Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Texas Tribune Trip Cast for
March tenth, twenty twenty six. My name is Matthew Watkins,
editor in chief of the Texas Tribune, and I am
joined as usual by Eleanor Klibanoff, Lawn, politics reporter for
the Tribune. Hello, Eleanor, thanks.
Speaker 2: For having me, and thanks for getting the title right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I wrote it down.
Speaker 2: That's good. That's good.
Speaker 1: Yes, I of course missed last week's podcast. I was
in beautiful Providence, Rhode Island, where there were three feet
was three feet of snow on the ground, and I
missed it so much I heard I'm so jealous of
y'all talking about the election results and particularly Ken Paxton
and John Cornyn that I demanded that we do it
again this week.
Speaker 2: We love it.
Speaker 3: Honestly, we could not have fit even one more person
on this stage. Certainly we had no more room for
one more man, so we were maxed out.
Speaker 2: So what it kicked you off? Anyway?
Speaker 1: All right? Well, well, very good, and so joining us
to discuss this is friend of the podcast, Mark Davis,
who is host of his self titled show on six
sixty am The Answer in Dallas, Fort Worth and a
frequent interviewer of Texas's top Republican officials. Mark, thank you
for joining us.
Speaker 4: Thank you guys, pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1: It's a fun time, I think, to be in talk
radio in Texas.
Speaker 4: To say the least, I mean, this was this was
all set up. This was frontloaded to be an amazing season,
no matter what I mean. It always is at primary times,
and it always is, especially in Republican territory of primary times,
with blood on the walls and all these bitter feuds
and all of a sudden, everybody makes nice afterwards. We
all unite to beat the Democrats, just as the Democrats
unite to beat us. At least that's the way it's
supposed to go. But wow, there might be some intervening
passions that make this, if possible, even more interesting.
Speaker 1: Indeed, so let me just go through a quick recap.
I'm sure all of our listeners know this, but let's
talk about how we got to where we are right
now in this Cornyn Paxton race. Cornan shocks me at
least and maybe some other people by emerging from election
night as the top vote recipient forty one point seven
percent to Paxton's forty point seven percent, Mark, I will
ask you in a little bit whether that surprised you
or not. And then, of course, James Tallerco wins the
Democratic nomination decisively. The next day, Donald Trump declares he's
very much not worried about Tallerico, who is obviously going
to lose, but still says he'll be endorsing in the
race and for the good of the party, the other
candidate must drop out. Everyone sort of assumes that that
means he's going to endorse Cornan Paxton, asked about this,
declares he's not leaving the race, and then the next day, Thursday,
says he'd consider dropping out of the race, but only
if the Senate passes the Save Act, which would require
national voter ID. Flash forward to now, and really, we
haven't had much progress on this story. No endorsement, no
Save Act, no one dropping out of the race. So Mark,
tell me take let's take a journey into the mind
of Donald Trump right now? What is he thinking? What's
what's what's his move right now? Why is he making
the moves he has already made.
Speaker 4: At any given moment, if the president does something he
thinks it's advantageous to his agenda. I mean, that's not
a shocker. That's why every politician does any given thing.
The President has a capacity for being so transactional, I
guess is the frequently used term that he can seem
to shift on the fly, just as a real estate
deal might be. If something looks advantageous one day, it
might not be so advantageous the next, which is what
gets you from what looked like a continued stance of
no endorsement, which I have considered to be an act
of genius on his part, because as soon as he
endorses anybody corn or Paxton, the first thing he's going
to do is enormously alienate and inflame roughly half of
his Texas base. What wisdom could there possibly be in
doing that? So, in exploring what that motivation might be,
to go chronologically to the first thing you said, was
their surprise in cornn finishing as he did for me. No,
but it's not because I'm such a genius. It's because
I considered almost anything to be possible, from the MAGA
fueled grassroots red meat conservatism of Paxton giving him a
five point lead to the absolutely unshakable incumbent power of
Cornan giving him a five or six point lead, anything
was truly possible. So for them to wind up in
a relative dead heat and get thrown into the cauldron
of hell that is the because of Wesley Hunt's bizarre
decision to run. That was all the list of things
that could have happened. So, to finish my overly long answer,
what is Trump thinking right now? I can understand that
he does not cherish the notion of a long, expensive
blood on the Walls primary going all the way to
May twenty sixth, which may afterward leave nerves rubbed so
raw that the losing side is loath to come back
to the polls on November third, even if it's to
stop James Tallerico. I think that is a fear worth assessing.
Speaker 1: So one of the things I've been kind of wondering
about is what really changed on primary night? Right because
I think we all kind of knew whether or not
we thought that Cornyn was going to be the front
runner after primary night, we all hat a pretty good
sense going into that night that it was going to
be Corny and Packson in a runoff. We already knew.
We have lots of evidence to look at that those
two guys really don't like each other, and we're going
to be lobbing bombs at each other through that entire runoff.
