members saying, hey, Oliverson has set a good precedent with his platform for running for speaker.

It's kind of the baseline that we'll accept, but there's no endorsement yet of Oliverson kind of waiting to see who else jumps into the race. So they're supportive of the platform, but it's not an endorsement of Oliverson, even though it does align with a lot of what he said. Right. And there's still a lot more to come in this race. You know, first and foremost, we have to see if Phelan wins re-election in May. So there's that. But this is the first, I think, kind of public group of votes, I guess, self-sorting each other. Identifying. Right. Well, let's talk about those demands.

Quickly give us through what's in the contract. So I mentioned some of the top hits, some of the more interesting ones that I thought, you know, points of order. They want basically the parliamentarians, whoever the next ones are, if there are new ones, to not allow, you know, a situation like HB20 to happen again where. The big border bill from the regular session. Right. Right, that died by point of order at a deadline because parliamentarians ruled, sided with Rafael and Chia, a Democrat. The contention was that the bill declared war where the state legislature had no authority to do that. And then another one is, well, also on points of order, they want to stream Point of Order debates and scrums. Oh, live streams, the scrums. They want those somehow recorded.

Because right now you can see them on camera, but when they go do that, the camera pans out and you can only see just a wide shot of the chamber itself. A scrum, a scuffle, a rhubarb. Well, and there's also the side scuffle that goes on when all the reporters rush to the end of the press box and try to put their ear to it. That's why I like to sit at the very, the seat closest, furthest in. That way I can catch some of the debate, the discussion. Oh, yeah. Because that's the only way you can hear what's being argued.

But they somehow want to get you know get that captured and recorded for the public i don't know if it would work you know like maybe who knows but you know they might just have those conversations off camera now um right i don't know but it'll be interesting to see how they go about trying to get that done if that is something that they keep on their on their wish list and a lot is said during those scrums that would be very right very notable well another one is um putting on camera the calendars committees meetings which are usually really short i mean they gavel in quickly vote most of the time gavel out it takes at most five minutes and that's because the calendar is already set um you know they generally know who's going to vote which way they don't really bring a

calendar to the floor without knowing they have the votes so uh i'm not sure entirely what the purpose is for that unless they actually start having debates over what's on the calendar when, but that's another contention they have. And a lot of this stuff is just 30,000-foot view. We need to do this somehow, figure out the details later. But like you said, it's a line, and they're hoping that nobody else, that everyone starts from that point, from this point forward. Yeah. That would be interesting to watch.

Yeah. Cameron, when you came and experienced your first legislative session and you heard us talking about point of orders or poos, was that odd to hear that said so casually and so seriously? Well, I had to ask, what was a poo? Yeah. You know, that's an awkward question. Not discounting the conversation that was happening before the camera started rolling. Yeah, well, yeah. Nobody wants to know. But yeah, I think the point of orders was one of the more

interesting things that I observed during the session. I didn't think they were going to be employed as often as they were and how successful many of them ended up being. So me and Brad talked about this on Show Me Some Stuff about points of orders and the parliamentarians and how important they are to the entire process. And so it's, I think it's really good to see that there are legislators, you know, observing that how important these parliamentarians are. You know, I'm not sure if, you know, I might, you guys would know better than me if these propositions have an ability to be enacted, because you guys know much more about the history of the Texas legislature. So, but I do think it's very interesting to see that this past session, these parliamentarians and

points of orders became so important. And now legislators are like, oh, we need to do something about it. Yeah. Parliamentarians, at least in the Capitol too, kind of become pseudo celebrities, right? Where like among staff, among members, they do have a lot of power, and, of course, they're, right, working with the Speaker. And so it's interesting. I remember when I was working in the Capitol, a friend of, like, a few staffers and I were driving through downtown, and we saw Chris Griesel, who was the parliamentarian when Strauss was Speaker

in his last couple terms, and we were all like, oh! Right? Like, it was so interesting. We're like, so we see him in the wild. that kind of is the attitude i think that the parliamentarians or that folks have toward the parliamentarians who see them every single day on the floor and see them at the forefront of these scrums making these decisions about the legality of the point of orders and the procedure rather but it's almost like when you're in elementary school and you see your teacher outside of the classroom.

Yeah, totally. Wait, you have a life outside? Yeah, totally. You don't live at the school? You're just walking downtown Austin on your way to go grab dinner. Like, that's a crazy, crazy thing. But, yeah. Okay, Bradley, well, thank you for that rundown.

Cameron, coming to you. Okay. Senate District 30 is one of the most watched races during the primary and now the runoff. And now we have two candidates that we're really keeping a close eye on as they're vying for the spot to make their way to the Texas Senate. You got a chance to ask the candidates some questions. Walk us through the answers. Yeah. So we have Brent Hagenbue and Jace Yarbrough headed to this runoff.

