The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - February 2, 2024

Episode Date: February 2, 2024

Show off your Lone Star spirit with a free Gonzales Flag t-shirt 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: The Texas Supreme Court temporarily halting Attorney General Ken Paxton’s depositionBiden and other officials’ responses to three American service members killed in JordanJill Dutton beating Brent Money for the Texas House District 2 special electionFormer President Trump endorsing David Covey, challenger to House Speaker Dade PhelanGov. Greg Abbott sending cease and desist letters to Texas House members over an outdated endorsementThe lawsuit over Texas’ child gender modification bill in the state Supreme CourtThe Texas Supreme Court hearing arguments in a massive lawsuit over the February 2021 blackoutThe Texas Education Agency releasing its end of year report for 2023Texas’ oil and gas industry setting record production and export numbers in 2023

Happy Friday, folks. Senior Editor Mackenzie DeLulo here, and welcome back to the Texans Weekly Roundup. This week, the team discusses the Texas Supreme Court temporarily halting Attorney General Ken Paxton's deposition, Biden and other officials' responses to three American service members killed in Jordan, Jill Dutton beating Brent Money for the Texas House District 2 special election, former President Trump endorsing David Covey, challenger to House Speaker Dade Phelan, Governor Abbott sending cease and desist letters to Texas House members over an outdated endorsement, the lawsuit over Texas' child gender modification bill in the state Supreme Court, Supreme Court hearing arguments in a massive lawsuit over the February 2021 blackout, the TEA releasing its end-of-year report for 2023, and Texas's oil and gas industry

setting record production and export numbers in 2023. Thanks for listening and enjoy this episode. Howdy, howdy folks, Mackenzie here with Cameron, Rob and Matt on another episode of the Weekly Roundup. Thank you so much for joining us. Gentlemen, we are delayed in starting or recording a little later on Thursday than usual because, Cameron, what happened? We were sitting here. We were about to press record. Ready to go. We're sitting here ready to go, and then all of a sudden, blaring alarm.

You hear feet shuffling in the background. Commotion all over the place. Unsure of what to do, Rob stands up. With alarm. And says, we need to get out of here. No! That's a really good impression of me, yeah. We should dissect.

Keep going first. And so as we enter the hallway. We enter the hallway. We start heading towards the stairwell. The stairwell. We see the rest of the office building rushing. Rushing. Rushing out of the building.

And as we are rushing, Cameron says, oh, it's probably just a test, by the way. It was not just a test. I was not concerned because I've been through this before. He's been through it. I was in the office over a month ago when they were testing this alarm. And I was told it was it was just a test so i thought why would why not again of course cameron has decided that because they tested it once therefore the fire alarm will never go off for an actual reason it will only ever be a

test an exhibit of the differences of the people in our office. But as we descended the stairwell, we begin to see people coming out as well. And we enter the lobby and it's full of people. What is going on? And turns out we had a real life drill that had to go down. It was not a drill. It was an actual fire alarm. An actual fire alarm go off based on some welding i think it was the welding during some construction uh set off a smoke

detector yeah so obviously it wasn't like some kind of massive fire but you know yes exactly so there was a little bit of smoke that set it off so poor matt who records from west texas i'm calling him as we're standing on the sidewalk watching the fire truck pulling like hey matt it's gonna be delayed a minute matt what were your thoughts i i'm just thinking about uh the scene in the office where uh dwight's trying to get everybody to take the fire alarm seriously so he locks the door and lights a smoke bomb and uses the blowtorch to make the handle hot. I forgot about that. It's like one of the finest moments

in TV history. They grab the coffee machine and start trying to throw it through the window. The cold opens. Is that what you call them? The cold opens of the office? Like the opening scenes that very often don't relate to anything else that happens in the

episode or the best of all time. Like the, they're just so good. They did a pretty good job. They really mastered the art of the cold open. They did. Yeah. But that's how it felt. We all were standing outside, able to come back in very quickly.

But the dynamics of play were fascinating to me. I was just observing everybody dealing with it. Rob was not panicked, but he was very alert. Rob was ready to get out of the building. Here's the funny thing. Even if it was a drill, you are still supposed to leave the building when the fire alarm goes off because you're

testing your ability. You are drilling your ability to leave the building quickly in the case of a fire. Totally. The rest of us are grabbing our keys, our wallets, our laptops. Everybody looks like they were going out to lunch. It was ridiculous. We just, you know, wanted to make sure we had the things we needed in case we couldn't come back in the building that day.

Yeah, totally. But Rob, by definition, was the best fire responder in the office. Yeah. However panicked he may have been. I don't really think I was so much panicked as I was just like, we need to go. Like that's, that's kind of what a fire, like I'm panicked because I'm like, Hey guys, like we do have to leave. I mean, what if there is a fire again, Rob, if, if, if there had been an actual fire, you would have been last man standing. Yeah, totally. Absolutely. You wouldn't

set to go and the rest of us would be in trouble. I know, but then I would have had to do the pod all by myself. Your least favorite thing you're required to do in your job. Rob loves when Brad or Cameron or whoever is unavailable to record. He loves filling in for the reporters on the podcast.

I can't do their stories justice as they can do it, but I'm happy to be on. You put too much pressure on yourself. Matt is virtually raising his hand. I just have to know, did y'all take the elevator or the stairs? No, because the fire alarm was saying, do not take the elevator. So we took the stairs.

Do you see even how Rob responded? He's like, no, we did not take the elevator. Yeah, that's exactly. I went, no, that's exactly what I said. It sounded like that in my ears. I bet it did. That's exactly how it sounded. If he could have rappelled down the side of the building, I think he would have done that.

Stay calm. Everybody stay calm. Rob's eyes were just wide. He's just ready to go. He's like, just in case. I was in fight or flight mode. Yeah. That's the best way to put's like, just in case. I was in fight or flight mode. Yeah. That's the best way to put it.

Maybe not panicked. He was in fight or flight mode. Justifiably so. There was a blaring alarm going on. The rest of us were dilly dallying. Yeah. Rob probably held the door open to our suite for like two minutes while we all scurried around with wide eyes like guys get it together.