We knew that it was going to be like a
you know that it's going to be a pretty tough
election cycle for Republicans. That's generally what happens in the
midterms for the party that holds the White House. So
what changed between March second and March fourth that all
of a sudden, Trump, who had taken the position of
I'm saying out of this, is now all of a
sudden like I got to get in on this.
Speaker 4: I think on March second, if you had asked President
Trump what you might do and what you want to do,
he would think he would say, let me see how
the vote goes, because if either Packs nor cornyin or
obviously if somebody had won outright, then we're done here.
I mean. And by the way, I mean, it's not
like it was thirty something, thirty something, twenty something. Both
of them were in the forties, the low forties. Nobody
came that close. But it's not like either Cornin or
Paxton winning outright would have been so otherworldly crazy. And
I think the President wanted to see if maybe that happened,
so we could be spared this entire, this entire drama.
Seeing them finish neck and neck as they did, you
might think that would leave the President in a mood
to continue to stay out of it, which again I
hope he still will and I kind of think he
still We'll see about that. Well, listen that corn and endorsement,
which looked definite until it instantly wasn't. And now and look,
let's not go crazy. There are some who are floating
the notion possibly of a Packson endorsement, what with with
Ken's maneuvering with regard to to save act. More on
that in a moment, But I think the president is
now possibly examining and this may all change by the
time everybody sees this point time. So there's ultimate accountability
on tape, there's wisdom and Trump staying out of it.
And even if he does go ahead and endorse Corn,
it as a reward for loyal service during this Trump
two point zero term, that could backfire because there are
packs The voice of a couple of million Paxton voters
will say something like, mister President, we love you, We
thank God every day that you won. We're going to
make up our own minds on this one. Thank you.
Speaker 3: I do think, I mean, I think part of this
is that Trump didn't want to get into a situation
like with you know, Sid Miller, where you endorse too
late and then you know people have already cast their
early votes and it sort of blows up in your face.
I think perhaps President Trump did not do as much
advanced planning as we did of realizing that the early
vote starts so early here and that people are you know,
have made up their minds or even just cast their
vote thinking that there wouldn't be an endorsement.
Speaker 2: I do think the fact.
Speaker 3: That he I was just that he was saying, you know,
whoever I don't endure has to drop out is a
sign that there's not a clear you know, he's not
confident that his endorsement necessarily could win this, because you know,
he doesn'tant to endorse someone and then have them lose.
So he's saying, you know, I'll give you my endorsement,
but you got to go if you don't get.
Speaker 4: It, which is of course a ridiculous thing to ask.
There is no universe in which either of those things
was going to happen. Cornan was obviously not going to
step out. And here's my hot take of fresh for you,
no charge. Patson's not going anywhere. You phrased it with
exact precision. This is just my gut. But he said,
Notice he did not say that if the Save Act passes,
I will get out. He said I'll consider getting out.
So here's you know, channeling Ken. I've known him for
a long time. This is just speculation, but I think
it's in foreign speculation. He will consider it for about
five minutes, and in those five minutes, what he will
con is what has happened. And the bottom line is
if the say back has passed and bears Trump's signature,
Ken Paxton can say I did that, and I'm not
even a senator yet. Yeah, So imagine the kind of
influence that I can wield if you make me a senator.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think you know, when Trump put out that
truth social post where he said all these things, I
think a lot of people, you know, immediately assumed packs
I mean, cornan endorsement is coming. And the two reasons
for that are a because as soon as people started
to see the results that tell Rico was going to win,
really before tell Rico had even been declared by most
media the winner. There was talk among well informed people
about this just huge push that's going to happen among
you know, leadership in the Senate, leadership maybe within the
Republican Party nationally and maybe even in Texas to try
to push for a Cornan endorsement because of a feeling
that Sackston is much more vulnerable to defeat in the
general election than Cornyn is. We can I actually want
to discuss whether we believe that to actually be true
here in a little bit, but we will. But the
other thing was essentially, why would Corny Why would Trump
need to say that the person he doesn't endorse needs
to drop out if he was going to endorse Paxton?
Because I feel like the conventional wisdom here is that
if Trump endorses Paxston, it's game over, right, and if
Trump endorses Cornyn, then maybe it's a bit more of
a race. Do you agree with that assessment?
Speaker 4: I do. But there is a poetic, classic simplicity if
you're President Trump and saying I'm endorsing this guy, the
other guy should get out, rather than taking another sixty
seconds and a few more syllables to say, well, if
it's one way the other guy should get out. But
if it's this guy, there's probably not as much need.
It seems like a very trumpy thing to do, to say, Look,
once I anoint somebody, the other guy stands no chance
and should probably go ahead and hit the road for
private life. It just seems like the simpler of the
two messages.