And I reached out to both candidates to ask them some questions about a variety of different issues. And one of the main things I wanted to know is how they each interpreted the Don Huffines endorsement. I thought that was very interesting, especially as Don Huffines endorsed Hagenbue and called him an actual Republican. And so Yarborough, when he got back to me, he told me that he was very proud of the endorsements he has gotten from Grassroots America and Texas Right for Life. And he added at the end of his statement that if you want to know why Mr. Huffines has now sided with the political class and endorsed Austin's preferred candidate, you'll have to ask him.

And that referring to the fact that Huffines had previously donated to Yarborough's campaign. That's right. During the primary. And so that about face was very notable for a lot of folks. And I think considering who endorsed both candidates, it would have been more likely if we were to predict Huffine's endorsement, it would have gone to Yarborough. That's just what we probably would have expected, right? But it didn't go that way. So I thought that was very interesting. And Hagen-Boo was very appreciative when I asked him about this with Huffine's endorsement, saying that, quote, I believe in the fundamentals and hold firm to

the spirit of Ronald Reagan and the ideals that rekindle a rebirth for the conservative movement in America. Reagan's our... Double mention. Yeah, exactly. And another thing that I wanted to know is, you know, we see in these Republican primaries that many of the candidates have very similar views. You know, it's very nuanced differences between the candidates. So I wanted to ask them each, what was the biggest difference between each of them? And Yarbrough relied on his, what he said, conservative convictions and pointed to when the Air Force tried to force me to take the COVID vaccine, I put my military pension on the line, stuck to my guns, and said no. And Hagenbue made reference to Yarbrough being an ambitious young man

focused on making a career in politics. And Hagenbue said he had a lifelong record of leadership and talked about his service and some of his business dealings. And I thought that was very interesting just in terms of how they see each other as different in this race. Because, like I mentioned, very small nuanced differences between candidates in the Republican primary. It's interesting watching Hagen-Boo also refer to Yarborough as a young man, right? That is like such a subtle slight saying like this guy is not as qualified as I am. It's so interesting to watch the campaign

talking points from these guys. Well, and ask them each also what their biggest success so far in this campaign is. And Yarborough said that despite entering the race very late and being outspent, he's got big endorsements and that he's very confident in the victory, to get a victory in the runoff. And for Hagenbue, his biggest success, he said, was easy, the endorsement of President Donald Trump. And so we've seen Hagen-Boo reference that Donald Trump endorsement quite prominently in his campaign and in the runoff. So just some very interesting answers. And the piece was set up with them sort of appearing as having a dialogue. So I thought that was very

interesting how we set up the piece. But one of the other interesting things is I asked them about what unique quality they would bring to the Texas Senate. And with Yarborough, he talked about putting interests of the constituents first in sort of that contrast of being someone who would fight for the grassroots as opposed to what he continually referenced as the political class. And for Hagenbue, he mentioned that his unique quality would be his record of leadership. And again, pointing towards the fact that he's a veteran and been successful in creating a business. So just some very interesting insights from each of the candidates, and especially in this SC30 race which is um one of the most uh watch races

yeah this year absolutely it'll be interesting to see if yarborough does pull off the upset what which it would be an upset right it was an upset that he even made it to in some ways the runoff itself and he performed incredibly well yeah oh my gosh a lot of the talk before the primary was can hagen boo avoid a runoff entirely was, can Hagenbue avoid a runoff? A runoff entirely. And he wasn't even close to avoiding a runoff. Yarbrough was, what, like two, three points behind him? It wasn't much.

It was like, yeah. It was very slim. And, you know, all these figures coming out and endorsing Hagenbue. I mean, Dan Patrick is clearly going to the mat for Hagenbue, I mean, Dan Patrick is clearly going to the mat for Hagenbue. He wants, you know, his guy, this is the guy he essentially picked to be the next senator in SD30. I think Patrick was the first one to come out and endorse. And then you saw all the bigger endorsements come. Governor Abbott came, Donald Trump, of course. Would you explain why Patrick endorsing is a big deal for a Senate candidate specifically?

Well, that's his chamber, right? And he likes to have a very ironclad grip on the chamber. He wants members who are going to stick with him. It's like the Speaker of the House endorsing in an open race for the Texas House. Right. It's the the Speaker of the House endorsing in an open race for the Texas House. Right. It's the same function. Yeah. And so it will just be interesting to see if Yarbrough pulls this off,

what's the dealing like when he's in the chamber with all these colleagues who endorsed against him and the lieutenant governor who endorsed against him. It would just be an interesting dynamic to see uh you know are there hard feelings about it he's got to win first to see if that happens so right and you know hagen-buu is a self-funder you know put in a million dollars of his own money so um he's got an uphill climb but you know he like i said he was only what two three points behind ha behind Hagaboo in the primary. This is a dead heat. Yeah.

It's wild. Yeah. It's going to be a big race to watch. Probably number one. Well, behind HD21, I think this is the top race we're watching in the runoff. Yeah. Of course, HD21 is Phelan's district with Covey. And Trump endorsements playing a big factor there as well. Okay.

