The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - July 19, 2024

Episode Date: July 19, 2024

Show off your Lone Star spirit with a free "Remember the Alamo" hat with an annual subscription to The Texan: https://thetexan.news/subscribe/ The Texan’s Weekly Roundup brings you the latest news in Texas politics, breaking down the top stories of the week with our team of reporters who give you the facts so you can form your own opinion. Enjoy what you hear? Be sure to subscribe and leave a review! Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on a future podcast.This week on The Texan’s “Weekly Roundup,” the team discusses:Federal Lawmakers Call for Full Investigation Following Attempted Assassination of Donald TrumpTexas Officials React to Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance's Selection as Donald Trump VPBiden Postpones Austin Speaking Event After Trump Assassination AttemptRep. Jasmine Crockett Cosponsored Bill to Revoke Trump Secret Service Protection, Faces Calls for ResignationElon Musk ‘Fully’ Endorses Donald Trump for President Following Assassination AttemptAbbott Posts Massive Fundraising Haul, De La Cruz and Flores Outpace Democrats in South TexasAustin City Manager Submits Record $5.9 Billion Budget Proposal for Upcoming YearElon Musk Moves SpaceX, X Headquarters to Texas

You know, because during the 2020 election, we saw most of the tech sector stay out of the election or even be opposed to Donald Trump. We saw someone like Mark Zuckerberg and Zuckerbucks donating to progressive causes. a shift in the ideology of technology and tech investors and people involved in that space. Silicon Valley really getting behind Donald Trump, the Winklevoss twins as well. How is that a real name? I don't know. Happy Friday, everyone. happy friday everyone it's mackenzie here with brad and cameron on another edition of the weekly roundup gentlemen welcome back it's been a nothing burger of a week politically speaking in the news i'm sure you guys are exhausted and or excuse me well rested and feeling just fine

yeah it's totally not the opposite of that yeah as as rested one can be if uh you're surfing and you get caught in the waves if you fall off and you just keep tumbling over as the waves crash yeah that was pretty relaxing love to go that's exactly it right oh my gosh it's been a wild week regardless i'd encourage folks if you don't know what we're talking about, you live under a rock, I'd as well that give a rundown of what has happened since. But it truly an unbelievable week in American politics. And of course, then that trickles down, flows very quickly down into Texas. And so it's been a pretty wild week. Go read all the coverage. We'll talk a lot about it here i'll also quickly plug brad and cameron you have re-recorded an episode of send me some stuff after this all went down just to ensure you guys were up

to uh you know publishing the most uh topical and important content so certainly folks watch out for the send me some stuff episode dropping on monday gentlemen do you have any teaser for our listeners on send me some stuff uh while we really get into the weeds of the timeline of events of the day, we talk a lot about the controversy surrounding the Secret Service protection, some of the failings that occurred, and we really put the attempted assassination within sort of a broader context. We have that conversation as well. So we really touch on a lot of different things related to it. Absolutely.

Definitely worth going and checking out. I'm excited to listen to it too. I've not heard it yet, so it'll be fun. I also quickly want to plug as well. We are going to be doing a drawing later in the podcast. We're very excited about this. In the last few weeks, you have been inundated in your inbox, if you are at all, on our email list with a survey. Just to make sure we're up to speed on how we're serving y'all,

the coverage we're providing, etc., etc., both subscribers and non-subscribers received this. We'll be doing a drawing later today for a merch item, one drawing for a subscriber to receive a merch item, and one drawing for a non-subscriber to receive a merch item. And that non-subscriber whose name is drawn, we'll send you a free item and we'll also put a little bit of pressure on you to go subscribe. So certainly be on the lookout for that. We're excited to do that. And we're so thankful that so many folks engaged with us and filled out that survey to help us continue to do our jobs as well as we can. So on that note, let's not delay any further. Let's get into the news. Cameron, following the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, multiple members of Congress have called for a full investigation, including

some of those folks from Texas. Tell us about it. Yeah. So as everyone knows, sort of the rough timeline of events that occurred in Butler, Pennsylvania, it was almost immediately afterwards that House Speaker Mike Johnson had announced that the U.S. House of Representatives will conduct a, quote, full investigation of the attempted assassination. And he wrote on X, quote, the American people deserve to know the truth. We will have Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheadle and other appropriate officials from DHS and the FBI appear for a hearing before our committees ASAP. And since that announcement, we've seen the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, the chairman, James Comer, the Republican from Kentucky, he is planning to hold

