The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - August 13, 2021

Episode Date: August 13, 2021

On this week’s edition of The Texan’s Weekly Roundup podcast, our team covers a lawsuit brought by Democrats against Governor Abbott and Speaker Phelan, updates on arrest warrants for absent lawmakers, fissures among Texas House Democrats, a Senate filibuster of GOP-backed election reform, funding for the legislature restored after threats from Abbott, developments in Republican efforts to ban gender modification procedures for children, school districts implementing mask mandates in defiance of the governor’s orders, trillions spent on an infrastructure package in D.C., the ongoing battle between a county judge and commissioner in Dallas County, and how localities are seeking to implement mask mandates of their own.

Happy Friday, folks. Mackenzie Taylor here on this week's edition of the Texans Weekly Roundup. Our team covers Democrats suing the governor and speaker of the House, developments pertaining to whether arrest warrants can be issued for absent lawmakers, fissures among Texas House Republicans, a Senate filibuster of GOP-backed election reform, funding for the legislature restored after threats from Abbott, developments in Republican efforts to ban gender modification procedures for children, school districts implementing mask mandates in defiance of the governor's orders,

trillions spent on an infrastructure proposal in D.C., the ongoing battle between a county judge and commissioner in Dallas County, and how localities are seeking to implement mask mandates of their own. Thanks for tuning in. We hope you enjoy. Howdy folks, Mackenzie Taylor with Daniel Friend, Hayden Sparks, Isaiah Mitchell, and Brad Johnson. Y'all threatened last week to change different or change your spots in the podcast room. So I wouldn't be able to look around and name you guys as smoothly as usual.

And that threat. You have the worst memory ever but you can remember that that's very fair yes you're right you remember this correct okay because i just listened to the intro of the of the podcast the other day and it jogged my memory i'm trying to keep you on your toes that's that's the idea you didn't just forget daniel because at least you know i would never i would never forget something as important as that. It's called reverse psychology. It made you think one thing and then did the same thing we've always done.

Oh, my gosh. We also are here in the office without any Krispy Kreme donuts, much to Isaiah's particular chagrin. Yeah, really sure. Daniel Aykroyd, our new operations coordinator, promised Krispy Kremes did he not I wouldn't go as far to say that Bradley you're supposed to just jump on board and go down yesterday yeah which was cool that's guys right before we started recording I said I'm going to roast Daniel for not having Krispy Kreme donuts here. And I said, please assist me. And you all have defected.

No, I mean, he was really nice yesterday when he brought them in. They were like these miniature Krispy Kreme donuts, which I did not know Krispy Kreme made mini Krispy Kreme donuts. It's like the eighth wonder of the world. Yeah, totally. I never knew this existed. The eighth wonder of the world. Where'd you get that phrase, huh? Oh, it's good stuff. Oh, totally. Never knew this existed. The eighth winner of the world. Where'd you get that phrase, huh? Oh, it's good stuff, you know.

Oh, brother. Well, on that note, after that blatant mutiny, we're just going to head right on into the news here. Brad, we're going to start. The standard of mutiny for you is so low. But we're starting with you, Bradley. So on Friday night, democrats uh filed a lawsuit against governor gray abbott uh the speaker of the house and just another state rep uh what did it allege well uh it was as you mentioned against governor abbott speaker phelan and representative

james white why james white We'll get to that. Okay. You're skipping ahead there. Putting the cart before the horse, as it were. But a group of, I think it was like 22 Democrats, at the time, they alleged that through public rhetoric, through rhetorical threats, through whatever procedural maneuvers that were able to be used against the Democrats breaking quorum, that this constituted a violation of First Amendment rights. And so that's the main one right there uh they also allege that the you know the public um relations kind of uh campaign against them or whatnot has also caused them

quote anxiety and distress um keep in mind this is all stuff that wouldn't have happened had they not gone to dc so right um right on its face it's a it it's kind of a uh it's slim in in substance uh but they um they alleged this and they filed it in court and this was actually kind of what got the ball rolling on what has been an insane week in Texas news. This was among the first things and it started on Friday night and kind of snowballed over into this week. So now what was the reaction to this? Well, a lot of consternation and especially a lot of ridicule over the, in particular, the anxiety and distress part of this. I have a hard time believing that this will go anywhere on its legal merits.

And it seemed to be more of a sort of get people on our side, kind of show people that, you know, we, this has not been easy to last over now over a month in DC. So I highly doubt it will go anywhere in the legal system, but back here in Texas, it was, it kind of fell flat and there wasn't a lot of support drummed up in favor of it. And actually, afterward, we saw multiple Democrats, immediately afterward, saw multiple Democrats kind of defect. Who were named in the suit. Who were named in the suit. So, including the very first person named was Sinfronia Thompson of Houston, one of the longest serving members in the Texas House, if not the longest. She came out and said that she did not authorize this, and then a few other members did as well. And so, in addition to the

initial reaction, that even further deflated the lawsuit and the campaign for it. Well, and to speak plainly, when you have mainstream outlets saying this doesn't make sense to us, why this was filed blatantly in their articles detailing the you know it's one thing for uh democrats to file this and then just you know media runs with a certain narrative but they you know mainstream media which often does uh basically kind of give a little bit of an easier time to democrats in some regards were very was very they were largely confused right i mean blatantly in the article saying it was unclear what was stated in the in the suit like it was very critical in a lot of ways and that's i think a huge reason why many different members defected yeah a couple other

wrinkles to this that were interesting um the house democratic Caucus Chair, Chris Turner, was not one of the members involved in the suit, and neither was the Mexican-American Legislative Caucus Chair, Rafael Anchia. Those two are, in large respect, the rhetorical leaders of this, A, the Democratic Caucus in general, but B, this corn break.

They're two of the most well-spoken members, and often they're the ones giving statements on things. Neither of them were involved. And the other interesting wrinkle, the filing attorney, Craig Washington, former U.S. Congressman, his state bar license is probationary until 2024 because of an original suspension due to professional misconduct so overall this has kind of been a something that did not really start off with a lot of planning it seemed and just kind of thrown together cobbled together and it hasn't really evolved since that point. Now, let's get back to why James White was named in this suit very quickly. Yes.