Cameron, thank you. We're going to stick with you, Cam. Okay. Following UT Austin shutting down one of their DEI offices we talked about last week, Texas Democrats blasted Republican lawmakers. Tell us what they said. Yeah, so there was an online webinar press conference where Gilberto Hinojosa, he is the chair of the Texas Democratic Party.

He was joined by some other Democrats in Texas, notably Rep. Ron Reynolds, who is the chair of the Texas Legislative Black Caucus. And during this webinar, there was lots of hyperbolic language thrown around about this DEI office shutting down at UT Austin. And they were really railing againstosa saying that MAGA Republicans are openly racist going after DEI. So very harsh rhetoric coming from the chair of the Texas Democratic Party. We also saw Rep. Ron Reynolds. He characterized Governor Greg Abbott's decision to sign SB 17 into law as a fear of being out maggot. And that was in reference to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and the DEI ban

that they have down in Florida. So there was lots of bombastic language being used in this and SB 17 has been something that's continually talked about and pointed out as being one of the more harsher pieces of legislation according to Texas Democrats and especially as we've seen UT Austin like we mentioned shut down this division of campus and community engagement and there was quite a few staff members that were let go as part of that shutting down of the office so you know it's it's just some interesting insight about how Texas Democrats are viewing the enactment of SB 17. Yeah, absolutely.

And one of the big pieces of legislation that was really opposed by Democrats that was passed this last legislative session. Yeah. Wild stuff. Thank you, Cameron. Cameron, we're coming to you again. Okay. Okay. Rapid fire.

Someone's been publishing quite a bit this week. Illegal immigrant encounters fell in March. We have the numbers from CBP. Tell us what is new in these numbers. Yeah, so a report that I came across was actually from CBS News, where they were able to get a hold of some internal government statistics that showed, quote, the number of migrants apprehended along the U.S.-Mexico border dipped in March, and they detailed how over 137,000 migrants were apprehended by U.S. Border Patrol agents in March

while they attempted to cross the southern border, quote, unlawfully. So this is apprehensions or of or yeah apprehensions of illegal immigrants and customs and border protection most recently they haven't updated for march yet so i'm referencing their february encounters where they had over 140,000 encounters between ports of entry at the southwestern border that month with over 189,000 total encounters. And then I mentioned in the piece that there was some comments from former President Donald Trump back in February talking about, because there was a story that came out about the rising number of Chinese nationals attempting to cross illegally. And Trump commented on that phenomenon saying it could lead to a terrorist attack. And what was interesting about that is there was also, like I've mentioned in the past,

former Blackwater CEO Eric Prince had made mention of how foreign nationals from adversarial countries could lead to potential terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. So I thought that was interesting to include. And then also in December 2023, there was a record number of encounters with illegal immigrants. And CBP reported a total of 3.2 million enforcement actions taking place along the border in the fiscal year 2023. And so large numbers, even though there is a dip in March, as we mentioned at the top of this segment, there's still an issue with this border crisis. We've seen it attempt to be addressed with SB4, but that continues to be tied up in a legal battle, essentially. But Abbott has

taken steps with essentially pushing back against the federal government with the continued building of the border wall and Constantino wire. So there are actions being taken here in Texas, but as we're seeing, there's still large numbers of people attempting to cross the border illegally. Yeah, absolutely. These numbers are still huge, right? We're still dealing with increased numbers and influx of illegal immigration. So, yeah.

Cameron, thanks for contextualizing all of that for us. You're welcome. Killing it. Brad, we're finally coming back to you. Here we go. You're such a slacker. I don't know what we would do without Cameron, and you're just over here just tweeting and stuff. Yeah, just tweeting. The tweeting know just tweeting the tweeting is important if he is yeah you were tweeting yeah Brad had a day off yesterday and he

was still tweeting like crazy can't stop one stop we grind don't stop I do feel very um passionate about you guys taking time off oh we're not gonna get into this yeah it's okay we're, we're not going to get into this again. Yeah, it's okay. We're going to let it go. Huh? Brad takes a day off and doesn't know what's been going on behind the scenes. Nothing. Cameron said we're going to leave it, and so we're going to leave it, Brad. Okay. Gosh. Okay, the Attorney General announced another lawsuit against Harris County this week. What's it over? The state of Texas and Harris County will again duke it out in court, this time over a guaranteed basic income pilot program that would give 1,500 households in the county $500 per month. We've seen similar things in a couple different places, notably Austin is one, but this suit

comes specifically against Harris County, who announced the program last year, and it was to be run through the Harris County Public Health Administration. On Tuesday this week, the Office of the Attorney General filed suit asking the court to halt its implementation before the April 24th start date. The families have already been selected, and notices went out, apparently. And so this thing is almost off the ground, and paxton is um you know trying to prevent that from happening before we hit the date he said in his in announcing the suit this scheme is plainly unconstitutional taxpayer money must be spent lawfully and used to advance the public interest not merely redistributed with no accountability or reasonable expectation of a

general benefit i am suing to stop officials officials in Harris County from abusing public funds for political gain. When this was announced back last year, the Harris County judge, Lena Dalgo, said, decades of neglect, inequality, and discrimination have financially destabilized generations of Harris County families. That was the justification for doing this. The lawsuit comes, the onus for this lawsuit was a request by Senator Paul Bettencourt, who chairs the local government committee in the Senate, to evaluate the program. And obviously he's in Houston. He's from the area. Yes. He's been critical of this before. And finally, after looking into it from that request, the OHE's office has now decided to sue officially. In response, Lena Hidalgo said in a press release, I feel for these families whose plans and livelihoods are being caught up in political posturing by Trumpian leaders in Texas.