But we're all safe. We're all good. Five minutes later, we're going to start on the news. Y'all ready, gentlemen? Let's do it. Okay. Matt, we're going to start with you. In the ongoing case brought by the former employees of the Texas Attorney General's

office against their former employer, the state Supreme Court has now issued a stay preventing Ken Paxton from undergoing a deposition, something that would be slotted for this week had this not happened. Give us the rundown of where we're at. That's right, Mackenzie. Attorney General Ken Paxton was scheduled to undergo sworn questioning or deposition in the whistleblower lawsuit today as we record this, was the original scheduled date. The first of several planned for early this month alongside his senior officials at the Attorney General's office, including First Assistant Attorney General Brent Webster, his chief of staff, and a senior advisor. Now, we have covered this case extensively, but to the benefit of any new listeners,

the whistleblower lawsuit was brought by former senior employees of the Attorney General's office who reported Paxton to the FBI for suspicion of Paxton committing illegal conduct to the benefit of real estate developer and his friend, Nate Paul. The group was fired after Paxton found out about their actions, and the lawsuit was then filed under a state whistleblower protection law that prohibits state employees from being fired for reporting suspected crimes to the authorities. Thus, why we describe it as the whistleblower lawsuit or the whistleblowers, the term used to refer to the plaintiffs in the case. Now, Paxton recently took an unusual step in filing what can be described as a no contest motion in the case, saying the attorney general's office will not contest any of the accusations in the case and ask the judge to go ahead and enter a verdict for the whistleblowers.

If the motion was granted, the result of this, of course, would have been taxpayers being on the hook for however many untold millions. The original settlement was for 3.3 million, and Paxton and his employees would not be forced to undergo sworn depositions. The judge ignored this motion and scheduled the depositions to proceed as planned, with Paxton scheduled to occur today, Thursday. Now, the Attorney General's office reacted to this by going to the Supreme Court of Texas, asking them to stay the depositions and consider granting an appeal in the case, asking the court to essentially order

the trial judge to grant the motion to enter the judgment. So with the court granting a temporary stay, both parties have been instructed that they have until February the 29th to submit briefs to the court, where they will then decide whether or not to take up the case. Until then, depositions remain on hold. The Supreme Court will decide whether or not to grant the appeal, considering whether or not to order the trial court to grant the motion or enter the judgment, essentially. And so at that point, the Supreme Court could make a decision on depositions and allowing it go forward, et cetera, et cetera, or they could go forward and it wouldn't be until they issue a final ruling on that question that the trial would officially be allowed to proceed. Yeah. Some pretty wild stuff and we'll see what happens next. But the depositions, like you said, were scheduled for this week. I think it was a very highly anticipated movement in this case. Everyone was looking forward to seeing if that would, one, happen,

and two, what the result would be in trial. So this would be, again, the first time that the Attorney General, after two or three years now, really three years of public criticism surrounding this case would have to be sworn in under oath and just testify in general. Even during the impeachment process last May, where he would was not compelled to testify by the lieutenant governor who set the rules for the trial. Even then, if he had been compelled, would not have been under oath. So this would have been a huge development. It would have. And one other point, another route that this case could possibly take, which is unusual, if the Supreme Court prevents him from undergoing deposition in the trial court phase, but allows the trial to go on. Well, the trial judge could then allow him to be called as a

witness and in an open courtroom be placed under oath and subject to question at that point. Now, I haven't gone to law school yet, so I don't know if that decision and calling him a witness is appealable or not, but I guess we'll find out if it goes that direction and when we get there. Yeah, absolutely. Well, Matt, thank you for your coverage of that. We'll certainly keep an eye on all of that in the coming days. One of the biggest stories in Texas politics right now is the ongoing whistleblower case. So, Matt, thanks for your coverage.

Cameron, we're going to come to you. Three U.S. service members were killed in a drone strike in Jordan. Tell us how politicians have responded. Yeah, that's right. So this occurred over the weekend. And on Wednesday, the United States attributed the drone attack that killed those three U.S. service members in Jordan to the Islamic resistance in Iraq, which is an umbrella group of an Iran backed militia. And as we know, violence has erupted across the Middle East.

We've seen strikes not just in regards to Iran-backed militias, Biden, who said following the acknowledgement of the attacks that we will, this is him, quote, we will carry on their commitment to fight terrorism and have no doubt we will hold all those responsible to account at a time and in a manner of our choosing. And we saw Jordan State-run Petra News Agency, they published a statement from an official spokesman of the Jordanian government that condemned the terrorist attack. We also saw some Texas politicians chime in on social media. We saw John Cornyn. He said, quote, target Tehran. And he was asked to clarify that statement on if he was actually calling for a bombing of Iran. And he said, no, the IRGC, which is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Quds Force terrorist facilitators.

And he added, quote, this is about deterrence, not war. We also saw other politicians chime in. We saw Lindsey Graham, the Republican from South Carolina, who said on social media, quote, hit Iran now, hit them hard. And the popular conservative commentator Tucker Carlson, he quoted both Cornyn and Graham calling them effing lunatics. So we are seeing a divide on how to best handle a response to this attack. Senator Ted Cruz took aim at the Biden administration in a statement and argued that Biden and his officials directly led to the weekend's attacks. We then saw the Wall Street Journal publish a article where they quoted a U.S. official

saying that the failure to stop the attack was due to the enemy drone approaching at the same time as an American drone that was due to return to the base, which led to confusion at the Tower 22 location in Jordan. And this is an evolving story. So, things I'm mentioning now were not mentioned in the piece because we published it early in the week. As the week has progressed, more information has come out. For example, information in regards to the Tower 22 installation. There was no effort to shoot down that enemy drone that hit that outpost due to that confusion of the enemy drone flying at a low altitude. When asked about that failure to shoot down the enemy drone, a Pentagon spokesperson, Sabrina Singh, said that U.S. Central Command is still assessing the matter.

But the failure to shoot it down was, quote, human error. And just news this morning of Thursday, February 1st, we saw CBS News publish a article saying that U.S. officials have confirmed that there are plans that have been approved for a series of strikes over a number of days against targets, including Iranian personnel and facilities inside Iraq and Syria. So like I mentioned, this is a developing story. If there's continued responses from Texas politicians or just more generally where it's going to have an interest for our readers to be in the know of what's going on, we will write that for you and make sure you have that information. That's exactly right. Cameron, thank you for your coverage.

