Speaker 1: Patrip Cast listeners. Once again, we're taking a break for
Speaker 1: the holidays and are going to play you a conversation
Speaker 1: from the Texas Tribune Festival last month. This week's conversation
Speaker 1: features three candidates for statewide office on the Republican side,
Speaker 1: Nate Sheets, who's running for AG Commissioner, Joan Huffman, and
Speaker 1: Aaron Wrights, who are both running for Attorney General. The
Speaker 1: conversations will be moderated by Brad Johnson, formerly of the
Speaker 1: Texan News outlet. We'll be back next week with a
Speaker 1: new episode featuring me and Eleanor.
Speaker 2: Happy New Year, Good afternoon, Austin. Great to be here
Speaker 2: with y'all.
Speaker 3: My name's Brad Johnson. I'm a senior reporter at the
Speaker 3: Texan cover statewide politics. I see GUIDs of the Tribune
Speaker 3: and all the other reporters in here quite a bit,
Speaker 3: especially with the legislatures and session. We got rapid fire
Speaker 3: interview setup today. We've got three republic Cans back to
Speaker 3: back to back, one for Agriculture Commission, two for the
Speaker 3: Attorney General's office. First up, we've got Nate Sheets, Republican
Speaker 3: running for ag commission.
Speaker 4: Nate Welcome, Thanks Brad.
Speaker 2: Great to be here with you. Thank you.
Speaker 3: So you know you're new with this. You're a first
Speaker 3: time candidate. You never run for anything before. Actually, let
Speaker 3: me sit first. Say everyone, make sure you silence your
Speaker 3: phones please. You never run for office.
Speaker 2: Before, that's correct.
Speaker 3: You have had a pretty interesting background, to say the least.
Speaker 3: Once you run us through where you've been and you
Speaker 3: know how you made your keep.
Speaker 5: Yeah, thank you. So it's fun to be back here
Speaker 5: in Austin. I grew up down in Hayes County with
Speaker 5: Southwest Texas. I was never smart enough. They wouldn't let
Speaker 5: me into ut and so I here we go, and
Speaker 5: so moved up to Dallas, where I met my lovely wife, Patty,
Speaker 5: where she's in here somewhere.
Speaker 2: Patty's back there.
Speaker 5: And right after Patty and I got married, she told
Speaker 5: us that we need a hobby together, and she was
Speaker 5: thinking jogging, working out. But I bought a bee high
Speaker 5: back in nineteen ninety six as a hobby and put
Speaker 5: it at my parents' backyard because we lived in a apartment.
Speaker 5: And that resulted in turning into what today is the
Speaker 5: largest honey company in America called Nature Nates. But I
Speaker 5: also went on a mission trip that year and at
Speaker 5: the same time, wound up spending twelve years in full
Speaker 5: time Christian ministry, travel into eighty eight countries around the
Speaker 5: world telling.
Speaker 2: People about Jesus.
Speaker 5: And so I left there in twenty ten and started
Speaker 5: doing the honey company full time. And at the time,
Speaker 5: and honey, you know, people really didn't trust honey companies.
Speaker 5: There was a lot of confusion and fraud, and so
Speaker 5: I felt like we needed to be the most trusted
Speaker 5: honey company in the world, and the only way to
Speaker 5: have trust.
Speaker 2: Is through transparency.
Speaker 5: So I started testing all the honey that we bought
Speaker 5: twice for pest sides, rbside, fun sides, corn syrup, rice syrup, antibiotics,
Speaker 5: and so at first that really kind of annoyed the beekeepers,
Speaker 5: but over time they realized Nathan's going to pay more
Speaker 5: than anybody else, and he's going to pay early, and
Speaker 5: he's not going to take any deductions. And so the
Speaker 5: benefit of doing that is over time, I started to
Speaker 5: motivate the beekeepers and how they produced honey, and all
Speaker 5: of a sudden, I started getting a lot more clean
Speaker 5: honey over the years, and so so we just did
Speaker 5: that and within just a few years we became the
Speaker 5: number one brand that honey in America, but we also
Speaker 5: created the raw and unfiltered sector of honey. Before that,
Speaker 5: no one had done that. And at the time honey
Speaker 5: was like at three hundred million. Today it's at one
Speaker 5: point five billion, and it all came from that raw
Speaker 5: and unfiltered sector.
Speaker 2: So, you know, I come at this.
Speaker 5: Race is you know, thirty years of food experience, but
Speaker 5: we also have the calcaf and we do cutting horses
Speaker 5: and things like that, but really knowing how agriculture works,
Speaker 5: knowing how to scale a small company and help small
Speaker 5: producers become large producers and penetrate markets and have more revenue.
Speaker 3: So when we think the agriculture industry in Texas, which
Speaker 3: is obviously a massive one, but typically we think crops,
Speaker 3: we think livestock. What's the share of the egg industry
Speaker 3: that is encompassed by the honey industry, Like, is that
Speaker 3: is that a huge section.
Speaker 5: Or no, No, I mean the whole the industry is
Speaker 5: probably you know, if you included the ingredient side, you
Speaker 5: included the industrial and the.
Speaker 2: Food service side, it's probably two billion.
Speaker 5: You know, the egg industry is one hundred and fifty
Speaker 5: eight billion, so a little bit a little bit broader
Speaker 5: when you start.
Speaker 2: Adding in corn and cattle and wheat.
Speaker 3: What are the biggest challenges facing the agriculture industry today?
Speaker 5: Yeah, let me ask you. Anybody in agriculture in here? Okay, oh,
Speaker 5: we've got one very nice all right. Anybody eat food today?
Speaker 5: Now here's the real question. Who believes that the food
Speaker 5: that you eat is related to your health?
Speaker 2: This matters.
Speaker 5: So I think we are today at this day and
Speaker 5: age in America where we have a president who understands
Speaker 5: the relationship between.
Speaker 2: Agriculture and our health.
Speaker 5: Because we have issues like seventy percent of all Americans
Speaker 5: having one chronic disease or more. We spend five trillion
Speaker 5: dollars a year treating symptoms of diseases related to the
Speaker 5: food that we eat. We have seventy eight percent of
Speaker 5: kids eighteen to twenty five who can't even serve in
Speaker 5: the military. And yet at the same time, we're losing
Speaker 5: small agriculture. Last year, we lost one hundred and twenty
Speaker 5: two thousand farms in America. That's seven percent. That's a
Speaker 5: pretty alarming statistic. We actually lost eighty percent of the
Speaker 5: bees and Texas this past year. Sixty five percent across
Speaker 5: the United States. Last week in Texas we lost sixty
Speaker 5: eight farms. So we did this week and the week before.
Speaker 5: All the way back to twenty eighteen, we've lost seventeen
Speaker 5: thousand small farms. So, you know, the issues that we
Speaker 5: have in agriculture today is really the intersection of consolidation
Speaker 5: and food and how do we start to deconsolidate big
Speaker 5: agriculture and have smaller agriculture that really cares about the
Speaker 5: food that they produce.
Speaker 3: Where's the ag Department fit into this? What's its role
Speaker 3: with the industry.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so in nineteen ninety four, when I got into
Speaker 5: the honey business, I was a member of the Go
Speaker 5: Texan program. And the Go Texan program is part of
Speaker 5: text Apartment of Agriculture, and it's this little logo that
Speaker 5: looks like a brand of the State of Texas, and
Speaker 5: you know that is there as the TDA is to
Speaker 5: try to help small producers, you know, grow. Having been
Speaker 5: a member for many years, they don't do anything to
Speaker 5: help you grow. I'm not belittling their efforts, but they
Speaker 5: never helped me penetrate a store, They never helped me
Speaker 5: do marketing.
Speaker 2: They you know, there was nothing there.
Speaker 5: And so I think that the role of the text
Speaker 5: Department of Agriculture is to help farmers and ranchers not
Speaker 5: just thrive or survive, but thrive, and so being able
Speaker 5: to go and utilize tools like the Texas Department of
Speaker 5: the Go Texas program and know how to really use
Speaker 5: that as a way to help farmers and ranchers grow
Speaker 5: that product by penetrating retail, by creating a more robust
Speaker 5: direct to consumer platform, so you're selling it full retail.
Speaker 5: Because the issue that farmers have today in nineteen eighty
Speaker 5: they made forty cents of every one dollar food forty cents.
Speaker 5: Today they make fifteen cents. Now, any of y'all, but
Speaker 5: I don't want to really have a job where I
Speaker 5: make sixty percent less forty five years into my career.
Speaker 5: Farmers the ranching side, they used to make seventy cents.
Speaker 5: Now they make thirty. You know who does make seventy cents?
Speaker 5: The four packers, Tyson, Cargill, JBS, National Beef.
Speaker 2: It's been reversed. And so we have these types of
Speaker 2: issues where the TDA.
Speaker 5: Really needs to be more thoughtful about how do we
Speaker 5: help people stay in business, how do we level the
Speaker 5: playing field? And so, for instance, in in nineteen seventy
Speaker 5: we had about eight hundred meat packing plants across the state.
Speaker 5: They could make seventy cents of every dollar because packing
Speaker 5: was a commodity. We need to get back to that
Speaker 5: so people that are small producers have the ability to
Speaker 5: go process their beef and to be able to sell
Speaker 5: it to consumers direct. Actually just got a text message
Speaker 5: just a little while ago New Hampshire. New Hampshire just
Speaker 5: passed a law that there don't require ranchers to have
Speaker 5: USDA approved certification on their box beef. They can just
Speaker 5: sell it anywhere in the state and they don't have
Speaker 5: to sell it by the quarter or by the half.
Speaker 5: And so New Hampshire's one up to us here in
Speaker 5: Texas to help ranchers be able to be in business
Speaker 5: more easily. And that's what the TDA needs to do.
Speaker 5: We need to help people be in business better.
Speaker 3: When I think of two more external problems that the
Speaker 3: agriculture industry is facing in Texas, I think of water
Speaker 3: that's a problem the entire state has to deal with
Speaker 3: and is coping with right now, and then the screw worm.
Speaker 3: Where do you see those two issues on the list
Speaker 3: of top priorities for the states in the agg Department specifically.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's hard to grow crops or animals if you
Speaker 5: don't have water. So it's pretty important. And having been
Speaker 5: out on the campaign trail, it doesn't matter where I go, North, southeast,
Speaker 5: or west, people are upset about water, either someone coming
Speaker 5: in taking it from them, like in East Texas or
Speaker 5: up in North Texas where there is imminent domaining four
Speaker 5: hundred thousand acres of fifth, sixth, seventh generation of farmland
Speaker 5: of people, so they can make an aquifer or a reservoir,
Speaker 5: you know, to be able to provide water to the
Speaker 5: city of Dallas. And so I've got a ranch out
Speaker 5: in West Texas. Water out in West Texas is pretty
Speaker 5: sparse right now. So it's a massive issue. No one's
Speaker 5: got a silver bullet, candidly, but it's going to take
Speaker 5: a lot of really smart people. And I think at
Speaker 5: the end of the day, we're going to have to
Speaker 5: do some things as consumers that maybe none of us
Speaker 5: want to do. No one wants a restrictive waterhead. That's California,
Speaker 5: not Texas. But if we all do something, I mean
Speaker 5: there's going to be some issues. The new World screwworm.
Speaker 5: You know, obviously everybody know what that is. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: So the New World screwworm is a fly that lays
Speaker 5: an egg, typically on an open wound on an animal,
Speaker 5: the umbilical cord of a newborn calf, or an orifice
Speaker 5: on an animal or a person, and the fly lays
Speaker 5: it looks like a blowfly, that big, ugly kind of
Speaker 5: green blowfly, but it lays an egg and within seven
Speaker 5: hours that egg hatches and then that pupa burrows, screws
Speaker 5: itself into the living host, and it eats living flesh,
Speaker 5: not dead flesh. So we had an outbreak here in
Speaker 5: nineteen seventy one, caused billions of dollars of damage, and
Speaker 5: it's coming back. The way it was stopped in nineteen
Speaker 5: seventy one was through they sterilized male flies. The female
Speaker 5: mate one time and she doesn't know if she mates
Speaker 5: with a sterile male or a fertile male, but they
Speaker 5: would produce about five hundred male flies a week, drop
Speaker 5: them into the infected areas, and eventually they just burned
Speaker 5: them out. So we had down in Panama sit facility
Speaker 5: the sterile insect, and so that was kind of our
Speaker 5: line of defense. But during COVID, and then also with
Speaker 5: the immigration issues and even cartels utilizing cattle trying to
Speaker 5: use it as a way to ferry people up. We've
Speaker 5: had that New World screw worm within the border of
Speaker 5: seventy miles, so the USDA has the border shut down,
Speaker 5: and so the cattle, the feeding industry of cattle really
Speaker 5: relies upon inputs from Mexico, Mexican cattle to be able
Speaker 5: to go into the processing facilities to be able to
Speaker 5: provide beef to McDonald's and Burger King and everyone else.