Like with abortion rights and basic gun safety, Texas far-right leaders grab any opportunity to proclaim their Trumpian rhetoric. And they do it with impunity because they know that the people they're hurting are not billionaire donors but everyday people with limited political power. Obviously, two entirely different strands of messaging that are never going to be reconciled. But, you know, the legal issues in this case are actually pretty interesting. So I'm not sure. Obviously, it'll have to move pretty quick, whichever way it goes, because, you know, we're almost to the 24th when this is going to be implemented. But, you know, who knows how fast it will happen. Yeah, absolutely. Also, I'm, like, sniffling like crazy.

These allergies are getting me. Are they getting you guys today? They just came over to me. It came over me the last 30 minutes. So excuse me if I'm sniffling in your ear, folks. Well, I didn't notice. Well, but people listening, all microphone's in front of my face. When they announced this guaranteed basic income pilot program,

did they make mention of any other previous attempts at implementing this? Because if I remember correctly, the one I remember, there was one done in Stockton, California. I don't know the stats on if it was successful or not, but I know it's been tried before. Yeah. Well, you know, Austin has one working right now. I think San Antonio has a version too.

Yeah, sounds right. Austin's was $1,000 per month for 85 families, and they just finished the first year of that program. Austin said it went well. I'm sure there are others that would disagree. It's a pilot program, right? So it's a very limited scope. Same with Harris County.

But the reason there hasn't been a lawsuit against Austin, or at least I don't think there has been one. And this is a chief contention made within the lawsuit filed against Harris County, is that counties, because they are direct subsidiaries of the state, can only do what state law and the Constitution explicitly permit them to do. Whereas cities, home rule municipalities municipalities have a lot more leeway because they've been granted home rule status. Now, we see that issue taking center stage in the preemption debate over the Death Star Bill. And there's a lot of back and forth on that. How far does home rule status extend? How much authority does it actually give these localities? What the state gives,

can it take away? Things like that. But with the counties, it's a lot more straightforward. And for example, Article 3, Section 52A of the Texas Constitution says, except as otherwise provided by this section, the legislature shall have no power to authorize any county, city, town, or other political corporation or subdivision of the state to lend its credit or to grant public money or thing of value in aid of or to any individual, association, or corporation whatsoever or to become a stockholder in such corporate the important thing is that in the contention that's being made in this case is that that's that explicitly prohibits state dollars going to um you know this group of individuals Now, I saw counters to that argument applied to, well, what about school choice vouchers? Is the same argument applied there? I don't know.

I'm sure if we ever have – if the legislature creates an education savings account program, there's going to be lawsuits, right? And I guarantee you that contention is going to be made in a court case. Is it successful? Is it the same scenario? I have no idea. That's obviously something that a court would have to rule on, but you can see the table is set for that argument to be made. And in this, though, it kind of seems pretty straightforward, though. I don't know. Yeah, I'm just interested in if they are doing this pilot program because they have evidence that it's worked before

or they're just saying we're going to try this. And I'm wondering also, like, the qualification to be included in the pilot program like how did they select these individuals and are are these individuals also a part of other entitlement programs or welfare programs because we've seen when we saw someone like andrew yang when he i was literally about to say this is bringing me back to the Yang days. The Yang gang. The Yang gang. Well, he ran on trying to implement a UBI. And if I remember correctly, he was saying that would replace government entitlement or government welfare programs. So people want to get the –

The Milton Friedman case, right? Yeah. So I thought that was interesting, but I just haven't looked into what they're essentially, what's involved in this. This is not in lieu of any other welfare. Like all the people in this are low income. Yeah. And I don't know all the parameters child care or whatever it may be. But I just don't know it bringing it to a larger scale of people, you know, how that would work out.

And then what are the parameters with this pilot program? I'm just not sure. Well, as far as I'm aware, and this has been some of the messaging from the side that's critical of this, is it's no strings attached. Here's money. You can do with it what you want. You know, that's by design, I think. The idea is to give people more financial flexibility

to make their own decisions on what they want to use it for, right? Is that actually what happens? I don't know. But the, going back to like a voucher program or an education savings account in this case, you know, that has a specific line item of things you can use it for.

