The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - July 26, 2024

Episode Date: July 26, 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:Democrats Line Up Behind Vice President Harris as 2024 NomineeTexas DNC Delegates Overwhelmingly Endorse Kamala Harris for PresidentTexas Members of House Oversight Committee Question Secret Service Director on Trump Assassination AttemptCBP Data Shows Illegal Immigrant Encounters Fell 29 Percent in JuneCongressional Hearing Features Health Care Fight Over Pharmacy Benefit Managers and Rising Drug CostsTexas Congressman Enters Race to Chair Republican Study Committee

You know, it's not a straightforward issue overall, even if you are of one persuasion on it or the other, right? So they're going to have to kind of thread the needle on it. Yeah, it's a very interesting proposition, though. And I'm sure there's going to be lots of legislative fights over this again. Yeah, and the idea is hardening states in advance of what a lot of people see as a looming conflict with China or Russia or wherever. Yeah. Howdy, folks, and welcome to another edition of the Weekly Roundup. It's Mackenzie here with Brad and Cameron. On a Thursday, we're starting a little bit later than usual recording our podcast

here. Brad, tell us why. Because our normal pod time for recording was reserved for Representative Cole Hefner. Talked to him for about like a 30-minute interview. We talked about the China land bill hearing that they had on Wednesday. This is Thursday. That was a pretty interesting interesting discussion we talked the speakership and we talked next session so check that out I think it's going on on Monday first thing in the morning required watching, listening

I'll be tuned in have my notifications on hey there you go that's the best way to make sure you get it so yeah it was a good talk. It was a good substantive discussion and hit a lot of different themes. Brad, did you just refer to your own work as required listening?

Everything Brad writes is required reading and listening. He's the insider's insider of texas politics interesting he is i also think it's interesting that the insider's insider would be touting his own work as a required listen well i meant it more as it's not required listening to get my statements but the representative statements so there you go that's how i thought i came across thank you cameron good player i'm glad to have an ally on this podcast for once i got you cameron really is uh everybody's friend on this. He makes sure that both of us feel supported in the moments we need it. And I'm very aware, Cameron, that, yes, you play the field on this pod. Yeah, well, the shifting sands of power in this office, you know, you never know who to align yourself with.

So I just try to, you know, make sure I'm friendly with everyone. There you go. This is Cameron's strategy. It's very clear. If you're in the office, it's very clear for you're on the company Slack, and it's very clear on this podcast. Cameron, thanks for being honest about it. Gentlemen, since we last talked, more substantial news on the federal level has broke that's been wild to watch. And we have a lot to talk about, particularly in how it relates to Texas and broke that's been wild to watch. And we have a lot to talk about, particularly in how it relates to Texas and everything that's happening. But over the

weekend, we saw current President Joe Biden opt not to run for reelection, dropping out of the presidential race and very quickly thereafter endorsing his vice president, Kamala Harris. Gentlemen, where were you when this happened? Another one of those situations where we're asking, where were you when this thing happened in only 10 days? In the span of two weeks. Yeah. And what was interesting is I actually learned a bit late of the post that went up on X because I was in the middle of a workout. I was at the gym. Didn't have my phone on me.

Of course you were. And I go over to my phone because I had it off to the side and I go over to it and I have a text message from 30 minutes ago and it's just my brother sending me that X post of Biden dropping out. And I was like, oh, my gosh, what is happening?

And I hop on Slack, and there's 50 messages that I've missed. And I'm like, oh, my gosh, I'm so far behind. You know, you think on a Sunday I'll be able to relax, put the phone down, kind of disconnect from things, but no. It got crazy real quick. What about you, Brad? Where were you? I think I was sitting on my computer.

I was working on fourth reading at the time for this week, this past week. Got the notification just like everybody else did and put it in Slack and started the firestorm. But yeah, I had taken the position before that the longer this goes on the less likely it is to happen i think that's still correct although we eventually saw enough dominoes pile up that forced him out of the race and we quickly went from you know biden is very competent and the ticket sharp Sharp as a tack. Sharp as a tack to, oh, wait, it was weakened at Biden's all along. Yeah.

No, I mean, you know, it's just political posturing and it's going to happen. They have to, the party has to line up behind its nominee. But when you step back and look at how kind of absurd this is, you know, it's pretty striking to see the shift. But, you know, it's caused a massive swell of enthusiasm for Harris and Democrats. And who knows if it lasts, but, you know, they're riding high right now. And I did not see that coming just two weeks ago or a week ago. Yeah. Well, I can, I'll provide some insight on some things that were going on. But Mac, where were you? Because were you climbing into bed or were you out exploring the nightlife?

What were you doing? Just going clubbing. Oh, that's totally our vibe. Yeah. No, we were at, this is actually really opposite of clubbing. We were at the opera in Budapest and it was about five

minutes before the intermission. My phone just started absolutely freaking out. And it's the opera, right? People are really not wanting you to be on your phone, but I'm on my phone. I'm checking. I'm watching everything. The intermission comes. You guys were so awesome in getting everything set. Rob was awesome. Everyone got to their stations so quickly. And so thankfully, I was able to help a little bit during that intermission before we headed back in. But it was wild. And of all places to be, it was quite something. And to Brad's point, I think, and Cameron, I want to ask you about the coconut pills and what we're seeing. But I think the momentum that Harris's entrance into the race has really brought the Democrats is very interesting, particularly when you've seen so much criticism of her, even from her own party over the last four years and how she operates or gaffes she's had publicly. And now the sentiment is changed so quickly.