Speaker 3: And it's so trumpy, And I think to say, you know,
I'm not going to do the behind the scenes machinations
of you know, let's say you endorse Cornyn, you go
to Paxton's camp, you say, you know, we're here's what
I'm asking of you. You just say it on true
social and assume that people will sort of do what
you're asking of them. I think I will also say, like,
I think obviously Cornyn right now probably very anxiously awaiting
news on this. I think for both Trump and Paxton,
this is kind of I mean, for Trump, I have
to imagine you're like everybody is courting me right now.
I mean, this is the plot of you know, every
romance novel and the history of time. Right two people
want you and and they both are like willing to
do anything, and then you know, you have to eventually
choose one, and that's where it gets boring.
Speaker 2: But but you don't.
Speaker 4: But you don't, I mean because your analogy is park
and he is the most popular girl at the day. Yes, exactly,
But but he was playing this so brilliantly and may
return to the comforting genius what more, And it's not untrumpy.
It would be very trumpy to say I like both
of these. When Wesley Hunt was in there for no
earthly reason, he said, I like all three guys because
there's a reason to like all three guys. And there
was just such wisdom and inner peace. If they're even
such a thing as possible in this race to have
a president who's respected by voters, for all the remaining
candidates to say, look, I'm going to let Texans decide,
and if President Trump rediscovers the value of that, to say,
you know what, no matter how this works out, I'm
going to have an ally in the Senate. Let's let
Texans decide. I'd like to think there's still a non
zero chance of that happened.
Speaker 1: I would just like to say if Susan Combe's former
Texas politician and romance novelists would like to write that novel.
Speaker 2: It's a publicity right there. Yeah, yeah, the first Texas.
Speaker 3: But I mean also Paxton, I think is playing this
very well in that he probably the longer this goes
without an endorsement, it's sort of with this common wisdom
that Cornyn is going to get the nod. The longer
Trump doesn't endorse, the more it's sort of a nod
to Paxton, right of, like well maybe I'm considering maybe,
And he gets to post stuff on social media like, well,
perhaps I can be the king maker of the Save Act,
which is, as you said, eventual ammunition of you know,
I'm you know, I'm sort of I'm playing three D
chess and I'm not even in the Senate yet.
Speaker 4: Completely right, Because the Cornan endorsement, I mean that that
writing was on the wall in sharpie from some people.
I was getting text after text it's coming now. Some
of it was wishful think coming from Cornan supporters, but
for others it was those who either ambivalund or actually
Ken supporters who kind of went get whatever mood this
gave them. It's like, boy, it really really looks like
a Cornan endorsement mere hours away. Then when it suddenly
was not clearly there was a reason for that. There
would have been a reason for it to happen. There
was an obvious reason why it did not, And the
only possible reason for it not to happen is Trump
had second thoughts about endorsing Cornyn, which is an absolute
great news cycle for Paxton. Now, the news cycles are
going to come thick and fast now, and what happens
today or tomorrow or the next could reshuffle everything. But
for this hiccup of time, you have it exactly right.
Speaker 1: So Texas election Code says that you can, if you
were at make a runoff, you can drop off and
remove yourself from the ballot by three days after the canvas.
The canvas has to happen March fifteenth, So we're talking
about really a March eighteenth deadline for an endorsement and
for someone to drop off.
Speaker 2: And I have to imagine Donald Trump has that circled
in red.
Speaker 3: There's no world in which he's gonna, you know, not
factor that.
Speaker 2: My goodness, it's the Texas election Code.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, So let's.
Speaker 4: Again, and there's two things true at the same time.
Number one, very useful information on the Texas election Code.
Number two completely irrelevant because no one is going youwhere
On May twenty six, Cornyn will be there, Paxton will
be there, and the following morning one of them will
no longer be there.
Speaker 1: All right, So okay, so I want to drill into this.
You are certain that there's nothing that Trump could do
to get Ken Paxton out of this race, including okay,
because my my fan fiction scenario here is, oh, here
we go is Trump appoints Paxton to some confirmable position
at which point what I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 4: Appoints him to because live listen, I because now I've
played this game for a couple of weeks.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Well, in fact, let's let's fill in the blanks. Hey,
he fires Pam Bonding and makes him a jorney general.
Ken Paxton appears to be there. There must be some
golden take. Well, it's called a track record, an enviable
track record that his fan base absolutely loves. That fan
base does not extend to the United States Congress. Can
anybody imagine a world in which it's a good idea
for Ken Paxton to go through confirmation hearings? Right? Please?
So he's not going to be named, there's no ambassadorship,
there's nothing, you know, you know, ambassador to the Moon.
There's there's nothing that is as big a prize as
the US Senate seat that he keeps. So there is
no stop that can be thrown, no side offer. It's
not that it's not but you describe something that happens
all the time. It's a completely worthy plot line, but
not in this case. It's not.
Speaker 1: All right. Well, but but what you're taking away from
me is the decision that Cornyan would have to make
about whether to confirm, vote to confirm Ken Paxton ory
too clear up his his Senate seat, you know, despite
having for the last two years calling him basically the
worst person on earth.