I think actually that the way y'all were talking about my response to the fire alarm has sort of been Cameron's response to these raising international tensions throughout the past couple of days. Well, just a peek behind the curtain here in our office, this is a normal course of conversation for many of us is geopolitical issues. Even though we cover Texas politics, many of us in the office are interested in the larger dynamics at play and how the responses from not just Texas politicians, but our federal government officials, how those responses on social media are going to have an effect on military action across the globe. Because what's been very interesting to see is how social media and information proliferates

across the world and how public pressure based upon immediate responses on social media can have downstream effects on how federal government officials act in these high pressure situations. So just observing those things, I think is very important. Understanding the rhetoric that is used can be used as a pressure technique for how to respond to certain issues. It doesn't just have to be geopolitical issues. It can be everything from state and local issues. So for our readers and our listeners, no, I always mention that because it's important to pay attention to what important people say. Absolutely.

Oh, yeah. Absolutely. And Rob, we're going to pivot to you now because Brad is up in North Texas doing all sorts of things. He was at the House District 2 runoff special election that occurred earlier this week that you're about to talk about. He was at House District 33 Forum last night. It was Dennis London, Katrina Pearson, and incumbent Justin Hollins, all there answering questions. Very notable race, big profile. And then today, right now, actually, he is at a rally being held by Governor Abbott for Mike Olcott, who's challenging incumbent Glenn Rogers. So one of those battleground school district school choice laden races.

Absolutely. So let's get into House District 2, Rob, as you're covering this for Brad. The special runoff election for Texas House District 2, it was Tuesday night. Give us a rundown of the results. Sure. So the candidates were Republicans Brent Money and Jill Dutton. Money had the backing of Governor Greg Abbott, Attorney General Ken Paxton, and U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, while Dutton had former Governor Rick Perry and Congressman Lance Gooden behind her. One of the big dividing issues in the race was, as you mentioned, over school choice. Money supported Abbott's call for universal school choice, but Dutton was a bit more hesitant. She favored some kind of bracketing out for rural school districts that are, of course, afraid that school choice is going to cause them to lose public school funding this has been like one of the big sticking points for a lot of republicans in the legislature who come from more rural backgrounds makes them very skeptical of school choice at least their constituents are very skeptical of school choice and they're you know concerned that it will lead to just overall lower funding for their for their districts so that was a that

was a big sticking point during all of the school choice. What, how many special sessions was it last year? Yeah, my gosh. We had four total, but there were two that were centered on school choice. So who won the race? What was the end? Is this the final say? Is this person in office until next session? Well, Jill Dutton won the race, but just barely.

So after early voting, there were only 44 votes separating the two and by the end of it after a total of 13 500 votes dutton beat money by just 107 so very close very close election but that's just sometimes how it goes in these local races um is that a big turnout for a local election like that great question unfortunately i know the answer but i don't know very much about HD2 in terms of... We'll see a lot more in the primary. So specials are hard to predict in that way. Obviously, you're not going to the ballot or the ballot box for anything else, right? It's just that one race.

Sort of like how non-presidential, like what is it, midterm election years have so much lower turnout as opposed to presidential election years. Yeah. But for a special, I would have to go back and look at other specials, but it is low turnout generally for sure. It's just, they're just going for the, to the battle box for one race. They got to care about this race enough to drive and do the whole thing.

But you mentioned the primary and that's the thing. We have a primary election coming up on March 5th and Dutton and money are going to be right back there all over again. So the thing is like, this was the runoff election that happened. There was already an election beforehand, and money took the biggest plurality of that. But Dutton, of course, is the second. Those were the only two that went to the runoff. So Daniel actually explained it pretty well, I think, in the office, saying that a lot

of the people who voted for candidates other than money, I'm sorry, other than Dutton in the first one now switched over to Dutton this time around. And that's how she was able to beat money. But considering that on March 5th, it'll just be a Republican primary between probably Dutton and money, there's a there's a good chance that actually money could take it back and be the Republican nominee for the November general election. But for now, Dutton will be the she will finish out the remainder of the term until that election until 2025. So if we have another special, perhaps we'll get to see Jill Dutton in action. Exactly. It's the thing. If we have exempting the governor calling another special, whoever wins the March primary is really who will be the lawmaker in session in January making laws with the other members of the body. So we'll see. So we'll have to see if Dutton winning this gives her like an advantage in the primary or if since it'll just be a Republican primary money, we'll be able to beat that out since there won't be as many like nonans voting in the district because this special runoff was not like a primary. So yeah, it was not closed in any way, which the

primaries are in Texas anyway. But regardless, why was there a special election in the first place for this district? Yeah. So the reason why there was someone needed to fill out the remainder of this term is that the former occupant of HD2 seat, Representative Brian Slayton, was expelled from the Texas House in May 2023 after it was revealed that he was having an inappropriate sexual relationship with one of his interns. He resigned before the body expelled him, but it did formally vote to expel him. Anyway, it was like the first such vote in a hundred years. This was a very big sort of deal historically for Texas politics, which is crazy because that wasn't even the biggest thing that happened in May of 2023 because Ken Paxton was impeached later that month. It was a very

interesting summer, honestly, 2023 for a lot of just big happenings in Texas politics, some once in a century records being set. Absolutely. All at the same time. Well, Rob, thanks for covering that for us. And Brad did record a little bit of um a snippet here to include in the podcast where he's given a little behind the scenes info on what he's been doing i'm tuning in for that yeah well here we go you can tune in right now oh hey everyone currently in mineraleral Wells up in North Texas after a rally with Governor Abbott and Mike Olcott, who is running for state rep in House District 60 against the incumbent Glenn Rogers, one of the top Texas House clashes in the primary to watch. Been up here since Tuesday, came up for the House District 2 special election runoff between Brent Money and Jill Dutton.

That race has really become a proxy fight within a larger clash over the direction of the GOP in Texas. You had Governor Abbott, Governor Ted Cruz, Ken Paxton, Attorney General, all backing money in that race. And then you had groups like the Associated Republicans of Texas, Governor Rick Perry backing Jill Dutton in it. It was a close finish. Dutton ended up winning by just over 100 votes. It was tight until the very end. And that's going to be something to use to kind of prognosticate what is to come on March 5th. Those two are going to be on the ballot again that day. This was just to finish out the current term of expelled Representative

Brian Slayton that concludes at the end of the year. The March 5th clash is going to be for the bigger prize, the right to fill the seat in 2025 when the legislature reconvenes to take up any number of issues, including, I'm sure, Governor Abbott's preferred school choice plan, take another swing at that. The race was quite contentious, and neither side came out feeling good about the other one. There's no love lost between those two. I spoke to Brent Money. I was at his event on Tuesday night. He came out not on top, and he was pretty sore about some of the attacks that were run against him by Dutton and her backers. But, you know, the arrows slung the other way to Money's camp and those backing him, you know, hit her with some negative ads, negative mailers as well.