So that was one of the things that caused a lot of ridicule at the beginning, or at least consternation. Consternation at the very least. Yes. It mainly made sense why Abbott and Phelan were named, but White, who is a chairman, he was named because he filed an opinion request with Attorney General Ken Paxton to have a ruling on the constitutionality of breaking quorum, whether Democrats have a constitutional right to break quorum or not. And whenever that opinion comes out, that is not a legally binding thing it's not something that a judge has to recognize has to rule in favor of or on the side of but it's more of just a kind of setting the guardrails of the discussion on a topic and obviously the you know the attorney

general is partisan he's a republican elected. So on issues like this where it's pretty partisan, you see more. The opinions are taken that way. But that doesn't mean it doesn't have validity. And it doesn't mean that the attorney general doesn't go dumpster diving into state code to actually come up with answers to this. You know, everyone that I've seen, they actually do. So that is why James White was named. He was, I overheard some conversation on the floor this week. People asked him about it and he was like, got thrown his arms up in the air. I don't know. I don't know. Pretty strange, but it is what it is. Confusing to say the least. Forgive me if you already mentioned this, but there were, there were a few members who were not party to the lawsuit and they came out afterward and said that they had been added to the lawsuit when they weren't part of it. Is that? Yeah, yeah.

I mentioned that. That was, like, Symphonia Thompson was one of those. I believe Nicole Collier was another. Sean Theory. And there was one other one I can't remember. At least originally when this happened, there may have been some others since. But there was a handful, let's say, that came out and said that and not insignificant members either. And so it really raises the question of what were they thinking?

Whoever filed this, what were they thinking? Did the attorney file it with the blessing of any of these members? Or was it just something that he threw together on a whim? I don't think we know the answer to that. And I don't think it ultimately will matter because this lawsuit is really going nowhere. Thank you, Bradley. We're going to keep with this whole vein here. Now, we thought we might be getting closer to securing a quorum this week in the Texas House. That became

clear that that would not be the case partially into the week. But let's go ahead and talk about who did return to the House, which Democrats did come back to the chamber. And Brad and Hayden, you all tagged into on a story earlier this week. But Brad, to start off with, which Democrats returned to the chamber? So we've seen multiple Democrats kind of trickle in over the last two, three weeks. You know, Chairman Harold Dutton was one of the first to come back. There were a couple others. And they've been there for some time.

But this week we saw four members. And three of them incredibly notable, I would say. The four were Representatives Joe Moody of El Paso, James Tallarico of Round Rock, Mary Gonzalez of Clint, and Art Fierro of El Paso. And Moody obviously was the Speaker pro tempore until he, that was revoked by Phelan early on in this quorum break process. Tallarico is one of the most progressive members of the House Democrats, and at least he is in the spotlight quite a bit because he's a well-spoken guy and he gets a lot of the airtime. The other one was Mary Gonzalez, who was the vice chair of the Appropriations Committee. So she's pretty high up as well.

And especially those three, seeing those three come back was, I would say, shocking. I would not have pegged those three to be the ones that would start this next wave of Democrats coming back, inching closer to a quorum. But that's where it stood that day. I haven't seen anyone else come back in the days following. Have you, Hayden? No, but I agree with you. It was surprising to see Tallarico back. He has been very outspoken in favor of the quorum break.

And he was one of the people who went on CNN and blasted Republicans for even considering this bill. And I believe it was his tweet originally that kind of announced that Dems were breaking quorum. Oh, really? I don't remember. On the first day that that happened. Like, we all heard rumblings. I heard rumblings the night before.

But the first thing, first evidence, photographic evidence that we saw of the group of Democrats was, I think, posted by Tallarico. Well, and it's important to remember in Tallarico's district, it's not a, a deep blue district. It's one that used to be Republican. And of course we have redistricting coming up. So that's always something to keep in the back of one's mind when considering their tactical maneuvers and the squirm bust. But that still it's, it's hard to reconcile Tallarico's stances publicly and on cable news with this bill. And then for him to say, well, I think we got the job done.

It's time to come back to Austin for the second special session. That was really interesting. I think something that also happened parallel to this was he got two new Republican challengers, one of which is currently a staffer, Caroline Harris, with Senator Brian Hughes. The other one, Nelson Jarn, was a staffer for Senator Charles Schwartner. And both of them are young and kind of pulling the James Tallarico shtick of the young gun, only on the Republican side. And we don't know which one's going to emerge in a primary, but having two members jump in, or two challengers jump in, and then him decide, you know what, I'm not going to partake in this anymore. I've done what I can, come back to Austin. And one of the things that Caroline Harris said shortly after she announced is,

James Tallarico is out of touch and out of state. And you can refute the out of touch part, but when you literally are out of state, it's hard to refute that you're not in Austin with lawmakers legislating. So that you're right is probably pretty. It was pretty stark criticism that affected his decision. So let's talk about how these Democrats returned to Austin was received by their colleagues in D.C. Was it all kosher or what was the response? No, there was it all kosher or what was the response no there was not all kosher um multiple members that were still in dc ina menares was it's the one that comes to mind immediately for me um jenny and jose was another one yes um they tweeted very uh critical things of their their colleagues that came back and um and jose even

said for transparency's sake here are the four democrats who returned right and was naming them in her twitter and kind of blasting them on social media yep and so um it i'm sure you know the ones that were supportive of it kept quiet because that's not something that um if you're still breaking quorum you want out there but um the ones that were vocal were very critical of their colleagues and uh you know a lot of the more activist group um in activists crowd progressives were critical of them as well and so um i'm not I'm not sure where it goes from here. It has kind of died down because there's still no quorum. But once we do reach quorum, all the Democrats, say we get a handful more back, now we have a quorum.

All the Democrats that are back are going to be under the spotlight from their colleagues that are still trying to break quorum. Certainly. And it'll be interesting after 2020, when I think largely the focus went from Republicans primarying each other to Democrat primary battles, while we're seeing even more of that, you know, divide in the Democrat Party in this instance as well. After, you know, for many years, the focus has largely been on Republican dissension within their own ranks. So interesting to see that kind of switch over time. Hayden, tell us what a call of the House is and whether the House is currently under one. Well, one of the reasons why this is even an issue, Democrats deciding to come back on their own for the second special session is because the way, and we've talked about this on prior podcasts,

but just for a recap, the way the rules are designed, this is not a legitimate way for lawmakers to kill a piece of legislation. And there's a lot of rhetoric out there about, you know, whether or not this bill justifies breaking quorum, and that's for individual voters to decide. But the rules are clear that the House does have recourse when lawmakers are not showing up for floor meetings. And so they have instituted a call of the House, which means members have to get permission before they leave. And well, Isaiah is going to get into this, so I won't do a deep dive on this. But the speaker has the authority to direct the sergeant at arms to arrest absent members, which of course he has done that now. And that will probably go into the lawsuit that Brad was discussing earlier.