Speaker 3: But hey, I mean A to B Yeah, well, let mean, Mark,
one thing you said that stood out to me that
I do want to ask about, which is that you know,
you're saying that President Trump, who is I mean just
this extremely powerful figure in the Texas GOP, I mean
the GOP nationally, that if he were to endorse Cornan,
that there are people a subset of people who feel
more strongly about Paxton than they do about Trump, or
they would be more loyals to Paxton than Trump.
Speaker 4: Yeah, of course there are, and with good reason, because
it would be so many things are kind of binary,
switch on, switch off, all black hole white. Let's look
at the emotional complexity for a Paxton supporter of Trump
endorsing Cornet. Would that Paxton supporter then go, well, screw that,
I'm done with Trump. Of course not. It would be
a triangulation in which the Paxton supporting Texans would say,
mister President, I've kind of said this more. We love you,
we're glad you're there, we pray for you every day,
but on this particular thing, sir, we respectfully are going
to vote for Ken Paxton anyway. And it's for the
same reasons that we support you and love you and
cherish you and are glad you're there. The outsider, the fighter,
the trailblazer, the rattler of establishment cages. It is the
same list. The list of reasons why we love you
is the list of reasons why we love Ken. So
you go ahead and endorsed corn and all you want,
and we'll be voting for Ken anyway.
Speaker 1: Thank you very All right, Well, let's let's consult the
polls here. This is from Texas Public Opinion research released yesterday,
March ninth. Admittedly, Texas Public Opinion Research is run by
a Democrat.
Speaker 2: Luke Warford was popping off on Twitter.
Speaker 1: Yeah who and who? Who? You know was on the
podcast a couple of weeks ago. So if you want
to take this with a grain of salt, feel free
to take it with a grain of salt. But here
is what the poll said. Paxton leads Cornyan forty to
forty one percent in a runoff. That's an eight point
at vance with eleven percent undecided. If Trump were to
endorse Cornyan, Paxon would still lead forty four percent to
forty three percent. A Trump endorsement of Paxton would widen
Paxton's lead from fifty eight percent to thirty two percent.
The thing I wonder about here, though, is I don't
think all Trump endorsements are created equally, right, Like, sometimes
he fires off the truth social post and then you know,
mispronounces the candidate's name at a speech, you know, and
people can kind of credibly make the case like they
don't know he doesn't even know who this guy is
like this, you know, someone's in his ear, but it
doesn't actually reflect the like true belief of.
Speaker 4: Trump.
Speaker 1: That would not be the situation here. And if he
were to, you know, follow through on his push to
have a Paxton in this scenario drop out. It would
be a situation where Packson is openly defying Trump, something
that Trump clearly doesn't like and often causes him to
go on the attack. And so, you know, what this
poll seems to be measuring is like, how do you
vote if this is you know, if Trump endorses this way?
But I think there's another question of like, how would
you vote if one of the candidates is in like
open warfare with the sitting president of the United States
and standard bearer for the party. Maybe that creates a
different situation.
Speaker 4: Okay that that would not happen. Let's do that. Okay,
you just drawn it's just not going to happen. And
then we'll go to the very interesting poll numbers, which
I do take with a grain of salt, but it
doesn't mean they are of no value. First of all,
let's go to that hypothetical day where Trump endorses corn
And and essentially invites or tells Ken to get out,
at which point Ken respectfully declines to do that. At
that point, you think Donald Trump is going to look
at a man who has been a loyal order for
more than a decade and go, you're terrible. I can't
believe you disobeyed me. You're no longer a value to me.
You're dead to me. Of course not. President Trump would
understand completely, and there's a lot of political theater. He
will know that there has been political theater in the
very request being made. He would also know in his
heart of hearts that there was no way Ken was
actually going to do it, and there would be instant
understanding and a shrug from Trump that goes, okay, hey
I tried, and everybody would get on with their lives.
Now to the poll numbers. I don't discount Democrat polls.
I discount internal polls as being totally self serving. They
always want to please the boss. A Democrat poll has
a lot of has a lot of vested interest in
stoking Packston enthusiasm because they think that Ken would be
easier to beat, which may or may not be true.
We'll get to that in a second. But even if
the forty nine forty one is a little fat, and
the fifty eight to thirty too is way fat, even
if they're but a fraction of that, it still reveals
what I think are some basically reliable things that right now,
in a nutshell, Paxton has the advantage on May twenty
sixth that is enjoyed by just about every grassroots friendly,
more conservative combatant. Once it's runoff time, those are the
voters that tend to have a higher likelihood of coming back.
The Trump endorsement of Paxton would shut the door game over,
We're done here. The Trump endorsement of Cornin has a
much lesser effect for the reason I've just described. A
Trump endorsement of Paxton is on brand. A Trump endorsement
of Cornin would be a little curious for a lot
of people to absorb and not as eagerly obeyed. So yeah,
that's that.