So it was a contentious fight all around. On Wednesday night, I was in Rockwall to see a forum in another one of the top Texas House races, primary races coming up. This is HG33 incumbent Justin Holland. He's been very outspoken on a number of things, including defending his vote for impeachment of Attorney General Ken Paxton, along with against the school choice provision in the education omnibus. That vote occurred in November of last year. He was very outspoken about that. He's facing a lot of pressure from typical corners of the right flank of the GOP, both in his district and elsewhere. Though Governor Abbott, even though Holland is very vocally against school vouchers, education savings accounts of any kind,

Abbott has avoided stepping in and endorsing Holland's main opponent, Katrina Pearson. Pearson is probably the challenger in this slate of races with the highest national profile. She was a spokesperson for the 2016 Trump campaign. She has been backed by Paxton. And not the governor so far. It's getting pretty late to see that changing. But that's certainly something interesting to watch. And then the second challenger is Dennis London. London has a lot lower profile than Pearson. Pearson's definitely the one to watch in challenging Holland.

But London was on the ballot in 22 as Holland's GOP primary challenger as well, so he's got some ballot ID there. The forum was pretty contentious, and Holland didn't back down. He stuck to his guns on various issues, including impeachment and school choice, vouchers, whatever you want to call it. The crowd booed him quite a bit, although it was not a one-sided affair. There was quite a number of Holland supporters there, and frankly, I'd say if it wasn't exactly 50-50, the breakdown of support and opposition for Holland, it was pretty close to it.

So that was interesting to watch. I got a piece up on the website, uh, that's a write-up on, on that. Um, that will certainly be a race to key in on when we see results come in on March 5th. And then, like I said, I just left the Mike Olcott rally. He faces Glenn Rogers. This race is yet another one of those, probably in the top five, along with the HD33 race of races to watch when we hit March 5th in the Texas House, I should say. It was packed, and the governor was in attendance especially notable because

Abbott endorsed against Olcott and endorsed Rogers in 2022 despite Rogers even then being pretty vocally critical of school choice vouchers of any kind well now the table is turned and Abbott is behind Olcott, along with Ted Cruz,

and Ken Paxton, Sid Miller, I wouldn't be surprised, although we haven't seen it yet, if Dan Patrick jumps into that one, so far he's kept his powder pretty dry, only endorsing in one Texas house race so far. But Abbott, in the event, straight up said he's here more than any other reason because he made a mistake last time around in endorsing Rodgers. And he was, quote, here to make up for it and remedy that. Now fully behind Mike Olcott. Rodgers, I think, won the runoff in 22 against Olcott by 300 votes or so. So it's already going to be a very tight race,

and maybe even more so now with Abbott switching sides. It's been a jam-packed trip up to North Texas. Man, I just forget just how big this area is. It took me two hours to drive across the DFW Metroplex from Rockwall to Mineral Wells. But it's been fun and glad I got to do it. This job's nice where I have an excuse to travel the states and see new places. But overall, a lot of stuff to watch. We'll be covering a lot more at the Texan. Hopefully I can get out.

The speaker's race is going to be a big one as well. But it's been fun, and thanks for following. Thanks for reading, and talk to you on the next podcast. Well, there you go. A little something from Brad Johnson on the road. Matt, we're going to come to you next. Let's talk about more Texas House drama. Former President Donald Trump has officially weighed in on the Texas House Republican primary elections with his first endorsement. Surprising but unsurprising. I would say this is not shocking that this is the first race he's delving into,

but give us the rundown, Matt. Yeah, we had a little bit of an insight last year that this might happen if you recall, McKenzie. There's a serious battle going on right now in the Texas GOP primary. Members of the Texas House who impeached Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton are seeing war waged against them by the attorney general. It was quitted by the Senate Court of Impeachment. In his crosshairs, House Speaker Dave Phelan is being challenged by David Covey. Now the race is getting even more interesting,

with Paxton's political ally, former president and top GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump endorsing Covey over Phelan in the March Republican primary, marking his first entrance into the Texas House primary battles. In a post on Truth Social, Trump slammed Phelan over leading Paxton's impeachment and praised Covey, saying he was the America first conservative in the race. Now, interestingly, Phelan reacted to this news with a statement saying, I have voted for President Trump twice and plan to vote for him a third time. Trump himself has stated that he does not know me, nor does he know my record of fighting for Southeast Texans. Unfortunately, my opponents have sought this endorsement and yet another attempt to retribution against me for holding

public officials accountable and defending the Texas House against outside interests, end quote. Now, I would point out that I believe Phelan was referencing statements that Trump made during his exclusive interview with our very own Brad Johnson last year, where they talked about the Phelan Challenge. And he specifically asked Brad who was challenging Phelan challenge and he specifically asked Brad who was challenging Phelan and he also had made mention that he didn't know

Phelan but also kind of went on the attack characterizing him in a not so favorable light and then kind of left this preview or hanging statement. I believe it was tell tell Covey to get ready, so to speak.

And so fast forward, I suppose Covey was ready because he quickly responded, thanking President Trump for the endorsement now heading into the primary. And it's for an interesting shift in how this race might shake down. I don't know if very all are familiar, but in previous elections, Trump's endorsement seems to have carried a lot of weight in impacting Texas primaries. It'll be interesting to see what this does whenever it comes to impacting a race against the sitting House speaker. Absolutely. And this is, of course, not the first time the former president and the current Texas speaker have been at odds. The Trump has certainly made public statements in criticism of Phelan even before our interview with him at the Texan. And that's a great piece to go read if you've not read it is that interview between Brad and former President Trump.