But they did approve another call of the house upon a motion by Representative Tony Tenderholt. And I believe that final vote was 80 to 9 to approve that second call of the house upon a motion by representative Tony Tenderholt. And I believe that final vote was 80 to nine to approve that second call of the house. So they have done this for a second time this year. And that's notable because I think the last time that it was done was in 2003. So here we are in 2021. And within a span of of two months we've had two calls of the house and that's historic given that this is not something that happens every session or even every legislature absolutely so that's pretty notable but now we have two times in a row that lawmakers are are being sent for by the sergeant at arms to show up at their desks.

Absolutely. And it'll be, you know, we're going to pivot to this topic now, but arrest warrants, and we'll get into the exact details of that. But I mean, we're literally dealing with the speaker saying, okay, well, let's start bringing these members back to the house. And there are criticisms of whether that's enforced to the extent that it can and should be. But regardless, there's that kind of narrative going around and that kind of action being taken. So very interesting to see. Isaiah and Brad, we're going to talk with both of y'all a little bit more about these arrest warrants. But Isaiah, tell us specifically what the Texas Constitution says about arrest warrants for politicians so the constitution says and i quote two-thirds of each house shall constitute a quorum to do business but a smaller number may adjourn

from day to day and compel the attendance of absent members in such manner and under such penalties as each house may provide so under this provision the remaining republicans have made a call of the house twice now to let speaker d Phelan issue arrest warrants for members. So the first one was in the first special session, and nothing happened there since that's over now. But for this one, after the second call of the House, 19 of the fled Democrats went to a Travis County State District Court judge and got a temporary restraining order against Abedin Phelan that kept them for many hours from issuing arrest warrants. So, the judge said that they had misinterpreted the Constitution, and then he set a hearing to decide a more lasting injunction against arrests. But Abbott and Phelan took it to the Supreme Court of Texas, where they reversed the restraining order, thereby allowing arrest warrants that can

compel attendance, as the Constitution puts puts it and i will say in the first special session and y'all pipe in here but it was the threat of arrest you know there was only one civil arrest warrant issued in the previous special session there are you know 50 56 depends on the day of how many democrats were in dc or you know subject to these kinds of measures potentially and but the threat wasn't really the threat didn't really seem real for a lot of members, I think, particularly in light of the Speaker needing a certain amount of members to vote him into office next time. There is political incentive for him to be a little bit less authoritarian

to these Democrats who are out of town. So now that we're in the second special session it seems much more likely and i think we saw that uh in in that you know democrats were saying okay please don't arrest us let's see what measures can be taken to prevent that from happening it became a little more real right and there's still criticisms of whether or not that is actually going to happen if arrest warrants actually will result in democrats returning forcibly to the House. But it's becoming a little bit more of a, you know, as time goes on, tensions rise naturally.

So, Brad, tell us a little bit about what the speaker did this week in light of all of that. Yeah. So with that buildup, obviously, you said there had only been one issued. And he not only went up to that, he 52-upped that. He issued 52 civil arrest warrants for the House Democrats that did not show up on Tuesday. And many of them were in—we have a whole list on our piece on the site, so you can see that if you want to look at the names of every member that had an arrest warrant issued. Were there any surprises on that list? Largely, it's the Democrats that had been breaking quorum. And then there were two others that were added.

Leo Pacheco and Sergio Munoz, I think was the other one, that were not part of the D.C. group, but had been breaking quorum elsewhere. And where they were, we've heard rumors about those, but two in particular about where they might be in the state. Yep. Yep. But we do know they were not in D.C. and we also know they were not in the chamber. So those all of those members, I think there's 63 democrats in the house so um no it's it's like it's more than that more yes whatever it is 52 of the number of democrats in the in the texas house were issued um civil arrest warrants and none of them have been arrested yet uh this is recording at 11 almost 11 30 on Thursday. So that may change by the time this podcast goes up or by the time you listen to this. But as at the moment, we've

had nothing, no development past the initial arrest warrant issuance. And so some of the reactions to that, Chris Turner, one of the members included that had a warrant issued, said, It's fully within our rights as legislators to break quorum, to protect our constituents. We are committed to fighting with everything we have against Republicans' attacks on our freedom to vote. On the flip side, Representative Tony Tenderholt told me on uh tuesday night right after this was announced texas house democrats have abdicated their sworn oaths of office and duties they've disrespected fellow colleagues and all texans they've collected their monthly pay and um and per diem to be in austin all paid by the taxpayers um he said this is a the right move

we need to do this we need to enforce it and so we'll see what happens with that and we saw the sergeant of arms in the texas house start to make rounds at the offices in the capitol but in terms of what dps has done if they've actually sent law enforcement to go round up the members we've not seen that yet um and that's where some of the criticism is coming from but we don't know if it's happened yeah there's stuff maybe stuff happening behind the scenes there we don't know right we don't know absolutely well thank you both daniel let's go to you let's talk a little bit about the senate but all of this is happening in light of a gop backed election reform bill that is a priority of the governors in both chambers and walk us

through what happened this week uh particularly with senator carol alvarado of the houston area to fight that proposal. Yes, there's been a lot of drama this year in the House. There hasn't really been a whole lot going on in the Senate, mainly because Republicans and Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick have very tight control of that chamber. When the House Democrats broke quorum, there weren't that many Senate Democrats. There were four who stayed behind, so there was a quorum there. It wasn't a big fight here. So the little drama that we do get, we'll take. We had a little bit this week with Senator Carol Oliverado. She intended and carried out a filibuster on the

bill, which went to a final vote on Wednesday night. It had already been passed out in the previous sessions, but now they were doing it all over again since it's a new special session. And so she began talking around 5.50 p.m. on Wednesday, and then she went until about 8.50 or 8.55 a.m. the next morning, Thursday morning. So 15 hours of standing on the floor talking. There were other Senate Democrats who kind of helped her out by asking some questions so that she wasn't talking the entire time. But she was standing there, you know, and she said before she did the filibuster, she said,

I rise today not for approval of glory. In the end, we may not be able to stop this bill at all, but I rise to speak against the bill because it is the right thing to do for my constituents. So what all does a filibuster constitute? Real fast before we move on. It basically means no water on the floor, no food on the floor. No food on the floor. No bathroom break. No leaning against your chair for support.

You have to be standing the whole time. You have to be talking the whole time. You have to be talking on the same subject the whole time. you do break any of those rules someone can raise a point of order if point of order is sustained three times in a row then the chamber can vote on the point of order and basically in the filibuster right then and there is this the first filibuster since wendy davis's according to the legislative reference, which has a list of about 130 or so of those, that is the most recent one. Got it. Now, it is also notable that the senator literally came out and said to press that she had a catheter.

