Speaker 1: This week's episode of the Trip Cast is supported by
Speaker 1: former US Ambassador to Mexico Antonio Garza. Hello and welcome
Speaker 1: to this week's edition of the Trip Cast. I'm James Bargan.
Speaker 1: I'm here with Women's health reporter Eleanor Klibanoff and our
Speaker 1: fearless leader Matthew Watkins. Hello James, and being beamed in
Speaker 1: from Washington, d c our DC reporter politics guru Matthew Troy. Matthew,
Speaker 1: how are you.
Speaker 2: I'm doing great? Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3: Matthew, Joy and I have spent a lot of time
Speaker 3: together in the last seventy two hours.
Speaker 1: The Matthews. That's right. Well, we've got a lot to
Speaker 1: break down this week. This week's podcast is all about
Speaker 1: the second Trump administration, what that means for Texas, and
Speaker 1: trying to look ahead at what this new Trump administration
Speaker 1: is going to look like. But before we do that, guys,
Speaker 1: it's been a long week. A lot of DC stuff
Speaker 1: going on, a lot of speaker stuff going on here
Speaker 1: in the text Legislature. Let's just check in. How are
Speaker 1: we doing? How are we doing in twenty twenty five
Speaker 1: a third weekend? Are we keeping our resolutions? I mean,
Speaker 1: we are here.
Speaker 4: Note in a snow storm, I mean Austin has been
Speaker 4: just I mean a blizzard is upon us. There was
Speaker 4: almost a third of an inch not quite of snow
Speaker 4: on the ground. So I think I'm pretty cold and
Speaker 4: pretty excited. I'd love a good weather weirdness. So I'm
Speaker 4: doing great.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, as I think we mentioned in last
Speaker 3: week's podcast, I was up in DC for the inaugural
Speaker 3: ball and everything like that. My flight from Dallas to
Speaker 3: Austin got canceled yesterday, so I ended up having to
Speaker 3: rent a car and drive down I thirty five in
Speaker 3: the sleet and snow. So that was but I had
Speaker 3: to Yeah, it had nothing to do with my children.
Speaker 3: It was y'all that I wanted to see.
Speaker 4: Our trip cast listeners are your children exactly, They are
Speaker 4: your family.
Speaker 1: That is what matters. Matthew. How are things going in DC?
Speaker 4: Are you?
Speaker 1: Are you keeping your Niear's resolutions?
Speaker 4: Uh?
Speaker 2: You know, I'm trying my best and I'm going to
Speaker 2: the gym. I'm staying healthy. It's a little over twenty
Speaker 2: degrees here, so it's positively you know, tropical. But yeah,
Speaker 2: things are great.
Speaker 1: Very very very different perspective from us here.
Speaker 4: It's all relative.
Speaker 1: Okay, so let's get started. First. For the Matthews, and
Speaker 1: I don't know how we're going to do this since
Speaker 1: there's two Matthews here.
Speaker 3: Just calls Choli and Watkin.
Speaker 1: Okay. For the Matthews, you guys were both there in
Speaker 1: DC for the inauguration. Give us a breakdown. What was
Speaker 1: it like to be there in the city just overall
Speaker 1: and then also watching the events. What was the vibe.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you guys ran into a lot of Texas
Speaker 1: politicians who were there for this event.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I will say one of the more
Speaker 3: surreal parts of the weekend was just being in a
Speaker 3: big city, a big city that's sort of traditionally viewed
Speaker 3: as one of those like liberal elite cities, and just
Speaker 3: to like look around and everyone is a Trump supporter.
Speaker 3: It was a little bit like backwards in that way, right.
Speaker 3: You normally don't associate, you know, inner Washington, d C.
Speaker 3: With With with like being Trump's base. But I think,
Speaker 3: you know, it was obviously a self selecting crowd, Like
Speaker 3: a lot of people who came specifically to see the inauguration,
Speaker 3: a lot of people I think disappointed to not actually
Speaker 3: get to witness the actual inauguration, and you know, there
Speaker 3: I think a lot of kind of chatter about people's
Speaker 3: you know, inauguration tickets turning into kind of fancy commemorative
Speaker 3: commemorative bookmarks and everything like that. But that being said, still,
Speaker 3: I think a lot of excitement, a lot of sort
Speaker 3: of you know, people feeling of a people people have
Speaker 3: a certain political persuasion, feeling a lot of sort of
Speaker 3: you know, relief to be kind of going back to
Speaker 3: a Republican administration, a Trump administration, and things like that.