Does that mean that it's not the same scenario? Maybe. But for this, there appears to be no oversights. Well, I think that's the interesting part is with if you are comparing it to like a school voucher or an ESA account, there are specific things that you can use it for. But if there is no, there's no parameter set in a UBI program on what they can spend it on. And if there's not the strict oversight, you know, where people might be spending it on, you know, personal items that might not be for like living expenses or whatever, but they're, you know, whatever it may be, they're spending that money on, you know, how the country we're dealing with issues with people running up credit cards or defaulting on loans, whether it's car loans or home loans. So, like, there's a bigger issue going on in America with how people handle money. Right. You know, is that solved by giving them more money? money. But that's the interesting argument is then the appeal to fiscal conservatives is, well,

wouldn't you say the same about taxation, that money is better in the pockets of people as opposed to government, right? So that's the appeal to conservatives that a lot of UBI proponents use is, okay, if that's your argument with taxation, why would you not say the same for UBI? But, you know, the right largely considers it some, you know, a welfare adjacent program. So it's just, it's an entitlement, right? So that's the argument. And that's what's interesting. When Milton Friedman, libertarian, made the argument, it was contingent upon that replacing all other forms of welfare. It's not added on top of that. That's it. And it's never going to happen, I don't think.

The financial system is so intertwined with how things currently are, it would be next to impossible to do that. But that's the idea, right? And this is not that. No. And I don't think Lena Hidalgo and the other officials behind coming up with this,

they have any intention of making that in lieu of other entitlements. It's in addition to. It's in addition to, yeah. Okay. Well, I'm going to go to Tesla here, Cameron, because I need to go blow my nose off camera, and I'm going to set you up to chat for a little bit. Okay.

Does that sound like a plan? I'm going to very casually leave the room here to go blow my nose off camera and I'm going to set you up to chat for a little bit. Okay. Does that sound like a plan? I'm going to very casually leave the room here to go blow my nose and I'm announcing it because we're on camera now so all of a sudden I'm going to be off camera. Perfect. Okay great I'm just letting you know that this is happening. Okay so Elon Musk, tech mogul, we're very familiar with him and the Argentine president that we've heard so much about are planning to meet up this week cameron tell us about this meeting i will tell you about this what's so funny go blow your nose so elon musk and javier malay are planning to meet up is that how you say it malay i believe so is it is have you heard another person?

I'm genuinely asking. I don't know. Oh, I believe it's Millay. But, yeah, they're planning to meet up this weekend on Saturday at Musk's Tesla factory here in Austin. And Elon has— Just guys being dudes? Just guys?

Well— Saturdays are for the boys? Well, I'll get into my analysis of the meetup. But before I get into it, Elon has long praised Malay for his libertarian approach to governance. You know, we've seen the viral videos of him talking about slashing government programs. He, on the campaign trail, was carrying a chainsaw. And, you know, he's a character. He's definitely, they call them El Loco. But yeah, so he's a out, you know, the WEF when he gave a speech there and Elon commented on his speech. So the two have a very cordial relationship, at least online, and now they're going to make it personal getting together here in Austin.

And something interesting I did come across is in late December 2023, so just last year, Belay said in an interview that Musk and other U.S. companies are, quote, extremely interested in lithium. And lithium is a key component in the EV market because these electric vehicles are battery-powered and these lithium-ion batteries, a key component is lithium, along with things like copper and manganese. So rare earth minerals, not copper, excuse me, cobalt and graphite. How dare you get that wrong?

And so what's important to understand with this Malay-Musk meetup is Musk has actually moved. When he did move his Tesla Gigafactory here to Austin in 2021, he actually, just this past year, started up a factory or a facility to become the first U.S. automaker to refine its own lithium because there's the mining and the processing and the refining of what they call white gold because of how important it is to all green technologies, EVs and things of that nature because of the battery technology that lithium is involved in. And some statistics here for you. From 2016 to 2019, Argentina provided 55% of the U.S. imported supply of lithium, and over 90% of the lithium is imported from outside of the U.S. Only 1% of the global lithium supply is mined in the US

and that comes from a single facility in Nevada and the US has a competitor in this lithium market and it's China and because China supplies 80 of the world's battery cells and accounts for nearly 60% of the EV battery market. And the White House actually put out a report in 2021 that stated China has invested heavily in developing its battery cell production and mining of rare earth minerals like lithium. And this is also important to contextualize with how China has implemented this Belt and Road Initiative, where they are essentially going to countries in Africa and bringing Chinese workers into these

countries within Africa and taking over a lot of the mining facilities where these rare earth minerals are. So they're attempting to monopolize rare earth minerals on the earth because they're projecting into the future that lithium and cobalt and manganese are going to be vitally important for battery-operated technologies like EVs, but also solar panels that store that electricity before sending it out to be used. So it's just interesting that Argentina has this giant lithium supply meeting with Elon Musk, who owns the largest EV company in Tesla. So a relationship being built there is a positive thing, not just for Elon Musk

and Tesla, but the United States more generally being in a global competitive market with China. Yeah. One of my favorite quotes from team members this week, which I include in my newsletter, subscribe and get the newsletter, was Cameron stepping into my office and saying, so I'm diving into the U.S. Geological Survey data and then trailing off with more information about the different kinds of rare earth minerals. It made me giggle. Well, you know, it's just sort of things that happen, you know, behind the scenes. You know, people see the economy going up and down and different markets emerging

and trying to project into the future. But it's really important to understand what goes into producing these new technologies and what is going to be the drivers for the economy, not just five years into the future, but 50 years, 100 years into the future. And so if people are predicting that green technologies and battery storing energy technologies are going to be the future, and lithium is a key component in that, you want to identify where the lithium is coming from. Because they're going to be big players in the global market. Yeah. And so this relationship that Malay is establishing with Musk here in America, I see it as a positive thing.