She was ready to go all night, 15 hours that she was standing there at her desk with the aid of other members. What effects does this actually have, though, on the legislation being able to pass? Well, I think the biggest effect in what I see was for Brian Hughes. He didn't have to be the one doing that all night. Being questioned all night. That's what he did at the end of the regular session. Brian Hughes is the bill author for Senate Bill 1, the election bill. And at the end of the regular session in May, he was the one who was standing there taking questions from Senate Democrats. Now, I suppose he didn't technically have to yield the floor

when they asked him questions, as you do have to yield the floor to someone who's doing a filibuster like this. The rules aren't really clear, and I don't know enough precedent to know what that would be. But anyways, he wasn't doing the talking all night. It was Carol Alvarado who was doing the talking. Beyond that, it really didn't have any effect on the progress of the legislation.

The Senate has already passed most of the agenda items that were set on the agenda for the special by Governor Abbott. Anyways, they actually adjourned until Monday afternoon after the bill was voted on. And the House still doesn't have a quorum, so they haven't even met this special session. So it really did absolutely nothing to delay the bill. I think somebody tweeted that, and there were a few tweets about this, but it was like, okay, 15 hours down, 400 and something to go in order to effectively kill the bill. Now, I suppose if the House is able to secure a quorum on Thursday after we finish recording this podcast and she had kept going until that date, there might have been some delay that would have some ripple effect, but it would have been very minimal. Yeah. And more of a statement of opposition. Really.

Right. More ardent. Kind of. I mean, it is a publicity stunt that it's to garner publicity about the bill or about her you know whatever certainly so yeah there are there are things that come from it well thank you daniel for that i will continue to monitor what happens now that now that it's officially passed the senate again not that this already hasn't passed the senate a multitude of times at this point this year hayden and daniel we're going to talk with you guys about the legislative funding veto

that the governor had threatened earlier this year. But Daniel, talk to us a little bit. That has been a big theme over the last few months. Give us some quick background on that issue. So speaking about the end of last session with the election bill, you know, Brian Hughes talked all night and then he went over to the House and then the House in the House, they actually the Democrats walked out to the last hour just to kill the bill so that there wasn't a quorum then. And so after they'd walked out, Governor Abbott's response to that was vetoing the funding for the legislative branch in the state budget.

That's Article 10 of the state budget. And he was basically like, if the legislature is not going to do their job, they're not going to be paid. Now, this budget is for the budget that begins in September. So it didn't go into stop the funding for the legislature immediately, but it was going to stop it in September. Now, he did call a special session before then in July, obviously, and then again at the beginning of August to place it on the special session agendas, but that hasn't passed because there hasn't been a quorum in the House. There literally is no mechanism by which that could pass. Hayden, so then what did the governor and other officials do about this potential gap in funding? Well, as Daniel pointed out, they've really been, everybody's been playing chicken with the next fiscal other people, House Appropriations Chair Greg Bonin and Senate Finance or Finance Chair.

There's a big controversy over whether it's finance or finance. And by big controversy, we mean in our office. Yes. Yes. What should be said. It's really important. So we probably should settle it sooner rather than later. Jane Nelson, she's the Senate Finance Chair.

And those are the individuals responsible for fiscal policy in Texas. So they announced that there'd be an extra month of funding for the legislative branch. So through September, the legislature will be funded. And one of the reasons that's important is this special session is scheduled to end on September 6. So, well, I say it's scheduled to end. The Constitution allows special sessions to last for 30 days. They don't need to. In fact, I think the shortest special session ever lasted only about an hour.

The lawmakers met in Austin for about an hour and then left. So sessions don't have to last for 30 days, but they can. So this session could feasibly last beyond the end of this fiscal year, which is one reason Abbott has chosen, and these other fiscal leaders have chosen to extend funding for the legislature through September. So in the event that they do not get this, in the event that the House does not have a quorum, and they don't get something passed to extend or to reinstate article 10 or to incorporate more legislative funding or whatever mechanism they're going to use to do that in the event that they can't do that now that they have now they have funding so that they can at least finish up their work for this session

if in fact they are able to secure a quorum and get back to work and actually start working yeah the house has not done much so far whatsoever now to make sure that this is clear for our listeners the governor said okay i'm going to veto and article 10 and he did and then he comes and says okay well actually we're going to add another month of funding and the original statement was just like you said for those who can't do their for those who won't do their jobs they will not have pay right right and then they continue not to do their jobs and then funding is reinstated right right so he is um the the way i think of it is like they were both playing chicken with this deadline of september 1st right it's like who's

gonna blink first exactly because he's saying okay well not really we're not really going to cut off your funding if as as long as um and i mean there's nothing and what they did to to get this done is they shuff they shuffled money around it's not like he reversed his veto. So it's almost kind of a backdoor way of giving funding to the legislature because these dollars that they're funding the legislature with were earmarked for something else. So he's not formally reversing this action. He's just, you know, he's backing off of the original. I don't want to call it a threat, but it was a kind of a condition on getting something done.

He vetoed it. Right. And now he's reinstating for this for this month. And it was interesting because even the lieutenant governor came out with a very supportive statement initially of the governor's move saying, yeah, this is, you know, this needs to happen. If you're not there, you're not working. You shouldn't be paid. And I believe his statement when it when the big three, three like you said came out and talked about the reinstatement was like i was never going to let this happen right so very interesting rhetoric coming from

the big three in this regard no you're right he did and i don't want to harp on this but um because there's other people have made this point over and over again um but patrick saying that that this we were never going to let this happen bon and i think said something to the effect of uh you know there are people getting caught in the crossfire and these legislative staffers they don't have of course they don't have the authority to tell their bosses you know go back to work so that we don't get our funding cut so there there are people getting you know caught in the crossfire crossfire who are affected by this, who are not the ones making the decisions.

But you're right that these fiscal leaders have said, they don't want this to happen. I think they were trying to use it as leverage and it isn't working. So they've added this extra month of funding and that we'll have to see what permanent solution ends up coming out of this yeah absolutely daniel so then real fast uh the democrats then filed a lawsuit this is before all this challenging the constitutionality of this

move by the governor the original move the veto what happened with that yes so basically the democrats the house democrats were banking on the te the Texas Supreme Court weighing in on the case on their side issued a response basically saying that it wasn't an overreach because the dispute is not a dispute between the two branches of government so much as it is a dispute rooted in the partisan politics within the House and within the Republican versus Democrats over the election bill itself, because all the members in the House are on board with funding the legislature again. But the dispute is actually between the two parties and not the two branches. That was their argument. And the Supreme Court also said that even if it was an overreach of

the executive power against the legislative branch, they kind of indicated that the judicial branch should still be kind of hesitant and cautious about wading into this squabble between the two other branches just because, you know, the checks and balances are a very touchy subject. And so courts are kind of hands off when it comes to fights between two branches. So that was that was what happened. Well, and they're one of the branches, too. Yeah. Very good. Well, thank you, Daniel.