Speaker 5: So that's just another issue on top of historically low
Speaker 5: cattle population numbers lowest in seventy years, and one of
Speaker 5: the highest prices that you've had, and all the input
Speaker 5: costs continue to go through the.
Speaker 3: Roof low in large part because of the droughts we've
Speaker 3: seen in recent years.
Speaker 5: Right, Yeah, the cattle population, yeah, and the input costs.
Speaker 5: I mean, I've got we have this conversation internally inside
Speaker 5: of our team. So if you have a how that
Speaker 5: you want to hold off until the spring and have
Speaker 5: her have a calf, you have all that cost of
Speaker 5: feed and everything else between now and that spring, and
Speaker 5: so it becomes a utilization, you know, time value of money.
Speaker 5: So do you send that cow off to get processed
Speaker 5: and buy her back, you know, pregnant or by a
Speaker 5: by one back pregnant in the spring.
Speaker 2: And that's what a lot of people are doing.
Speaker 5: And so we really have to help figure out and
Speaker 5: incentivize producers to hold back heifers and calves so we
Speaker 5: can birth them and grow that population.
Speaker 3: So back on the screwhere, we've seen some butting of
Speaker 3: heads between the federal government and the states on the
Speaker 3: issue of how exactly do we fix this. You mentioned
Speaker 3: the sterile flies, there's also fly traps. What do you
Speaker 3: make of at least somewhat of a disagreement between the
Speaker 3: state and federal government on how to address this.
Speaker 5: I don't know if it was so much of a
Speaker 5: disagreement as it was that we had a leader of
Speaker 5: the Texas Department of Agriculture that was viewed as wasting
Speaker 5: time and resources and coming up with a plan that
Speaker 5: was more about him using it as a way to
Speaker 5: promote himself and coming up with three hundred and fifty
Speaker 5: traps and having a I think it's called swarm bait
Speaker 5: that wasn't even an FDA or EPA approves lure, and
Speaker 5: out of those three hundred and fifty traps they deployed,
Speaker 5: they got one fly, not even screwworm. And the USDA
Speaker 5: has nine thousand traps scattered along the border, and they
Speaker 5: have USDA employees. And so Brooke Rawlins candidly got tired
Speaker 5: of seeing how my opponent was dealing with it, and
Speaker 5: so she did a public SmackDown on him by just saying,
Speaker 5: stop wasting time of money and get out of the way.
Speaker 5: So the adults can handle this. And so that's so
Speaker 5: they're working hard on it. And even this morning, I
Speaker 5: was meeting with the local association and they gave me
Speaker 5: the car.
Speaker 2: And I had talked with these people previously.
Speaker 5: But there's a company called three M and they can
Speaker 5: produce a mobile sterile fly facility for ten million dollars
Speaker 5: that can do like two hundred and fifty thousand flies
Speaker 5: a week. So you know, I've done that quick calculation.
Speaker 5: For about one hundred million bucks, we can get enough
Speaker 5: facilities to you know, to be able to have our
Speaker 5: five hundred million flies. So I'm going to go reach
Speaker 5: out to their CEO and talk with them, and I
Speaker 5: provide it to Dan Hunter, who is the farm service
Speaker 5: agent for USDA here in Texas.
Speaker 3: Have you talked to Secretary Rollins about your candiacy? I
Speaker 3: have she backing you or she staying out of it?
Speaker 2: Is this just between me and.
Speaker 3: You'd be a pretty big endorsement if you can get it.
Speaker 5: Well, you know what, Honestly, I think her position is
Speaker 5: it's not her place to endorse. She's on Donald Trump's cabinet.
Speaker 5: But she did tell me that she's working in the
Speaker 5: background and she's she's glad that were in the campaign.
Speaker 3: Let's let's get to the campaign side of this. You know,
Speaker 3: you famously were one of Sid Miller's biggest donors before
Speaker 3: you decided to run against him. I remember hearing the
Speaker 3: story of out the conversation you had when he was
Speaker 3: in his mind hopefully vuying for the USDA spot and
Speaker 3: he was being considered for that and didn't get it. Ultimately,
Speaker 3: there was a conversation between you two and you talked
Speaker 3: about this. You talked about your desire to run, and
Speaker 3: according to you, he says, do it right. I asked
Speaker 3: him about that the other day and he said, well,
Speaker 3: Nate conveniently leaves out the second half of that, and that's.
Speaker 4: If I didn't run. If I didn't run, what do
Speaker 4: you mean respond to that? Please?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So you know, I try to live my life according
Speaker 5: to the biblical principles. And there's this verse in the
Speaker 5: Bible says give honor to honors due. And since I've
Speaker 5: been one of his donors, and actually my buddy Rick Sandtrum,
Speaker 5: we have been up in Washington, d C. And we're
Speaker 5: having lunch and Rick said, because I was the CEO
Speaker 5: of Nature Nates until November of last year and I
Speaker 5: stepped away and I was just on the board and
Speaker 5: so I was just talking to Rick. I said, Man,
Speaker 5: I'm just trying to figure out where I can go
Speaker 5: invest my life next and go make a difference, you know,
Speaker 5: for God's kingdom and people. And so Rick said, why
Speaker 5: don't you go be the act commissioner. I was like,
Speaker 5: you met governor or senator. I mean, so it's so
Speaker 5: we started talking about that, and he said, you know,
Speaker 5: you've been in the agg industry. People are getting sick.
Speaker 5: You understand that part. Go make a difference. So I
Speaker 5: came back talk with Patty about that, and we looked
Speaker 5: at the job description and candidly, I was quite surprised
Speaker 5: what the responsibilities were. Because I've been a donor of
Speaker 5: his for a long time, didn't realize he was in
Speaker 5: charge of feeding five and a half million kids in
Speaker 5: school lunch programs.
Speaker 2: And so Patty said.
Speaker 5: Man, I could really see that because she said a
Speaker 5: lot of the things I was attempting to do at
Speaker 5: Nature Nate's. I was trying to, you know, do a
Speaker 5: lot of those things that the act Commissioner's responsibilities were.
Speaker 5: So I called sit up, took him lunch in March
Speaker 5: and asked him what his plans were. And he actually
Speaker 5: said he was thinking about running for John Cornet and
Speaker 5: see for Senate. And I said, I think that's a
Speaker 5: great idea. And I said I would like to run,
Speaker 5: you know, praying about running for agg Commissioner, and kind
Speaker 5: of laid it out, and he said, I think you
Speaker 5: should run.
Speaker 2: And I asked him if that was an endorsement and
Speaker 2: he said no.
Speaker 5: And so so you know, I didn't go to ask permission.
Speaker 5: I just went to tell him what I was thinking
Speaker 5: about doing. Again, that was in March, and so then
Speaker 5: April I filed. May. We went out and had a
Speaker 5: big launch party up at our farm up in McKinney,
Speaker 5: and then after Ken Paxton announced that he was running
Speaker 5: in June or July, Sid announced that he was.
Speaker 2: Going to run again.
Speaker 5: So this did not I didn't go down this road
Speaker 5: as an anti SID rant, you know, candidly, but I
Speaker 5: will tell you now that I've gotten into it, the unethicalness,
Speaker 5: the corruption, the things that I've seen that go on
Speaker 5: at TDA. I'm not anti SID, but the guy needs
Speaker 5: to be fired. It's time to replace him. If it
Speaker 5: were my company and he was running that company for me,
Speaker 5: I would fire him and all his leadership team because
Speaker 5: it's not the way that you would run a company,
Speaker 5: and it's certainly not the way that you stewed taxpayers
Speaker 5: dollars in the opportunity to make an impact in the
Speaker 5: agriculture and all of Texas and ultimately America.
Speaker 3: We made an accusation. Let's get in specifics. What is
Speaker 3: it about the TDA that you think is corrupt or
Speaker 3: going awry?
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's you know, Sid calls me a rhino in
Speaker 5: elitist rhino, and I would just say that there's even
Speaker 5: ambiguity and how he talks. I mean, when he was
Speaker 5: in the state legislature, he actually voted to give illegal
Speaker 5: aliens in state tuition. You know, he was against Donald
Speaker 5: Trump's border wall and said that the Mexican government needs
Speaker 5: to have more input on the on the wall. When
Speaker 5: he left the legislature, he became a lobbyist, you know,
Speaker 5: in between that and running for text Department of Agriculture.
Speaker 5: But the ethical issues beyond him using state resources. I
Speaker 5: mean the one article about he went and got the
Speaker 5: Jesus shot or something, you know, and the state took
Speaker 5: away his budgets, as Texas Department of Agriculture actually told
Speaker 5: me at lunch, he goes, you know, I only have
Speaker 5: like a two thousand dollars travel budget as a state legislator,
Speaker 5: as a state agency head, I thought, huh, that's weird.
Speaker 5: You didn't tell me the rest of the reason why
Speaker 5: they took it away, you know, because he had abused it.
Speaker 5: But you know, his campaign manager and this is where
Speaker 5: the whole thing, you know, when the whole HMP thing
Speaker 5: came about. The TDA was responsible for writing the regulations
Speaker 5: for the state. I think that they did kind of
Speaker 5: leave this crack in the door that ultimately became the
Speaker 5: divide between the governor and lieutenant governor. But his campaign manager,
Speaker 5: guy named Todd Smith went around and told people they're
Speaker 5: only going to be fifteen licenses in the state for
Speaker 5: HMP growers, and that licensed one hundred dollars. But if
Speaker 5: you give me twenty five thousand dollars, Todd said, I
Speaker 5: will make sure that.
Speaker 2: You're one of the fifteen.
Speaker 5: So after I guess he had about one hundred and
Speaker 5: fifty one hundred and fifty thousand dollars sent to his
Speaker 5: bank account. He was arrested and charged with commercial felony bribery.
Speaker 5: And then in November of last year, he plgged guilty
Speaker 5: to that because they had subpoena SID to come in
Speaker 5: and testify again. But he negotiated since he plaged guilty,
Speaker 5: negotiated a deferred sentence. But he wasn't allowed to be
Speaker 5: a lobbyist anymore. I think four years he couldn't be
Speaker 5: a lobbyist. So now Todd, Poor Todd's out of work.
Speaker 5: So SID hired him as the chief of staff the
Speaker 5: Texan Department of Agriculture today, where he gets paid two
Speaker 5: hundred and twenty thousand dollars running the very agency where
Speaker 5: he was defrauding people that customer base. Now go back
Speaker 5: to my example of if this was your company, and
Speaker 5: you had a guy that was running that and hired
Speaker 5: a consultant that did all that. You would make their
Speaker 5: head spin so fast. So it's just it's just the
Speaker 5: boldness of them. And Sid says, well, they were after
Speaker 5: me like Donald Trump. They were after Donald Trump. And
Speaker 5: Todd only plaged guilty because he was here in Travis
Speaker 5: County and there was a Soros DA down there. He
Speaker 5: plgged guilty to a felony people. So you know this
Speaker 5: is continued, you know, to happen. He's now, you know,
Speaker 5: go up and see the music festival that he sponsored
Speaker 5: two weeks ago up in Waxahachi that now all of
Speaker 5: a sudden it's the Go Texas Music Festival. He's got
Speaker 5: banners around the eleven sound stages of himself and he's
Speaker 5: the announcer and gave himself created some award and gave
Speaker 5: it to himself. So he's just you know, they're just
Speaker 5: using state resources like it's their own private company. And
Speaker 5: I think it's atrocious. You know that that's how things
Speaker 5: are run. And they've had one hundred and thirty people
Speaker 5: leave since March. One hundred and thirty and a lot
Speaker 5: of those have been fired by Todd and a lot
Speaker 5: of them have left by choice, but they have gutted
Speaker 5: the organization of people who really know and care for
Speaker 5: the agriculture community in all of Texas.
Speaker 2: So I know we can do better. You know.
Speaker 5: Culture for me is always Sacker saying, you know, in
Speaker 5: a company, because it's the people, They're the lifeblood, they're
Speaker 5: you know. So as the CEO of Nature and A
Speaker 5: it's my job was cast the vision, help them as
Speaker 5: a leadership team, figure out what we're going to go do,
Speaker 5: and then I serve them to be successful. So it's
Speaker 5: an inverted leadership org chart and that's what we need
Speaker 5: inside Texas Department Agriculture with both consumers Texas families, farmers
Speaker 5: and ranchers at the very top, and all this down
Speaker 5: below serving them to be successful.
Speaker 3: The ethical concerns there you just voice are clearly one
Speaker 3: wedge issue in this race. Another one maybe it's now
Speaker 3: moot after what happened at the federal level, but the
Speaker 3: hemp issue was huge in the legislature. Commissioner Miller was
Speaker 3: against the perspective ban. Where do you fall on that
Speaker 3: policy issue?