Yeah, it's very interesting. Well, Cameron, thank you. Okay, gentlemen, really fast, speaking of newsletters, I want to plug y'all's this week. So quickly debrief for us, Bradley, what you wrote about in fourth reading. Well, the main section's on some comments made by former Speaker Joe Strauss. Namely, he said, I think I represent a faction of the party that is larger than people give us credit for. There's more moderate wings, obviously. On the outs of authority at the moment, the primaries showed that. But I go through some polling data in there, and there's still a very real more moderate contingent of the party um it takes a couple different

lanes but it it's interesting but the more interesting thing i think is um i go through the data on the number of voters in the HD21 primary that had Democratic history. So there's a lot of talk about closing primaries, the need for that. And it's pretty interesting to see how much there actually was. So, like, of the almost 3,000 voters, that's about 9% of the total that voted. Two thirds had only one Democratic primary under their belt, as opposed to 5% that had four. And that's from 2016 to 2022.

So I had to cut it off somewhere. I just did the most recent ones. And even more interesting is the breakdown of our history among those voters. And it's a pretty even spread between those who had – Our being Republican. Republican, who had no GOP primary history, who had one, who had two. When we talk about this, how do you classify who's a Democratic voter?

Does one primary in the last four cycles, does that make you a Democratic voter, regardless of if you voted in the Republican primary all three of the other times? That's an interesting debate to have. And if we ever get to the point where we're closing primaries, we're going to have to talk about how we classify voters. But right now, it's a lot more interesting and nuanced to look at the full data than just 3,000 Democrats voted, because it's not that simple. Surprise, surprise. Right. And also, more than double the number of people who had Democratic history was the ones who had no primary history whatsoever.

All this is going to be very interesting to see how it plays out in the runoff, who turns out, who's more motivated. But this is, I break it down in the newsletter, and I think it's pretty interesting. It's all about turnout, Cameron. Yeah, it is. It was a great piece. Lots of great sports references. You're the only one that got the Joey Gallo reference. Really? The only one that at least said it to me. No, I didn't get it at all. You should click the link and you can see.

I check all your links before we publish. I just didn't examine it closely. You check all the links? Yeah. Do you read the articles? Some of them, yes. Oh. But mainly I'm making sure it directs to where we need it to direct? Yeah. Do you read the articles? Some of them, yes. Oh.

But I'm mainly making sure it directs to where we need it to direct. Yeah. Right? It's like a check. That happens sometimes. I'll come across articles and it's a broken link. Yeah. I'm like, darn. I know.

I wanted to go down a rabbit hole. Yeah. We love rabbit holes here at the Texan. None more than me, it seems. I was going to say, speaking of such. Cameron, tell us about Redacted this week. Yeah, so I sort of delved into how our political discourse operates in the age of social media. And I sort of use the Texas Ethics Commission proposed rule about how they would require social media personalities who make political posts to reveal if they were paid for it. I use that sort of as a jumping off point, especially when we saw the voter rolls,

essentially scandal, pop off on X when Elon retweeted something that turned out not to be true. It popped off. But it sort of spread across the internet before the real information could come out. And this edition was sort of my attempt to explain the current situation where we are no longer operating in a world of authentic opinion, but rather we are tasked now with interpreting information through how we perceive the person providing that information. And so I highlighted some thinkers that I like to read, like Jock Alul. He's a media theorist and philosopher. Say the name again like Jock Alul. He's a media theorist and philosopher. Say the name again. Jock Alul. Okay. Yeah. Seeing the last name, like Alul,

was what was hard for me to understand how to pronounce when I was reading your piece. I was like, how would you even say this last name? Alul. Okay. Yeah. He's written a lot about media theories in terms of their impact on how we operate ourselves into essentially machines attempting to interpret everything rather than viewing things as authentically as they are. And so it has this presence of being on ourselves. So I also mentioned someone that I read quite a lot, Jean Baudrillard, who... These names, it's impressive. Well, and Baudrillard, his main ideas is that we're operating in sort of this simulacrum of reality in the same way that everything that we perceive has essentially being commoditized. And I mentioned that in our piece where,

how are we as lay persons attempting to interpret the news and politics supposed to do that in a world where we can't even trust the information that we're being provided is authentic information if people are being paid to say certain things. And so I sort of delve into those more philosophical elements in this piece, which was enjoyable for me and happy that you let me do that. And I think if people are interested in learning more about this stuff,

a couple books you guys can read are Propaganda by Jocko Luhl, or you can read Simulation and Simulacrum by Baudrillard, or you can, there's a documentary series called The Century of Self that was put on by the BBC, and that goes into the different Freudian concepts that were introduced into advertising and how essentially one of the big concepts is how everything has become sexualized to play upon those more primitive aspects of our consciousness and sort of tap into those more carnal desires. And so if people are interested, I link to all that stuff in the piece, and they can dive into it.