Matt, thank you so much for your coverage. Cameron, we're coming to you. The governor has been on a streak of sending cease and desist letters to politicians, specifically Texas House incumbents, using his name as a fake endorsement, quote unquote, for their campaign. Tell us about what's going on here. Yeah. So we've now had two different incidents with the cease and desist letters sent by Abbott, one being Drew Darby and the other Travis Clardy. The one that we wrote about here is in regard to Drew Darby, where Governor Abbott endorsed – he claimed Governor – I'm sorry. He claimed Governor Abbott endorsed his campaign for House District 72 when Abbott has actually endorsed his challenger. And in the letter, Abbott says that his name is being misrepresented and it's on the campaign website. And what was interesting is they add the question here,

quote, which begs the question, what other matters have you tried to confuse voters on? So just a little extra poke there. Brad just shivered hearing somebody use beg the question. He hates that term. Well, it's misused, but go ahead. Well, Abbott's been going on a tear against all these, in these races against anti-school choice Republicans. He's endorsed, what is it now, more than 50 incumbent House Republicans who voted to preserve school choice. So he's been stumping for pro-school choice candidates at campaign rallies. And we saw that Abbott,

he did receive a $6 million donation from a pro school choice donor. So he's still all in on school choice. Something we wrote about last week that we didn't mention during the podcast was Glenn Rogers, who is one of those individuals who Abbott is supporting his opponent. Yeah, the rally that Brad's at right now. Exactly. And Glenn Rogers, he put a post out of a letter that he was calling for abolishing the Texas Education Agency. So without Abbott endorsements, we're sort of seeing different ways. Some Texas politicians are attempting to gain some eyeballs, let's say, you know.

Specifically on the education issues, right? Exactly. When that's what they're being attacked on. You know, it was interesting, though, seeing something like that. It was very surprising. But yeah, we'll keep an eye out if Abbott keeps sending those cease and desist letters because someone's paying attention to these campaign websites. Oh my gosh, yeah. Because I had to dig for the Travis Clardy quote unquote fake endorsement because it

was on the campaign website, but it was at the bottom of the page and you had to scroll through a bunch of different stuff but it was on there you know i posted it on my uh on my x account formerly known as twitter formerly known as twitter no totally and that's where it gets difficult because on the campaign side every year folks who do have challengers and get new endorsements or receive the same old endorsements they've had have to update their websites right and so the governor's making sure hey just because i have endorsed you previously does not mean you have my endorsement this cycle in fact i've endorsed your opponent and if you would have told i think a lot of folks who are

involved in texas politics two years ago that the governor would be sending cease and desist letters to folks like drew darby and travis clardy over endorsing uh or over them touting his endorsement either subliminally or however right subtly or not um while he's endorsed their challengers i think a lot of folks would not have believed you it's a wild uh turn of events here and shows how much the governor cares about this school choice issue it's it's you got to read the fine print you know you ever go to the store and you're like shopping for something and it's like 33 cheaper in big letters and then in really tiny letters than the leading brand or something. It's like twice as big as comparative things.

It's just crazy like that. You got to read the fine print. It certainly is. Okay. Thank you, Cameron. Rob, we're coming to you next. Another Brad story this week. What is this power grid lawsuit that Brad has written so much about that finally had

arguments heard in the Supreme Court? All righty. So this is kind of a big one, but Brad's done a great job boiling it down for me. Even I can understand it. So Public Utility Commission versus Luminant Energy Company, the lawsuit started with the February 2021 blackouts that left much of the state without power, without even the electricity to generate more electricity due to the temperatures and the ice the state lost nearly 10 000 megawatts of power in a span of minutes um the electric reliability council of texas or aircot which is the organization that oversees the grid started load shedding which means they were using planned outages in order to like spread the remaining power around but um the public

utility commission also issued a directive that aircot wholesale electricity prices need to be set to their cap of nine thousand dollars per megawatt hour the point of this was to drive up the price as high as possible in order to encourage generators to make as much power as possible right so that they could make more money um because during the load shedding the price was floating around like 1200 which was a lot lower than they wanted it not high enough to incentivize generators to make a ton of power to get the state back on its legs um so yeah that's kind of just how that's just kind of a feature of the texas power grid you, the system of market incentives to try and encourage electricity production.

But of course, it has upsides and downsides, given what happened in February 2021. Yeah. So tell us about what prompted the lawsuit. hit in 2021, the PUC ordered prices to remain at that $9,000 cap for 32 hours in order to prevent future shortages, which has resulted in what's been described as a $16 billion overcharge. This is why so many people had such high power bills after the blackouts, because for this other extended period of time, it was still at the cap. So that's why you had power companies like the Brazos Electric Power Cooperative go bankrupt. That's why people had these insane bills.

And this became a huge fight in the legislature over politicians like Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, arguing that the state should try and get some of that money back for people who had these just enormous power bills, like thousands. I think even in some cases, tens of thousands for power consumption because of this $9,000 cap. But basically, there's a bunch of different lawsuits from different energy companies that were coalesced into one brought by Luminant, arguing that the PUC did not have the right to extend that $9,000 cap order for 32 hours. And the case is basically over whether or not they had that regulatory authority the state is arguing that the public utility regulatory act does give it that authority while luminant and the other companies are arguing that the puc uh did not handle the situation

correctly and there's a bunch more details in brad's piece on the subject that is definitely worth reading to to understand because it's a very complicated issue yeah it certainly is at the time it's funny i was in michigan where it was simultaneously very freezing in february 2021 um i was texting my dad like are you all right down texas and he was like yeah we got a gas stove we're perfectly fine i lit it with my barbecue lighter you're like it's never good to leave texas but in this case i'm in michigan is actually weathering the the cold weather it was pretty similar temperatures i gotta say yeah absolutely just obviously over there everything is actually weathering the cold weather. It was pretty similar temperatures, I got to say. Yeah, absolutely. Just obviously over there, everything is weatherized for the very cold. They're ready to go.