Speaker 3: Matthew and I were a part of a sort of
Speaker 3: business leader's conference the day before the Texas inaugural ball.
Speaker 3: That was an interesting crowd too, because it's not necessarily
Speaker 3: your your typical you know, maga you know, red hat
Speaker 3: wearing group as much as you're the sort of more
Speaker 3: like business alignance support for him. And that was interesting
Speaker 3: because I think there was a lot of sort of
Speaker 3: cautious optimism. I think a lot of support for Trump,
Speaker 3: a lot of support for his policies, a lot of excitement,
Speaker 3: but also some questions And I think we could probably
Speaker 3: get into this a little bit later around things like
Speaker 3: tariff policy and what impact that's going to have on
Speaker 3: Texas businesses and things like that, so you know, Texas
Speaker 3: came out in full force. Though we all had our
Speaker 3: boots and bow ties on, and you know, both among
Speaker 3: just like regular people and politicians, a lot of sort
Speaker 3: of representation up there in DC this week.
Speaker 1: We get it. Matthew, you're important.
Speaker 4: You go to BOS the Business Leader's conference he was
Speaker 4: invited to as a business.
Speaker 3: My favorite moment, I want to say of the boost
Speaker 3: and bow Ties, as I spent pretty much the entire
Speaker 3: evening with Matthew and our events director matt Ewolt as well,
Speaker 3: was we were in a certain room and this will
Speaker 3: give you just a sense of like what that ball
Speaker 3: is like. And I look and I point, and I go, oh,
Speaker 3: there he is. And Matthew goes, oh, who are you
Speaker 3: putting to Brian Babin Us Congressman Brian Babon, And I
Speaker 3: was like, no, actually, right behind him, it's the rapper
Speaker 3: walka flocka flame.
Speaker 1: You know it's Now I'm interested. I gotta be honest.
Speaker 1: Now I'm jealous. I think we're.
Speaker 2: Both jamming out, so you know, you know, universal vibes
Speaker 2: all around. It's a great time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Matthew, Matthew Joy, how are things for you. What
Speaker 1: was the inauguration like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think one of the most interesting
Speaker 2: kind of themes is that there's such such a different
Speaker 2: mood relative to twenty seven. Back then, you know, the
Speaker 2: Trump crowd was kind of thinking, did we seriously just
Speaker 2: win this thing? Oh my goodness, And you know, like
Speaker 2: a lot of them were traditional Republicans, were thinking, oh,
Speaker 2: I wonder what that's going to look like. This is
Speaker 2: not kind of the typical Republican playbook, and there's a
Speaker 2: bit of hesitancy this time, however, it was very much
Speaker 2: the idea of we are so back, baby. It was
Speaker 2: very jubulant. They were very confident in themselves, and people
Speaker 2: really kind of knew much more what to expect this time.
Speaker 2: I think the business community was a bit more enthusiastic
Speaker 2: now because they've seen what a Trump presidency is like,
Speaker 2: so it's no longer that kind of uncertainty that gave
Speaker 2: him pause us time, and they knew that a lot
Speaker 2: of his policies were very friendly to a lot of
Speaker 2: business interests, particularly businesses that are quite important for Texas,
Speaker 2: like the oil and gas sector, also agriculture as well.
Speaker 2: So you know, it was just like absolutely jubilance around
Speaker 2: the Republican you know, the big Republican ten Matthia, I.
Speaker 1: Didn't want to ask about that because, as maybe one
Speaker 1: talkins pointed out, it is seen as the swamp. It's
Speaker 1: seen as the liberal elite. And I wonder what sort
Speaker 1: of Democrats were feeling if you saw them walking around,
Speaker 1: or if you got to talk to any of them,
Speaker 1: because the New York Times had a great story about
Speaker 1: how the twenty seventeen resistance has turned into the twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five resignation, and in talking to a lot of
Speaker 1: Democrats it does sort of feel that way, or people
Speaker 1: who are not even Democrats but just to pose Trump's
Speaker 1: way of doing things and his view of the world.