They can dive into it. Bradley, what are you fist pumping over here about? Nothing. If you don't want to fist pump, or if you fist pump on camera, you can't expect me not to ask you what you're fist pumping about. It's not important. Okay. Well, why don't we move on to Twitter then?

It has to do with the Masters, so it doesn't matter. Did they already start? I know they're this weekend. Okay. Okay, cool. Well. Is it the Masters? Go off.

I saw some tweet thread that someone was reviewing all the food. Oh, yes. That's funny. It's really cheap food. someone was reviewing all the food. Oh, yes. That's funny. It's really cheap food. Yeah, that was the thing. Like, that was what the whole thread was about, was how cheap everything was. And they were, like, taking pictures of, like, the chicken sandwich. At the Masters?

Cheap food? Cheap food. That's a yakker. Yeah, so I thought that was funny. Huh. Okay. Well, Tweeter-y, Bradley, why don't you go ahead and tell us what you got. So, interesting note today.

This morning I got flagged a fundraiser for David Covey up in Dallas, headlined by Lieutenant Governor Patrick and Attorney General Paxton. So, you know, host committee levels are up to $50,000. So I think they could raise a lot of money. And they will raise a lot of money. Yes, probably will, yes. And the host committee is huge. It also has a lot of elected officials, some legislators,

some likely-to-be legislators on it. Mitch Little's one of them. So that's just something to note that's on May 1st that fundraisers happen. And so, you know, the big guns are coming out, and Patrick is pushing all of his chips in the middle to get Dane Phelan out, and we'll see if he's successful. But looking at David Covey's report, whenever that comes out before the runoff and seeing fundraising the line item on May 1st,

the money given at this fundraiser seeing that total is going to be very interesting it's probably going to be a massive haul i think yeah well isn't there some like golden rule of whoever spends more in election usually wins something like that that's a good question um i mean, I'm sure it's... I think I've heard that somewhere. I mean, on the national level. Like, when they look back, those who spend more usually win. I mean, yeah, that would track. I don't know if...

I don't know if that is a political reality. So much money. Like, Phelan has a lot of money, too, and he will continue raising a lot of money. Yeah. So... Well, then it's a question too of how much money needs to be spent by a challenger to overcome inherent difficulties of not being the incumbent right so an incumbent like how much money will that take to overcome

name id issues or what you know reputation the district whatever that is and that number is different in every district well also what do you count as money raised? Because is it just by the candidate? But in HG21, there's all kinds of outside groups getting involved on both sides. The Club for Growth, they put, I think, $4 million into TV buys for a handful of House runoffs, and they're especially going hard at Phelan, trying to take him out. And then on the other side you've got groups like Associated Republicans of Texas

that put a lot of money in. So how do you calculate all that? That's going to determine what the math is on who raised, spent more. So factors to keep in mind on that. I know think tanks and consulting firms have done the research on how much candidates pay per vote.

The eventual outcome. What was Jeb Bush's in Iowa in 16? An insane amount of money. $30,000 I think it was. But it's interesting to look at that. I think a separate thing that could be analyzed is how much certain endorsements are worth be on social media or yard signs or mailers. I'm not sure how they would do that conversion or analysis.

For every thousand mailers sent, it converts to some number of votes. I think that would be an interesting analysis if someone would to ever do that. Because if they were able to conduct some sort of report like that, it could potentially change how people conduct campaigns, especially now in the era of social media. Like if they're seeing, you know, more or less votes come from social media posts as opposed to yard signs or whatever it may be. I think that would be an interesting analysis to do. I'm not sure how they would do it.

It would be hard to convert. You know, how do you convert a yard sign to a vote? You almost need like a survey at the end of your ballot. How do you know about us? Yeah. Cameron, what do you got for Twittery? Oh, so Wall Street Journal just this morning um today's thursday april 11th they um put out um some information on how black men are moving towards

uh donald trump in the upcoming election and this was in seven swing states. And reading from the article here, while most Black men said they intended to support Biden, some 30% of them in the poll said they were either definitely or probably going to vote for the former Republican president. Continuing from the article here, there isn't comparable Wall Street Journal swing state polling from 2020, but Trump received votes from 12% of Black men nationwide that year, as recorded by AP VoteCast, a large poll of the electorate. And I thought that was interesting in context of we saw the Financial Times, I think it was over a month ago, put out some information. They did an analysis about how black men and Latino men are moving towards voting Republican in, you know, large percentage not seen before. And so I try to think

to myself, like, why? Why is this happening now? And one of the things I've hypothesized about is, I go back to social media and how young people are getting their information these days are from X or Instagram or podcasts or YouTube. And what type of content are young men consuming. And so if you go look at the type of content, it doesn't matter black, Latino, white, many of these podcasts are conversational podcasts, whether it be long-form Joe Rogan podcasts or just different topical news podcasts where many of these podcast hosts

are more fiscally conservative, at least what I've observed. And those who are going to be more fiscally conservative, at least from what I've noticed, have been more pro-Trump in their rhetoric on these podcasts. Again, this is my subjective take on this, at least trying to analyze the situation of why we're seeing this move by Latino and Black men towards the Republican Party. It's about what type of information they're consuming and what those people in that content are saying. And so I'm not sure, again, if there's been analysis on the why of this movement towards the Republican Party by Latino and Black men, but maybe something that could be addressed. Well, I think we've kind of touched on this a bit before.