Well, Rob, thank you so much. Cameron, we're coming to you. The ban on child gender modification in the state has been one of the more hotly contested laws to pass in recent years. And that's saying something. Tell us about what happened this week in the Texas Supreme Court. Yeah, so we got oral arguments in Loewe, Texas. This comes after the bill has engaged in a long string of different legal challenges. At one point, a Travis County District Court judge issued a ruling blocking the bill's implementation. Then it

was appealed to the Supreme Court, which is what we heard this week. And Loewe, Texas, whose plaintiffs include the ACLU of Texas, the Transgender Law Center, they filed this lawsuit against the state, which include the Attorney General, the Health and Human Services Commission, and the Texas Medical Board. And what was interesting is, you know, we've already heard both sides of the argument, but it was a bit more constrained and direct in the Supreme Court because in the previous court hearings, they were allowed to bring witnesses, fact testimony, things of that nature. This was just the attorneys presenting their case to the justices and going back and forth with them on a wide variety of different hypotheticals. And like, for example, when the state office of attorney general, they let off the proceedings and they were talking about how SB 14, that's the ban on child gender modification

bill. They were saying parental liberty interests are not in conflict with this bill. The bill distinguishes between medical conditions. And so they were laying out their case there. And what we saw with the plaintiffs in this case is the opposite side of that. They were saying it usurps the fundamental rights of parents, deprives doctors of their vested interests, and infringes on health care providers, occupational liberties. So you could see both sides of the argument. And, you know, the dynamics when presenting a case in the Texas Supreme Court, the justices are allowed to interrupt and ask questions and propose hypotheticals. And at one point, we saw Justice Jimmy Blacklock, he was asking a wide variety of questions. And he said, at bottom, this is a moral and philosophical question as opposed to a scientific question

and questioned if even the court has the ability to make a decision based on the parameters he had just set out in that question. So we don't have a decision yet in this case, you know, it's in effect as we are currently going over it now. But a SCODIX decision could come in the next few weeks, and that will really determine the final standing on this ban on child gender modification. Yeah, certainly a big week in the Supreme Court here in Texas. My goodness. Wild. We had multiple big preview pieces going out saying, hey, keep an eye on the court. This is what's going on. Not to mention the whistleblower stuff. So, Kim, thanks for breaking that down for us. Rob, we're coming to you. Brad certainly gets in the weeds on the issues you're having to talk about. The grid is next. You ready?

Absolutely. I and gas is next. You ready? Absolutely. I love it. I'm energized. Guy, you really have a great attitude coming on the pod and talking about these issues. You do a great job. Well, thank you very much. I really appreciate that. The Texas Oil and Gas Association released its 2023 end of year report. What are the interesting facts that are found within it? So according to Texoga, as I believe it's pronounced. You're spot on 5.5 million barrels per day of crude oil

and 31.8 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas was produced in 2023 the highest in the nation if it was its own country texas would be the fourth highest and oil gas excuse me the fourth highest oil and gas producing nation in the world which is pretty nuts to think about. In 2023, the industry also paid over $9 billion in oil and gas severance taxes and in total local and state taxes, $26.3 billion. The oil and gas industry has basically been recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, which obviously due to slowing travel and transport from lockdowns and changing, you know, consumer demand saw this big drop in a demand for oil and gas to the point where, you know, West Texas intermediate prices actually fell to negative levels.

And then, of course, when the world started opening back up again, you had this sudden explosion in demand. And of course, the supply wasn't there, which is why gas was suddenly so crazy. I never thought I'd see gas over four dollars in Texas, but it was it was pretty nuts to see that. But yeah, now the oil and gas industry is definitely recovering from all of that and is producing a whole lot of oil and gas. Is there anything else happening in Texas or beyond in the oil and gas world that's notable? There is. What a great question. Thank you. The Biden administration has announced a temporary federal pause on approving new liquefied natural gas projects, something which Texoga is opposed to. They signed on to a letter expressing their discontent with the decision. Basically,

during the Russo-Ukrainian war, as I believe that's the current name that this war has, I believe that that's the name that sort of solidified around it, that cut off Europe from importing Russian oil and gas, which previously supplied a lot of that stuff to European Union. So Texas exports of liquefied natural gas to Europe has actually doubled between 2021 and 2023. So we're providing a lot of that now. Yeah, the Biden administration has also halted new oil drilling leases on federal land and killed the Keystone XL pipeline. This is part of its overall agenda to transition the US from fossil fuels like oil and gas towards renewable energy. So it's definitely a lot of, a lot of political disagreements over that. Um, but, but certainly we'll have to see how that goes. Basically land the plane. You killed it. Absolutely. Thank you, Rob, for covering that for Bradley Cameron. We're coming to you here. The state of education in Texas was, um, kind of

brought to more clarity here recently as the Texas Education Agency, the DEA, released an end of year report for 2023. Give us the details. Yeah, so I'll just run through some interesting things I came across in this report. In regards to demographics here in the state, there are more than 5 million students that fill over 9,000 campuses, just astronomical, hard to comprehend how many people are a part of the Texas education system. There's over 1,200 school systems, and there are 371,000, more than 371,000 teachers that make up those classrooms. So in regards to students and their economic positions, 62% of those students are economically disadvantaged, and 23% are emergent, bilingual, or English learners. And one of the interesting discussions that came up during the school choice debate during the, not just a

regular legislative session, but the special sessions as well, was about funding because there was a lot of controversy surrounding this. And so in this TEA report, they showed that there was $80.6 billion spent on funding Texas education in the 2021-2022 school year, which is a 42% increase since 2011. And like I mentioned, the controversy over this total and per student funding was a point of conversation because we saw at one point, raise your hand, Texas had reported that Texas was among the lowest in the nation when it came to person and funding. But then we saw the Texas Public Policy Foundation. They called that claim, quote, a myth. Yes. And so they mentioned that the Raise Your Hand Texas report only took into account the

basic allotment but ignored additional funding. And that was all shown in this TEA report. So I encourage everyone who's listening, if you're interested in that breakdown, I include it in the piece. And something as well, I'll mention that when I broke this down on X for Everyone, we saw Vance Ginn, an economist well-known here in Texas, he chimed in and noted that the increase in public school funding since 2011 that I mentioned is, quote, higher than the 35.5% increase in inflation. And so as he says, in other words, inflation adjusted per student funding is up in Texas, yet results continue to be poor. And those results are a reference to what was also mentioned that Texas is ranked 33rd in the nation for fourth grade reading,

14th for fourth grade math, 41st for eighth grade math, and 25th for eighth grade math. So lots of funding. We have lots of students, but we're not seeing the performance on the back end by those students. So it'll be interesting to see if this latest TEA report will be used by school choice advocates as a way to bolster their case for passing school choice legislation in the next legislative session? No, absolutely. And I did want to, I think you came in for that reporting real fast. Just go back and talk about school choice earlier. I think we, this is definitely worth mentioning, and I want to clarify for some listeners as well. These rural Republicans who are opposed to school choice, either rhetorically or have actually voted against school choice measures or voted to strip ESAs out of the omnibus bill proposed in the last special session that we had in the legislature. Their districts are polling.