Speaker 2: Okay, I think that makes sense.
Speaker 3: I think that, Like again, I do just think that
Paxton right now, I imagine that immediately upon Trump saying I'm
going to endorse, another person has to drop out. There
were there was back channeling where it was made clear
that Paxson was not going to drop out, and you know,
that suddenly makes it a lot less appealing for President
Trump to endorse.
Speaker 2: You know, if he can correct that. Now he's not
the king maker. Paxton is the king maker.
Speaker 3: And that's a you know, at that point, I do
think there's a to your point, mark, a very real
world in which this all just sort of like floats away, and.
Speaker 2: All those pre rits we spend all that time on
never get to see the light of day.
Speaker 4: I'm so sorry.
Speaker 2: It's devastating to me.
Speaker 4: We're done here, you know, and for just a minute.
That's because before I forget it, because you guys are good,
having done a number of avenues. Let us put under
the microscope this notion that Cornyan is the stronger general
election candidate. Tons of people were saying that most of
them named John Cornyn, and most of them in his camp,
which is a thoroughly understandable thing. And by the way,
using normal Earth logic, that would kind of makes sense
that the broader, the more moderate, the guy who maybe
the occasional Democrat might vote for, would generally be the
stronger general election candidate. I've often said I've remained confident
that either Corner or Paxton would beat teller Eco. It
may be that Cornyn would beat him by eight and
Paxton would beat him by four, which leads some people
to go, why risk another beto night America? What was
that two and a half back in twenty eighteen. Nobody
wants to revisit that again. But before we jump to
what has been conventional wisdom about the type of candidate
who's stronger in a general, this is no ordinary election.
I cannot overstate to you the number of people who
are Paxton supporters who will not vote for Cornin under
any circumstance. Now I'm going to be arguing with those
people from May twenty seventh to November third. I'll be
the I'll be the great uniter. I'll try to be,
and they are going to be people who are butt
hurt on either side depending on whoever loses. But I
think that the vanquished corn In people may be more
likely to hold their noses and vote for Ken than
some broadly dispirited Packston people will be. That they will
have the line that says, art really you get go enjoy,
Senator Talerico, see how that works out for you. That
I will hate that, but I think that it will happen.
And the only reason I weave that out is to
say that that sentiment, which is appreciable, may even out
or cancel out the usual logic that Cornin is the
automatic stronger candidate November, he simply may not be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I sort of think back to the
twenty sixteen presidential primaries when I think about this. Right
and on the left, you had a lot of people
and energy behind Bernie Sanders. You had people in the
sort of establishment area freaking out about that and really
trying to rally around Hillary Clinton. And on the right
you have the people behind Donald Trump and the establishment
people trying to rally around basically anyone else at various times,
and the Democratic Party chose to go with the establishment,
and the Republican Party chose to go with the non establishment,
the people, and that ended up working out pretty well
for the Republican Party.
Speaker 4: Right, absolutely right. And it's funny and characterizing that and
taking us all, but we're all old enough to remember, Yeah,
you made a really really valuable point there. If nobody
puts me in a rubber room for saying there's a
similarity between Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, I think you
know what I'm talking about. It is the same kind
of insurgent. We're tired of the status quo appeal, just
in very very different ways. Bernie represented burn it down.
The status quo is not working. I'm tired of the
go along to get along, and Trump was the version
of that on the Republican side, and we were smart
enough to go with it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So okay, let's pull up another left leaning poll
here though, because this one also came out yesterday, Public
Policy Polling New Senate poll pulled tall Rico against Paxton,
pulled Tallerico against Cornan, Tallerco against Paxton, Tallerco forty seven percent,
Paxton forty five percent, Tellerrico against Cornan forty four percent,
Cornan forty three percent. So you're talking about a lead
in each one. A two point margin against Paxton, a
one point margin against Cornan. Now I see your face,
So tell me why that is a ridiculous poll.
Speaker 4: No, No, I can only scoff so much. I can
only scoff. There's a limit to my scoffing because I
can't sit here in March and tell you that's not
going to happen because of the factor that I've just
described again, in a vacuum, there is no reason on
God's earth for this seat to flip. None. There should
be Republican unity. If I have breath in me, there
will be Republican unity. But the only way that Tallerico
becomes a senator is if Republican voters are stupid enough
to hand it to him, if we are on our game,
and if we can all get over ourselves and oh
my guy lost, then this will not be all that close.
It won't even be Beto. It'll be a good, healthy,
five six seven percent win. But I can't promise that
because if indeed there are people, look at the Senate
District nine things where Lee Wanskanz lost to Taylor Rimett.
She's gonna beat him in November, one presumes, because that
the district will reflect itself once again. But there were dispirited,
angry John Huffman supporters. Oh she didn't reach out to us,
what are we twelve years old? And that grudge affected
that race and suppressed her turnout. There will be a
support rest of effect on the turnout for either corn
un or Passion, But because there'll be people holding grudges
who will not come out for the other guy, I
hope it's not many, because if it's enough, then tall
Rico wins. I pray, I hope. I ultimately don't think
that'll I will tell you that will make this rice
closer than it would otherwise have been.