a full committee hearing titled, quote, Oversight of the U.S. Secret Service and the Attempted Assassination of President Donald J. Trump. And that hearing will conduct oversight of the U.S. Secret Service to gather information from Director Kimberly Cheadle following that attempted assassination. We also saw Congressman August Pflueger. He's the chairman of the Counterterrorism Law Enforcement and Intelligence Subcommittee. He penned an op-ed for San Angelo Live where he said, quote, Congress will investigate. So lots of attention being paid to the Secret Service failings in the regarding the attempted assassination of Donald Trump we've also seen in the past few days the there's a group of Texas House representatives and

three GOP nominees have actually signed a letter addressed to James Comer and the Committee on Oversight and Accountability that is conducting this investigation. They say, quote, the political rhetoric used during this current presidential campaign and how it has contributed to a rising threat of political violence. They're urging the committee to examine that political rhetoric that might have led to an individual attempting to commit such a heinous act. So lots of attention being paid to this. Lots of speculation about the Secret Service failings on that day. I actually took the time to write my newsletter completely covering this and putting it

into a historical context. So if people want to check that out, it's on redacted on the texan.news. But yeah, lots of investigations sure to follow this attempted assassination. And certainly go subscribe to the Texan to ensure you get those newsletters in your inbox. Cameron, thank you. And certainly we'll have a lot of follow up on all of these different investigations, particularly with the Texans involved in each of them. So thank you for covering that. Bradley, we're coming to you. Huge news. Additionally, Donald Trump finally made his pick for vice president. Tell us about it. Yeah, and send me some stuff. Cameron and I talk about this quite a bit as well. But over the weekend, I think it was over the, it was Monday. I don't know. Days run together.

Donald Trump announced on his Truth Social app, after a lengthy deliberation and thought, in considering the tremendous talents of many others, I have decided that the person best suited to assume the position of Vice President of the United States is Senator J.D. Vance of the great state of Ohio. Vance beat out other candidates such as North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, you know, Tim Scott was in the mix, although towards the end he kind of fell out of it. Ben Carson.

Ben Carson was speculated about. But ultimately, it is Vance. And so Vance was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2022 to succeed retiring Senator Rob Portman. He gained national prominence well before embarking on a political career when his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, was published and soared to the top of bestseller lists. At age 39, he'd be among the youngest vice presidents in American history. Well, Brad, tell us how Texas Republicans reacted to this news? To be expected, everyone was pretty laudatory of the pick across the board. I didn't see any misgivings about it. Typical with the kind of theme of everyone getting on the same page and unifying after the attempted assassination.

But Governor Abbott, who was also slated to speak at RNC, and he did on Wednesday evening, but he said, A great decision by President Trump. President Trump and his VP, Vance, will make America great once again and unify our nation. America's future looks brighter with their leadership. Attorney General Ken Paxton said,

J.D. Vance is the right guy at the right time. I'm excited at what he brings to the ticket. Lieutenant Governor Patrick had insinuated that he had had conversations with Trump about the pick for a while. And while Trump didn't tell him exactly who, Patrick said, you know, there are there is one person I think you need to pick. Now, he didn't say who that was. I think it's a possibility that it was Vance that he was talking about. But overall, a pretty widespread approval of the Vance pick. And even, you know, we saw Nikki Haley, who was the last remaining opponent of Trump, she decided to come speak at RNC after the assassination attempts, calling for unity.

I didn't see any criticism of the Vance pick from her or those closest to her, but overall, just pretty lockstep behind it, and I're that's how it's going to be for the rest of the way certainly and I'm curious Brad in your you know Dan Patrick is the chairman of Trump's campaign in Texas he's a very prominent figure representing the former president's campaign here he's privy to a lot of internal conversations. Do you think he said that knowing that Vance was? I mean, that's how it came off to me was that maybe he said that with the knowledge of who the pick might be, hinting that, you know, he was supportive of it. Well, one thing he said in it was it has to be someone who we know can pick up and run with it day one, if need be, stating that, you know, we don't know if these assassination attempts are going to stop

and if the next one's going to be successful or not. You know, Vance is young. He's 39. And he's had a pretty fast rise through the ranks. You know, he only won election first in 22. So he hasn't even been a senator for a full election cycle, let alone a full term. And already he looks like he's about to make the jump to the White House

or whatever the house that the vice president lives in. I don't know. Adjacent to the White House, the guest shack in the backyard of the White House. But, yeah, I mean, it's clearly you watch his speech. I got a lot of plaudits and he was very well spoken. He can handle it. I've heard a lot of discussion about, you know, he is the guy that's actually laying out the intellectual justifications for Trumpism, whatever that is, as a set of policies. And he's definitely part of this more new right angle. And it looks to me like a governing pick rather than an electoral

pick where you're trying to expand your base as much as possible. This is, I think, a signal to how the Trump administration is going to be run should he win. Yeah, and there's been lots of reactions from sort of the mainstream media trying to put out their depiction of who Vance is, sort of connecting him to certain individuals or certain communities. And so that's been a sort of interesting observation that I've seen. There's been pieces written years ago, most explicitly with a Vanity Fair piece that sort of maligned Vance because his connections with venture capital in Silicon Valley with people like Peter Thiel or some of Vance's connections with maybe the online new right community.