The Republican Party is becoming the more coalitional party. Now, it's not all the way there yet, but traditionally it's been the ideological party. But that's shifting. And so when that happens, naturally you're going to have constituencies that don't align entirely with the ideology of now the Democratic Party increasingly moving to the other one slowly. This is not happening overnight. Well, we talked about this on Show Me Some Stuff, right? This is not happening overnight. Well, we talked about this on Show Me Some Stuff, right? Yeah. Is that Republicans now are becoming the Workers' Party,

and we've seen unions come out in support of Trump. Well, it's not just the Workers' Party. That's one faction. That's been one faction that's made up the Democratic Party coalition for a century. Yeah. But, yeah, I think we're seeing a shift in the polls, as in P-O-L-E-S, of these two entities. Yeah, well, bringing it back to the very top of of the ideological party, like with Trump's comments, he's attempting to court this larger coalition of people with his rhetoric. And that's why I mentioned it was probably more of a politically strategic move. And, yeah, it has made many pro-life groups and pro-life individuals upset with what he said. But in terms of a political analysis, you know, if that's the view of attempting to win an election, you have to get the most votes.

And I think that's what he was attempting to do. Yeah. Well, and, you know, you've seen we've seen some pretty big backlash against that issue in nominally red states or not nominally. It actually red states, Ohio and Kansas, the two biggest examples. So of course it's an electoral calculation and, you know, it might be the right one from a cynical perspective, but, you know, that doesn't, that's not an argument on the merits, right? That's out of expediency. Yeah. Yeah. and I think that's the reason why there's been this back and forth about not just Trump's comments, but about how the Republican Party has become a more coalitional party where we can't really define what is a Republican anymore, is because there are those that would like everything that Republican politicians to say to be conservative principled statements, but according to a certain ideological view of what is a conservative Republican. While there are these new people coming into the Republican Party that elected officials or potential elected officials are attempting to court a much wider

base of voters now that they could potentially vote Republican maybe for the first time or for the second time. And so that's why we're sort of seeing a change in how politicians are saying things online or in the public is the Republican Party is much wider and acceptable types of acceptable opinions now. Which then gets criticism from those who've been stalwart Republicans for many decades saying we're abandoning principles by turning our backs on things that are platform issues. Which I think it could lead to a potential turning point in what it means to be a Republican nowadays, is that with this new breadth of voters that could be potential Republican voters, will that lead to a change in what it means to be a Republican and the types of

legislation that is proposed along with that? And so it could lead to big changes in the future. I mean, look at trade policy. After this, I'm going to cut us off because we're already over time. Look at trade policy. You know, 15 years ago, the Republican Party was very pro-free trade, and now it's not. Yeah. So it's an example of that happening.

There. We could talk for a long time about trade policy. I won't say anything. Cameron is like, oh, his eyes lit up about that. Well, send me some stuff, you know? All right. Next episode. There you go.

I do want to also plug the other monthly podcast that we have at the Texan is Smoke Filled Room with me and Brad. A new episode comes out Monday. Yeah. This being the month of the NFL draft, we did our own draft. We drafted politicians for different statewide positions that we think they're going to run for that. So it should be interesting. I thought it was interesting. The premise being that if Trump resumes his position in the White House

and let's say a bunch of very supportive members of the Texas statewide delegation assume roles in his administration, who would take those spots? Who would fill the vacuum? Who runs for what? We name names. Ooh. I'm sure we got some wrong like well yeah 2020 right but yeah um yeah it's fun it was fun i'm curious to see what reactions will be and if we'll get any flack for it but it was fun it was all in good fun it was hypothetical of course and we had a good time our uh predictions is what we kind of went off of yep okay can i close it out yeah yes are we about to work we're ending okay um

the drudge report headline oh lord cancer murders oj Headline. Oh, Lord. Cancer murders OJ. And with that, folks. Matt Drudge still got it. Thanks for listening to the Weekly Roundup, and we'll catch you next week. Thank you to everyone for listening. If you enjoy our show, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you want more of our stories, subscribe to The Texan at thetexan.news. Follow us on social media for the latest in Texas politics. And send any questions for our team to our mailbag by DMing us on Twitter or shooting us an email to editor at thetexan.news. Tune in next week for another episode of our weekly roundup.

God bless you and God bless Texas.