Speaker 5: Well, thank you Donald Trump. He took care of it all.
Speaker 5: So it really doesn't matter. You know, I'm a CBD user.
Speaker 5: I put it on joints and you know, it's amazing.
Speaker 5: And so I know that the governor and the Lieutenant
Speaker 5: Governor were kind of on different sides of that. And
Speaker 5: you know, it's the compassion of the governor of wanting
Speaker 5: veterans to be able to have access for PTSD, you know,
Speaker 5: utilizing that. And so I don't think we'd ever want
Speaker 5: to intentionally create harm to people who valiantly saved our
Speaker 5: country and who suffer from challenges from that. But again,
Speaker 5: Donald Trump took care of all that, and it's not
Speaker 5: something I'm gonna have to worry about.
Speaker 3: And how did that happen? Can you can explain what
Speaker 3: the federal government did in that?
Speaker 5: Yeah, so there was the crack in the door that
Speaker 5: I referenced earlier. Is Delta eight or Delta ten, and
Speaker 5: so there are synthetic components of hemp, and so those
Speaker 5: by themselves are inert if they were just sitting there.
Speaker 5: But if you take delta ten and go and spread
Speaker 5: it on a hemp joint, which if you smoked it
Speaker 5: without the Delta eight, you're just smoking a hemp cigarette.
Speaker 5: But you apply delta eight or Delta ten onto it
Speaker 5: and now once you apply heat to it, it gets
Speaker 5: you high, just like THHC does.
Speaker 2: And then there were a lot of edibles and things
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 5: There was a lot of confusion, and Sid's talked about this,
Speaker 5: and he was always, you know, pro these vape shops around.
Speaker 2: The state that sell all of these edibles.
Speaker 5: And yet at the same time he talks about how
Speaker 5: tragic it is that we have, you know, junior high
Speaker 5: kids go in and buy these things and bring them
Speaker 5: back and they sell them in school. So it's like,
Speaker 5: what way is it? You know, you can't have it
Speaker 5: both ways?
Speaker 3: Said, you've never run for office before, and obviously this
Speaker 3: is getting to be a pretty heated race. What's the
Speaker 3: adjustment been like coming from being a donner, not someone
Speaker 3: who's in the fight explicitly at least, to now being
Speaker 3: the one not just receiving punches but delivering them.
Speaker 5: You know, I used to think he got stung a
Speaker 5: lot in the bee keeping industry. Welcome to politics. No, honestly,
Speaker 5: I love it. I mean it's so fun. I love
Speaker 5: going out and meeting everybody, and Patty and I we
Speaker 5: drove across the state.
Speaker 2: The other night.
Speaker 5: I actually ran out of gas going heading towards af
Speaker 5: and you know, I was too focused on the phone.
Speaker 5: But and I told Patty, I said, well I can't.
Speaker 5: I can't do this on video because then Sid can go. Look,
Speaker 5: this guy must have run the text Apartment of Agriculture.
Speaker 5: He can't even get to a campaign event without running
Speaker 5: out of gas. So there you go, said you can
Speaker 5: use that one. But but you know, honestly, going around
Speaker 5: and meeting people, hearing a lot of heartbreaking stories, people
Speaker 5: losing their land, losing their agriculture businesses.
Speaker 2: But it also gives.
Speaker 5: Me more hope that I believe that we genuinely can
Speaker 5: turn this around. You know, farmers and ranchers have a
Speaker 5: revenue problem today. All the expenses continue to go up.
Speaker 5: Like I said earlier, they make forty cents in nineteen
Speaker 5: eighty fifteen cents today. And the one thing I've spent
Speaker 5: a career doing is figuring out how you grow revenue.
Speaker 2: You know, how do you penetrate retail?
Speaker 5: How do you go sell more product and more customers
Speaker 5: for more money. And so yes, farmers and ranchers have
Speaker 5: an expense problem because they don't have any hope for
Speaker 5: their revenue going up.
Speaker 2: But we can change that.
Speaker 5: We can go in and we can you know, create
Speaker 5: an industry to where you know, small producers can go
Speaker 5: and get their own animals butchered and to go sell
Speaker 5: it as box beef and sell it direct to consumers
Speaker 5: through the new coming go texting program, where you're going
Speaker 5: to have a viable platform that they can actually utilize
Speaker 5: to be profitable. And so once you're able to do that,
Speaker 5: that's full retail and we can get agriculture back to
Speaker 5: this place where kids actually look at that as a
Speaker 5: viable place to be able to invest their life and
Speaker 5: bring back rural Texas because you drive through these small
Speaker 5: Texas towns, y'all do it, drive in South Texas, West Texas.
Speaker 5: They are dying and we need to help bring life
Speaker 5: back to them.
Speaker 2: And the only way we're going to do it is
Speaker 2: to help farmers or ranchers not survive but thrive.
Speaker 4: What's the industry telling you about your candidacy?
Speaker 2: Man?
Speaker 5: We've had so many endorsements, it's hard to keep track
Speaker 5: of all of them, which is really exciting. You know,
Speaker 5: they got Randy, Travis and Mac Do I need anything else?
Speaker 5: You know?
Speaker 4: Down out I don't think they're in the industry.
Speaker 5: I mean, but we've got you know, Senator Sparks out
Speaker 5: in Midland, West Texas. He actually hosted a fundraiser in
Speaker 5: Midland night before last for us UH with a bunch
Speaker 5: of oil and gas folks and my own cousin out there.
Speaker 5: We've got Angela Paxson who's endorsed us UH. Tons of
Speaker 5: s r C members, maybe a dozen or so, a
Speaker 5: lot of county chairs have endorsed US. We've got Texas
Speaker 5: Eagle for him. We have Grassroots America, Joe Ian Fleming,
Speaker 5: we the people. We've got the Kingwood Tea Party, the
Speaker 5: Fredericksburg Tea Party. It just there's a lot of energy
Speaker 5: and enthusiasm behind, you know, the campaign, and because people
Speaker 5: have been hopeless and and now I was actually over
Speaker 5: at Pete and Missy Bonds. He's the former president of
Speaker 5: the Texas Cattle Raisers and and their lead government guy
Speaker 5: was there and he whipped out his check book wrote
Speaker 5: a check to me. He said, I have to wait
Speaker 5: for cattle Raisers to personally endorse you.
Speaker 2: Here's a check. I'm gonna endorse you.
Speaker 5: And miss he's on the board at Cattle Raisers and
Speaker 5: she's an endorse you and then we're going to have
Speaker 5: a fundraiser for you. And so when I see the
Speaker 5: industry start to get excited and come alongside because they realize,
Speaker 5: you know what, this guy doesn't know how to farm wheat,
Speaker 5: but we don't need to have him know how to
Speaker 5: farm wheat. We need to have him help us figure
Speaker 5: out how to sell more wheat for more money to
Speaker 5: more people, and that they believe I can do.
Speaker 2: So it's it's been awesome.
Speaker 4: Last one for you.
Speaker 3: People have tried to take SID out before and been
Speaker 3: wildly unsuccessful. We saw James White, a long time stay
Speaker 3: rep who had a pretty extensive resume. I think he
Speaker 3: barely cracked thirty percents in the primary against SID the
Speaker 3: last time this was up.
Speaker 4: Why are you different?
Speaker 5: You know, I'm all about team and so we have
Speaker 5: a great team, very robust. We've got Travis McCormick who's
Speaker 5: back here. He's on our team, heads up our communications.
Speaker 5: We've got Elliott Griffin as our consultant. We have Cynthia
Speaker 5: Whedaman and Kathy Scott. Kathy's leading the chart on our
Speaker 5: finance side. We've got a great digital team that's actually
Speaker 5: doing all the digital for the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary,
Speaker 5: and so we went and got the right people, the
Speaker 5: right team to be able to get us across the
Speaker 5: finish line. SIDS never had an opponent who's got thirty
Speaker 5: years of food experience, who took a single beehive and
Speaker 5: turned it into a honey company that is will bout
Speaker 5: one hundred million pounds of honey this year, and we've
Speaker 5: got one hundred and twenty thousand beehives. And the the
Speaker 5: b industry and the beef industry are almost identical, just
Speaker 5: in terms of process and things that we did in
Speaker 5: the honey industry, we can go do in the beef industry.
Speaker 5: And so I would just say that Sid's never really
Speaker 5: you know, and I don't know all the other guys
Speaker 5: who've run against him, but he's nervous. I've had a
Speaker 5: woman come to my she was an SRAC member, and
Speaker 5: she came to a fundraiser we had in Dallas a
Speaker 5: few nights ago, and she said, he's called me three
Speaker 5: times in the past week, you know, telling me to
Speaker 5: endorse them. You know, I think people are just ready
Speaker 5: for a change. And I will say that I think
Speaker 5: where we are in America right now with Brooke Rawlins,
Speaker 5: Bobby Kennedy, and Donald Trump seeing this as an absolute
Speaker 5: critical nature. Listen, this doesn't matter if you're a Republican
Speaker 5: or a Democrat, what your color is, what your ethnic
Speaker 5: you know, what your background is, what your socioeconomic level.
Speaker 5: Everybody's getting sick from the food that we eat, and
Speaker 5: we all eat food, and so we've got to fix this,
Speaker 5: and we can fix this, and so that is that
Speaker 5: I think that's what changes everything else. And also those
Speaker 5: other guys, they hadn't had the Todd Smith thing play
Speaker 5: all the way out. So at the time when James
Speaker 5: White ran, he had been arrested and was being you know, prosecuted,
Speaker 5: but he hadn't gone fully through. And had he been
Speaker 5: prosecuted and played guilty and gone off on the sunset.
Speaker 2: It might be a little bit of a different picture.
Speaker 2: But he's not in the sunset. He's at the TDA headquarters.
Speaker 5: So you know, again, we lost eighty percent of the
Speaker 5: bees in Texas this year. So if you want to
Speaker 5: save the bees, go plant. You know next you're producing flowers.
Speaker 5: If you want to save our health Texas farm families
Speaker 5: and agriculture in Texas, vote for Nate Sheets Fragg Commissioner.
Speaker 4: In neat Sheets, thanks for joining us.
Speaker 5: Thank you, God, bless you, God bless great state of Texas. Well.
Speaker 3: Next up, we've got Senator Joan Huffman, Republican, running for
Speaker 3: Attorney General. Senator Huffman, you've how long you have been
Speaker 3: in the Senate.
Speaker 6: Since I was elected in December of two thousand and eight,
Speaker 6: so over sixteen.
Speaker 3: Years, and you have a lot of extensive background before then.
Speaker 3: Can you run us through that?
Speaker 4: Sure?
Speaker 6: So I started my career actually as a secretary in
Speaker 6: the Harrison County District Attorney's office in nineteen eighty one,
Speaker 6: so that's a long time ago, and went to law
Speaker 6: school at night. Worked as a secretary and as an
Speaker 6: intern at the DA's office during that time period.
Speaker 7: And when I graduated from law school and.
Speaker 6: Passed the bar, I was hired as a prosecutor and
Speaker 6: I worked there for fourteen years as a Harris County
Speaker 6: District Attorney prosecutor. Prosecuted over one hundred jury trials during
Speaker 6: that time period, served some time as the Special Crimes
Speaker 6: Gang prosecutor. I was assigned to the Organized Crime Narcotics
Speaker 6: Task Force for eighteen months, where I was embedded with
Speaker 6: law enforcement worked their cases with them, and then when
Speaker 6: I decided I would move on, I ran for Criminal
Speaker 6: district Court judge was twice elected. So I served as
Speaker 6: a criminal district Court judge, presiding over tens of thousands
Speaker 6: of cases, and then ran for the Senate in two
Speaker 6: thousand and eight in a special election when Senator Janak
Speaker 6: stepped down and was elected and been elected several times
Speaker 6: since then.
Speaker 3: I'll get to the ag race. That's probably what everyone
Speaker 3: wants to hear about, but I'd be remiss. We didn't
Speaker 3: talk about session because it was first of all grueling, right,
Speaker 3: A couple of specials.
Speaker 7: Yes, lasted a long time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, But your biggest responsibility during that was the budget.
Speaker 4: First of all, what's that? Like?
Speaker 3: How extensive of a process is building a massive state budget?
Speaker 7: Well, it's quite extensive.
Speaker 6: It actually starts in the fall before session, so usually
Speaker 6: in August September October we start having Boards of Review,
Speaker 6: which really means doctor Bondon at the time. The appropriations
Speaker 6: chare from the House and myself sit in a room
Speaker 6: with about fifty other people who are from the Legislative
Speaker 6: Budget Board, our staff, the Lieutenant Governor's staff, the Governor's staff,
Speaker 6: and just really go line by line through the budget.