Isaiah, let's talk about a very hot topic. what happened well and they're one of the branches too yeah very good well thank you daniel isaiah let's talk about a very hot topic one of your one of your hottest beats certainly but this uh this week the newly minted texas gop chairman asked the governor to include a child gender modification ban on the special session on the special sessions agenda the special session being a 30-day call like we've already discussed wherein legislators can only address the issues that the governor places on the call. So he's asking for this to be included. Remind us what happened with this during the regular session for background. So during the regular session, there were a number of proposals to ban gender modification procedures for minors. And they all died without actually making it to

the House floor for a vote. So we don't know how the whole House would have voted during the regular session. But we do know that a number of the bills, I'm thinking of two in particular, had more than 40 co-authors. So substantial support. Like I said, there were several bills, some originated in the House and some in the Senate. And on the Senate side, all the Senate bills passed out from that chamber on party line votes before going to the House Public Health Committee, shared by Stephanie Click. And that's also where all the House bills ended up. Only one bill passed out of that committee, and it was by Rep. Matt Krause, called HB 1399. And it was placed too low on the agenda to get a vote before the midnight deadline the calendars committee that sets that agenda is shared by dustin burroughs and the

running theory is that he intentionally said it so low that they'd never get to it but that's kind of like saying the theory of gravity right it's like we can't prove that right but that's yeah but there's some legislative procedure that goes into those decision-making processes. And we'll talk soon about a decision or rather an announcement from a state agency relating to this issue that happened this week later on in the podcast. But can you explain what these bills would have covered and how they would have covered both surgeries and drugs meant to aid a child's sex transition. So Krause's House Bill 1399 would have delicensed or fined doctors that carry these procedures. Basically, it would have empowered the Texas Medical Board to be the arm of punishment for the government for this law. So the first proposed ban, on the other hand, that was filed would have actually classified these procedures as child abuse. And that means that CPS or DFPS or cops or state authorities could intervene in families that let their kids undergo these procedures. These are at the two broad categories, and there was more than one bill in each category under the regular. I think there are six or seven

in total, depending on how you count the companions and the identical twins and things like that. During the last special session, Krause filed another bill. This is the session that just ended, and it actually had support from the majority of the Texas House, I think over 70 co-authors. So for this special session, Abbott still has not put any bill like this on the session agenda, despite Rinaldi pleading with him to add it to the agenda yeah because otherwise legislators you know by and large can't address it this session right um we'll think you say we'll continue to talk about that in just a minute but daniel we're going to chat with you about some federal news going on in dc the you know elected officials in dc are

spending more money color me to yes they're making their way toward another big price tag it's just big is relative depending on 4.5 trillion dollars if you think that's a drop in the bucket drop in the bucket compared to last year i think it was like what seven trillion compared to 4.5 zillion dollars that's nothing exactly is that a reference to something no or that just you that's just me got it yeah okay i never know with you also hoping and trying to in my head work in a dr evil reference but it's not coming got it yeah well good to know keep trying but daniel briefly explain these uh proposals so the the senate took action on two main sending bills.

Spending. I can't even English today. But they can spend the money. And the House Democrats want a $3.5 trillion spending bill, which is focused which could fall apart because of the process it has to go through. But then there's also this $1 trillion spending bill for infrastructure that the Senate and there's some Republicans in the Senate and Democrats in the Senate both agreed to. Now, the House Democrats and Speaker Pelosi have vowed to basically hold hostage that $1 trillion spending bill until the $3.5 trillion spending bill is also gone through the process. So lots of money going on right there. Now, what's in the infrastructure bill and how did the senators from Texas vote?

So both senators from Texas, Senator Cornyn and Senator Cruz, voted against the legislation. Now, notably, Senator Cornyn had voted in favor of the motion on cloture, which is ending the debate so that the bill can actually go to a vote. That's the, when you hear about the filibuster in the Senate, you usually need 60 votes in the Senate to get a bill to the floor to actually vote on it. So Senator Cornyn voted for that motion to bring the bill to the floor, but then when it was actually voted on by the Senate, he voted against it, citing the deficit that it would add to the budget. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that it would add about $250 billion to the deficit. Now, they pull money from other things to try and cut back on that, but it's still a lot of spending.

And then he also was complaining about the failure of his amendment to be added to the bill, which would have provided state and local governments a little bit more flexibility on spending or on using the unspent COVID funds that they have gotten from the federal government. That was not added to the bill. And so I think he was a little bit bitter about that. Got it. No, go ahead. Yeah. So as far as what's actually in the infrastructure bill itself, I'll just read you a list of some of the big items. You have 110 billion for roads and bridges, 66 billion for rail Amtrak, 65 billion for broadband, 40 billion for transit, 65 billion for the electrical grid. And then you can have some stuff like $7.5 billion for electric vehicle charging stations and $7.5 billion to change school buses and ferries to more electric vehicles as well. And some of that would go to Texas as well.

There's a fact sheet that the White House released. You can go to our website and look up the article. Cruz, Cornyn, vote against the $4.5 trillion spending bill and find the link in there. Very good. Now the next steps for the bills. Run us through that very quickly. Yes. So the next steps for the bills, the House could pass the infrastructure bill, that $1

trillion package, if they wanted to. However, like I said, they're kind of holding that hostage at the moment. There will be more debate on this in the fall. The other bill, the $3.5 trillion bill, is going through what's called a reconciliation process, which is essentially a way to get, is going through what's called a reconciliation process, which is essentially a way to get budgetary items through the Senate on a 50-vote margin so that they don't actually need those 60 votes to get it to the floor. They can do it with 50. However, there is a process known as the Byrd Rule, which means that things have to stay on the budgetary

aspect of it. So stuff like that immigration stuff might fall off. They call that bird droppings after Senator Bird, which was what the rule is named after. And so it could be that the bill would go through the reconciliation process, but there's some hurdles to that as well. There's some moderate members like Senator Joe Manchin from West Virginia who have expressed concern about piling more money onto our deficit. And so, you know, if they push back, moderate members like him push back on the bill, it might not even get that 50 votes. So it might be hung up. But that infrastructure bill could still be passed by the House. Got it. Well, Daniel, thank you for breaking that down for us. It's a lot of money to be broken down.