Speaker 1: But I wonder if you could give us any insight
Speaker 1: into that since you are in DC and live there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, A important thing to note about twenty
Speaker 2: sixteen was that there was a large sense of indignation
Speaker 2: on the part of Democrats because they did win the
Speaker 2: popular vote, remember so, and already for a party that
Speaker 2: really doesn't, you know, have much affection for the electoral college.
Speaker 2: There was definitely this kind of sense of this was
Speaker 2: a fluke. We represent the way that America should be,
Speaker 2: and we will continue fighting, exhausting every single legal avenue,
Speaker 2: and you know, like we have the people with us.
Speaker 2: That was very much not the case this time. You know,
Speaker 2: the Democrats just straight up lost. You lost the popular revote,
Speaker 2: They lost in many swing states, and they're really feeling that.
Speaker 2: And so there's to us. They're kind of going through
Speaker 2: this soul searching of you know, what was wrong with
Speaker 2: our message? Do we stand for the things that the
Speaker 2: American people stand for. It was a much more kind
Speaker 2: of resigned and introspective kind of mood as opposed to this.
Speaker 2: You know, let's rally our arms and you know, sharpen
Speaker 2: the pitchforks and resists to the Trump administration as much
Speaker 2: as humanly possible.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there was there was a protest on the National
Speaker 3: Mall on Friday or Saturday that I didn't actually know
Speaker 3: about until I'd picked up a copy of the Washington Post.
Speaker 3: That it was I think, far far smaller than the
Speaker 3: kind of protests you saw eight years ago. The only
Speaker 3: Democrat I saw all weekend was Henry Quaar actually you
Speaker 3: know who is also you know, the probably the most
Speaker 3: moderate Democrat in the delegation. I think a lot of
Speaker 3: them sort of made the decision to get out of
Speaker 3: town for the weekend or at least keep a very
Speaker 3: low profile. But I completely agree. I think, you know,
Speaker 3: I think in some ways it feels a little bit more,
Speaker 3: it's less shocking, it feels a little bit normal for
Speaker 3: Democrats to have Trump as a president. I think there's
Speaker 3: also just a lot of soul searching about how they
Speaker 3: handled things last time, how the general more broad electorate
Speaker 3: reacted to it, and whether it's maybe smarter to not
Speaker 3: sort of freak out about every single thing that happens
Speaker 3: and sort of, you know, keep your powder dry for
Speaker 3: the fights that you really feel like are going to
Speaker 3: be meaningful for you and your constituents.
Speaker 1: And we've seen someone of that already with some of
Speaker 1: these immigration bills that are moving through Congress. I think
Speaker 1: we'll probably expect to see that a lot more and
Speaker 1: maybe picking their shots a little bit. But I do
Speaker 1: want to just get into it. Let's talk about what
Speaker 1: was said during the speech. Talked about immigration, remain in
Speaker 1: Mexico is back, although weirdly he's also ending asylum, so
Speaker 1: hard to reconcile how that works. Talked about energy, We're
Speaker 1: gonna drill baby, drill, and he also talked about the
Speaker 1: Gulf of Mexico, Mars and the Panama Canal eleanor from
Speaker 1: an outsider's perspective. Okay, what surprise you what stood out?
Speaker 4: I mean, I think it maybe this isn't necessarily a surprise,
Speaker 4: but I think, you know, it certainly stood out. I
Speaker 4: assumed all of us listening to, you know, the name
Speaker 4: recognition that President Trump gave our governor Greg Abbott, right,
Speaker 4: I mean, certainly a big boost to Texas to what
Speaker 4: Texas has been doing on immigration. It really felt like,
Speaker 4: you know, a validation for this for a lot of
Speaker 4: what Texas has been doing, which again not a shocker,
Speaker 4: but I'm sure felt good to Abbit and some other
Speaker 4: folks in the you know, sort of Texas Republican elite.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was interesting. On the border stuff, it was
Speaker 3: big shout out to Abbot, as you mentioned, it was
Speaker 3: we're going to build wall fast, which is sort of
Speaker 3: what Abbot has already been doing. And we're going to
Speaker 3: or are we not? We're going to. We did declare
Speaker 3: in a national emergency on the border in order to
Speaker 3: send military which is sort of what Abbot did in
Speaker 3: Texas too. It was really sort of like an adoption
Speaker 3: from the national perspective of what Texas has been doing
Speaker 3: for the last four years.