And certainly there have always been people in the Democratic Party who are very fond of Kamala, of Vice President Harris. But it's really interesting to watch the momentum shift. And I think particularly what I think is the most notable about this is post-assassination attempt, Trump was enjoying a groundswell of media frenzy of momentum. And thankfully, of course, he emerged with an ear injury. And that was the extent of it. And thank goodness for that. But he was enjoying a lot of momentum for his campaign. And there were a lot of folks coming out and saying how impressive his reaction was. And that's what was dominating the media cycle. And now that lifespan of that

conversation has shortened dramatically because the current president has said, I'm not running. And my vice president has my endorsement. And she's the presumptive nominee in so many ways. And that really, I think, took the wind out of the sails of the post-assassination attempt media frenzy. And it'll be fascinating to see how those things even out in the long run, like a month from now, what folks are talking about. But anyways, Cameron, I know you have more to add, but those are my initial thoughts on the move. Yeah, because it was a little over two weeks ago, I wrote about this sort of groundswell of support that was coming out for Kamala Harris. And this was post-debate where there was lots of conversations being had in the public being driven mostly by leaked sources to mainstream media outlets. And it was at this time, this was before the assassination attempt, is we started seeing these terms, the being coconut pilled or being part of

the K-Hive and these Kamala meme videos that were coming out. So there was some social media chatter already happening. And I actually wrote a, like, half of my newsletter a couple weeks ago was all about that phenomenon. But this week, I wrote about the same thing about these leaked sources that were sort of driving the push to get Biden to step away from the campaign, because there's been sources with the Washington Post, CNN, Politico, from Nancy Pelosi's office, Schumer's office, Democrat leadership, the Obama camp, all sort of hinting that they were not super satisfied with Biden's position in the 2024 campaign. And what was interesting is the Associated Press actually had a source talk to them that said that the staff, Joe Biden's staff, only learned about the post of him withdrawing. They only learned about it one minute before it went live. So just some interesting dynamics going on internally is that Biden's staff didn't really

know what was going on, yet there are some figures that were attempting to push him out through the leaked sources trying to put public pressure on him just some really interesting dynamics and especially with how he endorsed Kamala in a separate post because in the withdrawal letter there was no endorsement of Kamala there was a separate post that was put up where he does endorse her but there's been additional reporting that sources have are telling people that it was a slight to the Obama faction of the DNC. That what?

That he endorsed Kamala. Because apparently Obama, who did put out a post after Biden withdrew, but did not endorse Kamala in that post. You know, we saw pretty quickly after Biden endorsed Kamala that a lot of other figures came out endorsing Kamala. And we've reported on that as well. So lots of infighting going on with this, with Biden withdrawing and Kamala appearing to be the front runner. I think the story will be how much infighting is there and versus how much are these sources. I mean, this is how it works with sourcing, right?

Is you have people who can be very informed on what's going on at the very high levels of any campaign or any administration, whether that be in the state legislature or at the federal level. In the case of the White House, This is the case no matter what. And, you know, a reporter can run with sourcing on any level in that regard. And so I'm very curious how much infighting there actually is versus how much is speculative with, you know, potentially lower level staff going to press and saying things, right? This could be true in a lot of different shades and false in a lot of different shades. So I'm very curious to see how this plays out. And I think we'll find out more as time goes on. And particularly after the nomination is official, if Vice President Harris is, which we

expect to see officially nominated as the Democratic nominee for president, I think that will tell us a lot, is how the troops rally behind her and how quickly they do. But of course, there are going to be these kinds of things. And we're dealing with a very complicated situation in which Obama, you know, Biden was Obama's VP. And now Biden's VP is running for president. It's a very interesting dynamic. And there are certainly egos at play. It's politics. Of course, there's going to be there's a lot more beneath the surface. But how much? I'm so curious about about that. I do want to go talk about Texas quickly. Brad, you wrote about the Democrats here lining up behind Vice President Harris as the nominee for this year.

We were really all waiting to see who would come out quickly in support of Vice President Harris. What have we seen? Give us the rundown. Yeah, we saw most Democratic officials in the state get behind her pretty quickly. Most of the congressional delegation, although there were four or five that did not immediately, eventually they all did, it seems. I'm not aware of any holdouts. We saw even Lloyd Doggett, who was the first to come out and call for Biden to drop out. At first he had abstained from backing Harris and explicitly called for an open convention. But then we saw most of them get behind her. We saw the Texas delegation. We saw them vote to endorse Harris. And that came alongside a bunch of other state

delegations backing Harris. And so just the snowball rolled and it really picked up a lot of momentum. And we also were, you know, Brad, a lot of this we've been, this is in the shadow of the DNC, the convention. Delegates are lining up behind Harris as well, including those from Texas. How did that all unfold? So it was a pretty quick process. There was a conference call held on, I believe, Monday night. And it was actually, sounds like a pretty chaotic phone call. The Democratic Party chair, Gilberto Hinojosa, hosted it and first tried to call for a voice vote on a Zoom call, which that doesn't work.