Speaker 6: And I know a lot of people think how does
Speaker 6: this get made? It actually is made by a line
Speaker 6: by line process. There's kind of a base budget we
Speaker 6: start with at LBB presents based on what we had
Speaker 6: done the previous by anium, but we do go through
Speaker 6: those and we make adjustments, and we make quite a
Speaker 6: few adjustments either from observations and issues that maybe doctor
Speaker 6: Bonnen or I or staff or LBB has encountered in
Speaker 6: the previous by anium, and there's adjustments that need to
Speaker 6: be made. As you know, most of the budget is
Speaker 6: written on projections, and sometimes those projections are off, and sometimes.
Speaker 7: Off quite a bit.
Speaker 4: That's why the supplemental exactly.
Speaker 6: So we do the supplemental and then LBB presents a
Speaker 6: lot of scenarios to us as to what they believe
Speaker 6: the projections will be at that you know, at the
Speaker 6: time when we have to make the final decisions, and
Speaker 6: many times it does affect, you know, kind of what
Speaker 6: our bottom line looks like. And I've been there when
Speaker 6: we were way off and when we were we didn't
Speaker 6: spend enough. Other times when we projected quite a bit
Speaker 6: more and then we had a surplus. So it really
Speaker 6: can go a lot of different ways, and a lot
Speaker 6: of that is because, for examples, through the Foundation School program,
Speaker 6: you're making decisions based on enrollment growth, property tax of values,
Speaker 6: and so forth, which really affects the bottom line as
Speaker 6: to how much money is left and so again. So
Speaker 6: we make those types of decisions, we go through several
Speaker 6: boards of a review, and then of course the budget
Speaker 6: comes before the committee when we get into session in January.
Speaker 6: In the Senate, we meet for several weeks daily long
Speaker 6: grueling days where we listen to that different agencies present
Speaker 6: their request and we hear from the public and then,
Speaker 6: you know, then the real work gets done, you know,
Speaker 6: trying to get the budget written and then finding the votes.
Speaker 6: I will say that the last budget was able to
Speaker 6: pass out the Senate with thirty one votes, which I
Speaker 6: think is a sign of a really good budget because
Speaker 6: it does mean that you have, you know, buy in
Speaker 6: from both parties and a lot of different interests start met.
Speaker 6: And I think if your priorities are correct and you
Speaker 6: work real hard at trying to bring everybody into be
Speaker 6: part of the processes, that's that's you get those successful results.
Speaker 3: So my first session covering the legislature was twenty nineteen,
Speaker 3: and I remember one of the first pieces I wrote
Speaker 3: was two hundred and fifty billion dollar budget passes. Now
Speaker 3: I understand things a lot better than I do than
Speaker 3: I did then. But the budget y'all passed this time
Speaker 3: was three hundred and thirty eight billion.
Speaker 6: I believe about three thirty big increase right right.
Speaker 3: Yet I see all this messaging about a fiscally responsible budget.
Speaker 4: Yes, you walk me through.
Speaker 6: That, sure, well, I will say it is a physically
Speaker 6: responsible budget. And the budget is, you know, well below
Speaker 6: all three of the spending limits. And the budget has
Speaker 6: grown for several reasons. A lot of it is the
Speaker 6: state is growing. So and then the COVID era, i'll
Speaker 6: call it the COVID nightmare or whatever you want to
Speaker 6: call it. That era really kind of changed the budget
Speaker 6: in several ways. And part of it was that there
Speaker 6: was a huge influx of federal funds that came into
Speaker 6: the state. It didn't just come to the state, It
Speaker 6: actually went to a lot of local entities, even hospitals,
Speaker 6: but counties and cities, schools, and some of it was
Speaker 6: accounted for that we could sort of follow it and
Speaker 6: see where it was. There was some money that went
Speaker 6: in that we never really could track through our tracking
Speaker 6: systems about where this money came in. But a lot
Speaker 6: of money came into the state of Texas. We were
Speaker 6: one of the probably largest recipients of federal funds during
Speaker 6: the COVID era. So all that money, you know, they
Speaker 6: were printing a lot of money in Washington and they
Speaker 6: were giving Texas quite a bit of money. So a
Speaker 6: lot of it was billions and billions of dollars, So
Speaker 6: a lot of that money kind of came into the treasury.
Speaker 6: What also happened was after COVID there was a pin
Speaker 6: up demand for people to spend money because people some
Speaker 6: people had gotten stimulus checks or different types of checks,
Speaker 6: or many people took quarantine very seriously, right and they
Speaker 6: stayed home. They didn't buy a you know, they didn't
Speaker 6: buy anything, and so they started spending money. And so
Speaker 6: we saw sales tax revenue really just go up like this.
Speaker 6: So we were just flush with cash now, so it
Speaker 6: elevated the numbers in a lot of ways. Now, what
Speaker 6: we did with the money was at the state level,
Speaker 6: we were very careful about not investing the money into
Speaker 6: projects or concepts or whatever you want to call it
Speaker 6: that would be ongoing expenses. So we did try to
Speaker 6: dedicate start funds that would be long term, like with
Speaker 6: the the Texas University Fund, where we set up a
Speaker 6: fund for U of H and Tech Texas state, you know,
Speaker 6: not exactly like what UT and A and M have,
Speaker 6: but an endowment type of fun We did things like this.
Speaker 6: We invested big money in water, in mental health hospital
Speaker 6: construction two and a half billion for that, over four
Speaker 6: billion for water. We did a huge amount of property
Speaker 6: tax relief. And I know that a lot of folks
Speaker 6: still complained about property tax, and I get it, and
Speaker 6: it's a work in progress. But over the last since
Speaker 6: about nineteen, we have put in about fifty one billion
Speaker 6: dollars in property tax.
Speaker 4: Really now that's recurring.
Speaker 7: Everything that's recurring.
Speaker 6: So we we did things like that, but a lot
Speaker 6: of it had to do with the state growth, with
Speaker 6: our economy growing. As you know, we continue we're the
Speaker 6: seventh largest economy in the world.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 6: Just yesterday we were again to sign you know, the
Speaker 6: best Business Climate in the in the United States, you know,
Speaker 6: place to do business. We continued to have those awards,
Speaker 6: those accolades, and people continue to come to Texas and
Speaker 6: invest in Texas, and because of that, our economy is
Speaker 6: growing and so our budget grows. But we have been
Speaker 6: I think it's a conservative budget because we have made
Speaker 6: these long term investments. We spent more on public education
Speaker 6: this last session. One hundred billion dollars went into to
Speaker 6: public education than we ever seen before. We gave teachers
Speaker 6: to substantial pay raises, would put more money into special education,
Speaker 6: just things that make the state better off as a whole.
Speaker 6: And I think that's conservative in my book.
Speaker 3: Fair enough, nobody knows what next year will look like economically.
Speaker 3: Obviously I'll have effects on the election itself. But you
Speaker 3: being the budget writer or one of the chief budget writers,
Speaker 3: and if you don't make the jump to AG, you'll
Speaker 3: remain in the Senate and presumably share finance.
Speaker 7: Again, that's what the Lieutenant governor has said.
Speaker 3: Yes, does it keep you up at night if there's
Speaker 3: an economic collapse and all of a sudden the state
Speaker 3: doesn't have a bunch of money in surplus and we
Speaker 3: actually have to cut spending.
Speaker 6: I think that if we had some kind of major
Speaker 6: economic collapse, we know we still have the rainy Day
Speaker 6: fund right and it is at twenty eight billion dollars.
Speaker 6: It's actually maxed out just about probably as we speak,
Speaker 6: it's very close to maxing out, so that transfer will
Speaker 6: not be made into the Rainy Day Fund, so that
Speaker 6: money will stay in gr general revenue actually, so there
Speaker 6: will be sort of more money coming in and we
Speaker 6: still have the Rainy Day Fund because the severance taxes
Speaker 6: are still producing.
Speaker 7: I think I heard Hancock Controller Hancocks.
Speaker 6: Say recently that the sales tax revenue was up about
Speaker 6: five percent, which is a little higher than it happened. So,
Speaker 6: you know, as far as taxes goes, we still look
Speaker 6: pretty optimistic as we talk about, you know, are the
Speaker 6: economy of this state. But I will say that the
Speaker 6: commitments we've made for property tax relief, to public education
Speaker 6: and those types of investments are ongoing, long term investments,
Speaker 6: but to the benefit of all the all of our citizens.
Speaker 6: But I think we're in pretty good shape. Were the
Speaker 6: safeguards you put in, We have safeguards put into the system,
Speaker 6: and so I think we're in good shape.
Speaker 4: Okay, let's get to the age race.
Speaker 3: Sure you're both in your extensive resume, but also the
Speaker 3: fact that you're running from cover. You don't have to
Speaker 3: give up your Senate seat, right, unlike Center Milton who
Speaker 3: does yes.
Speaker 4: How does that affect your run for the seat?
Speaker 6: Well, I'm running full speed ahead, one hundred percent, whether
Speaker 6: you know. I just feel blessed that my when we
Speaker 6: drew the beans at the beginning of the decade, I
Speaker 6: got the cycle that let me do this. And but
Speaker 6: I'm running to win, honestly, and but I if I lose,
Speaker 6: I'll be you know, excited to continue to represent the
Speaker 6: people that I have the privilege of representing.
Speaker 4: So why'd you pull the trigger?
Speaker 6: Well, because I think that I'm the most qualified person
Speaker 6: to be a g I think that I have a
Speaker 6: very unique background. You know, I've told you a little
Speaker 6: bit about it. I don't think there's ever been anyone
Speaker 6: in any Attorney General who has been a prosecutor with
Speaker 6: extensive you know, litigation experience, one hundred jury trials, you know,
Speaker 6: worked very closely with law enforcement. Never been one that's
Speaker 6: a former criminal district court judge that presided over thousands
Speaker 6: and tens of thousands of cases, tried death penalty cases
Speaker 6: both as a prosecutor and a judge, and been a
Speaker 6: conservative state senator who's you know, I've been chair of
Speaker 6: state affairs were all you know, a lot of the
Speaker 6: big major state legislation, conservative legislation, and other important issues
Speaker 6: that affect the state of Texas go through. I chaired
Speaker 6: those committees. I've been on criminal justice pretty much NonStop
Speaker 6: the whole time, and I chaired redistricting, which is an
Speaker 6: important function of the AG's office to defend the maps.
Speaker 7: I drew the maps.
Speaker 6: I've been, you know, testified in federal court several times
Speaker 6: about the maps, and then as Chair of Finance for
Speaker 6: two terms, I know a lot about every state agency.
Speaker 6: I've served on Sunset before, so I've really deep into
Speaker 6: the state agencies, know where you know, all the issues
Speaker 6: are where you know, when you follow the money, you
Speaker 6: kind of figure out the policy, right you kind of
Speaker 6: know what's going on. So I'm very qualified, and I'll
Speaker 6: add so it's kind of a mixed audience here. You know,
Speaker 6: i'd be the first woman, and I'm not running because
Speaker 6: I'm a woman, but I think and i'd be the
Speaker 6: first mother who was ever the Attorney General of Texas.
Speaker 6: I think that brings some other qualities to the to
Speaker 6: the table, and I'm ready to serve.
Speaker 7: I really, you know, I.
Speaker 6: Could have run for this office earlier in my career,
Speaker 6: and I was actually offered it, not offered the office
Speaker 6: the office, of course, but you know, people said, well,
Speaker 6: why don't you run, you know, and I felt like
Speaker 6: I was wanted to stay in the Senate. I was
Speaker 6: doing important work. I love what I did. I passed
Speaker 6: a lot of heavy legislation in the Senate while i've
Speaker 6: been there, whether it's pension reform, you know, the bail
Speaker 6: reform that I worked seven years on that the voter's
Speaker 6: just approved. So I've been working on heavy issues for
Speaker 6: a long long time, and I'm glad I did all that.
Speaker 6: But now I think that I have something to offer
Speaker 6: to the people of Texas and to the voters of
Speaker 6: Texas that i'd be a really good Attorney General for them,
Speaker 6: and I focus on the people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you mentioned the bail reform thing, like you said,
Speaker 3: that's something you've been pushing for for multiple cycles. With
Speaker 3: what passed, is that enough or is there more that
Speaker 3: needs to be done on that issue?
Speaker 6: Well, I think it's we're in a wait and see mode, right.
Speaker 6: I think a lot of this is going to depend
Speaker 6: on how the judges respond, how the prosecutors use the law,
Speaker 6: the tools that they've been given, how the judges respond,
Speaker 6: and then we'll see. There were some pieces of legislation
Speaker 6: that did not pass, as you know, that passed the
Speaker 6: Senate died in the House. One was the process of
Speaker 6: those who were here illegally, who committed a serious felony
Speaker 6: could be held automatically without That's still I think something
Speaker 6: I'd like to look at again and talk about, especially
Speaker 6: as we go, you know, another two years through through
Speaker 6: this or another year i'd say of this process with
Speaker 6: kind of seeing how the ICE is working and so forth,
Speaker 6: and the two eighty seven G that we implemented. Now
Speaker 6: all the counties have to participate in the two ad
Speaker 6: C seven G process, which is, you know, working with
Speaker 6: ICE to report individuals that are arrested.