Speaker 4: And this has always sort of been the thing, right like,
Speaker 4: when Democrats are in d C, Texas in many ways
Speaker 4: becomes like the government in exile for Republicans, right Like
Speaker 4: Texas is like trying stuff. Texas is leading, I mean,
Speaker 4: just as the largest red state, like trying things, trying
Speaker 4: things in the court, certainly trying things on the borders
Speaker 4: since we have a significant stretch of border. And it's
Speaker 4: like now the political power has shifted and d C
Speaker 4: is in back in the hands of Republicans, and we're
Speaker 4: sort of seeing those ideas that have been tested here
Speaker 4: go national.
Speaker 1: Matthew, what did you see? Did anything surprise you? I
Speaker 1: felt like most of it was stuff that he had
Speaker 1: already talked about on the campaign trip.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, he was pretty he was remarkably he
Speaker 2: was also very on script during his speech, which you know,
Speaker 2: for folks who have watched a lot of his speeches
Speaker 2: realize that's a bit of a rarity sometimes. But what
Speaker 2: was kind of interesting I thought was, you know, the
Speaker 2: reactions afterwards. It was much more muted and much more
Speaker 2: kind of oh, this is just kind of just the
Speaker 2: norm now, even though some of his proposals are extremely
Speaker 2: divergent from the norms, everything from you know, renaming Denali
Speaker 2: to Matt McKinley to you know, right ending birthright citizenship,
Speaker 2: which is essentially just him challenging the Supreme Court to
Speaker 2: defy him. So and you know, we saw a lot
Speaker 2: of not only in the coverage, but also a lot
Speaker 2: of the response from some of the from the Democratic lawmakers.
Speaker 2: It was, it was it was a lot of exhaustion.
Speaker 2: You know, there's just not much more gas in the
Speaker 2: tank to kind of like, you know, repeat the same
Speaker 2: message they've been saying for the past eight years.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I'm curious about the second
Speaker 1: Trump administration is sort of in the first one, there
Speaker 1: was these hopes from even some of his supporters that
Speaker 1: after he won the election he would become more quote
Speaker 1: unquote presidential. I don't think that anybody is holding their
Speaker 1: breath that that won't happen this time around, And in fact,
Speaker 1: we saw him hit the ground running. He's got an
Speaker 1: executive order on birthright citizenship, he's got he's pardoned a
Speaker 1: lot of the people who were either prosecuted or in
Speaker 1: the process of being prosecuted for the January sixth attacks
Speaker 1: on the Capitol. So I'm just sort of curious what
Speaker 1: kind of Trump do we think we'll see this time around?
Speaker 1: Because he talked a lot about these things like ending
Speaker 1: birthright citizenship, which are very important to his base, and
Speaker 1: sending the troops down to the southern border. But he's
Speaker 1: also talked about things like what we were just saying,
Speaker 1: renaming Mountain Olim McKinley the Gulf of Mexico. Stuff that
Speaker 1: just seems kind of so off the wall. What are
Speaker 1: we expecting to see in this Trump administration? Or should
Speaker 1: we expect to see everything?
Speaker 3: I think, you know, it's a common thing among liberals
Speaker 3: to sort of mock the media for being like Trump
Speaker 3: has changed, or you know, like the what's the like
Speaker 3: running joke like on this day he actually became president
Speaker 3: or whatever like that, And you know, like, I think
Speaker 3: there's some truth to that mocking, right, Like, I think
Speaker 3: to expect him to behave particularly differently from his first
Speaker 3: term is probably a fairly unreasonable expectation. The one thing
Speaker 3: that I wonder about is what has really changed is
Speaker 3: how people are reacting to him. Right. And that goes
Speaker 3: from like the business community, which was very reluctant to
Speaker 3: engage with him, very very reluctant to compliment him, very
Speaker 3: reluctant to like see like to act like they were
Speaker 3: working with him in the first year. That sometimes meant
Speaker 3: that they incurred his wrath and upset him.