You can't do that. How'd that go for him? How'd that go? It got a lot of people very upset with him. We saw State Senator Sarah Eckhart of Austin. She explicitly said just because, made a comment about him not being able to run a meeting. But eventually they got to it and they backed Harris and that was that. Brad, what's a voice vote? Can you explain quickly what that is? It's a self-explanatory

in some ways, but tell us what it is. Yeah, we call for a voice vote, whoever's overseeing the meeting. They basically just gauge who's the louder section, the yeas or the nays on whatever it is you're voting on. I see it happen a lot in the House and in the Senate. Although that's different because everything's kind of scripted there. But it's pretty common, but you can't do it on a Zoom call. You can't effectively do it. You have to be in a room together to see which side is louder. That's basically it. You could just see someone.

I'm not saying this happened, but you could see someone who's in charge of the Zoom meeting just turn their volume down. Yeah. When they're making the yeas and the nays call. Like, I can't even hear it. And I think they ultimately did a roll call vote, and the final tally was like 260 to 6. So very, very overwhelming. And, yeah, it was pretty clear which way they were going to go.

Democrats have to unite behind somebody. They're already behind the eight ball with just a few months left of the election. And they pick their horse and they're sticking with her. And it's been pretty successful so far. We've seen polling make things a lot closer in a lot of these battleground states between Trump and Kamala than they were between Trump and Biden. Where Cameron measures in me, Maure Marie, I measure in fundraising numbers. And she has brought in over $100 million in, like, the span of two days, two to three days. It's insane.

A lot of that was small dollar donation. But explain that number, the significance of that number. Well, over the previous quarter, both candidates, Biden and Trump, raised somewhere between $100 and $130 million, I think. And that's over a quarter, not in the span of two days. And a large chunk of this was small dollar donations through ActBlue, which is the Democrats' fundraising tool that they all use to get small dollar donations. It was a big innovation, I believe, during the Obama wave in 2008. I think that's when it really became a thing.

Democrats are really good at that, at getting the small-dollar donations. We saw Bernie Sanders being really effective at it when he ran for president in 2016 and 2020. But that shows it's not just these big donors, which we know were withholding a lot of money from Biden, and they were telling reporters that. They were telling the public that. And then, of course, once Biden was replaced, the floodgates opened. So not only did the big donors back what they said, they put their money where their mouth was,

we also saw a groundswell of enthusiasm from just average people donating to the Harris campaign. You wrote something really interesting this week in fourth reading about polling and how polls are conducted and how sample sizes are essentially used to create a fair poll and sometimes things, you know, in some polls they over sample certain groups and sometimes under sample others. Can you talk just a little bit about that so people have an understanding of how polls work? Sure. So it was about the crews and all red polling. We've seen some pretty significant differences in the polling. Some show it's really close. Some show it's a pretty wide margin with a crew's lead.

And one thing it comes down to is the way the modeling works, whether you go with registered voters or likely voters. And a registered voter poll just gauges those who are registered. It doesn't gauge whether they're enthusiastic about voting anything like how likely likely they are to turn out but a likely voter model uh tries to gauge that and the idea is it gets a more accurate reflection of the electorate now the problem comes when you're choosing what's a likely voter are you pressing people too hard to get an answer and that's causing the result to skew. That's possible.

And then some of the polls that are showing a wider difference between the two Senate candidates, they're doing registered voters. So Cruz is way ahead, up 10 or more points among registered voters in Texas. Now, once you get closer to the election, you're going to have to change that to a likely voter model. But those firms doing the registered voter polling right now, they believe it's too far out to accurately tell who's going to turn out. So what's the point in doing a likely voter sample right now

when there's so much time left to change. And, you know, the last couple weeks is a very fair assessment or a very fair testimony to that where you had these ground-shaking events occur that changed dynamics drastically in the race, whether it's the assassination attempt or the nomination change. You know, that's going to change things quite a bit. Well, that's why I wanted to bring it up, because if we can find a convergence between your empirical evidence that helps influence how you view politics and my memory,

is what you just talked about with likely versus registered voters and the enthusiasm to head to the polls. You know, like how I've seen and commented on about this support online through like we're talking about memes or posts might show that there's a lot of support for Kamala Harris right now at this point. But when it comes down to the polling that you're citing, likely versus registered voters, you know, if the online community is maybe skewing a bit younger, you know, those people, as we know, aren't normally the ones headed to the polls. And so if I think it'd be interesting to maybe look at the more recent polls with Kamala Harris as the potential nominee. What are the demographics of those people that are being polled? And are they likely voters or registered voters?

I think that'd be an interesting piece. Well, when you create a sample, you try and make it reflective of the electorate. So they're taking percentage breakdowns, ideally. They're trying to get to this point of what percentage of the electorate, the traditional electorate, is actually young people, 18 to 34 or whatever they use. They try and make that reflective. But things can change. Like we saw in 2016, where Trump brought in this massive chunk of totally new voters that had never voted in, if ever, hadn't voted in a long time.

Things like that can change. So it's possible Kamala drives an insurgence of younger voters to the polls, although the history of which is probably not likely for anybody. It's not just her. But then you get into favorable and unfavorable ratings, which is really what we have to go on right now because polling is, I'm sure, in the field at the moment gauging her against Trump to get a large enough sample of polls themselves.

But I looked at texas's and this may have changed since the uh nomination flip but she's running beneath biden on the net favorable rating which is not a good sign for her now that's texas yeah it's not going to go for biden or uh harris at this point but um it it seems like her favorables have been worse in a lot of places than biden's but that could change yeah absolutely well we'll keep an eye on it bradley thanks for following that cam thanks for following all of it too this is a huge story we'll continue to watch. And the shifting political sands in Texas are always fascinating, particularly on the Democratic side. So we got a front row seat to it this election cycle. Cameron, let's talk about more huge news here. U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Toodle took questions from federal lawmakers about the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump.