Yes. Thank you. Isaiah, now let's go back to this whole discussion of gender modification bans for children. But the Texas Department of Family Services said that it will start treating these procedures as child abuse. What led up to this? So politically speaking, what led up to it was all that stuff that we just talked about earlier. It's just building pressure. The synopsis, yes. Building for a long time, and it's all parallel to Abbott's primary election, because Alan West and Don Huffines, a couple of his challengers, have, you know,

since they first began their campaigns, have criticized him for as they see it, not giving enough attention to this issue. What directly led up to it was DFPS was responding to a letter by Governor Abbott asking them to determine whether these surgeries constitute child abuse. So you mentioned procedures, and his letter only refers to surgeries. Their response, saying that they're going to treat them as abuse, also only refers to surgeries, not the chemicals. And the counseling is another thing that Huff finds that Huff finds brought up

right after the DFPS announcement but this was a big step for Abbott because he is he's withheld he's exercised restraint on this issue up to this point when yeah this election started kind of brewing with SB 29 well I won't get into that With HB 1399, he did not really publicly support or oppose it. And again, like we discussed earlier, it was Republican leadership that kept that from getting to a vote in the first place. And so we don't really know for sure, for sure what it would look like on the House floor with votes votes so um but now abbott is coming out in public saying that he encourages dfps to you know treat these surgeries as child abuse that's a pretty big landmark because even acknowledging or giving attention at all to this kind of legislation in

the first place was a pretty big step for him yeah he'd been completely silent on the issue withholding support or criticism of these proposals. So it's interesting to see this happen. And like you said, there are portions that would have been addressed legislatively that are exempt from this announcement. Right. There are portions of this issue that and that's where some of the criticism from right of center folks is coming from. But then other folks say, OK, well, this is a great first step. So there's kind of two arguments in the Republican circles. And then, of course, Democrats completely oppose this by and large, many of them.

So talk to us about the actual penalties involved here. What kind of enforcement mechanisms are we talking about? So as DFPS Director Jaime Masters noted at the bottom of his letter, state law punishes failure to report child abuse as a Class A misdemeanor. And that'll get you up to a year in jail and or a fine of up to $4,000. It's a state jail felony to intentionally cover up an act of child abuse. Interestingly, the law is kind of silent on the similar equation for child abuse itself. It doesn't say this particular child abuse crime will get you this sentence. So that's something for courts or tried as a different particular crime. child abuse itself. It doesn't say this particular child abuse crime will get you this sentence.

So that's something for courts or try it as a different particular crime. Well, thank you, Zay. We're going to stick with you on the next topic. But a lot of school districts, especially in major urban areas, have announced they're still going to require masks for the upcoming school year in defiance of the governor's order as essentially banning government mask mandates, when did Abbott first ban these mandates? So it kind of happened piecemeal. He ended mask mandates in schools across the state in May. And so they've been under an order for a while now to stop having mask mandates in schools. But before that, there was another order that was initially without penalty that ended local government mask mandates.

And then after that, there had to be a second one that came with a penalty because Travis County and Austin had decided they're going to keep their mandate. And then after that was the one I mentioned in May where he actually ended them in schools because they were initially exempt from the other orders. So there's been a lot of confusion about this kind of thing. So what's the political background behind this CDC guidance? Okay, you mentioned the CDC guidance. I'm really interested in this, and a lot of people don't know the background.

It's not even theory or extrapolation. It's just a lot of facts that just don't happen to be very popular. But the CDC worked closely with the American Federation of Teachers, which is one of the country's largest, if not the largest, teachers unions in the country. So the AFT head, Randy Weingarten, worked like hand in hand with the CDC. And that was kind of publicly known. She was touting her corroboration with the CDC on guidelines for getting schools open, and this has been going on publicly for a long time. The bombshell was that emails revealed in certain reports that the AFT had kind of an undue influence over the CDC's guidelines. And that was for last school year. For this school year, the CDC has recommended universal masking for vaccinated people as well, only in counties that are hotspots, that have high transmission.

So that's very limited. Universal masking only in these limited spots. The one exception is for public schools. Every public school in America, regardless of location, should universally mask, according to the CDC. This doesn't apply to private schools, to universities, to other public gathering places, other public institutions, only public schools. So those two facts, I think, shed some light on each other that a lot of people don't know. But a lot of these schools, I mentioned Dallas, Austin, Fort Worth, Spring, and Fort Bend ISD and Houston ISD in the article,

but the list just keeps growing and growing of schools that are going to keep their mask mandates into the school year. A lot of them refer to their own local health authorities. And so the local coverage I saw was usually like our county health director or city health director, and not necessarily the CDC told us. So there are complications to be aware of. Now, what happens next with these schools? Fines are the most immediate punishment that the order details. Each failure to comply with the order means a fine of up to $1,000. It also specifies that nobody can be put in jail for defying this order. That's totally off the table. But after that, a bunch of lawsuits. I think Hayden's fixing to talk about a lawsuit

between Dallas or Dallas County and Abbott. Some local entities have already begun this process, and I think that one is the one that's gone the farthest since they've already appealed it. But I won't steal your thunder. Well, on that note, Hayden, thank you, Zay. We're going to come to you to talk about this exact lawsuit. But what is the lawsuit that Dallas County Commissioner Koch uh cook or kotch excuse me it's so many different ways to say this last name but i trust i trust you hayden i know you know how to say this oh well don't trust me that much um but talk to us about this lawsuit initiated against

the county judge clay jenkins commissioner kotch has and we talked about this last week, has sued Judge Clay Jenkins for requiring the commissioner's court to, requiring commissioners on the commissioner's court to wear masks, as well as everyone who is in the commissioner's courtroom. He says in this lawsuit that that is a violation of Governor Abbott's executive order, and it really is. I'm not sure that anyone is disputing that because Judge Jenkins countered by suing Abbott over his executive order. So this is they are pushing back on Abbott's executive order. Commissioner Koch is battling Jenkins over this. Of course, now Judge Jenkins has issued a county-wide mask mandate in violation of Abbott's order requiring masks on all commercial businesses that provide services to the public as well as government buildings. So Jenkins' theme throughout the pandemic has been government knows best how to end this pandemic and everyone just needs to follow the mandates of the county and that's how the pandemic is going to end.