Speaker 1: You've got people like Musk Suckerbird.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and they're all, you know, showing up at the inauguration.
Speaker 3: They're they're donating money to the inaugurate there saying very
Speaker 3: nice things to him. I mean, I thought the TikTok message.
Speaker 3: Did you see this when when TikTok shut down and
Speaker 3: they put on their little notice like we're grateful to
Speaker 3: President Trump for like saying he's going to work back
Speaker 3: and they credit him after that.
Speaker 1: But there are legitimate national security concerns around tiktoms.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, and even but even just the way the
Speaker 3: Democrats are reacting of like I think what they would
Speaker 3: describe as like trying not to take the bait. And
Speaker 3: I mean it's clear that one thing that sometimes motivated
Speaker 3: Trump in his first term was sort of reacting to
Speaker 3: how people react to him. They would anger him or
Speaker 3: they would you know, he seems to relish a fight,
Speaker 3: and like, if that's if this strategy sticks for Democrats,
Speaker 3: if they can sort of try to keep the temperature down,
Speaker 3: if the business community, you know, other folks do that,
Speaker 3: will that just create a different dynamic for the presidency
Speaker 3: this year. That's That's one thing I'm curious to see.
Speaker 2: Another thing, another thing that I the really needs to
Speaker 2: be you know, mentioned, is just the difference in staffing
Speaker 2: that he has around him this time. I mean last time,
Speaker 2: he started with the very kind of die hard but
Speaker 2: not exactly experienced in government team, and so he filled
Speaker 2: in a lot of that experience, that you know, gap
Speaker 2: of experience by having people who weren't exactly you know,
Speaker 2: really really kind of committed to his cause, but had
Speaker 2: a lot of experience working in Republican politics, and that
Speaker 2: was a source of a lot of tension. This time,
Speaker 2: he has a much more professional team. Susie Wilds's chief
Speaker 2: of staff really kind of transformed his campaign into a
Speaker 2: very very you know, disciplined tight ship that was very effective,
Speaker 2: and you know, a lot of that kind of professionalism
Speaker 2: is going to be translated into the but filled or
Speaker 2: really really kind of ideologically committed to his to what
Speaker 2: he stands for.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's take a brief break to thank our sponsors
Speaker 1: Mexico more than just a neighbor. For timely cross border
Speaker 1: Insight turned to former US ambassador on Tonio Garza learn
Speaker 1: more at Tony Garza dot com. And we're back, of course.
Speaker 1: So one of the big things that we saw people
Speaker 1: vote on this election was the economy. During the campaign,
Speaker 1: Trump promised to fix the economy and reverse a lot
Speaker 1: of Biden policies. Since the election, he sort of walked
Speaker 1: back and said, you know, it's kind of hard to
Speaker 1: change grocery prices, something that many people could have told
Speaker 1: him before, but that he you know, he's got that
Speaker 1: bombast about him. So, and he's also talked about tariffs
Speaker 1: with Canada and Mexico and with other nations. I think
Speaker 1: some of the executive orders that he's planning are around
Speaker 1: tariffs to Canada and Mexico. Already, what is that going
Speaker 1: to do for our economy here in Texas, particularly with
Speaker 1: our relationship with Mexico, which is one of our top
Speaker 1: training partners.
Speaker 3: I think that this is an area where there's maybe
Speaker 3: not perfect alignment between our Republican leaders in the state
Speaker 3: and Republican leaders in the federal government. And I'll go
Speaker 3: back to this business conference that Matthew and I both
Speaker 3: attended and sat in on. There was a national security
Speaker 3: panel featuring multiple members current and former members of Congress
Speaker 3: who were Republicans sort of dancing around the issue, saying,
Speaker 3: you know, we're not sure that these Basically what Trump
Speaker 3: has said is that he's going to impose a twenty
Speaker 3: five percent across the board tariff on in the US
Speaker 3: and Mexico, I mean, sorry, on Canada and Mexico. And
Speaker 3: he said yesterday, I believe that he's going to put
Speaker 3: that into effect on February first, and you know this
Speaker 3: was before he said that on the inauguration. But folks saying, well,
Speaker 3: you know, he's a really strong negotiator, and like, what
Speaker 3: we really like to see here is that he's being
Speaker 3: tough with these countries and other international countries and the
Speaker 3: way that Biden wasn't. And that doesn't necessarily mean we're
Speaker 3: going to see twenty five percent tariffs. It's just, you know,
Speaker 3: this is the opening to a negotiating conversation. And I
Speaker 3: think that there was some you know, real concern or
Speaker 3: reluctance about like what the impact of that will be
Speaker 3: you know, Texas and Mexico are huge trading partners. You know,
Speaker 3: the biggest kind of international port in the country is
Speaker 3: Laredo now because of goods coming up through through Mexico,
Speaker 3: and it would be you know, it would be naive
Speaker 3: to say that that's not going to have an impact
Speaker 3: at all on jobs in Texas and also on prices
Speaker 3: for Texans and beyond if those things go into effect.