Tell us what happened. Yeah, in the fallout of the attempted assassination, there's been a whirlwind of speculation about the Secret Service, what they did to preempt the shooting, what was happening during, what happened after. So there's been lots of conversations had about the Secret Service. And Kimberly Cheadle, she was subpoenaed and was providing testimony. And she actually put out her written testimony, her opening statement, which read, quote,

the Secret Service's solemn mission is to protect our nation's leader. On July 13th, we failed. So admitting straight off that the Secret Service did not provide the proper protection during that rally. But during the hearing, Cheadle said she would be, quote, transparent with the committee as they questioned her, but throughout the hearing, there was some eye-opening moments, to say the least, from some of these lawmakers. At one point, Representative Jim Jordan, he pressured Cheadle early on and said, quote, looks like you won't answer some pretty basic questions because there was multiple points during Cheadle's testimony where there were vagueness to her answers. She would defer to the FBI's investigation.

So many of the lawmakers sort of putting pressure on her to be more forthcoming with some of her answers. There was a few Texas congressmen who were a part of this hearing. Pat Fallon pressed Cheadle on whether she had visited the site of the assassination since the attempt. Representative Michael Cloud asked Cheadle if she had actually signed off on the security arrangements at the rally, which really induced a big back and forth between the two. Cheadle asserted to Cloud that there had been, quote, accountability when it came to the plan for the security during the Butler rally. But there was a time where Cloud said in response, quote, whether it's the FBI or Fauci or anything,

it's time after time after time these multiple layers of accountability turn into layers of plausible deniability and agency after agency after agency that's got to be fixed and probably the most uh viral let's say moment that came out of this hearing was when Nancy Mace actually told Cheadle she was full of bleep. And so there was stuff that was being dumped in the Seine River, right? Exactly right. And so, yeah, this was an opportunity for lawmakers to put pressure on Cheadle and ask questions. But there's still a lot of speculation, a lot of unanswered questions, and the investigation is ongoing. But at the time of the publication of our article, she had not resigned and there was mounting pressure for her to be

fired or resigned. And then following the hearing, she did end up stepping down from her director role. So that's one development that has happened since the hearing, but still an ongoing investigation. Lots of viral moments from that hearing and very interesting to see some Texas members of Congress at the forefront of those moments. Cameron, thank you. Let's move on to some border news. Border encounters dipped in June and according to new numbers released by Customs and Border Protection, we got some new news. Tell us about it. Yeah, so in June, Customs and Border Protection recorded 83,536 encounters between ports of entry along the southern border, which is 29% lower than in May. And they said, quote, the lowest monthly total for the Border Patrol along the southwest border since January 2021. So pretty eye-opening there that the numbers have gone down so significantly,

and they actually highlighted the fact of Biden issuing the executive order in June that was done in an effort to sort of quell the growing number of asylum seekers entering through ports of entry. And what's interesting is as I sort of dug into this to try to understand, was there some additional factors that played into this? Because if things have dropped so far down since January 2021, what's adding to this drop? So I came across a report from the Center for Immigration Studies who actually noted there has been some additional things that have gone on that have caused the numbers to drop down. They said, first, the Mexican government has actually begun employing a method of curtailing what they called, quote, other than Mexican non-citizens that travel up

through Mexico. And the Mexican government is actually returning them to the southern part of the country. So that could add to this decline in numbers. And then they also pointed to Governor Greg Abbott's use of Operation Lone Star. We've continually seen the building of razor wire, the additional law enforcement members at the border. The Center for Immigration Studies says that has contributed to this decline in number of encounters. So just some interesting insight I wanted to provide to people. But just to get this shocker that we need to talk about, a Chinese national has been charged with involvement in bringing fentanyl into the U.S. across the U.S.-Mexico border. Tell us about it. Yeah, so this was really interesting. I came across this press release from the U.S. Department of Justice where they said they indicted a Chinese national for involvement in a, quote, conspiracy to import fentanyl precursors into the

United States. The individual charged, Min Su Feng, but in the documents he goes by Fernando, is charged with a four-count indictment of involvement in a scheme aimed at, quote, importation of what is believed to be the largest amount of fentanyl precursors found in the Southern District of Texasanyl precursors found in the Southern District of Texas and one of the largest in the country. So what they had released here is in some unsealed charges where they alleged that Feng and his associates shipped over 2,000 kilograms of fentanyl precursor chemicals from China into Mexico with the help of associates to try and get that into the United States. This was between August and October 2023. And the reason why this was was even more interesting to me is because a couple months ago, I had reported on some

opioid overdoses that were occurring here in Austin. And I dedicated an entire newsletter to understanding fentanyl and the opioid crisis that is occurring in the United States. And something that I came across when I was doing that research for the newsletter is there was actually a report from back in 2022 from the U.S. Commission on Combating Synthetic Opioid Trafficking that stated the People's Republic of China's chemical and pharmaceutical sectors have, quote, outpaced the government's efforts to regulate them, but the awareness that has gone on for years now about fentanyl precursors being sent from China and then making their way into the United States. Just a very interesting dynamic that is being set up right now between the United States and Mexico and China. So just an interesting story that someone has actually been charged now with facilitating this process. Yeah, absolutely. Cameron, I appreciate it. Thank you

for covering that. And folks, I would certainly encourage you to go to the texan.news and read more about it. And if you have not subscribed, go subscribe to the texan.news. We can't do it without you. We got no advertisers, no donors. It's you who powers our little team. So thank you for your support and make sure to go subscribe if you have not already. Let's stay on this topic a little bit, Bradley, a little tangential. But regardless, the Texas House held a hearing yesterday on a related issue to the previous story. What was said? Yeah, so the Texas House Select Committee on Protecting Texas from Foreign Threats. Hostile. It's a mouthful.