Speaker 7: Or in your jail that may be here illegally.
Speaker 6: So I think we would look at that more carefully
Speaker 6: moving forward. But I think a lot of this is
Speaker 6: going to depend on if the judges do their job.
Speaker 6: They have the tools that they need now to keep
Speaker 6: folks safe, and remember these are the most violent offenders
Speaker 6: and so but I'm hoping for the best because it
Speaker 6: could only get better.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you might see it come back up again next
Speaker 3: next cycle. Yeah, certainly in your estimation. What makes a
Speaker 3: good Attorney General.
Speaker 6: Well, I think it's someone whose best interest is with
Speaker 6: the the folks they represent, that's the all, all the
Speaker 6: citizens of Texas. I think that you want someone who's
Speaker 6: gonna be a fighter for you, who's going to defend
Speaker 6: your freedoms, who's going to defend your rights, but will
Speaker 6: also aggressively prosecute and go after those who harm you
Speaker 6: or your families or your communities. And I think that
Speaker 6: you know, Paxton has been very aggressive at going after
Speaker 6: corporations or those that may be trying to steal, you know,
Speaker 6: our information or our privacy, and he has been very
Speaker 6: aggressive in that since I would like to see them
Speaker 6: be there be a focus on working with local law enforcement,
Speaker 6: local prosecutors, and being a real resources resource and a
Speaker 6: tool for local law enforcement. Over the years, it used
Speaker 6: to be one of the core functions of the AG's office,
Speaker 6: and that was to help local prosecution with complex cases,
Speaker 6: with you know, complicated prosecutions and so forth. But somehow
Speaker 6: over the years there's been a trust that's been lost
Speaker 6: between the local government, whether it's you know, local prosecutors,
Speaker 6: local law enforcement. In the attorney General's Office, and I
Speaker 6: think with my background, I have great relationship with law enforcement.
Speaker 6: I've been endorsed by CLEETE, which is the big certified
Speaker 6: law enforcement association of Texas. I have endorsements from sheriffs
Speaker 6: around the state. You know the Houston Police Department, Dallas
Speaker 6: Police Association, you know Amarillo Police Association, so throughout the state.
Speaker 6: And that is because I've worked with police officers and
Speaker 6: district attorneys for many years, whether it's you know, I
Speaker 6: passed the defund so that cities couldn't defund police officers
Speaker 6: back the Blue Act, the one that allows you to
Speaker 6: go after rogue prosecutors who just refuse to prosecute the law.
Speaker 6: So I've worked with these groups for many years to
Speaker 6: come up with legislation that they were that they could
Speaker 6: live with, that was going to work for the people
Speaker 6: of Texas. Including remember years ago, bad police officers were
Speaker 6: just sent from one jurisdiction to another, get fired, they
Speaker 6: get hired somewhere else. Well, I passed the law that
Speaker 6: doesn't allow that to happen anymore. Well, that didn't happen
Speaker 6: without buy in from prosecutors and law enforcement. And I
Speaker 6: work really hard with law the law enforcement from across
Speaker 6: the state to make that work. And it works now,
Speaker 6: and so the bad apples don't get to be, you know,
Speaker 6: shifted around the state to actually get fired and they
Speaker 6: can't combat. So I give that as an example of
Speaker 6: if you, if you build trust with people and you
Speaker 6: work with them, that.
Speaker 7: You know you can do great things.
Speaker 6: And so I would I think of it as turning
Speaker 6: my face kind of back towards the people of Texas
Speaker 6: and say, what can I do for you? How can
Speaker 6: I make your businesses more successful? How can I make
Speaker 6: you feel safer? How could I make the state better
Speaker 6: for you? And that's the way I.
Speaker 7: Look at the position.
Speaker 6: And again I think, because of my background and my
Speaker 6: relationships and my qualifications, my work ethic, that I'd be
Speaker 6: the type of Attorney General that the people of Texas
Speaker 6: would be pleased with.
Speaker 3: On the so called Rodier Bill, we haven't seen any
Speaker 3: of those lawsuits brought forward actually work in that regard.
Speaker 3: Is that law working in your estimation?
Speaker 7: Well, it can work.
Speaker 6: And I'm going to say this because I think a
Speaker 6: lot of us throw around this term rogue prosecutors and
Speaker 6: bad prosecutors. The truth is, the vast majority of the
Speaker 6: prosecutors in state of Texas do a dang good job,
Speaker 6: right and there are probably some people in this room
Speaker 6: who disagree with me. I think there's you know, two
Speaker 6: or three that aren't doing a great job. But the
Speaker 6: way the law is set up, you know, you have
Speaker 6: to have a person in that county to under the constitution,
Speaker 6: you know, file a complaint and goes through a district court.
Speaker 6: There have a right to a jury trial, so there's
Speaker 6: a process to remove. Some states have you can have
Speaker 6: a legislative impeachment or the governor can remove.
Speaker 7: We don't have that.
Speaker 6: Our constitution speaks very clearly to how a prosecutor can
Speaker 6: be removed. And so I think in the right situations, yes,
Speaker 6: the bill can work. It's just and I think the
Speaker 6: threat of the bill has actually worked. I know El
Speaker 6: Paso had an incident. I think that that individual resigned
Speaker 6: on their own. Some people have been voted out of office.
Speaker 6: You know, there's still you know, if you're convicted of
Speaker 6: a felony, then there's kind of an automatic removal once
Speaker 6: the judge reports that to the proper authorities and so forth.
Speaker 6: So there's things built into the constitution. I think the
Speaker 6: law can work in the right circumstances.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this Attorney General Ray is, particularly the Republican primary
Speaker 3: I think is the most interesting on the ballot next year,
Speaker 3: and a lot of tensions obviously going to be paid
Speaker 3: at the US Senate level, but the dynamics here are
Speaker 3: fascinating to me. What is your assessment of this primary
Speaker 3: so far?
Speaker 6: Well, I'll tell you, Brad what folk I've decided. I'm
Speaker 6: just getna, I look straight ahead. I'm focused on my background,
Speaker 6: who I am, what I've done, what I think I
Speaker 6: can do, what I want to do, and I'm going
Speaker 6: to let those guys do their thing, and I'm going
Speaker 6: to be joan and I'm going to work really as
Speaker 6: hard as I can, and we'll just let the voters
Speaker 6: decide who what kind of attorney general they want, what
Speaker 6: they want, who they want to stand up and represent
Speaker 6: them in the state of Texas as their attorney general.
Speaker 3: The polling array of pulling i've seen, obviously it's very early, right,
Speaker 3: lock and change. A lot will change, but it looks
Speaker 3: like Chip Roy is up top. He's the most recognized name, right.
Speaker 3: Everyone else doesn't have that yet. Is that what you're seeing?
Speaker 3: And how do you make up that ground? As a candidate.
Speaker 6: Well, I think again, you just have to work hard.
Speaker 6: You have to raise money. He'll be perfectly up front
Speaker 6: on that, because it takes money. The tech Texas is
Speaker 6: a very large state. It's a long way from Olpaso
Speaker 6: to Beaumont, and so to get the message out takes money.
Speaker 7: So I'm trying to raise money.
Speaker 6: I think I have a very good message that I
Speaker 6: want to get out, and I think that's helpful. I
Speaker 6: have something to say, and I'm just going to work
Speaker 6: hard to raise money and to go to as many
Speaker 6: places as I can. Yeah, Chip Roy starts out with
Speaker 6: am I d You know, he's been in the public
Speaker 6: eye a lot in Fox News and so forth, so
Speaker 6: people kind of know him, and the rest of us
Speaker 6: are I think, fighting for to be known statewide. You know,
Speaker 6: people in the Houston area of course know me more
Speaker 6: because I represent a lot of those areas and out
Speaker 6: in the rural to the west of you know, Houston
Speaker 6: and along the coast where I recommend uh. You know,
Speaker 6: represented folks for a long time. But you know, to
Speaker 6: get get into Dallas, get into West Texas, get in
Speaker 6: East Texas.
Speaker 7: I think we're all, you know, fighting to do that again.
Speaker 6: I just hope that my message is the best and
Speaker 6: so that'll get me to that runoff that I think
Speaker 6: is what I'm coveting. So you think it is a
Speaker 6: sure fire runoff, I think it's that that would be
Speaker 6: my prediction.
Speaker 7: I no, you know, I would say that there will
Speaker 7: be a runoff.
Speaker 6: Yes, and I'd be happy to be in a runoff
Speaker 6: against any any three of those.
Speaker 3: So politics today, it pays to be aggressive as a candidate. Right,
Speaker 3: your persona has not been that. It doesn't mean you're
Speaker 3: not firm. There's a difference, but you haven't been outwardly aggressive.
Speaker 3: Does that put you at a disadvantage in this dandage?
Speaker 6: Well, I guess that time will tell on that, you know.
Speaker 6: I guess it's how you define aggressive. I'll say something
Speaker 6: to you and maybe the women in this I don't
Speaker 6: know if there's any women my age, but maybe there are.
Speaker 6: You try going from being a secretary to being the
Speaker 6: chair of Senate Finance to the state of Texas right
Speaker 6: in a three hundred and sixty four billion dollar budget,
Speaker 6: I'm only the thirteenth woman in the history of Texas
Speaker 6: to be a Senator. Okay, you try that and then
Speaker 6: then label me as not effective or not aggressive. I
Speaker 6: dare someone do that, because you just go back and
Speaker 6: look at it, and it's not an easy road. So
Speaker 6: I'm perfectly capable, competent, aggressive enough, assertive enough to be
Speaker 6: the Attorney General of Texas.
Speaker 3: What's your competitive advantage in messaging against your three opponents?
Speaker 7: I think that my.
Speaker 6: Secret strategy is just to be myself and to stand
Speaker 6: on my background. Look, I've taken over, you know, fourteen
Speaker 6: thousand votes in the Texas Senate. You know I was
Speaker 6: a prosecutor. I've got case results, I've been sued, I've
Speaker 6: been you know, ACLU didn't like me. You know this
Speaker 6: defendant didn't like me someone you know, people protest at
Speaker 6: the office. You know I've made I have a history
Speaker 6: and a record, and I'm just going to stand on that.
Speaker 6: I don't have anything to hide. People know who I am,
Speaker 6: and I think they know what they'll get if they
Speaker 6: vote for me.
Speaker 3: Should you win, What are the top priorities as AG?
Speaker 6: I think sort of what I've already stated that and
Speaker 6: that is I really want to kind of beef up
Speaker 6: the law enforcement side of the office, reach out to
Speaker 6: local law enforcement, local prosecutors, and sort of turn up
Speaker 6: the volume on that side of the office really kind
Speaker 6: of you know, there's so many things that need to
Speaker 6: be worked on. You you look at the national level,
Speaker 6: whether it's the fraud through the what's being dug up
Speaker 6: through doze, right, or you look at human trafficking. I've
Speaker 6: wrote written most of the legislation that's been passed in
Speaker 6: Texas in the last decade on human trafficking, but honestly,
Speaker 6: the results and the data, there's not enough prosecution, and
Speaker 6: I would like to see the Attorney General's Office really
Speaker 6: ramp up that prosecution and work with the locals on
Speaker 6: human trafficking. You know, the FEDS investigate transnational gangs and crimes,
Speaker 6: crimes against children, fentanyl trafficking, they do that. But my
Speaker 6: experience with the FEDS, and I've been working with them
Speaker 6: a long time, back to my days as a prosecutor
Speaker 6: as a secretary, even they like to handpick the premium cases, right.
Speaker 4: They like the easy wins.
Speaker 6: And I'm not being nasty about any you know, US
Speaker 6: attorneys here, but that's just the name.
Speaker 7: That's the way it works.
Speaker 6: They're not going to take all what's left the crumbs,
Speaker 6: but the crumbs might be one hundred million dollar fraud case.
Speaker 6: It might be a human trafficking ring that has fifty
Speaker 6: women their trafficking. That might be the crumbs to the Feds,
Speaker 6: and a lot of that those issues are just being
Speaker 6: left behind. The locals don't have the resources or the
Speaker 6: time to do it. So I will really focus on
Speaker 6: getting you know, on that. That would be my top
Speaker 6: priority is the safety of Texans. Anything else you like that, well,
Speaker 6: I'm going to work hard on everything that's important, but
Speaker 6: that would be my top priority.
Speaker 4: Senator John Huffman, thank you for joining me.