But I completely agree with what you just said in terms of how Vance is possibly a pick that is going to be the intellectual engine for Trumpism, but also someone who can actually administer the Trump agenda. So there's both sides of the coin being hit there. I just think he's a very interesting pick, especially if people go and listen to his speech he really hit on Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin those are the big you know Ohio like we talked about on Send Me Some Stuff used to be a one of those states that was important to capture to win the presidential election, but now it's sort of purple.

Now it's red. Now it's red, but Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are still battleground states, and he hit on those during his speech. He also sort of played up during his speech his upbringing in Middletown, Ohio, and how those communities have been affected by many of the policies that Trump has sort of railed against, you know, railing against free trade and shipping jobs to China, whether, not really touching on a lot of the trade-offs that we discuss amongst ourselves when we're discussing policy, but sort of hitting those beats of what the foundations of Trumpism are going to be moving forward.

So I think Vance's speech is a good introduction for maybe a lot of people who were unfamiliar with the intellectual foundations of what MAGA or Trumpism is going to be. But it will definitely be interesting to see how prominent his role will be if elected alongside Trump into the White House. And something I'm going to be following definitely it's basically just compared to how kamala harris has been used well to implement policy well it's interesting because they did give kamala uh i'm sorry if we're going on a big tangent here but you know joe biden put her in charge of the border right you know the republicans called her the border czar. She was in charge of AI policy at one point. So she's been given prominent roles within the administration, but we haven't seen a lot of, well, we haven't seen the sort of outcomes many people have wanted to see from her being in

charge of those initiatives. So there is a role for the vice presidency in administering policy will Vance take a more aggressive Stance on some issues or in the enacting of initiatives We have to see but it it is exciting that someone from sort of this new burgeoning right wing is going to be a part of the administration in a prominent role. I do think as well that it's easy to, you know, see the trend of Republicans. And we hear so frequently nowadays, the big tent ideology of

the Republican Party kind of playing into effect here. And I'm very curious in the next couple of years to see how that transitions, if at all, into Texas politics and how that approach might change to see who is on the ballot next cycle, especially if Trump does succeed in returning to the White House. So I'll be very curious to watch. Cameron, you wrote a story this last week or last week before all this went down, saying that the president, President Biden, was slated to visit Austin. But plans have changed and understandably so. Tell us about it. Yeah. So he was scheduled to come into Austin and speak at the LBJ library about the Civil Rights Act, but that was quickly postponed because of the attempted assassination. The Biden campaign, I think it was the same day of the attempted assassination. They were pausing all their online advertising and campaigning in response. So from the LBJ Foundation here, they say,

quote, given the unfortunate events of the last 24 hours, we anticipated that the president's schedule could change any time. And he was actually, Biden was actually scheduled to speak in Las Vegas as well. But he had a scheduled interview with Lester Holt. That went on as planned. And if I'll mention here, there's been continued calls from sources speaking to the media, continuing to be apprehensive about Biden's chances in 2024. This is following the poor performance at the presidential debate, the George Stephanopoulos interview, this Lester Holt interview. Biden's also done a recent interview with BET. He's done a podcast appearance, none of which have sort of quieted the dissenting voices in the Democrat establishment. And we've seen, like I mentioned, sources saying that people, everyone from Chuck

Schumer to Nancy Pelosi urging Biden to step down from the 2024 presidential campaign. He has been pretty stalwart in his comments saying he's going to stay in the race. But again, there's been lots of leaks from sources over the past few weeks. Biden was recently scheduled to speak at an event. He was diagnosed with COVID and he's going to be isolating and because of that there's been sources speaking with different news outlets saying he Biden is even asking if some of the staff of Kamala has a chance against Biden so giving an indication that he's now weighing the possibility of stepping down, not maybe from the presidency, but from running in 2024. So this past week has been crazy. Lots of information.