It's a new select committee that was created back in May. They had their first hearing chaired by Representative Cole Hefner, who we mentioned at the top. We have an interview coming up. Listen to that some sort of legislation next session on this. Of course, the highest profile bill on this subject last session was SB 147 by Senator Loews-Kulkhurst. Passed the Senate after kind of a rocky path through the upper chamber, went through some revisions, withstood a lot of public criticism and the pressure to kill it. Got to the House, went to the State Affairs Committee, did not go anywhere in the State Affairs Committee. So they're kind of circling back, trying to figure out where they're going to start next session. And they held this hearing to try and level set,

establish some known facts about the situation. And there were a lot of different individuals that spoke. You had representatives of the Texas Forestry Association, the Farm Bureau, Texas Public Policy Foundations, Chuck DeVore, Mike Wong of the Asian American Real Estate Association, Gerald Klassen of A&M's Real Estate Research Center, Christopher Holton of the Center for Security Policy, and Michael Lucci of State Armor. A lot of different perspectives on this. Really this issue boils down to one of competing interests. You have the national security interest, right? That's what's driving this, the desire to pass something on this. We saw a Chinese

billionaire purchase a large plot of land, I think it's like 140,000 acres in Val Verde County back, I don't know if that was 22 or 21, but it happened and it was pretty close to Lackland Air Force Base. That's the national security side of this, trying to prevent clear state actors of the Chinese Communist Party or other hostile nations from being able to purchase Texas land that's critical in some fashion, whether it's controlling food supply or energy supply, energy infrastructure, tech infrastructure, you know, all this stuff. They're trying to figure out what to do on this.

And that was the gist of the bill last session, but there were concerns about how you balance that with the other competing interests of just, say, a run-of-the-mill foreign national from China or Russia or any other country wanting to purchase land in Texas. How do you figure out a way to balance the national security interest against the private rights of an individual to own land? That's what they're trying to figure out. But Hefner said at the meeting, I wanted to have this first panel to open up discussion about the vastness of these threats. I know we had some bills last session that did not have this vetting process, and I think the Speaker of the House is taking the right approach here, getting as many different areas of interest so that we do address these serious threats. But yeah, it's a pretty

vast issue. It's not just land. It's also these state-owned apps, whether it's TikTok that we've seen the state deal with a lot, or also Timu, which is basically the Chinese version of Amazon. All of these things, they sell data back to the Chinese Communist Party. They're required by law to do that. Yeah. So. I have a quick question for you. there a cop let's say the bill does pass and individuals from quote hostile nations are not allowed to purchase land in the state of Texas if like you

mentioned there's already individuals who have purchased land yeah in Texas so if the bill passes what happens after to those individuals in their land purchase they grandfathered in? Good question. That's something they're going to have to talk about. There's going to be a couple more hearings on it. I don't remember anything being said specifically about being backward-looking in this hearing. All of it was kind of forward-looking.

I don't actually know the details of whether that land purchase in Val Verde County was allowed to go through or if that was reneged upon I'm not sure but the that's what they're afraid of. There's details that need to be worked out. Right and that's the point of this interim hearing you know there's no legislation on the table right now kind of the starting point maybe we saw last session the Senate bill go through different versions. At first, it, a Chinese national,

but also may possess dual citizenship in the U.S. or having permanent legal status, they would be allowed to purchase land here. And so that might be the starting point. I think that probably is. But, you know, we've seen this thing go through different revisions constantly. And, again, back to that balance of competing interests, that's going to be something lawmakers are going to have to strike. They're going to have to strike that balance.

And how you do it, which interests you put higher than the other, I don't know. That's something they're going to have to figure out. But, you know, it's not a straightforward issue overall, even if you are of one persuasion on it or the other, right? So they're going to have to kind of thread the needle on it. Yeah. It's a very interesting proposition, though. And I'm sure there's going to be lots of legislative fights over this again. Yeah.

And the idea is hardening states in advance of what a lot of people see as a looming conflict with China, or Russia, or wherever. So, you know, Michael Lucci, I talked to him on the phone last night, he was one of the witnesses, he told me, one thing we learned with COVID is that these far-off conflicts can cause massive problems all the way over here. Texas needs to be taking a protective posture, and states must harden themselves in anticipation of this looming conflict. So that's the juxtaposition that's driving this. The question is, where's the balance if there is one? So it's going to be a difficult slogging in the legislature next year, I think. And Brad, correct me if you disagree on any front here, but I think the bill is some versions

primed to pass this legislative session. It was certainly a big point of criticism of the past legislature saying, you know, why couldn't you guys get this across the finish line? As you said, fingers were pointed all over the place. I think the question more so is what version passes? What does the fine print say? How does it affect purchases that have already gone through if that is something that needs to be addressed? That's more the question, right? Is how strong of a bill will it be? And is it enforceable? Is there some way to actually enforce this? I think the last version that the Senate had put the enforcement mechanism with the Attorney