Kaitlin, from health officials, from local officials, etc. Yeah, public health officials. Yes. Not individuals consulting with their own doctors. He believes that people should consult with the government health agencies on how to respond to the pandemic. So that is, and Commissioner Koch has taken a more, a less restrictive approach. And he has, he was battle, battle Judge Jenkins over the way that the vaccine rollout occurred. And so, this is a long history between Koch and Jenkins of disagreement over how to respond to the coronavirus pandemic.

So, this lawsuit is the backdrop of that controversy. And I'm sorry, that is the backdrop of the lawsuit. And this lawsuit is the foundation for this recent development. So many different portions of this whole story. Now, the Attorney General weighed in. What did he have to say? Well, it's always a good thing for a lawsuit. Well, I'm not sure if always is the right word, but in this instance, it's nice to have some political power in Austin on your side. And Commissioner Koch, I spoke with him last week, and he said that Attorney General Ken Paxton, who has taken his side in this lawsuit, adds more firepower to it. And what Paxton expressed to Jenkins is that his lawsuit is in, or his mask mandate is in violation

of Abbott's executive order. Of course, that didn't deter Jenkins from issuing yet another mask mandate. So, Paxton, in fact, gave him a deadline and said, you need to rescind your mask mandate by this day, or we will take any actions necessary to make sure that you do. So, this has created a legal crisis between county governments and the state government. And this will probably this will ultimately be resolved in the courts. But what occurred last Friday on the same day that Paxton got involved and took Koch's side is Judge Tanya Parker, a judge in Dallas, denied Koch a temporary restraining order against Jenkins over this mask mandate. So the mandate will stay in place until this lawsuit is resolved. However, what Commissioner

Koch made clear to me is that that doesn't mean the lawsuit's thrown out. It just means that he doesn't have a temporary restraining order against him of course this lawsuit over this commissioner's court mandate is small potatoes compared now to the mask mandate that he's issued for virtually the entire county and i'm sure that there will be litigation about that as well absolutely well hayden thank you for that now speaking of local versus state lawsuits and mask mandates isaiah tell us what's going on with San Antonio and the governor. All this stuff has been happening really fast. I mean, Mac knows. I started writing this article, and then just as I finished an initial draft, something else happened that made me have to restart it. So the city of San Antonio and Bexar County joined in a lawsuit against Abbott over

his mask mandate ban in his recent executive order, like Dallas. And they just want a temporary restraining order from a Bexar County judge that will let them institute mask requirements for now. And in their lawsuit, they seem to prioritize schools as one of the main reasons, one of the main places where they feel a mask mandate is most necessary. Now, unpack some of these arguments, particularly about the Texas Disaster Act, which is where the governor derives a lot of his, you know, emergency power. Well, it's kind of funny. There were a lot of lawmakers from both parties that were upset at Abbott's use of his disaster powers under the TDA before the regular session convened when they couldn't do anything, you know. And I mean,

Nathan Johnson, one of the most progressive members of the Senate, helped file a constitutional amendment to kind of clip his wings in that regard. And Matt Schaefer, one of the more conservative members, a member of the Texas Freedom Caucus, also kind of blew the horn really loud on criticisms of the TDA for violating the separation of powers clause by claiming that by instituting all these statewide orders, Abbott is making law and that should only be reserved to the legislature. And so for Schaefer and a lot of conservatives, that was when these mask orders were being implemented. And they were being implemented locally under county judges and other local officials that derived their own power from the TDA. And anyway, so that was going on when these mask orders were first being handed down,

was the TDA was letting local officials under the auspices of Abbott institute mask mandates. Yeah. Now, because San Antonio and Bexar County want to institute a mask mandate and Abbott has an order that won't let them do that, their lawsuit argues that the judge, well, they're asking a declaratory judgment from the judge that the TDA violates the Constitution, specifically the separation of powers clause that formerly, like the same law that has let them institute these mandates so far. And so we're kind of seeing the ends of the horseshoe yeah touching each other it's becoming a circle now yeah well thank you isaiah for that we'll continue to see which localities continue to do this and we're it's just interesting we knew this was coming but it's it's like a throwback to 2020 when we saw local governments of all varieties going to bat against orders from the governor you'd almost say

it's deja vu all over again you almost could i had turned down your your mic uh bradley because you type so loud so that we only heard deja vu but i think that's really funny is that really why you turned down his mic though i'm having trouble believing that i said it gave me a perplexed look when i said that that's a yogi bearer quote i like how brad had to attribute his quote i know he was a coach yes he's a baseball player he's just ignoring the two of us right now exactly there are two conversations happening i'm sure this is really pleasant for people oh man hayden i'm glad you're I'm glad you're with me on this. Now, for our fun topic today, I have written down,

Americans think they are better at fighting animals than the Brits. I don't know what that means, but I know how exciting. Why did you look at me immediately? Because I, well, actually, it was Isaiah. That wasn't my edition. Wasn't it Isaiah's edition? Yeah. Wasn't there some study?

Can you send that study via Slack so I know what you're talking about? Yes. But start us off with what what exactly this this is you tweeted about it earlier yes i did tweet about it you quote i quote and now it is twitting and the headline for the study from you gov says americans are more confident than britain's that they could beat any animal in a fight and so the way the study works is the question says, which of the following animals, if any, do you think you could beat in a fight if you're unarmed? And then it says rat, house cat, goose, medium-sized dog, eagle, and so on. The last one is grizzly bear, so I guess it kind of escalates in size.

And in each one of these animals, it has the percentage of Britons and percentage of Americans who believe, who answered yes. You know, they think they could beat them. And in every category for every animal, Americans lead them by a significant margin. And what stood out to me that was really funny is that one of the biggest margins, like the biggest gaps between of readiness to beat up the animal was for the eagle. Americans would so much more readily beat up an eagle than Englishmen, which is just hilarious to me. I think the only one bigger than that was Goose.

Those awful things. Third place was medium-sized dog. 49% of Americans said, yes, I could beat a medium-sized dog in a fight with my bare hands. What is crazy is that 6%... This is by percentage. Yes. Not respondents. That's right.

Okay, yeah, yeah. So this, like, 6% of people said they could... 6% of Americans said they could beat up a grizzly bear. Those are huge. Those are so... No, you literally can't. Like, you can't. You can't do it. No, you cannot. You can't even shoot a grizzly bear and kill it those are so no you literally can't like you can't you can't do it

you cannot you can't even shoot a grizzly bear and kill it with some calibers like no your fists aren't gonna do it why is that's the thing like why americans think that they could beat more animals than the britons is because we could actually use guns but well it says that's true if you were armed yeah oh if you were unarmed Another odd thing is that Just above, grizzly bear is the lowest one On the list here Just above it is elephant 8%

I could beat an elephant One could beat an elephant Who's this one, Chuck Norris? Potentially, let's say it is No way A grizzly bear's got claws and everything. If you just get out of the elephant's tusks and its feet... Well, sure, but...