Everything I just spoke about was happening at the time of J.D. Vance speech, I was also scrolling through X and reading all these stories about things that were happening with Joe Biden. So just so much information, so many stories happening that could radically shift the political landscape in the coming weeks. And certainly we've seen plenty of Texans take the stage as well at the Republican National Convention. So certainly go check out particularly a piece from Kim Roberts where Mayor Eric Johnson, a former Democrat in the Texas House who changed parties after writing an op-ed in the, I believe, the Wall Street Journal. But he took the stage there at the convention and it was very interesting, specifically talking about public safety, violent crime, big city mayor, all of those issues. We've seen Senator Ted Cruz, Governor Abbott, there are a lot of Texans in attendance there. The new GOP, the new state GOP chairman,

Abraham George, has been on the front lines of a lot of different moments during convention as well. So just a lot happening. And I think more eyes than usual are on the RNC this week after Saturday's horrific events. So certainly something to keep an eye on. And I want to plug those stories. And something I'll mention, just an interesting observation was I was watching the Fox News stream of the J.D. Vance speech at the RNC last night and there was over 100,000 concurrent streamers at one point and that was just one stream. Wow. So lots of eyeballs on the RNC right now. And I think yeah we could get into this I know Cameron and I talked on the phone yesterday for like 30 minutes and it was a work call and we talked quite literally just about the state of politics for most of the call just because it's a fascinating time to be watching everything so i know we could go on so many tangents here but that's where i'll direct

people to send me some stuff to make sure that that's you know there's an outlet for it we have great content from the boys maybe i should have jumped in on this this one because i have a lot to to say as well but it is just go watch the episode. I think there will be a lot of fun conversations. And honestly, even since y'all recorded, a lot has happened too. So just a wild week in the news. And certainly someone that has been a part of a lot of headlines and received a lot of criticism this week is a congresswoman from Texas, Brad. Texas House Republicans, many of which were colleagues of this congresswoman in the House, have now called on Jasmine Crockett to resign. Tell us why.

So in a letter signed by eventually 28 Republicans, those three senators, a bunch of incumbent state reps, and then some GOP nominees said, quote, considering Saturday's assassination attempt on President Trump, which resulted in him being literally shot in the ear and other innocent Americans being killed or injured, and since you just three months ago sponsored legislation HR 8081 to remove his Secret Service protective detail, we, the underside, current and future members of the Texas legislature, call on you to immediately resign your position in Congress. You have forfeited any moral authority to represent the state of Texas. H.R. 8081 was signed on by about eight Democrats. Didn't go anywhere.

Not going to go anywhere. anywhere but it says quote the protection authorized secret service protection authorized shall terminate for any person upon sentencing following conviction for a federal or state offense that it's punishable for a term of imprisonment imprisonment at least one of at least one year so it was proposed in response to trump being convicted on 34 counts of various things in that New York hush money trial. Obviously, Trump has blasted that as political and an improper proceeding and that he is innocent. But he was convicted, and this proposal was introduced. It's important to emphasize this comes after the proposed assassination attempt, but in order for this resolution, should it even pass to go into effect,

Trump would have to be sentenced, and he hasn't been sentenced for anything yet. So this is looking forward in a hypothetical of him actually being sentenced in that trial. If that doesn't happen, this wouldn't hold any, uh, application. From what I remember, they moved the date of the sentencing. Is that correct? Yeah. Until I think after the election, right? Yeah. But it was scheduled.

Wasn't it scheduled to be before the RNC? I don't remember. Yeah, that sounds about right. Yeah, I'd have to fact check myself on that. But I do believe they changed the date of the sentencing. So if they were to have passed it and the sentencing was before the RNC, there could have been an overlap here. You know, we're speculating, right?

But there could have been an overlap here you know we're talking we're speculating right right but there could have been an overlap right so i mean clearly it's a it's a good soundbite for the republicans to say this and attack a democrat as this thing's unfolding um but as far as actual substance not a lot to it at the moment because trump hasn't been sentenced for anything and it would have no application. And I will say too, that this took Republicans about an hour or two following the shooting for the Stephen be brought up. It was very rapid that, um, I mean, folks remembered this and were very quick to bring this up. And then of course the spotlight turns to Crockett and say, okay, we're waiting on a statement from her. Will she say something? What will she say? So, Brad, did she respond and what did she have to say?

She did. She had a pretty lengthy Twitter post that was pretty biting and threw it back at the Republicans. But the, I think, most useful part of the response, it says, quote, as a sitting member of Congress, we don't even get secret service protection, so why should taxpayers foot the bill for someone who a jury of his or her peers has deemed guilty of a felony count,

or in this case, 34 of them, if they are sentenced to time? The prison is full of officers, not to mention, why should we make an entire team of public servants have to go to prison too? It's an interesting question. Like if this were to happen, if Trump were to be sentenced and he's still under Secret Service protection, do the Secret Service members have to live in jail as well?

Yeah. We've never seen it before, so it's not a prospect that we have any precedent on uh to base it off but it's a it's a funny image just sort of conjuring your mind right you know trump in an orange jumpsuit in a cell but surrounded by big dudes in black suits with sunglasses yeah yeah um so yeah i mean it's a lot of bluster on this, and it's not going to really affect anything. But like you said, people did remember the filing of this resolution, and Krakow didn't back down from it. So unsurprising, she is not going to resign. You're saying just because someone is pressured to resign by her colleagues and is called to resign won't resign.