Speaker 1: You say, though, that it's not going to happen. I
think you know you have a quarter century of history
on your side for that. But the actions of Trump,
the actions of other power brokers, and the Republican Party
suggest that they are at least worried enough about this
to be trying to do something, including you know, helping
corn and spend seventy million dollars in the primary. I mean,
there seems to be fear in the Republican Party of
tall Rico.
Speaker 4: Well, the Bedo phenomenon showed that you're better. It's an
old coaching analogy. Don't ever take anything for granted. Play
like you're ten points behind on the road, no matter
what the situation and the opponent. It is smart to
campaign aggressively and raise money aggressively, no matter what. You'd
rather do that and not have to than have to
and not do it. Nobody wants to be caught napping again.
If you want to take a moment on what happened
in democrat Land, there is nothing like the ascendancy of
James Tallerico to give me an appreciation for Jasmine Crockett.
And I am not kidding Jasmine Crockett on her worst day,
from a conservative standpoint, was just a fire hose of
Democrat index cards. He's Hitler, orange man, bad, you know,
stuff I've been used to every day. This is just
purely a Republican perspective, which I could. There are some
things I say that are just from me, other things
that I take it at thirty thousand foot level to
analyze what everybody's doing. But on Jasmin Crockett's worst day,
she did not offend my sensibilities as deeply as James
Tallerico going ahead and being for abortion, which he gets
to do, being for opener borders, which he can do
thinking they're six or twelve or thirty seven genders, which
he can do. But his suggestion that Jesus agrees with
him on these things is blasphemy. This is heresy of
the highest order. Now it's vital that I say he
ain't playing to me, I ain't voting for him. Will
this be damaging to independence? And I'm going to tell
you every day between that, I mean, there's good news
and bad news. And having the Democrat race settled, they
don't have to mess with with a runoff. But already
Tallarico is getting absolutely torched from in conservative media for
just oh, I don't want to hate my neighbor. Nobody's
telling you to hate your neighbor, dude. The continuing smears
of more conventional Bible believers, I mean, it is, it
is crazy. It may well be that all of this
that I've just described doesn't hurt him at all, because
the definition of political damage is when it loses you
support from people who supported you yesterday. Me flaming on
tell Rico talking about his latest bs doesn't hurt him
at all until and unless people who are willing to
support him no longer are, and that remains a huge, huge.
Speaker 3: I mean, I do think tell Rico is you know,
I think on election night, right, there was that sort
of very common wisdom of, well, the Republicans are going
to tear each other apart with this runoff, and he
gets to just sort of, you know, save his pennies
and save his attacks and all that, until the general
and Republicans wasted no time in saying we can do
two things at once. We can run a very competitive
runoff and we can start flaming you. And I think
probably if he in a fictional world where he and
Jasmine Crockett were in some runoff for several more months,
potentially would have saved him some of that, and it
would have all started June first. But it was always
going to be what it was going to be, which
is that Republicans are going to try to chip away
at his support among independents, among Hispanic.
Speaker 2: Voters, among religious voters. And you know, he's to your point.
Speaker 3: I think a lot of Democrats are not necessarily going
to be turned off by some of that. I think
his supporters are going to support him. It's these independence
and particularly I think Hispanic voters that both sides are
going to try to really court.
Speaker 1: To the It was very clear that there were some
clips of things he said, you know, in the twenty
twenty to twenty twenty two range that were cued up
for as soon as he became the nominee. And I
think we'll be seeing those clips, you know, basically every
day between now and November. And you know, we've seen this.
We saw what happened in the Colin all read Ted Cruz,
you know, where basically every advertisement was Colin all Red
wants to you know, destroy women's sports and all these things.
And I think again the conventional wisdom is that that
had an impact, you know. I mean, you can also
argue that he pulled closer to Cruz than you know,
outperformed the Democratic at at the top of the ticket.
So maybe that conventional rism could be wrong. But we
are seeing the blueprint, and I think one of the
key questions is to whether this is a competitive race
or not will be how much does that stick on
him and how much can he define himself as someone
who up until relatively recently was still largely pretty unknown
to the public.
Speaker 4: Correct, and that is what enables him to do something.
It's probably time for me to give brother Taller Eico
a little bit of credit for something that he's done.
It's very smart. Is this whole notion of I'm a
new kind of politician, I'm tired of the old divisive
ways that this is wickedly genius for a couple of things.