Speaker 3: I think it's interesting that he did not, you know,
Speaker 3: you went down that list of executive orders he signed,
Speaker 3: he did not sign an executive order on tariffs for
Speaker 3: Texas and Mexico. Yesterday he said he's going to in
Speaker 3: a month, which or I guess less than a month,
Speaker 3: which does seem to show that there might be a
Speaker 3: possibility of wiggle room. But I think you know, a
Speaker 3: lot of leaders in Texas, whether it's business leaders or
Speaker 3: even political leaders, are are maybe hoping that they can
Speaker 3: kind of bring these two countries to the negotiating table
Speaker 3: extracts some concessions, perhaps around border security. You know, they
Speaker 3: Trump has talked about this being related to the amount
Speaker 3: of fentanyl that's making its way across the border, the
Speaker 3: amount of undocumented immigrants who are making their way across
Speaker 3: these borders, and if they can come up with something
Speaker 3: that maybe those tariffs can be avoided.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think one important point is you know that
Speaker 1: nod he made to Greg Abbott, and Greg Abbott is
Speaker 1: a big business guy. He is a super business friendly governor.
Speaker 1: And then I think some of our congressional Republicans would
Speaker 1: all you just think about people like Senator Cornyn. They
Speaker 1: don't want to damage that relationship between Texas and Mexico,
Speaker 1: which is very fruitful for both sides. So I want
Speaker 1: to kick it to Matthew, who I know covers the
Speaker 1: relationship between the congressional Republicans and the President and the
Speaker 1: White House. So what do you see there, Matthew. I mean,
Speaker 1: is there wiggle room for these Republicans to I don't know,
Speaker 1: get in President Trump's ear and say, hey, maybe let's
Speaker 1: rethink this or you know, it's a promise that he's
Speaker 1: made and he is not one to back down on promises.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, I think you know, one thing to
Speaker 2: mention about the terrorists that independent of the of the
Speaker 2: diplomatic consequences of them, I mean, this would this would
Speaker 2: impact consumers pretty directly because producers offload the costs of
Speaker 2: tariffs onto their consumers, so right, basically raising prices to match,
Speaker 2: and so that would be have a direct consequence on Americans.
Speaker 2: And you know, like the members of our delegation contained
Speaker 2: some of the most ardent pro Trump people. I mean,
Speaker 2: you would be hard pressed to find somebody who adores
Speaker 2: Trump more than you know, someone like congressman you know,
Speaker 2: like Ronnie Jackson, who's his physician, or Troy Nell's who
Speaker 2: like wore a T shirt with his face with Trump's
Speaker 2: face printed on it into the House floor.
Speaker 1: So so you.