You're saying that that doesn't often result in a resignation? Correct. I know it's shocking to say, yes. I'm truly shocked. Well, Bradley, thank you for your coverage. We are going to move on to my most anticipated part of this podcast, our survey drawing. So, Brad, I believe you are in charge of all of the wheel, the spinning wheel here. So if you can pull that up. Folks, I want to say thank you for, again,

for filling out that survey and ensuring that we have good feedback from our readers and folks who engage with what we do here at the Texans. So thank you. In our story right now, if you do not win this drawing, just, you you know you can always go and purchase something we have a fake news stops here mug we have remember the alamo had a gonzalez come and take it shirt we have a come and take it hat we have a steinbeck quote shirt um liberty your death shirt for goliad all sorts of really awesome merch items i would certainly encourage you to go check them out and let's find out who our winners are brad who are you going to uh reveal first uh subscribers amazing okay and we're spinning drum roll cameron i need you to vanna white this and the winner is jenna subscriber jenna congratulations

congrats we have your email so we know how to contact you despite the nondescript just jenna just jenna exactly we will go find you congratulations jenna that's exciting we'll send you your preferred merch item okay non-subscribers let's do this one drum roll can you guys hear me when i drum roll no Oh, bummer. Julie Elander. Julie! Come on down! Woohoo! Julie! Julie! Alright, there's the winners. Julie, thanks for filling out our survey.

There you go. Julie and Jenna. Are you writing that down? I love it. Yes. But you also should find it in the... Yeah, I'll find find it i have it down and we're good okay we will reach out to you and ensure that you get your merger item of choice

thank you ladies and thank you brad and thank you cameron for your hard work on that segment i appreciate it amazing okay cameron more post assassination attempt news i'm shocked that this is what is dominating our podcast this week truly truly shocked but this is news that happened oh gosh minutes after um the assassination attempt occurred um elon musk came out in support of President Donald Trump or his candidacy, rather. Tell us about his officially endorsing the former president. I fully endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery. Pretty, pretty clear there. That's what Musk wrote just minutes after the attempted assassination attempt. And what was interesting is the Wall Street Journal had previously reported that Trump was actually weighing the possibility of having Musk in an advisory role in the White House. Musk and other tech entrepreneurs, investors, they've also committed to donating millions of dollars to a super PAC working to elect Trump in 2024.

What was interesting, too, is Musk, he was very active on X in the day of and the days following the attempted assassination. At one point, he responded to another poster where he said, quote, two people, separate occasions, have already tried to kill me in the past eight months. They were arrested with guns about 20 minute drive from Tesla HQ in Texas. So that was revealing as well. And like I mentioned, lots of tech investors coming out in support of Donald Trump. We've seen someone like Bill Altman, he has endorsed Trump. So this was prior to J to jd vance being selected as the vice president nominee as well so um silicon valley really getting behind donald trump uh the winklevoss twins as well how is that a real name

those are the facebook twins right yeah yeah they're really in a crypto now okay that's their lane that's their lane now i wonder if they still row this was in the movie wasn't that their thing yeah yeah yeah i'm not sure i haven't kept up with them but uh yeah just just just an interesting development in terms of, you know, because during the 2020 election, we saw most of the tech sector stay out of the election or even be opposed to Donald Trump. We saw someone like Mark Zuckerberg and Zuckerbucks donating to progressive causes. And so there's been sort of a shift in the ideology of technology and tech investors and people involved in that space. Trump has been very open to cryptocurrencies, very open to open source AI. And so this new wave of politically involved individuals are tech focused, and they seem to be all getting behind Trump now. So just an interesting development. Yeah, certainly. And just one sector that is now supporting trump that is a little bit out of the

ordinary there are certainly others as well cameron thank you so much for your coverage of that if i could correct myself i said um uh bill altman it's bill ackman i'll just correct myself there oh nice catch there you go cam thank you bradley we're going to come to you. The U.S. Senate race is imbued with a couple of top themes. You wrote kind of an explainer piece this week on one of them. Tell us about it. So Senator Ted Cruz and Colin Allred are in the race for U.S. Senate, and it's kind of been underplayed given the chaos at the top of the ticket. We've seen polling have it anywhere between crews up 10 points or more to it being really tight within three points.

So it's probably somewhere in the middle, I'd say. But it's still a competitive race. And we've talked about fundraising, and both candidates are, you know, I described it as a boat race. They're both really raking in the money and lots of it. And so it sets the table for kind of a policy or political fight the rest of the way through. What I'm seeing, these two themes on issues kind of

come to a loggerhead here. And the first one is immigration. I mean, that's the biggest issue, especially in Texas. You look at every poll, it has immigration as the most important or most concerned with issue among Texas voters. And that, of course, kind of favors at the moment Republicans. You have a Democrat in the White House. Generally, Republicans are more hawkish on the border. And we see the problems that stem from the current border situation. Take the murder of Jocelyn Nungere.