The governor has specifically issued polls and commissioned polls in a lot of these districts, and a lot of the Republican primary voters are very much for school choice. So I did want to say that in that there are local entities, school districts, superintendents, teachers who are also constituents of these representatives who are very opposed to school choice, but the Republican primary voters are very generally in favor of school choice. So considering that in a Republican primary, in a March primary is very important. Yeah. We wrote about a poll back in December last year from the Texas Politics Project, and it showed 54% in support of school choice programs. And when you break it down along partisan lines, 71% of Republicans support school choice.

So 54% generally of both political parties and independents, et cetera. That's correct. And the gap widens when you look at Republicans versus Democrats. And when you mentioned the rural districts being a potential issue when it comes to school choice, this poll broke it down again, and it showed rural voters supporting school choice at 59%, which is higher than both suburban voters at 52% and urban voters at 56%. So Republicans support it overwhelmingly. Rural voters, according to this poll, support it at 59%. Which, again, notable that it does dip down when you get into rural areas because that concern is there.

It is higher, though though than suburban and urban. So it was the highest out of those three. Oh, I'm misunderstanding. Wow. Yeah. So 59 versus 52 versus 56. Got it. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. Okay. And thanks for keeping us straight on that. Awesome. Let's move on into the tweeter-y section here. We have a lot to talk about here. So Matt, I want to start with you. What did you find on Twitter that was notable enough to chat about today?

Well, if we have any fellow Lord of the Rings slash J.R.R. Tolkien fans amongst our listening ship, then you might appreciate my tweet yesterday. I follow this rather entertaining account.

J R R joking. And today was January 31st. And the tweet said, but they were all deceived. All of them for another day in January was made. Rob specifically thought that was really funny. Rob, you're awesome. If you can believe it, Matt, I literally just started reading The Fellowship of the Ring this week.

I've never read the series before, but a friend lended me the series. So now I'm finally reading it for the first time ever so I retweeted it and said February quote thieves they stole it from us what can you do what's your best Gollum

impression Matt so anyway I tried it so many times if there's any Lord of the Rings fans listening impression, Matt. So anyway. I tried it so many times. If there's any Lord of the Rings fans listening, please go like my tweet. Yeah, but West Texas Stringer, is that still your handle? Yes, it is.

And nobody else seems to appreciate this marvelous tweet. There you go. Go check it out, folks. Rob, what do you got for us? So actually, today, we've been talking about a little bit about Iran. And I actually saw on Twitter today that today is actually a very big day in modern Iranian history. This is actually February 1st. The day we're recording this is the day that Ayatollah Khomeini actually returned to Iran after being in exile for in the 1960s. he returned to Iran in February 1st 1979 as the

Shah of Iran's government was starting to fall apart and then over the next 11 days basically the Iranian Revolution really erupted by February 11th 11th uh the uh islamic revolutionaries had seized control basically of they claimed victory in seizing control of the state this actually period of time from february 1st to february 11th is known as the decade of dawn i can't pronounce the um i can't pronounce the the actual word there i can't remember if it, I think it's Farsi is the language they speak in. Oh, I think you're correct, yes. Yeah, in Iran. But the point is, yeah, this is actually a very interesting bit of modern Iranian history. But yeah, so this was a big day when Khomeini came back to Iran and really the Iranian revolution kind of happened. I love working in a place where people know so many random things about history.

See, I knew this because I took a class on Middle Eastern history in college and I had to write a paper on the Iranian revolution. That's such a Hillsdale thing to say. It's a very interesting phenomenon, the thing that happened. Oh, absolutely. It's a lot of crazy stuff. Well, that's why I think our ethos at the Texan in part is we'd rather hire history majors than journalism majors. So this kind of context that folks know is so much more valuable. Indeed, it makes you so popular at parties you would not believe.

It's a very valuable, valuable thing. My Atlanta, that's so good. Cam, I think we're going to go to yours and sit there for a minute because I do think it will take some time to flesh out. and then we'll wrap up i have some like we have some uh election news okay and then a silly brad thing okay but i want to i want to pivot to your tweeter here before we move to that well lay it out a very important piece of news i'm i'm I will be very honest with you. I'm nervous about this conversation. Well, I'm interested in your opinion because the conservative commentator sphere is split currently online.

Those who see Taylor Swift as a force for good or a force for evil. As we know, she's currently dating Travis Kelsey. No, we know. That's right. Tied in, Kansas City Chiefs, and they're headed to the Super Bowl. But some have speculated that this is all just a plot, a ploy to turn a large voter base against the Republican Party. They think she's going to garner all this attention more than she already has. She already has the Swifties, but now she's getting all these football fans. Which the Swifties are an army not to be messed with. Exactly. We know this. Exactly.

Yes. But people are speculating she's gaining this giant fan base just to come out and endorse candidates to swing elections. I've seen some say we need to combat this early. We need to become a force against the Swifties. I've seen others say, no, she's finally turned. She was dating all these frail European pop stars. Now she's dating this burly, bearded football player. She's turning to the conservative side. She wants to settle down.

We should encourage this. This is a political conversation.. This is a political conversation. Somehow this is a political conversation. Absolutely. Thanks Rob. That's what I'm saying here. I thought it was going to be more about the perspective of the relationship at large

because a lot of folks are saying in tandem with that that the NFL is rigging. I've seen that as well. All of the results of the games the real iron triangle is taylor swift the nfl and joe biden that's the real iron triangle of power in the united states whether or not this is some sort of conspiracy to is the nfl in on this is the democratic party can i ask you a question, Cameron? Go ahead. A certain former presidential candidate, as far as I'm aware, actually came out and talked about this, didn't he?

We have seen Vivek Ramaswamy trying it as well, Colin. He's online like you, Kim. He knows what's going on. He knows what's going on. He knows what's going on. And so he has called this out as well i don't know i want to hear your opinion okay is taylor swift a psyop i just recently learned what this word is is she attempting

to sway people in in an upcoming election? Is the NFL in on this? What's your overall thoughts? I've presented a very complex web of arguments here. Yes, you have. Very well, mind you. Matt is saying Cameron is laying out this so well in our chat here, just so you know. I'll give you some space to talk.