General's office. If there's a presumption of this being a situation of an agent of the Chinese Communist Party purchasing land, the AG's office has the ability to investigate and initiate that process of stopping that purchase. But one other thing, and on this, that struck me during the hearing was how little information there is or there can be on who's purchasing this land. There are ways to hide an LLC inside of a shell corporation inside of an LLC, make it virtually impossible for anyone to figure out. How do you, you know, poke the beehive enough to get the information you need out of it and to establish the precedent that lawmakers and everyone else will need to, you know, actually enforce this law and figure out where these situations are happening? Because it's very difficult right now. Yeah, absolutely. Well, Brad, thanks for your coverage of that. And folks, tune in to our podcast channel. We'll have this up on our site as well at the beginning of next

week, the interview with Representative Cole Hefner. So keep an eye out for that. Bradley, we're sticking with you. A congressional hearing, there was a very interesting House Oversight Committee hearing on an obscure health care issue, but an important one, what was discussed. So we've seen a lot of fury directed at pharmacy benefit managers. It's basically a middleman between insurance companies, manufacturers, and pharmacies negotiating prices. And that's really what they are, glorified negotiators. And the reason this is boiling up is because we've seen pharmaceutical drug costs increase pretty substantially. I have some stats in the piece, but the vast majority of tracked pharmaceutical drugs saw price increases. Some saw massive price increases. For example, one blood pressure medication increased by a factor

of 35, going from $4.32 to $158.72. Another big topic in this is insulin and how costly that has become. We've seen people like, who's the Mavericks owner? Mark Cuban. Mark Cuban, he started a whole company to try and reduce the cost of these insulin products. And he seems to be doing pretty well with it. But healthcare is a quagmire of an issue,

and this PBM situation is just one aspect of it. The House Oversight Committee held a hearing. The U.S. House Oversight Committee held a hearing, and it was a pretty bipartisan grilling of these PBM executives. The committee put out a report that basically put a lot of the blame for these rising costs on PBMs. The PBMs hit back and said, you know, we do all we can to reduce costs. We negotiate things down with rebates, things like that.

And it's really hard to make heads or tails of, you know, like, are there's a big chain in from the actual drug itself to the person that is receiving it. Right. And so PBM is remind me, what does that stand for? Pharmacy benefit manager. Pharmacy benefit manager. So was there any discussion during the representatives that were being grilled from the pharmacy benefit managers were they pointing blame at you know whether it be the fda or from the insurance companies like were they trying to obfuscate their responsibility in their their role in this chain of custody of the drug? What were they saying? Yeah, I mean, they were saying that you need to look at the manufacturers who are raising prices at the start of this supply chain, right?

Now, that's not the only cost factor going into it. Like, there's the regulators too, and I'm sure that's part of it. With these incredibly heady economic situations, there's never one person to blame for price increasing. Part of it is just the cost of doing business going up and just standard inflation. That's a problem. And that's nobody's fault. There are contributors to it, but it's just a thing that happens, right?

Right. So they didn't really come to any agreement it was really just a whipping boy situation between these legislators and the which we've seen in these congressional hearings before it doesn't matter the issue yeah yeah so it's gonna be interesting to watch I don't know what Congress is gonna to do about it. The fact that it was bipartisan tells you there's something that can be done regardless of what happens in these elections. We know it's going to be an issue, again, for the state.

In 21, the state passed, the legislature passed a couple different bills on this PBM issue. There were a couple proposals last session that did not pass, but those were more of like fine tweaking the previous past bills. Because I think I remember what you're mentioning, what's happened here specifically in Texas in trying to lower the cost of pharmaceutical drugs is there was actually a move to try to allow Canadian manufactured drugs to come in because they were being produced at a cheaper cost and sold cheaper.

So you know there's legislators trying to help the consumer in this case. But it's just interesting that there's this long supply chain, lots of different factors that contribute to a rising price of a drug. But, you know, like with this congressional hearing, you know, one person that is part of that supply chain comes in and they get beat up. And one of the proposals on the table to change things up is changing the way PBMs are paid from a percentage of what a drug is sold for to a flat rate. Now, on the one hand, the percentage payment provides an incentive for prices to be higher because that means the PBMms make more money now the counter to that is if you strip that away that removes

their incentive to negotiate discounts right so it's it's working in both ways here and they're not working together they're working against each other which one's more potent than the other you know it depends on who you talk to depends on which side they fall on this, but this is just, it's a mess. It's a mess. It's a mess. And I don't know if there's any one solution, you know? Well, I think what you mentioned with how Mark Cuban is trying to offer an alternative, like drugs direct, or I think Amazon has attempted to do that as well, like cutting out these middlemen. I think it's an interesting proposition that as well, like cutting out these middlemen.

I think it's an interesting proposition, like a free market solution there. Well, you know, the other side of it is, and this is very true, that there was a need for these PBMs at one point. Maybe it's gone now. I don't know. Maybe this direct-to-consumer thing changes the game. But, you know, when you have pharmacies, especially independent pharmacies, getting told by the pharmaceutical companies, the big bad guys in the room, you know, you're just going to pay this. They have no ability to push back. That's my understanding how these PBMs first started. Now, the counter to that is that a lot of these PBMs have grown so big that they have their own pharmacies, and they try and steer patients to those pharmacies.