That's just one. That was in Houston. Two illegal immigrants who had been released by Border Patrol. They murdered her. She's 12-year-old, was a 12-year-old girl in Houston. So this issue has become really inflamed. And we've even seen Democrats, Joe Biden, issue some executive orders to try and address the issue during the election year, clearly to try and stem the bleeding on this. Colin Allred, he has mostly sided with his party on this issue, though he's tried to stake out some opposite positions. He signed a resolution that condemned the Biden administration's lack of actions on the border. He voted against the House GOP's border security bill in 23, but then voted for the Senate version. Cruz was supportive of the House version and then was part of the coalition that took out, that blocked the Senate version.

Of course, you know, they had misgivings. Each one had misgivings about the other one. Cruz said the Senate deal was too lax and not significant enough. Allred said that the House one had no shot of passing with the president or with the Democratic-controlled Senate. So just a lot of fighting on this issue, and it's clearly one that Republicans are on the front foot on. Contrast that with abortion, and that is the opposite. Republicans are on the back foot. Democrats are on the front foot. Ever since Roe was scrapped after the Dobbs v. Jackson decision, we've seen the question return to

the states, and it's kind of a hodgepodge of policies. Texas, of course, has a pretty strict ban and there are a lot of other states that have, red states that have passed constitutional provisions providing for abortion. So this issue is one that all red finds himself more on the attack, hitting Cruz. Cruz has countered with embracing IVF, trying to carve out a lane similar to the National Republicans on states selecting their own abortion positions, but specifically backing Texas's while also finding this IVF lane as kind of a middle ground. So check out the piece.

It's a pretty interesting dynamic. These two issues cut opposite ways in this race, and it's kind of the pair that each respective candidate finds an edge against the other. And so I found it pretty interesting to watch play out, especially in this rather underplayed race. Absolutely. Well, and I, like you said, encourage folks to go read the entire story at the Texan Brad.

Thank you. Let's stick on some news kind of tangentially related to this, but July fundraising numbers came out this week. That's what we thought the big news story of the week was going to be. How foolish were we? Give us the highlights. So some top line fundraising numbers. Governor Greg Abbott raised $29.6 million. It's insane what he is able to pull in. He has $51 million cash on hand. Another $4 million from Jeff Yass, the Pennsylvania billionaire who gave him $6 million back in December. Bringing the total to Yass is given Abbott $4 million.

Yass has also donated to other groups in the state, all focused on passing school choice, flipping enough house seats to get that passed. Dan Patrick raised $4 million. He has $27 million cash on hand, quite prolific in his own right. Ken Paxton raised $800,000, $2.4 million cash on hand. Phelan, whose report only goes from May 19th through June 30th because he was in a runoff in this report, raised just under $400,000. He has $535,000 left on hand.

I can read the piece to see some of the other statewide officials and what they've got on hand, but most notably I'd say Comptroller Glenn Hager. Mac, you and I have talked about him in relation to other positions down the road, higher positions. He raised $321,000 and has $8.6 million cash on hand. It's a pretty big war chest for someone to be sitting on in, I guess, the second level of statewide offices that he's in. So interesting to know. Absolutely. So what are some other themes that you're seeing here when you look at the bigger picture? So I go into more detail in the articles.

Check that out. But I mentioned the Cruz all red boat race in South Texas congressional seats. Monica de la Cruz and Mayra Flores both outraced their Democratic opponents. De la Cruz is facing Michelle Vallejo. And then Flores is facing Congressman Vicente Gonzalez. You can see in these fundraising numbers the targets that Texas Democrats are going to go after in the state legislature, along with Justice John Devine's seat. And that's one they're really going after on the Supreme Court. Another observation I've had is we've seen in this a lot of the GOP money is kind of stalled out for the moment. It'll return once things get ramped up for the general election. But in a lot of these battleground seats, you see these Republicans struggling to raise money at the moment.