Speaker 7: Thank you, thank you for having me. Thank y'all.
Speaker 6: Um.
Speaker 3: Last, but not least, we have Aaron Rights, Republican running
Speaker 3: for Attorney General, one of the four candidates.
Speaker 4: Aaron, welcome, happy to be here. Thank you.
Speaker 3: The first time we met you were running for Texas
Speaker 3: House in twenty twenty. I think it's safe to say
Speaker 3: they didn't go as you planned.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 8: I had the same hairstyle back then, though it was
Speaker 8: a little done to a couple heres.
Speaker 4: Where have you been since then?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 8: A lot has happened, you know. Several years ago I
Speaker 8: ran for State rep. Blessedly in God's providence, lost that
Speaker 8: race and was elevated to serve as Attorney General Ken
Speaker 8: Paxson's deputy, and I served as his he likes to
Speaker 8: call me as offensive coordinator, leading the Texas v. Biden
Speaker 8: docket during the Biden administration. Did that for three years,
Speaker 8: served as Senator Ted Cruz's chief of staff before getting
Speaker 8: my job offer from the President to serve as the
Speaker 8: presidentially appointed Senate confirmed head of the Office of Legal
Speaker 8: Policy at DOJ. And they spent the spring season in
Speaker 8: the Trump administration before launching my bid for ag So.
Speaker 4: Here we are.
Speaker 3: It was what like seventyeh days that you spent those
Speaker 3: three months there? Yeah, what did you do there?
Speaker 4: So? The Office of.
Speaker 8: Legal Policy under statute has a very open ended mission statement,
Speaker 8: and it says the Assistant Attorney General over the Office
Speaker 8: of Legal Policy shall plan, execute, and coordinate matters of
Speaker 8: high priority to the President and the Attorney General of
Speaker 8: the United States.
Speaker 4: That's the statutory charge.
Speaker 8: Now, what it ends up looking like in reality is
Speaker 8: that any of the executive orders that the President promulgated
Speaker 8: in which the Department of Justice or Just Justice related
Speaker 8: issues were implicated, my office, the Office of Legal Policy
Speaker 8: at DOJ, was charged with crafting the blueprint to effectuate
Speaker 8: that executive order for the Justice Department. So, for example,
Speaker 8: when the President wanted to reinstate or increase the proper
Speaker 8: use of the death penalty, well, obviously the Justice Department
Speaker 8: and the various US Attorney's offices around the country need
Speaker 8: to receive guidance on how to do that, and so
Speaker 8: the Office of Legal Policy will draft the initial sort
Speaker 8: of white paper internally circulated with the AG's new guidance.
Speaker 8: Or another example, when the President drafts an executive order
Speaker 8: that says, hey, I really want to unleash American oil
Speaker 8: and gas and energy, and I want the Justice Department
Speaker 8: to revisit its various investigations or lawsuits that during the
Speaker 8: Biden era were intentionally used to disrupt or frustrate or
Speaker 8: thwart the domestic production of oil and gas. And so
Speaker 8: then the Office of Legal Policy would go and do
Speaker 8: a full scale review of all the outstanding litigation or
Speaker 8: investigations and appeals that had to do with the energy sector,
Speaker 8: coordinating with the Environment and Natural Resources Division, and then
Speaker 8: come up with a Justice Department wide blueprint to bring
Speaker 8: life to that executive order. And so I can continue
Speaker 8: to give other examples of that that was the main
Speaker 8: mission at the Office of Legal Policy. We also were
Speaker 8: responsible for judicial vetting, so a lot of the district
Speaker 8: Court or the Court of Appeals judges that were sort
Speaker 8: of getting floated before anything was public. We would do
Speaker 8: all the background investigations. We would do the interviews about
Speaker 8: their jurisprudence, and a lot signment with the justice related
Speaker 8: matters that the President ran on. And then I was
Speaker 8: also sort of the third component of my job at
Speaker 8: the Justice Department under President Trump was I was sort.
Speaker 4: Of the chief regulatory officer.
Speaker 8: So the Justice Department and its various component parts promulgate
Speaker 8: hundreds and hundreds of pieces of federal regulations throughout the year,
Speaker 8: and our office was sort of the clearinghouse in terms
Speaker 8: of both form and substance on any regulations that were
Speaker 8: going to leave the Justice Department to get published into
Speaker 8: the Federal Register. So all of those things were things
Speaker 8: that I touched. If it was sort of a headline
Speaker 8: making matter that came out of the DOJ. There's almost
Speaker 8: a near certainty that I was involved with Attorney General Pambondi,
Speaker 8: the Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, and various other senior
Speaker 8: leaders about crafting what would the Justice Department wide legal
Speaker 8: policy be on those particular issues.
Speaker 4: So it was a blast.
Speaker 8: And then look, Attorney General Ken Paxton, the you know,
Speaker 8: in the middle of the spring season, announced that he
Speaker 8: was going to be running for Senate, and as someone
Speaker 8: who served under Packson as his deputy and someone who had,
Speaker 8: you know, on behalf of the state of Texas, led
Speaker 8: some of the most consequential pieces of litigation and appeals
Speaker 8: and investigations and then done similarly at the federal level
Speaker 8: under the Justice Department, and the Trump had been you know,
Speaker 8: I thought, you know, I wasn't there at DJ for
Speaker 8: very long, but I can't not consider this. And so
Speaker 8: the first conversation I had was with Attorney General Pambondi
Speaker 8: about what it might look like from early and then
Speaker 8: from early April to mid June when I announced, that
Speaker 8: was a period of very prayerful and deliberate due diligence.
Speaker 8: You know, what would the path to victory be? Who
Speaker 8: else is in the field, what is it?
Speaker 4: What is it?
Speaker 8: How do we find a replacement for me at DOJ?
Speaker 8: Is the money going to be there? What about endorsements?
Speaker 8: What does Ken Paxton think? What is et cetera? Et cetera.
Speaker 8: All the due diligence that you would imagine needs to
Speaker 8: happen before somebody steps into something of this scale was completed,
Speaker 8: and by the time mid June came around, it was
Speaker 8: green lights across the board. It made total sense politically, financially,
Speaker 8: from a grassroots perspective, Blessings from the White House, DJ,
Speaker 8: et cetera, et cetera. And then we launched a mid June.
Speaker 8: We've had an incredible time since then.
Speaker 3: When you first launched, a lot of the reaction I
Speaker 3: heard was dismissive and pointing back to the twenty twenty
Speaker 3: race where you'd finish forth and that seemed to be
Speaker 3: how people thought you would perform in this race, and
Speaker 3: I think it's pretty clear that it hasn't been the case.
Speaker 3: Why is this time different for you as a candidate
Speaker 3: versus twenty two.
Speaker 8: Well, look, there's always going to be haters and losers
Speaker 8: and doubters out there, right, I mean, it's always going
Speaker 8: to be the peanut gallery, those who whether you're in
Speaker 8: politics or business, or you're an entrepreneur, whatever it is
Speaker 8: that you're doing in your life, and this applies to
Speaker 8: everybody in this audience. You know, when you muster that
Speaker 8: courage to do something and put your name out there,
Speaker 8: there's always going to be the armchair quarterbackers who are like, man,
Speaker 8: you know whatever, we'll see how this goes or whatever,
Speaker 8: and they'll they never have what it takes to be
Speaker 8: the ones that step out right. They're always just whispering
Speaker 8: in the background. So ignore the haters and the losers.
Speaker 8: But I'll tell you, let me answer your question more directly,
Speaker 8: A couple of things happened. Number One, I ran for
Speaker 8: State Rep. Having no clue what I was doing, no
Speaker 8: clue what I was doing right, And I went through
Speaker 8: years of additional not only life experience, but legal experience,
Speaker 8: professional experience, and political experience, having been the senior official
Speaker 8: staff leader for both Paxton during his twenty twenty two
Speaker 8: reelect and Senator Cruz as his chief during his twenty
Speaker 8: four reelect. And you learn a lot about statewide politics
Speaker 8: at that point. And so while I jumped into this
Speaker 8: State Rep race because I just love the game, you know,
Speaker 8: I mean, I'm passionate about it, I jumped in no
Speaker 8: idea what I was doing.
Speaker 4: Of course, it didn't work out.
Speaker 8: Now, after nearly a decade after that launching for this bid.
Speaker 8: We've got the know how, the experience, the message, the relationships,
Speaker 8: the money, the statewide infrastructure. So there's a huge just
Speaker 8: in terms of campaign mechanics difference from back then. But
Speaker 8: really what put all of the doubters to shame is
Speaker 8: the fact that in my first two weeks as a
Speaker 8: no namer, zero percent name id, never won or held
Speaker 8: elected office.
Speaker 4: Nothing.
Speaker 8: Just I mean somebody with I think a pretty good
Speaker 8: resume and a good background, somebody who you would want
Speaker 8: to hire as your attorney, but somebody who's never been
Speaker 8: elected to anything. In my first two weeks as a
Speaker 8: non incumbent, non officeholder, no committee, no subcommittee, no nothing,
Speaker 8: I don't get to sit up here and say I'm
Speaker 8: gonna be Senate finance chairman, whether you like it or not,
Speaker 8: give me your money, right, I mean, some candidates in
Speaker 8: this race can do this, right. I had no incentives
Speaker 8: to give anybody anything, and in two weeks from two
Speaker 8: hundred and fifty individual donors, I raised two point one
Speaker 8: five million dollars. Now this is not just record breaking,
Speaker 8: it is in fact record setting. No one in modern
Speaker 8: Texas politics as a no namer going from zero zero
Speaker 8: dollars and zero percent.
Speaker 4: Name ID has ever achieved that.
Speaker 8: Kind of fundraising from so many donors in that amount
Speaker 8: of time. Why Because when people hear about what I
Speaker 8: offer the supporters, both in terms of grassroots endorsers, small dollar,
Speaker 8: big dollar, they flock to this flag. They're excited about it.
Speaker 8: I've not been the kind of guy that's waiting in
Speaker 8: line for the next thing. Oh, I've climbed through the ranks.
Speaker 8: I run for House, I ran for Senate, or I've
Speaker 8: been in Senate for so many some idears, I've been
Speaker 8: a chairman where we just in Texas politics often resign
Speaker 8: ourselves to prefer the person who has been waiting in
Speaker 8: line the longest.
Speaker 4: What I offer is a degree of.
Speaker 8: Energy around a vision for this office and the credit
Speaker 8: to back it up. And people are excited about this.
Speaker 8: I'm not a conventional politician. I'm somebody who President Trump
Speaker 8: described as a true MAGA attorney and a warrior for
Speaker 8: the Constitution. I'm a candidate for office that Senator Dick Durbin,
Speaker 8: the senior Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee when I
Speaker 8: got confirmed, described me as a danger to democracy and
Speaker 8: a menace to the rule of law, which is obviously insane,
Speaker 8: hyperbolic left wing talking points and it's nonsense. But there's
Speaker 8: a reason why, and it's because people are excited about
Speaker 8: what I have to offer. And I think that is
Speaker 8: one of the distinguishing things about this campaign, in my
Speaker 8: candidacy in particular, is I'm the only one in this
Speaker 8: race with actual recent and relevant experience litigating, investigating, suing, defending,
Speaker 8: and appealing on all of the major issues on behalf
Speaker 8: of the state of Texas and Texans constitutional rights. No
Speaker 8: one else in this race canssibly suggest anything approximating that
Speaker 8: the person that was just up on the stage wants
Speaker 8: to talk about a prose prosecutorial experience.
Speaker 4: I think that's great.
Speaker 8: Number One, that's from the early nineties, Okay, it's not recent.
Speaker 8: And number two, this job is ninety nine percent civil law. Now,
Speaker 8: I don't want to get too wonky, but look, if
Speaker 8: you're at the Texas Tribune Festival, you're a little bit wonky. Okay,
Speaker 8: So I will for just a second, All right, ninety
Speaker 8: nine percent of what the Attorney general does is civil litigation,
Speaker 8: not criminal law. If you're running on your prosecution experience,
Speaker 8: run for district attorney. But if you're running to be
Speaker 8: the Attorney General of the State of Texas. I want
Speaker 8: to hear about your record litigating, investigating, suing, defending, and
Speaker 8: appealing on the First Amendment, the Second Amendment, the Tenth Amendment,
Speaker 8: the Fourteenth Amendment, religious liberty, redistricting, election integrity, border security.
Speaker 8: I want to hear about the appeals that you've run.
Speaker 8: I want to hear about the cases that you've brought
Speaker 8: up to the United States Supreme Court. That's what I
Speaker 8: want to hear about, not about the bad guys that
Speaker 8: you booked in nineteen ninety three. That's great, but it
Speaker 8: has nothing to do with the job for which we
Speaker 8: are applying. Article four, Section twenty two of the Texas
Speaker 8: Constitution says, quote, the Attorney General shall represent the State
Speaker 8: of Texas in all courts and pleas. This is a
Speaker 8: legal executive branch law enforcement job.