Number one, this notion that I am a peacemaker. I'm
not divisive, of course you are. Everyone is divisive. If
you say there are two genders, it's divisive to people
who think there's twelve. You say there's twelve, it's divisive
to people it is. I'm tired of being at war
with my neighbor, well, you know, the Republican Texas, which
I think is still a majority, would say to mister Tallerico,
if you're wanting to open the border as much as
you seem to be, we are going to go to
war with you. If you want to trans our kids,
we are going to go to war with you. So
this notion that he's some ambivalent peacemaker is nonsense, but
it's still very very smart for him to position himself
as that, and in going after him. If I'm advising
either corn or Paxton, I think I would probably spend
less time on the stuff that I was just harping
on a little bit ago, the heresy and the carrying
around some curious Bible that says that God is ambivalent
about abortion and other curious non existent passages. I would
spend more time trying to explode the myth that he's
all that new or all that different. I might ask
the question, really, name one liberal view that James Tallerico
does not hold one thing? Wait, give me one liberal
view that brother Tallerco does not hold. And if you
can't find one, or can't find many, then maybe it
ain't that new Maybe he is Colin alright, maybe he
is Mado, just in a different package, attempting to put
biblical lipstick on the same old leftist pig.
Speaker 1: I mean, I would say to push back against that
a little bit. I mean, there have been some people
I saw something a Fox News clip today this morning
of like he's too liberal, like he wouldn't even get
elected in San Francisco, and yeah, and like, I don't
I'm not sure if I buy that. I mean I
looked him up in the sort of like left to
right rankings that Mark Jones puts out every year, and
he's he's kind of like right in the middle of
the Democratic Party. And I think you can credibly make
an argument that that is far to the left of
the Texas electorate. And I'm but I like the sort
of painting him as like far to the left of
Democrats feels not wholly supported by Evan here. And I
do think that there is a difference in tone, if
not in substance. Right the idea of like are is
are we going to accuse our opponents of being evil
and have the most aggressive, you know, divisive language possible,
or are we going to you know, encircle it in
a message of we disagree, but you know it's built
in love. Is, I think, a different message than we've seen.
Speaker 4: So two things. Number one, you're totally right, there's not
really that much. There's a lot of ven diagram overlap
between what you said when I said, yeah, I don't
suggest that that James Salery go is AOC or is
Bernie Sanders. But it's sort of the degree of liberalism
that he comes in with. When I said, name a
liberal view that he does not hold. There's some that
he holds, but he just doesn't beat them to the
level that maybe the squad does. This notion of the
nice guy that is packaging on steroids. Is it nice
to smear Bible believing Texas Christians as being homophobic, transphobic,
everybody phobic, not liking brown people. This is the oldest
trick in the book that this oh so sweet, oh
so nice, oh so mannerly mister taller Eco will use,
and that is that anybody with a scriptural belief in
two genders, a belief that we actually need borders, that
we are essentially racist and hateful people, that's not nice.
Speaker 2: Well, I think this will be his the challenge he
will face.
Speaker 3: I think probably realistically more so if he's facing Ken
Paxton than John Cornyn, but probably no matter who he's facing,
which is that when you're up against Jasmine Crockett, you're
portraying yourself as I'm you know, the sort.
Speaker 2: Of more like more mannerly option.
Speaker 3: I'm more like, you know, I'm the bring everybody together,
I'm the seminarian, I'm the pastor. I'm going to be
sort of the like, you know, kind good neighbor guy,
whereas Jasmine Crockett, it's the big fighter, you know, that
energy when you're.
Speaker 2: Going up against the Republicans. I mean, does that change?
Speaker 3: Does he stick as loyally to this framework of you know,
I'm not going to be coming out swinging, you know,
or does he try to move slightly more in the
direction of Jasmine Crockett a little more fire.
Speaker 2: It'll be interesting to see.
Speaker 4: That is a great question. This is really the first
time I've thought because because we're sort of turning pages
that are down the road. If we're hanging out in
Tallarico headquarters, what is the playbook of running against Cornan
versus what is the playbook of running against passing? They
differ in a couple of really key ways. Great question.
If Tallarico is running against Cornan, he should know that
there are a few Democrats who might be center left.
Maybe they actually pay attention in Church easy, not really,
And by that I mean there are a couple of
Democrats who will vote for John Cornick, They just will
are There are no Democrats that will vote for Kenn Paxton,
which means that there is more cover for mister Tallerico
to really go all in, to really go in hot
and heavy, to go in as hot and heavy against
Paxton as Paxton will go in hot and heavy against him.
It is going to be If you think that the
runoff to May twenty seven is going to be filled
with a lot of fisticufs on the Republican side, you
wait until you see Paxton versus tallar Eco, because that
will be a hair match rage in the cage.
Speaker 1: Right, Okay, I want to just before we let you go.
I mean, you are someone who is in a lot
of communication with the Republican grassroots, those voters. How is
this Trump Cornyn Paxton drama playing out among them right now?
What are people how are they responding to this dialogue?
Speaker 4: So far I am. I'm very lucky and blessed and
fortunate that here I am as a pretty staunch Republican.