Biggest example I'd say is John Lujan. He is in a dead-even seat on the Texas Partisan Index, and he raised a very small amount of money and was out-raised by quite a bit by his Democratic opponent, Christian Carranza. And then the last point I'll make is that the casinos, Texas Sands, gave a good chunk of money to Lieutenant Governor Patrick, who's been opposed to casinos. We know that they're going to mount kind of a siege on the Capitol. It's going to take a long time for them to get what they want passed. But if you look at public opinion, voters are pretty much in favor of casino gambling. So based on that, it's kind of just a matter of time but they didn't get it last session and they're really not close votes wise in the in the capitol so

they're going to they're playing a long game on this and part of that is playing both sides of the feud between Patrick and Phelan and that's what they've done I'm very curious to see if and when truly if casino gambling is ever legalized in Texas if there's any way to run the numbers on how much was spent to make it happen here and then how quickly they make that money back that would be so fascinating to learn because they are dumping absolute millions of dollars into Texas and have shown no signs of slowing up anytime soon. And like you said, they are nowhere close to being, to having the votes to pass such a thing. They had what, like 86 lobbyists during session. I mean, it's an insane amount. So it's wild. They have, they have a lot,

a lot of help behind them, but it's a massively uphill battle for them. Absolutely. Oh, Brad, thank you. Cameron, let's go to some local news here. We're going to talk about Austin a little bit. The city manager has proposed a record-breaking budget. Tell us about it. Yeah, $5.9 billion for the fiscal year 2025. Like you mentioned, a record for the city and the city leaders austin mayor kirk watson the city council they'll review this proposal and for those wondering it's over 1100 pages so it's a massive document so i'll just hit some of the top line numbers here because it is interesting to see. So the Austin's proposed tax rate is 44.93 cents per $100 of assessed valuation, which is an increase from the previous year of 44.58 cents per $100. The budget would also raise

total property taxes from 2.3% in last year's budget to 6.1% this year. The proposal estimates that with the new increase, the owner of a median non-082 will pay $1,883.76 on their property tax bill, an increase of $102.26 from the previous year. The general fund with expenditures totaling $1.4 billion represents 23% of the citywide operating budget. The remaining 36% of the budget is allocated to debt services, internal services, reserves, and other enterprise funds. So just hit a couple of top-line numbers for people to understand. They'll be debating and taking public comment over the coming weeks.

So it is subject to change slightly. But yeah, just an update for people wondering what's going on in the city of Austin. Well, I think we have some more big news that is tangentially related to Austin here. After Elon Musk, we have two stories about him this week, is saying that he will be moving some other company headquarters, he's already moved Tesla, to Texas. Tell us about it, Cameron. Yeah, he said in a tweet or an ex-post this week that he'd be moving not just SpaceX, but also the X headquarters from California to Texas. He said, quote, have had enough of dodging gangs of violent drug addicts just to get in and out

of the building. He explained that he acquired Twitter and turned it into X back in October 2022. He actually announced this move in a response to another post that was highlighting the fact that California Governor Gavin Newsom had signed into law a bill that would ban school districts from having policies that require parental notification if their child identifies as transgender. So Musk, who has consistently posted about this issue, this was sort of what he says is the last straw. He wrote, because of this law and the many others that preceded it, attacking both families and companies, SpaceX will now move its HQ from Hawthorne, California to Starbase in Texas. Musk like you mentioned at the top he's already moved Tesla here he uses a Starship base in the Gulf of Mexico for a lot of his launches so he has really made Texas a home he's made Austin a

home and he's gonna be moving more of his companies here. So just an interesting development. He's certainly been received very warmly by state leaders as well, touting those moves to Texas as big wins for Texans and jobs here as well. So very interesting stuff, Cameron. Thank you. Boys, let's move on to our tweetery section here brad i'm very interested to hear you talk about this this is something

came out a little bit earlier today big news walk us through your tweetery yeah so i've actually seen more of it come out we're finally starting to see the post assassination attempt polling in swing states coming out and um you know emerson the first one I saw was Emerson. It had Trump up five points, and Wisconsin five points, Michigan three points, Arizona seven, Georgia six,

Nevada five, and North Carolina seven. I mean, that's a clean sweep. It has a 2.9 to three point margin of error, 7,000 registered voters voters so that's different than likely voters but we're finally starting to see the swing another one that came out in this one is by insider advantage has even bigger margins 10 points in georgia 10 in florida 7 in pennsylvania 10 in nevada 6 in ari in Arizona as a likely voter poll.

And then another likely voter poll as – actually, that's what I just read off, just a different segment. So, you know, the expected swing in support following that incident is – it looks to be happening. It looks to be playing out. And, you know, we talked – in of some stuff, Cameron and I talked about betting odds showing, you know, a massive swing to Trump. But obviously, to that point, we hadn't seen any polling because it wasn't enough time to actually conduct a poll. But now we're starting to see it. So is this going to continue?

Is this kind of the peak? And after which, is support going to start to trend back down? Or is this going to blow the doors off the election and it's going to run away with it? Not sure yet, but, you know, right now it's, he's definitely benefiting from a boon. Yeah. And it's interesting. There's lots of things that are still left. Like we don't even really know if Joe Biden's going to be the person that Trump's running against. So lots of things yet to happen.