To pontificate? Yes. Okay. Well, thank you. I appreciate the space space i have many thoughts taylor swift is an artist who um i think garnered in part a lot of her like america's sweetheart persona because of her reluctance to enter the political sphere and make any sort of endorsements or political stances for many, many years. Now, this changed, I believe it was in 2020 or 2016. I don't remember, but it has

changed in recent years. Specifically, in Tennessee politics, she's engaged a little bit with the federal makeup there and federally as well in different presidential races. I think like one or two where she's come out in support of the Democrat. So it's a relatively new thing for her as she's been in the public eye for like 20 years now at this point, which is insane, probably a little bit less than that. But that's in large part why she, and even in a documentary that I've 100 watched multiple times she talked about like it was a behind like a behind the scenes conversation between her and her parents and her manager about whether she should even be political at all right and she felt very strongly that she should um

so i'm not saying in my hip hop i'm setting this all up to share my hypothesis okay she it's not that she wouldn't and hasn't in the past made political endorsements or statements or and she's certainly done so even in some of her music and music videos like one or two. But is her relationship with Travis Kelsey an aim to ensure Joe Biden or the Democratic nominee makes it back to the White House? My answer would be no. Mac belongs in a mental institution. She can't see the truth. It's right in front of her eyes. My answer would be no.

And I have a lot of reasons for thinking that. But I also here's the thing. I also will readily admit I am very involved and invested in this whole relationship and do i think in terms of like force for evil force for good taylor swift what is she i personally think that there is like if you look at the breakdown of how much time she spends on screen on these games and people get mad about it it's like 25 seconds that's how long she's on screen oh in a three-hour broadcast yeah so people when i see outrage online i'm like get over it right that's kind of my perspective it's cutting into all my time for doritos commercials if if there was another celebrity super bowl commercials are gonna be insane no

they really they're gonna be nuts if they're still together by that point. But she, yeah, I don't remember where I was going. I totally lost my train of thought. But regardless, that's kind of where I'm at. I'm sorry to say, I agree with you. You're sorry to say you agree with me?

You guys are both probably CIA agents, honestly. I usually play the heel in a lot of the conversations. Matt was mentioning the Babylon Bee headline, which we love the Babylon Bee. We definitely we've had held events with them in the past or we think they have a great product. Matt, real fast, share the headline that you're talking about here okay well this headline was catching a lot of uh attention online just because there's a bit of humor in it just because of how long it is you know we try to write headlines to be as consolidated and and on point as possible and this headline just keeps going but i'll read

it here the headline is conservatives uncover democrat plot to turn Taylor Swift into an international pop star and the Kansas City Chiefs into a dynasty. So Swift could date a Chiefs player and leverage the collective media coverage to get Joe Biden reelected. Yeah. And it's a genius plot and it's probably going to succeed. That's the craziest thing. Oh, it's probably going to succeed. Probably, yeah. As if NFL fans are in any way going to be persuaded by Taylor Swift's political beliefs.

Why would they not be? I think Swifties will be influenced. But the reason why I agree with you is because there was some survey data that recently came out that showed there are three groups of people that vote Republican. Married men, married women, and unmarried men. There is only one group of people who do not vote Republican, and it's unmarried women. The Swifties, many of which are Swifties. Many of which are Swifties. So imagine Taylor Swift, Travis Kelsey, wedding of the century.

She's married. The Swifties get caught up in this. They're looking for their man. They all become married. They all become married. Travis Kelsey. That could change the voting blocks across the country. It will literally be like a new party system.

It'll be insane. The Swifties are a voting block that the Republicans are neglecting. And in my mind, I think they need to lean into it. I'm with you. The question is, when is Taylor Swift actually going to announce her candidacy? This is the bigger question. Oh, my gosh. Are we going to announce her candidacy? This is the bigger question. Oh, my gosh. Like, is it going to be going to have to wait till 2028?

Are we going to have to, like, wait till, like, the 2030s? People are actually saying that Jason, this is like the joke, is that Jason Kelsey, Travis's brother, who's like beloved in NFL circles and all over now since the exposure of his brother dating Taylor Swift, Philadelphia Eagle Center, probably retiring. But he everyone joking that everyone's joking that he's going to run for president. It's hilarious. See, nobody seems to realize just how deep the rabbit hole goes, because I think it's important to point out this is not Taylor Swift's first soiree into politics, because at one point she dated a Kennedy. That's true.

Remember that? Yeah. I'm very surprised. I don't know how deep down this rabbit hole you want to go. It goes so much further than you could possibly imagine. Okay. We're going to stop it there. We're going to stop the rabbit hole there.

But this is a good debate. And Cameron, I'm very pleased to be in agreement with you. Yeah. I'm excited because I think presenting this argument to our listeners, hopefully they're persuaded. I think we made a good case. I think we did as well.

I think the most important thing to realize is just that multiple things are on your Twitter feed at the same time does not mean there is a sinister conspiracy actually connecting them all. It just means that there are multiple things in the world that are happening at the same time. That are high profile enough where people can have time to

come up with conspiracy theories. It's very true. But it does not mean that they are all connected. It's very true. But who knows? Maybe we'll get some emails from folks who disagree with us. I hope so. We welcome it. Bring it on. If listeners think differently, comment, Apple Podcasts, Spotify.

Comment. Can you leave comments on Spotify? No. You can't? No. I don't think you can. But review us regardless. Don't review us based on this conversation based on all the other conversations that we've had that you've enjoyed.

Although I think this was a very enjoyable conversation. Yeah. Cameron, thank you. Well, we're over time. I'm just going to say, folks, go check out Brad's tweet thread with the Olcott Abbott rally, really fascinating stuff going down there. And Brad will have a piece on that, I'm sure, soon. And additionally, Brad tried to, in his absence, I do feel the freedom to say that he tried to get me to green light a story about kangaroos this week. I tweeted about it. Folks had very strong opinions that I was in the wrong for not green lighting it. Although I did not admit that on social media.

It was implied, I believe. So those are the two tweets I was going to bring up. Is there any kangaroos in Texas? Just like on like private... In captivity. Okay. Yeah. I don't know that there are...

I'm not talking wild kangaroos. Okay, yes. There are definitely kangaroos in Texas. Yes. Like animal sanctuaries and zoos and things like that. All right. Yeah. Well, gentlemen, thank you.

Cameron, thanks for bringing a good debate to the table here. You're welcome. Matt, thanks for joining us from West Texas. Folks, we appreciate you tuning in, and we will 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.