Well pretty staunch Republican. There are people who are less
staunch who are glad to be in touch with me,
and they're actual Democrats. There are people who listen to
the show and call me who think I'm wrong about
absolutely everything, and I am blessed to hear from them
and glad to have those conversations, because we don't have
enough of those kind of conversations. So in navigating that,
especially in mccornyan versus Paxton, the world as a Trump
loving Republican and as a voter in this primary whose
politics are a little bit closer to Kens than Cornyn's,
let me add is to make that sentence even longer,
if that's even possible, that I believe Cornin is over criticized.
I think he has done a masterful job of portraying
himself as a Trump ally during Trump two point zero,
and I asked him directly, I said, Senator, everybody's concern
is that when Trump's not president anymore and you're still there,
that you're going to go back to being a Mitch
mcconough clone, will you be as MAGA friendly when Trump's
not there as you are now? And he said absolutely
calls from people who say he's live, and I'm not
prepared to say that. I don't know if I can
totally believe it, because establishment clothes are hard to put
in a second hand drawer. But I think I have
a lot of good things to say about centertor Cornyn
and his loyal service and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
But I probably lean and I probably present, I represent.
I identify as more of a Paxton voter now, to
answer your question, in taking questions, in establishing a landscape
where everybody can come, bring me anything. The Cornyn camp,
the cornn portion of Republican Texas, I think is more
scared of losing than they are at Paxton winning. Obviously,
they have bought into this notion that only Cornyn can win,
and thus their vote for Cornyn is partly a show
of support appreciation for everything that he has done. It's
a show appreciation and support for everything that he has represented,
but it's also a desire to keep the seat above
all else, keep the seat. And the Paxton portion of
Republican Texas is ready for change in the way that
the Trump voters were ready for change in coming away
from the establishment of the Republican Party. The Paxton vote
is a vote for term limits, it's a vote for change.
It's a vote for having somebody in that Senate seat
who you don't have to wonder about. I had a
caller say it was a really great call who said, Mark,
I've heard you interview Senator Cornyn. It has made me
like him more. It has made me it has given
me a higher opinion of Cornan than the average Paxton
voter has. But all other things being equal, once Trump
is gone, I would hope that Senator Cornyn would continue
to be as MAGA friendly as America first. But with
Ken Paxton, I don't have to wonder, and that is
the passion of the Paxton voter. So now we get
to figure out which is the larger number, And I
have no idea which it is. I know what the
poll indicate, I know what past history indicates that it
and listen, I recognize and stipulate that it is. It
is an advantageous landscape for Ken. But what lies ahead
is eleven weeks whatever of cornin and a ton of
money identifying Ken as a loathsome human being that can't
not have some effect? Will will? Will that be damaging
to Ken in some way? Yes, it might be just
a sliver that takes away one or two percentage points.
It may be worse. I will tell you that if
Ken is able to take this Save Act moment, this
Save Act chapter and make that case I made more
toward the beginning of our chat, or he's able to say, yeah,
remember that, especially if it passes. Yeah, what's that Save
Act thing? I did that, and I'm not even a
senator yet, make me a senator and watch what happens.
That is enough to subsume any corn and attack. It's
enough to enable Ken to continue to overcome what is
a steamer trunk full of oppo research on things from
the relatively recent past. Is the most amazing example of that.
In a word about that, A lot of people come
after me, and I'm sure you've heard this. Hey, you
Republicans are supposed to be about values. We would all
like for our standard bearers to be choir boys and
boy scouts and have completely blemish free backgrounds, and the
wise philosopher Kings that's the ideal. It doesn't always happen
ultimately in the modern era, and I mean modern going
back fifty years. What the kind of president you will be,
the kind of senator you will be, the kind of
represent matters more than things in your personal past. And
for people thinking that's just a wilful blindness from Republicans,
I give you Bill Clinton, who engaged in sex acts
in the actual oval office and went on to become
a continuing respected elder statesman of the Democrat Party. It's
not a Republican thing or a Democrat thing, It's a
human thing. Probably more urgently now, what matters most of all.
John Corny is going to be talking about character, character, character,
and that's fine. I would be too if I were
in his position. But the character that voters probably care
about the most is promising to do things and actually
doing them. Well.
Speaker 1: It's going to be an exciting few weeks looking forward
to seeing how this plays out.
Speaker 4: I'm exhausted already. I'm totally kidding. That's totally satirical. It
is energizing, and in fact, I think it's possible to
overstate how exhausting and so much money I'm not worried
about the money at all. I think that seemed to
be a big Trump concern. Well, after this, you know,
one hundreds of millions of dollars what like, there won't
be any money left for Trumps, for Paxton versus Tellerico
or Cornyn versus to We'll we'll find the money.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: Well, it's time for us to get this up before
any the truth socials.
Speaker 2: And the other friends changes completely.
Speaker 1: Change the situation. Thank you so much for joining us, Mark,
thanks Eleanor, and thank you to our producers, Rob and Chris.
We will talk to y'all next week.