Speaker 4: It is not a legislative job.
Speaker 8: And my three opponents are, for the most part, running
Speaker 8: on their legislative experience. Oh, I got this amendment through,
Speaker 8: I passed this bill, I co sponsored that thing, I
Speaker 8: killed this bad bill, I sat on this committee. Great,
Speaker 8: are you applying for a legislative job. I have no
Speaker 8: legislative record of which to speak none. You can't rape me,
Speaker 8: you can't do any of that. However, what I do have,
Speaker 8: and what no one else in this race has, is
Speaker 8: a legal record fighting and winning on behalf of the
Speaker 8: issues that Texas cares about, Texans care about at every
Speaker 8: level of state and federal court. And so what have
Speaker 8: I learned since that time? Over the past decade or so,
Speaker 8: I've learned how to fight and win in court. I've
Speaker 8: learned how to lead litigation teams. I've learned how to
Speaker 8: lead investigation teams. I've learned how to succeed and win
Speaker 8: at the federal, state and local level in court on
Speaker 8: behalf of Texas and on behalf of Texans. That's why
Speaker 8: President Trump looked at my record and said, I want
Speaker 8: to bring.
Speaker 4: This guy to the senior most ranks of the DOJ.
Speaker 8: I'm going to call this guy my true MAGA attorney
Speaker 8: and warrior for the Constitution. My opponents they wouldn't have
Speaker 8: even gotten an entry level job at the Justice Department
Speaker 8: or the Office of the Attorney General. Why Because they
Speaker 8: have no legal experience that is relevant to this position.
Speaker 4: I do.
Speaker 8: And that's why people are fired up about my candidacy
Speaker 8: and it's why so much has changed since those many
Speaker 8: years ago.
Speaker 3: President has not weighed in in this race yet there's
Speaker 3: no guarantee does why not in your estimation?
Speaker 8: Well, look, I think that he is going to want it,
Speaker 8: but President Trump typically will wait until his endorsement, his
Speaker 8: weighing in has the highest impact, and right now it's
Speaker 8: still extremely early. There's still a lot of campaigning to do.
Speaker 8: But look, it's true that he has not weighed in
Speaker 8: contemporaneously on this race, but he has weighed in on
Speaker 8: three out of the four candidates and their fitness for
Speaker 8: an office of this nature. Okay, so let's review Joan Huffman.
Speaker 8: He doesn't have a clue who Joan Huffman is. And
Speaker 8: John Huffman I don't think has suggested any fealty or
Speaker 8: align or even alignment with the America First Law and
Speaker 8: Order agenda. Now, folks in this room might think that
Speaker 8: that's great, Republican primary voters don't. So I don't think
Speaker 8: Joan knows who he is or cares or anything. So Joan,
Speaker 8: I would say, not even Maga credible at all. Mays
Speaker 8: purchased for himself a legislative endorsement in two thousand and
Speaker 8: one and is sending mailers around the country, quoting President
Speaker 8: Trump from twenty twenty one praising his legislative record, to
Speaker 8: which again I say, well, that's great. Are you applying
Speaker 8: for the legislature? Why do I care about your legislative record?
Speaker 8: This is a legal position. And by the way, that
Speaker 8: was almost six years ago, five years ago.
Speaker 4: I'm a lawyer, not the math.
Speaker 8: Okay, you know this is pract I think it's about
Speaker 8: five years it's five years ago on a legislative record.
Speaker 4: Now, what about.
Speaker 8: Chip Roy or Chipsoy or Flip Roy as many people
Speaker 8: call him.
Speaker 4: I think it's a little bit mean, but people call
Speaker 4: him that. I don't know.
Speaker 8: You can go to chipsoy dot time I tweet something,
Speaker 8: Yeah you like that. Yeah, And you can actually go
Speaker 8: to chip soy for that.
Speaker 4: You're welcome.
Speaker 8: Yeah, you can go to chipsoy dot org, actually, where
Speaker 8: we chronicle his run ins with the Trump administration and
Speaker 8: with President and with Attorney General Packson.
Speaker 4: We know what President Trump feels about Chip Roy.
Speaker 8: As late as December of twenty twenty four, President Trump,
Speaker 8: less than a year ago, President Trump was calling for
Speaker 8: Chip Roy to be booted from office. President Trump has
Speaker 8: called Chip Roy a rhino, a grand stander, a blowhard,
Speaker 8: not very talented, not very smart, egomaniac, self serving, do nothing,
Speaker 8: congressional loser. I'm not making those things up, chipsoy dot org.
Speaker 8: We got all the receipts out there if you want
Speaker 8: to see him. So we know what President Trump thinks
Speaker 8: about Chip Roy. We also know what Chip Roy thinks
Speaker 8: about President Trump. Remember in January of twenty twenty one,
Speaker 8: when Attorney General Paxson and I were fighting to stop
Speaker 8: the stolen election, chip Roy was calling for President Trump
Speaker 8: to be impeached. He sided with Mike Pence to stop
Speaker 8: the steal. He sided with Liz Cheney when Republican leadership
Speaker 8: was calling for her to be removed. We also know
Speaker 8: that Chip Roy was the very first United States congressman
Speaker 8: not just to campaign for Ron DeSantis for the twenty
Speaker 8: twenty four presidential cycle, but was the first Republican in
Speaker 8: Congress to recruit Ron de Santis to run for president,
Speaker 8: citing President Trump's inadequacies to serve as the next president
Speaker 8: of the United States, and then campaigned around the country
Speaker 8: with Thomas Massey as one of his chief surrogates. Meanwhile,
Speaker 8: chip Roy was also the very first elected official to
Speaker 8: call for Attorney General Paxton to be removed from office.
Speaker 8: In that swirling month of October of twenty twenty when
Speaker 8: what I call the coup happened. Not only was he
Speaker 8: the first elected official to call for him to be removed,
Speaker 8: but he was also then went on a speaking tour
Speaker 8: and a news media blitz from the spring to fall
Speaker 8: of twenty twenty three when the House impeached Paxton and
Speaker 8: then was in the trial with him in the Senate
Speaker 8: and was urging everybody to convict him and impeach him.
Speaker 4: That's chip Roy.
Speaker 8: Chip Roy will betray you, he will flip on you,
Speaker 8: he will betray this president. He will betray Ken Paxton.
Speaker 8: So yes, you are right, Brad that in the year
Speaker 8: twenty twenty five, President Trump has not weighed in on
Speaker 8: this race, but in the past several years, Trump has
Speaker 8: weighed in on the individuals that happened to be running.
Speaker 8: What has he said about me when he nominated me
Speaker 8: to the senior post of the Justice Department. He did
Speaker 8: two things. Number One, he described me as a true
Speaker 8: MAGA attorney.
Speaker 4: And a warrior for the Constitution.
Speaker 8: And let me be clear, that's exactly what Republican primary
Speaker 8: voters want as their next attorney general. But the reason
Speaker 8: why he called me those things, he said it in
Speaker 8: his nominating statement. He specifically praised my vast legal experience
Speaker 8: under both Attorney General Ken Paxson and Senator Cruz litigating, investigating, suing, defending,
Speaker 8: and appealing on all the major issues, in particular the
Speaker 8: fact that I led the Texas v. Biden Dockett from
Speaker 8: twenty twenty to twenty twenty three. And I'm proud to
Speaker 8: say that I sued the forty six president forty six
Speaker 8: times and I won eighty five percent of those cases.
Speaker 8: That's why Republicans are excited about my candidacy. That's why
Speaker 8: President Trump has trusted me to lead legal teams.
Speaker 4: My three opponents.
Speaker 8: Not only would neither President Trump nor Attorney General Packson
Speaker 8: ever entrust them with any position of any sort of
Speaker 8: legal authority, but you wouldn't hire them as your personal attorney.
Speaker 8: Why because they have no legal experience whatsoever, and yet
Speaker 8: they're applying to be the chief legal officer of Texas.
Speaker 8: We should evaluate the criteria and fitness for the candidate
Speaker 8: based upon the job description. The chief legal officer ought
Speaker 8: to be a very experienced attorney and I'm the only
Speaker 8: one despite being the youngest in the race, I've got
Speaker 8: the oldest hair style. Well, no, Chip, Maybe Chip's got
Speaker 8: a good haircut. I'll give him that. I'll give him that.
Speaker 8: But Maze is the only one with nice hair in
Speaker 8: the race. I'll give him that too. You know, well,
Speaker 8: Joan has nice hair. I mean for the men, Joan
Speaker 8: looks great. But my point is, no one if you
Speaker 8: look at the criteria for this office and you put
Speaker 8: just the qualifications right, Texans are hiring the state's lawyer
Speaker 8: and I'm the only one with the background that you
Speaker 8: got the proven battle scars to show you I can
Speaker 8: do it.
Speaker 3: You've been very aggressive in attacking each of your candidates,
Speaker 3: your opponents so far, I mean putting it lightly. Campaign
Speaker 3: one on one is usually if you're the front, you're
Speaker 3: ignoring your opponents. Sure you're not doing that. What is
Speaker 3: your assessment of the race?
Speaker 4: Are you? Are you behind? Where are you?
Speaker 8: I think you know on your panel that you just
Speaker 8: had you know, a few with with Joan a little
Speaker 8: while ago. I think there is like a clear like
Speaker 8: general campaign dynamic right now. Right Chip Roy is starting
Speaker 8: on day one with astronomically hired name ID. That's just
Speaker 8: a fact, right, And then depending on the poll that
Speaker 8: you look at.
Speaker 4: You know, some camps have put up poles.
Speaker 8: There have been some public polls, there have been some
Speaker 8: internal polls that have come from each of the camps.
Speaker 8: I'm willing to concede that there's this kind of like teen,
Speaker 8: you know, low single digit name ID where it's flipped
Speaker 8: depending on the poll. Maybe you get May's Joan rights,
Speaker 8: and maybe you get Rights May's Joan. It's just we're
Speaker 8: kind of in that sort of that cluster, right, And
Speaker 8: so look, I understand Chip has that advantage. I think
Speaker 8: that what at least my polling has shown, and we've
Speaker 8: put the polling out on this, is that while he
Speaker 8: has high, his negatives are catastrophic, and I think that
Speaker 8: they're going to prove fatal. Are they going to prove
Speaker 8: fatal prior to March third or or instead in a runoff.
Speaker 8: I don't know, but I can tell you that they
Speaker 8: are fatal. And when Texans learn about the things that
Speaker 8: he said about the President, or said about Paxon, or
Speaker 8: the betrayals that he's done serially over the past several years,
Speaker 8: they will not vote for him, and they become unpersuadable
Speaker 8: never chippers. Right now, the other ones my hope. Look,
Speaker 8: we're we are here in this race to make distinctions.
Speaker 8: I don't think anything that I've said is unfair. And
Speaker 8: by the way I make these distinctions in the context
Speaker 8: of the strength that I bring to the table, I
Speaker 8: want to be clear. I'm running on my legal record.
Speaker 8: I'm running on my record litigating, investigating, suing, defending, and
Speaker 8: appealing on all of the major issues that we care about.
Speaker 8: Whether you're in this room and you care about the
Speaker 8: Second Amendment, the First Amendment, religious liberty, you know, the
Speaker 8: the ESG anti energy agenda, whether you care about you know,
Speaker 8: the woke offication of schools or the transification of our
Speaker 8: kids K through twelve higher education. You pick your issue
Speaker 8: in this room, and I guarantee you that I have
Speaker 8: either personally litigated, or appealed or led legal teams and
Speaker 8: directed them in legal combat to deliver wins for Texas.
Speaker 8: That's something that is I have uniquely in this field.
Speaker 8: And I don't have a problem, you know, sort of
Speaker 8: dancing around the issue that there are other opponents in
Speaker 8: this field. I'm not saying anything cruel or made up.
Speaker 8: I'm not slandering anybody, but I think the contrast in
Speaker 8: light of what I bring to the table right my background,
Speaker 8: even before I was a lawyer, as a Marine officer,
Speaker 8: as an Afghanistan War veteran, still still in the Marine
Speaker 8: Corps Reserve, as a major, the fact that even as
Speaker 8: a law student, I was leading nationally recognized student activist organizations.
Speaker 8: I was editor in chief of Conservative Law Journal, president
Speaker 8: of the Texas Federalist Society. I clerked up in the
Speaker 8: Texas Supreme Court for now Chief Justice Jimmy Blacklock. I
Speaker 8: spent several years in private practice before becoming Ken Paxson's
Speaker 8: right hand man than Ted Cruz's right hand man, and
Speaker 8: then go in to doj to help build out the
Speaker 8: blueprints for some of the most consequential justice related things
Speaker 8: that the President ran on and then launched in his
Speaker 8: first one hundred days in office. That's what I'm running
Speaker 8: on the fact that I also provide that in contrast
Speaker 8: to the totally inadequate, totally inadequate records of my opponents,
Speaker 8: I don't think that that's an indication of being unnecessarily
Speaker 8: or needlessly harsh against my opponents. I think they're nice people.