And so it's anti-competitive. Well, and what's interesting, too, is if a manufacturer is going to attempt to use a product that direct-to-consumer product, we're talking about something that the consumer needs to live. And so there's not a lot of negotiating that can go on there. And because of the regulatory elements from the government, there's not a lot of opportunities for drug manufacturers to just spin up and be manufacturing competitors, right? So it's very complicated. It's very tough. Healthcare complicated, pharmaceuticals complicated, man, color me shocked. Gentlemen,

thank you. Brad, thanks for covering that. Cameron, we got a lot of federal news this week. August Pfluger, a Texas congressman, has joined the race to lead the Republican Study Committee. Tell us about it. Yeah, so I wasn't super aware of this Republican Study Committee before I came across the story, but it's basically just a conservative caucus of House Republicans, and they get together to try to support a certain legislative agenda. And they work together on this. And so what August Pfluger is attempting to do is become the chairman of this study committee. And this was first reported on by Politico. And there's one competitor that's

already announced, Congressman Ben Klein from Virginia. And Pfluger is already a member of the steering committee or a part of the study committee's part of the steering committee is what I wanted to mention. And the current chair is Representative Kevin Hearn. And August Pfluger is going to start passing around his proposed legislative and policy initiatives. And there will be a secret ballot vote for the RSC chair that will be held one week after the November general election. Neither outgoing nor incoming members are eligible to participate. And additionally, there will be a candidate forum that is scheduled for September 18th. So just some interesting dynamics with the Texas Congress member attempting to chair this influential committee here. Absolutely.

Fun to see some Texas congressmen making a lot of headlines this week, both between this and the hearing over the Secret Service director and her tenure and the assassination attempt. So fascinating stuff. Gentlemen, thanks for covering so many great things. I appreciate you. Let's move on to our tweeter-y section here. We got some fun things here to talk about, and I'm kind of pumped about our tweeter-y section. Cameron, I think we're going to start with you. Let's get it out of the way. Let's talk about what the heck this viral moment seems that is seem to be have had by Kamala Harris right

now. Well, yeah, what we talked about at the top of the podcast about Kamala Harris's meme, memeification into the mainstream of political discourse, and uh on social media might have seen like there's this neon sort of coloring that is associated with a lot of her ads or memes and people are saying kamala is brat and i had no idea what that means i wanted to ask you you know, you pay attention to a lot of this stuff as well. And you have a little bit of experience with some of this mainstream music and, you know, some TV shows. What is Brat, Mackenzie? Can you explain that to us? Yeah, well, she's having a Brat summer.

Brat summer? I think that's what's being said yes bro brat summer now i really cameron i kind of loathe myself for knowing this i'll admit but here's here's the best i can describe and the most information i will give you all the information i have charlie XCX is a pop star. She released an album. I've never heard of that person. And it was, I think you've heard a couple of her songs. I like, anyway, you've heard some of her songs. I've never heard the name. You would not, makes sense, makes sense.

But she released an album. I believe the album was called Brat. It was, became very, very popular immediately on social media. Gen Z loves the album was called Brat. It became very, very popular immediately on social media. Gen Z loves the album. And so immediately they started saying, hey, we're having a Brat Summer. Okay, so that was the vibe that was going around on social media. Like last year, people were saying Hot Girl Summer or Hot Boy Summer. Okay.

That's not what it is this year. That's not what it is this year. It's Brat it is what sort of activities are associated with having a brat summer see i think it's basically which i i think it's basically just do whatever you want to do i think oh it's just like a vibe out you absolutely whatever they want okay i don't know that it has some sort of strict. There's no guidelines or playbook or anything for having a Brad. Oh, there is maybe. No.

Well, here's the thing. I really, a podcast I follow was criticizing Brad summer, rightfully so, because it had something to do with letting go of your, of your inhibitions. And obviously eating too much ice cream issue with that. so because it had something to do with letting go of your of your inhibitions and uh obviously eating too much ice cream issue with that uh yes let's go with that brad i'm sure that i'm sure that's what this uh pop star meant is it eating too much ice cream but um regardless that's that's what's going on so then i now see people uh as soon as kamala entered the race saying she's having her brats okay well i think that was a reference to something that was already trending okay well

i feel much more informed hopefully our listeners do as well because that was a great break i feel dumber i think that's more what you should feel and I'm sorry for boring you with that for three minutes. But that's what I believe to be the case. I just felt my IQ drop 10 points listening to that. Oh. And it wasn't very high to begin with. Well, Brad, I don't think your tweeter-y will increase our IQ points very much either. Why don't you tell us what you got for us this week? Wow.

I thought for sure you would like this. I do, but it's not some sort of intellectually stimulating tidbit. Okay, but it's not going to cause deterioration. I have no idea what this is, so I'm excited. Yeah, I haven't clicked it yet. The Clearwater Threshers have a bat dog. Her name's Layla, and they send her out to go get, retrieve the bats. Like a bat boy, only a bat dog.

Oh. And she officially retired after six years on the job. Aw, that's so cute. Yeah, yeah. That's why I was confused why you were ripping me at the beginning of this. This went a different direction than i thought it was because it is because on our docket it just says bat dog i was thinking like batman bat dog i thought it would be like a dog solving crime and this is so much

better she went viral because they filmed her last uh appearance grabbing a bat during a game last week or the week before. Quote, the 13-year-old moseyed out to home plate to pick up her final bat. Now she's going to enjoy retirement. This literally is making me emotional. I love this so much. This is so cute. I can see your eyes watering through the camera video her tail is wagging the whole time she's a a yellow lab and uh yeah she's having a I love how they just love her. This is America.