But an angry elephant? If you punch an elephant, you're going to have more effect punching a bear than an elephant. That's not true. To sheer size. You open up their ear flap and you aim for the eardrum. Have you thought about this a lot? No. Wow. It's funny to me, too, that so few people think they could beat a rat.

How could you lose against a rat? You wear shoes. Only 72% of Americans think they could beat a rat in a fight unarmed. 67% of Britons. Which maybe 28% of respondents were saying i just i hate rats i'm too scared i'd run away but then house cat right below that the same people who are afraid of rats are afraid of house cats it's three percent difference i mean they can claw you that'd be pretty painful i guess what i what i take away from this is the sheer arrogance of americans compared to britain well you know what i took away from it is

is the fact that they knew they didn't even need to pull the french because how big of cowards they are oh my god oh my gosh that is the most american thing you could say yes so one of the things about me that you obviously have gleaned back in the last two years is that I enjoy random animal kingdom facts. And I wouldn't really call it a fact, but one of my obsessions is how just evil geese are. These things are spawns of Satan and they deserve to be sent back to the hellfire from which they came. I think as Americans,

as lovers of freedom we all have a patriotic duty to punch right in their stupid face any goose any goose we come across you have to you would cultivate such a fiery hatred of such an innocuous animal as a goose no they're not innocuous okay i have a story walked across or walked past the goose my um when we were have you ever walked past no nobody here has walked past i guess it's a stupid midwestern thing i imagine like a gang of street toughs they're like oh yeah fingernails with a switchblade do here's the thing so my siblings and i when we were all very little we were at the river as

little children are with their parents having a picnic having a wonderful time it was picturesque it was beautiful and this giant white goose starts to kind of you know meander closer to us and my parents of course are watching it very closely to ensure their children remain safe the goose starts to like charge at us and squawk with its wings out and it goes straight for david my youngest brother who's the smallest of us all and starts like who knows and but they they are very aggressive my dad runs up and just like field goal kicks the goose into the river the goose just takes off it's literally just the sound that came from it as soon as my dad's foot hit its undercarriage was just unbelievable so that's one of our favorite taylor family stories is when dad kicked the goose they're aggressive they will oh yeah you could just be walking by

minding your own business 50 feet from a goose yeah but i'd like to come out and start crap with you i would just like to point out that there were children involved in the story small vulnerable children you're a grown man brad i'm a grown man i think we can handle a goose right oh exactly that's what i'm saying but they deserve to be punched right in their stupid face and they have really you know they kind of have long necks too so you could take it by the neck and like swing it around and throw it in the river too that's true i like her method of kicking or your dad's method of kicking into the river that's also pretty cool stepped up i think i have a new goal in life to weaponize australia's emu population and bring them over here create an army and kill all of the geese they're undefeated

yeah want to know in an australian wars yeah would y'all rather fight a gorilla or a grizzly bear And kill all of the geese. They're undefeated. Yeah. 1-0 in Australian wars. Yeah. Would you all rather fight a gorilla or a grizzly bear? These are kind of even. 8% of Americans think they could defeat a gorilla. 6% for the grizzly bear. Well, if it's anything like karambe, it should be a piece of cake. Unarmed.

Again. Oh, it's really sad. RIP, sweet prince. I feel like you could negotiate with a gorilla okay we're going here's what we're going to do this will be our final our final ode to this particular study before we sign off and leave our listeners with the rest of their day but everyone uh raise your hand as soon as you no longer think you could beat this animal okay i'm going to read down that because then once you put it down i'll say okay brad's out or i'm out or

whatever okay so we're gonna go i'm gonna read down the list from what respondent said was least threatening to most threatening okay so raise your hand if you think you could no longer beat this animal unarmed rat house cat goose medium-sized dog i think that's really funny eagle large dog okay hayden's out actually i'm out too i think i would probably lose to an aggressive large dog hey brad's naughty thanks pal you definitely would chimpanzee brad's out those things are ferocious i'm on the fence about chimpanzees, but I'm going to keep going. They ripped a woman's face off. Yeah.

Oh, I don't want to talk about it. King Cobra. That seems easier than a chimpanzee. Yeah. I agree. Just tie that knot like a cartoon. Swing it around. Kangaroo.

It's a small one. I'm surprised more people think kangaroo versus large dog. That's very interesting. Wolf. By the way, have you seen the video of the Australian guy punching a kangaroo? No. Oh, my God. I've seen videos of kangaroos punching Australian guys.

No, no. A kangaroo had one of the guy's dingoes, and he didn't want the dingo to get hurt. And so he goes up, and he just socks this kangaroo right in its face. Can you domesticate dingoes? I mean, I don't know if it was a dingo or the dog. It's Australia, so I'm just assuming it was a dingo the dog it's australia so i'm just assuming this is not the place for fake news okay we're continuing down this list wolf crocodile okay daniel's out isaiah you still think you can i'm impressed you just jump on their back it's not

survive it's beat an animal in a fight you have to subdue them that's it okay i mean i have seen enough crocodile hunter episodes as a child that I think, you just get the rope around its snout and you call it good. Every documentary about crocodiles is like, well, the bite force is impressive. The crocodile's muscles for opening the mouth are surprisingly weak. Well, that's the thing. If we're already in the ring, he's there. That's true.

I just have to get around. Okay, gorilla. Okay, Isaiah's he's there. That's true. I just have to get around. Okay, gorilla. Okay, Isaiah's out of gorilla. There's no way. So, gorilla, lion, elephant, and grizzly bear are the only animals you think you would succumb to in a fight. Like I said, I think the elephant can be beaten. Okay, got it. Well, on that note.

This is an interesting theory, but okay. Very interesting. I think. Should we test it out sometime? Potentially. I think we should also tweet this out tomorrow. Isaiah, will you tweet this out tomorrow? Sure.

Yeah. I will qualify this. Now that I look back, I don't know if I could beat a chimpanzee. Those things are really ferocious. Any sort of primate I get a little nervous about. And they have the intelligence going for them that could just be very affordable. I think the only reason I didn't raise my hand there was because the king cobra's next. And I feel like that.

Yeah, I feel like that's. Yeah, there's disparity there. Okay, folks. Well, thanks for listening to our rambling. We will catch you next week. Thank you all so much for listening. If you've been enjoying our podcast, it would be awesome if you would review us on iTunes. And if there's a guest you'd love to hear on our show, give us a shout on Twitter.

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