But I think those numbers are very interesting and probably what a lot of people expected. Yeah. And I think we'll be the top news stories in the next couple of weeks are going to be as these polls trickle out in different states. And I think will be the top news stories in the next couple of weeks are going to be as these polls trickle out in different states. And I think the margin, I think it's certainly safe to say that Trump will receive a bump in polling numbers. I think what will be very interesting, what people are watching is what that margin will be.

How much does this actually affect that? Yeah. And over five point advantage in both Arizona and Georgia. I think those were the two closest states in 2020 maybe pennsylvania was in there too that's five point you know this is just it's pretty wild to see play out and obviously it's pulling snapshot in time but that's a massive swing absolutely um gentlemen did you guys talk about this and send me some stuff where you were when you heard this news yeah right you were the first to alert us i was sitting in a mexican restaurant in new braunfels after having floated on the river for hours uh i forget it's right when you start

when you go in it's got like a weirdly painted side of the building okay okay it wasn't the best mexican restaurant in new brunfels then which one is that but that sounds yeah cameron where where were you um i had just gotten back to my brother's apartment um in houston and we had just finished a game of putt-putt so wholesome yeah oh gosh wow yeah i'm gonna say where you were truly wild uh i was about to go to bed i was uh yeah about to go to bed and then you weren't about to go to bed. And then all of a sudden I had, yes, some very important things to attend to. So, yeah, absolutely. It was a wild situation. Well, yeah, because, like, I was there with my brother, but my dad was also there.

So we were, like, planning to go to dinner, you know, go out, have some fun. And then the next seven hours were just occupied with tracking everything that was going down watching tv holding the my phone in my hand with two computer screens in front of me just tracking everything that was going on so yeah it very quickly um changed the course of our nights not to mention the course of history, but regardless, it was fascinating. Cameron, what do you got for us? So as many watchers of the RNC over the past few days, there's been some interesting speakers that have been on stage and we're going have that sort of continued and on Thursday today is Thursday July 18th we're gonna have Mike Pompeo that'll be interesting

Tucker Carlson but we'll also have Dana White speaking at the RNC, and Hulk Hogan will be giving a speech. I'm wondering if he's going to wear his bandana with the sunglasses. Who knows? But it seems like it'll be a fun day. Also, NBC is reporting that Kid Rock will be performing. So kind of like a little mini concert at the RNC. Have either of you guys ever been to the National Convention? No, just the Texas.

I was about to go to... Have you camped? No, no, I haven't. I was going to go to the one in Cleveland in 16. Oh, okay. You didn't end up. Had to bank out of it at the last minute. Okay.

I was, you know, three hours away from it. So it was in my home state. But alas, no. Yeah. What do you got for us, Matt? Well, that's interesting. Lots of interesting characters at the RNC this year. I have a quick update on the River Seine and the Paris Olympics. So I've told you guys previously that the river is supposed to be part of.

Oh, totally. And it's still it was but it was before it was during the cleanup and it still is brown. But the mayor of Paris finally did swim in the river there's video she invited reporters to come swim with her as well even some athletes I'm not sure if any athletes participated in this preliminary swim but supposedly the river is much cleaner now the reporter that I watched in this video is like a CNN reporter reporting in Paris for the Olympics I said well it's not clean but I think'll do. I think that was the direct quote from this person as she swam in the Seine. And it is certainly not a beautiful looking body of water at this point. The color is not great. And I spoke previously about the protest

that was planned for folks opposed to this over $1 billion cleanup effort to defecate in the Seine. I don't actually know if that ever happened. There was no real evidence that it did, but the protest was certainly publicly advertised. So who knows? But regardless, the mayor did swim in the river. It looks like events will take place in the River Seine, contrary to what was believed.

I'll be very interested to see how that all pans out. Cool. Thanks, guys. How many gold medals is the U.S. taking home? That's such a good question. I cannot wait. Also, we might go see archery while we're there. We might

go see an event, and I think archery is the one that we decided on that doesn't cost an arm and a leg, but is fun and specific to the olympics interesting interesting what were the other options i don't know uh boxing soccer handball you wouldn't go see handball? I thought, that's our second place. That's what I would have picked. You don't see that anywhere in the Olympics. We haven't bought it yet, so maybe we'll revert. I'll shame you into choosing that.

Into choosing handball? I know we're going to watch clips tonight and make a decision to see which one seems like a more fun sport to watch. See where the spirit leads, you know? Okay, gentlemen, thank you so much for... What?

It leads to handball. It leads to handball. I'll keep that in mind, Bradley. Thank you. Gentlemen, thank you for recording. I know you're contractually obligated to be here, as Brad would love to say, but I appreciate it regardless. Folks, thank you so much for listening, and we'll catch you on next week's episode. Thank you to everyone for listening.

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