Yes. I love this so much. I just made her cry. Oh, my gosh. I really love this. Okay. Wow. Thank you for sharing, Layla. We're having a moment. This is moment amazing for all of our listeners to hear

oh man okay i'm just not prepared for how adorable she is okay brad thank you that's a great tweet and i'm really excited about it um okay i have a twe read to talk about. Um, I completely forgot what it is. Let me pull it up. Uh, I also want to talk about Southwest airlines because that's something to talk about. Um, okay. Oh, M dashes, Brad, we have to, we have to talk about this. Is that do i have to put it out no i'm i'm completing my sentence if you'll if you'll allow me but there is a pause on social media sorry i was i was still i was wiping a tear from my eye okay give me this i'm trying to compose myself as fast as possible. There's a meme going around.

I don't know what you said and I'm going to ignore it. There's a meme going around and it's specifically that one that we see all the time on social media where a guy's walking with his girlfriend. Another girl walks by and he's checking her out. And it's basically saying, okay, commas, semicolons, colons, periods are ignored, but the em dash is gaining this guy's attention. Okay? Now, Brad, I want your just reaction to this. I mean, em dashes are a very superior form of punctuation as a difference maker.

You know, it gets pretty boring looking at commas and periods all the time. I would put em dashes in the category with colons and semicolons to spice up your prose. Now, I would never do what the Trump campaign did in one of their memos, which was just the most disgusting use of em dashes I've ever seen. It was, it was astounding, but they put out a disgusting, well, they put out a memo responding to Harris jumping in, basically saying, well, she actually stinks and she's really liberal

and they called her dangerously liberal Camilla. Uh, but that's not the point here the point was they did they wrote this memo in one sentence uh i'll read the one right before it said let's not forget the biden campaign is spent in excess of 150 million dollars money they can't go get back standard has one comma in there actually two commas standard sentence then they say same year m dash same people m dash same record of failure m dash same results period what in tarnation is that? I like em dashes, and I often have them cut from my writing by a certain somebody who likes to kill joy and kick puppies. Totally. Oh, yeah. Kick puppies after I cried over your little dog video you showed.

Yeah, that's me. Insane. I mean, frankly, this is the biggest example of concern I'd have if I were Donald Trump and my advisors put out a memo with this sentence structure in there. It is just terrible.

But it does open the door for new pioneered use of the m dash and i might start okay so you like it or do you not no i don't but it would be a way to annoy you and that is my true heart's desire fair i i just think m dashes have become the lazy man's version of other forms of punctuation. I think they have a place. I think they can add a lot of color to writing. I think they are a great tool to use. But we have other punctuation at our disposal that specifically fill other purposes.

So M-dash is great all about using them, but not when it's every other punctuation mark in a piece, which Brad, you have been known to be guilty of doing. That is not true. I use it to spice it up and not get monotonous with commas. You think that's still too much. I have not struck an em dash from one of your pieces in a very long time because for a long time I was and you've gotten better at it. So I think you finally caught on to what I was trying to get pound into your little brain. So I think we're in a good spot, Bradley. Wow. Well, not until I start using this formula.

I'll say I'm a fan of the em dash. I don't use it that often in my articles, but I use them a lot in my newsletters, but I, I sort of abuse them a bit like Donald Trump did in that memo because I use the em dash as sort of just continuing my long train of thought and without having to answer a period. You like 100-word paragraphs and sentences? Yeah, so it's kind of like how I talk in the office

where it's just a long stream of thought without really knowing where it's going, and I just insert little em dashes. Well, that's kind of how they structured this. It was just short points they were trying to make. But it could have been, commas could have been utilized in that instance. Periods would have been perfectly fine there. That would have given the emphasis they wanted.

Periods would have been totally fine. Periods are actually the most appropriate there. I have to look at it. I trust you. Em dashash excessiveness it's a problem it is thank you for agreeing with the stance i've held for so long brad um quick before we move on i want to ask was doing that that's my of course there are you know violations of decorum.

I just wasn't doing it. Yeah, for sure. Definitely, you're innocent. Southwest Airlines has decided they are going to abandon how they've boarded planes for so long and have numbered seats, assigned seats. What do you guys think about this? I need a quick reaction. I flew southwest when i went to see my sister in denver a couple weekends ago and it had been so long since i

flew southwest i'd forgotten that there were no assigned seats so i'm looking at my ticket like what the heck where am i supposed to sit then i realized it was open seating so i have no thoughts other than that i don't care i don't really care either wow this is really lighting up social media right now and neither of you care that's quick i think this is uh something that really made southwest stand out so i'm a little bummed about it do i did i like the process not really i kind of i i didn't like it too much especially when you're traveling in a group no guarantee but southwest does have good rates oftentimes good fare so you get what you get.

That was quick. Okay. Well, gentlemen, thank you for joining me on this week's episode. Folks, thanks for listening, and we'll catch you next week. Thank you to everyone for listening. If you enjoy our show, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you want more of our stories, subscribe to The Texan at thetexan.news. Follow us on social media for the latest in Texas politics.

And send any questions for our team to our mailbag by DMing us on Twitter or shooting us an email to editor at thetexan.news. Tune in next week for another episode of our weekly roundup. God bless you and God bless Texas.