Speaker 8: Here's my bottom line. I think they're all nice and
Speaker 8: decent people. I like Joan, I personally get along with her.
Speaker 8: I like Mays, I like Chip. It's fine, I get
Speaker 8: along with I've done work with all of them. My
Speaker 8: bottom line contention, though, is that they're applying for the
Speaker 8: wrong job. You don't see me applying to be a
Speaker 8: railroad commissioner. Why not because I don't think I'd be
Speaker 8: able to figure it out, but because I don't have
Speaker 8: a bad I'm not an oil and gas guy.
Speaker 4: You don't see me running to be the lieutenant governor.
Speaker 8: Why Because I'm not really the guy to help manage,
Speaker 8: you know, legislative processes and procedures. There are others much
Speaker 8: more qualified for that. I'm not a doctor either. You
Speaker 8: don't see me applying to take over a medical practice.
Speaker 8: That would be absurd, right, And you know often I
Speaker 8: hear this from some of my opponents on the campaign trail.
Speaker 8: They'll say things like this. One in particular, he'll say,
Speaker 8: who better to defend the laws in court than the
Speaker 8: one who has worked to pass them, to which I say,
Speaker 8: it really makes no sense at all. You know, I'm
Speaker 8: a marine and the M four service rifle is the
Speaker 8: standard issue rifle that's given to every marine. Cult Manufacturing
Speaker 8: makes the rifle. But when we have to go to war,
Speaker 8: when we're in actual military conflict, right combat, who are
Speaker 8: you sending overseas to go fight the enemy? The manager
Speaker 8: at CULT Manufacturing who produces the weapons, or the marine
Speaker 8: who's been deployed a dozen times, vanquished many enemies, sustained
Speaker 8: many battle scars, and won a bunch of combat ribbons.
Speaker 8: And when you ask the question that way and you
Speaker 8: answer it, we all know intuitively what the answer to
Speaker 8: that question is. Of course, you send the marine to
Speaker 8: go use the tools that CULT provided him to go
Speaker 8: fight with. Then you understand the difference between the legislative
Speaker 8: and the executive branch. I love good legislation. I like
Speaker 8: good legislators. I support them. I like when good legislation
Speaker 8: gets through. I don't like when good legislation dies. I
Speaker 8: like when bad legislation gets killed. It's all good stuff.
Speaker 8: But at the end of the day, the Attorney General
Speaker 8: presides over a beautifully appointed armory of tools and weapons,
Speaker 8: and the question is who is best able to elect
Speaker 8: the appropriate weapon at the appropriate time, on the appropriate
Speaker 8: terrain to go fight and win on behalf of Texas
Speaker 8: and Texans. It's the legislature that puts the weapons up
Speaker 8: on the wall. Raytheon makes the F sixteen, But you
Speaker 8: don't send Raytheon to go fly combat sorties. You send
Speaker 8: the pilot. That's the difference. I've been in legal combat.
Speaker 8: That's what sets me apart my opponents. Yeah, Look, it's
Speaker 8: a primary. We are choosing and we are making distinctions.
Speaker 8: That's what we're doing, and that's what sets me apart.
Speaker 8: So that's what I'll say about that.
Speaker 3: Everybody knows what an attorney general in Texas a Republican
Speaker 3: does during a democratic presidential administration.
Speaker 4: You see the administration.
Speaker 3: What's the role for the Texas Attorney General's office when
Speaker 3: there's a Republican administration? And will you if you win,
Speaker 3: will you be suing? Will be seeing any law suits
Speaker 3: against the Trump administration?
Speaker 4: So no, I think you're right.
Speaker 8: Look, I came up through the cut my teeth as
Speaker 8: Paxson's deputy.
Speaker 4: I mean, going to war every single day against the
Speaker 4: Biden administration.
Speaker 8: And it was based upon the belief and the conviction
Speaker 8: that everything that the Biden administration was attempting to do
Speaker 8: through regulations, through the exercise of administrative power and unlawful
Speaker 8: executive power, harmed Texas and harmed Texans, and we on
Speaker 8: behalf of the state of Texas, in order to protect
Speaker 8: our interests and our rights and our way of life
Speaker 8: and our values, had to enter into legal combat to
Speaker 8: vindicate those rights. We were overwhelmingly successful. You're exactly right, though, Brad,
Speaker 8: that like now that we have an ally in the
Speaker 8: White House, the dynamic is very different. We no longer
Speaker 8: need to point ninety nine percent of our guns toward
Speaker 8: a hostel in the White House. Right now we have
Speaker 8: a friend in the White House. And so what that
Speaker 8: allows us to do is to turn all of our
Speaker 8: resources internally. But that also provides us with huge resource
Speaker 8: advantages because we now have an administration that wants to
Speaker 8: realize a similar vision to what I want to realize
Speaker 8: as the age. And there's nobody better in this race
Speaker 8: than someone who's already been vetted, selected and trusted by
Speaker 8: President Trump and by this administration to be able to
Speaker 8: be the chief legal officer of Texas to help call
Speaker 8: upon all of those resources to come benefit Texas, whether
Speaker 8: that's law enforcement or dollar resources or even just you know,
Speaker 8: political support, the bully pulpit of having the Trump administration
Speaker 8: helped to weigh in and support on the things that
Speaker 8: we're trying to do. It allows us then to really
Speaker 8: focus on the home front rather than just go on
Speaker 8: a war against the FEDI. You're really focus on the
Speaker 8: home front. And the way that this will manifest itself
Speaker 8: is I think that it is time.
Speaker 4: To really treat.
Speaker 8: The big blue cities and the big blue counties in
Speaker 8: Texas as the number one threat to what it means
Speaker 8: to be Texas. So when I'm elected Attorney General, of
Speaker 8: course I'm going to partner with the Trump administration to
Speaker 8: accelerate the identification, arrest, attention, and deportation of millions of
Speaker 8: illegal aliens, hopefully tens of millions. So I'll play a
Speaker 8: critical role in that, and I'll play a critical role
Speaker 8: in partnering with the FBI, with DHS, with DOJ to
Speaker 8: advance the America First Law and Order agenda. But in
Speaker 8: my opinion, if Texas is ever one day going to
Speaker 8: become something that is not Texas, it will be because
Speaker 8: of the abuses of power and the fraud and the
Speaker 8: waste and the liberal insanity that is coming out of
Speaker 8: places like Travis County, Harris County, Dallas County, Bear County,
Speaker 8: and another certain blue pockets around the state. And the
Speaker 8: Attorney General plays a mission essential role in supervising, if
Speaker 8: you will, to use a broad legal term, supervising the fraud, waste, abuse,
Speaker 8: and in many cases criminality of these big blue cities
Speaker 8: in big blue counties. And I'm not going to allow
Speaker 8: Harris County or the City of Houston, or Travis County,
Speaker 8: or the City of Austin, or Dallas County or the
Speaker 8: City of Dallas and so on and so forth to
Speaker 8: turn Texas into something that is untexan. And as the
Speaker 8: Attorney General, I maintain vast constitutional, statutory, and common law
Speaker 8: powers to be able to go against them. You know,
Speaker 8: Joan was up here talking earlier about these rogue das,
Speaker 8: and then the question came up about well what do
Speaker 8: you do about them? And what I heard at least
Speaker 8: was well, there's not much that we can do. I
Speaker 8: don't think that that's true at all. Actually, and I
Speaker 8: have experience bringing what are called quo warrento actions, right.
Speaker 8: It's a Latin phrase which stands for show me the warrant.
Speaker 8: And when I was Packson's deputy. I've successfully brought quot
Speaker 8: WARENTO actions. This is where you file a lawsuit in court,
Speaker 8: petitioning a judge to declare a public official after having
Speaker 8: committed serial violations inconsistent with their oath or city ordinances
Speaker 8: or constitutional provisions and other various laws, that they have
Speaker 8: functionally abdicated their office and should be removed. So I'm
Speaker 8: going to seek the removal of all Jose Garza. Maybe
Speaker 8: in this audience he may even hear my voice. Jose
Speaker 8: Garza will be target number one when I'm elected Attorney General.
Speaker 8: At the same time, Shawn Tier and Harris County, two
Speaker 8: of the most crooked and corrupt and pro criminal district
Speaker 8: attorneys in the United States of America. I will seek
Speaker 8: their removal almost immediately when I take office. And I
Speaker 8: am familiar with the tools in that armory in order
Speaker 8: to be able to do so, and I'm excited to
Speaker 8: do it. And so look, I'm running on my record,
Speaker 8: and what I will tell you is, in the middle
Speaker 8: of my term in twenty twenty eight, it's a four
Speaker 8: year term, I'll have two years with Trump and then
Speaker 8: there's a presidential election. Now, look, I'm optimistic that a
Speaker 8: Republican will win in twenty twenty eight, and if they do,
Speaker 8: we're going to continue that integration in partnership and sort
Speaker 8: of all the ores of the boat.
Speaker 4: Rowing in the same direction.
Speaker 8: But if God forbid, a Democrat wins in twenty twenty eight,
Speaker 8: We're going to war. We are going to war because
Speaker 8: whatever that administration is, I don't care who's in it,
Speaker 8: they are going to try to destroy Texas, And as
Speaker 8: has been proven in our recent history and I've been
Speaker 8: in the middle of it as Paxson's deputy, the Attorney
Speaker 8: General's office provides a mission critical fire roll, firewall around
Speaker 8: those attacks to keep Texas free and prosperous and a
Speaker 8: place that's great where Americans want to be. And I'm
Speaker 8: going to go to war, and I'm going to be
Speaker 8: the firewall. And there's no one in this race who
Speaker 8: has proven himself more capable, more able, more experienced, more
Speaker 8: effective at waging law fair when it is necessary to
Speaker 8: do so against an enemy that is occupying the White House.
Speaker 3: We're almost done, but I do want to follow up
Speaker 3: on one thing you mentioned, the quot warr into That
Speaker 3: lawsuit is still pending that's against representive gene Wu for
Speaker 3: allegedly abandoning in his office trying to declare his seat vacant.
Speaker 3: The All Republican Supreme Court has not addressed that yet,
Speaker 3: and the longer it goes on, it seems like they're
Speaker 3: going to rule against it or at least punt on
Speaker 3: it entirely. That's within your own party at least somewhat.
Speaker 4: See.
Speaker 8: Yeah, but I think I think that that's more legally
Speaker 8: complicated than I think a lot of people would would
Speaker 8: would you know. Look, I clerked on the Texas Supreme
Speaker 8: Court for now Chief Justice Jimmy Blacklock. Again, this is
Speaker 8: another sort of credential and experience that I have that
Speaker 8: none of my opponents have. I mean, I have supervise
Speaker 8: at the very highest level sort of the statewide appellate process. Look,
Speaker 8: I don't know what the Court is thinking right now,
Speaker 8: and of course it's not appropriate for them necessarily to
Speaker 8: be like commenting in real time.
Speaker 4: But there is.
Speaker 8: I hope that they rule in in the state's favor.
Speaker 8: I know both Paxton and Abbott both filed similar causes
Speaker 8: of action, which I think the Supreme Court took up
Speaker 8: and they joined the case together under a single cause number.
Speaker 8: But there may be an argument if I could give
Speaker 8: credit to the Texas Supreme Court for a moment.
Speaker 4: There may be.
Speaker 8: A basis to declare the case moot with the underlying
Speaker 8: facts are no longer apparent, and the relief that's been
Speaker 8: requested would no longer actually give relief. Like they're not
Speaker 8: they're there and they're showing up to work, right, Like
Speaker 8: maybe there are other legislative mechanisms to inflict discipline or
Speaker 8: punishment on those members, but that's an a legislative function.
Speaker 8: But if the question is a legal, you know, a
Speaker 8: judicial branch question, then you know, if I were to
Speaker 8: if I were to defend the Texas Supreme Court, I
Speaker 8: would just say, look, there's probably an argument that it's moot,
Speaker 8: like that that dispute is no longer live, and so
Speaker 8: you know, relief granted by a by a court wouldn't
Speaker 8: actually solve anything.
Speaker 4: So maybe you say, punt.
Speaker 8: I know that there's a lot of the grassroots my
Speaker 8: friends are frustrated by it. I mean, I get it,
Speaker 8: but like the dispute's not there anymore, if that makes sense.
Speaker 4: So Aaron Rights, thanks for joining us, Thanks for having
Speaker 4: me appreciate it.