Speaker 2: Know, you definitely have your die hards kind of like
Speaker 2: get a ride or die focus in there. That said,
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, Texas business community is enormous, that
Speaker 2: has an incredible footprint on politics, the oil and gas
Speaker 2: industry in particular, and many of our members, including in
Speaker 2: the Republican delegation, are quite close with that. So there
Speaker 2: is a there is certainly, and they certainly have, you know,
Speaker 2: their their own channels to communicate their displeasure with certain proposals,
Speaker 2: and they have used these with the President. That doesn't mean,
Speaker 2: you know, going publicly against him. So I think Trump
Speaker 2: does have this kind of elegant exit if he wants
Speaker 2: to not impose these by so many people in his orbit,
Speaker 2: saying that this is a negotiating tactic. It means to
Speaker 2: be seen if he actually uses that. But even if
Speaker 2: he doesn't, even if he does use that exit, something
Speaker 2: that Congressman Quay Are brought up in the during this
Speaker 2: business conference I thought was really interesting with the idea
Speaker 2: of an uncertainty tax, that even if the tariffs are
Speaker 2: not implemented, businesses in his town of Laredo, which is
Speaker 2: the largest port of entry on the Texas Mexico border,
Speaker 2: have already started freezing their activity in anticipation of a
Speaker 2: potential TERRAF because they don't want to set up the infrastructure,
Speaker 2: set up the skeletal structure for a business deal might
Speaker 2: get impacted and take that gamble. So even if it's
Speaker 2: not implemented now, the consequences are something felled today.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I'll just add, like I think in
Speaker 4: the tech world, which obviously Trump is now like working
Speaker 4: much more closely with, there is this idea of like
Speaker 4: fail fast, like try things fail and like move on
Speaker 4: to the next thing. And I think we have seen
Speaker 4: in the first Trump administration sort of that mentality of
Speaker 4: like try stuff and like see what happens. The problem,
Speaker 4: as Matthew just pointed out, is like the stakes are
Speaker 4: so high when you're talking about something like the US economy, right,
Speaker 4: or teriffs, Like companies are responsive even to just what
Speaker 4: the president says, even if it never happens. And so
Speaker 4: I think it's looking back, like there was so much
Speaker 4: that happened in the first Trump administration just based on
Speaker 4: a tweet he sent or something that he said that
Speaker 4: had repercussions that are sort of hard to you know,
Speaker 4: we so rarely look back on like what actually went
Speaker 4: into a and what was the impact versus what was
Speaker 4: just like talked about and how did that have an impact.
Speaker 4: So even just this talk about tariffs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the chaos that comes with yeah, right.
Speaker 3: I also think it's just important to point out that
Speaker 3: this sort of conversation of round tariffs has really changed
Speaker 3: through the rise of Trump. Right like ten fifteen years ago,
Speaker 3: there was this sort of broad consensus really shared by
Speaker 3: leaders in both parties that tariffs were not something that
Speaker 3: they wanted to see happened, that free trade was really
Speaker 3: the best policy for economic policy going forward. And you know,
Speaker 3: I think Trump's election in twenty sixteen. One of the
Speaker 3: things that it revealed was that that kind of consensus
Speaker 3: was not shared necessarily by voters around the country in
Speaker 3: the way that it was in Washington. And so Trump
Speaker 3: comes in, he implements some tariffs. People when that happened
Speaker 3: are kind of like, WHOA, this is a big deal.
Speaker 3: This is crazy. But then you know, Trump leaves off
Speaker 3: as Biden comes in off and keeps a lot of
Speaker 3: those tariffs in place, right, And so you know, I
Speaker 3: think there is some hoping that this is a negotiating ploy.
Speaker 3: We'll see. I don't know, but I think maybe there
Speaker 3: are some people who are maybe wanting to go back
Speaker 3: to that free trade consensus in Washington and might be
Speaker 3: surprised that we might not go back that way. And
Speaker 3: if that's true, you know, Texas could be fairly uniquely
Speaker 3: impacted by that, just due to the proximity to the
Speaker 3: border and the impact that trade has on our economy.
Speaker 1: I want to go to another point that go piggybacks
Speaker 1: off of what Eleanor was talking about in terms of
Speaker 1: like the chaos that his sort of edict by tweet
Speaker 1: can throw us into, which is immigration, and like how
Speaker 1: difficult it can be to pull off big things. We
Speaker 1: saw with you know, the you know, when there was
Speaker 1: kids in cages in El Paso. We saw that. And
Speaker 1: I want to go to Matthew Troy because there's been
Speaker 1: talk about the massive deportation that Trump plans, and you know,
Speaker 1: he's said things on a campaign trail, he's already moving
Speaker 1: on them. I don't think there's any reason to think
Speaker 1: that this won't go into effect. But I want to
Speaker 1: touch on a thing that happened, which was this sort
Speaker 1: of infighting between some congressional Republicans that you covered about
Speaker 1: how quickly we're going to move on that, who we're
Speaker 1: going to prioritize and sort of I think that speaks
Speaker 1: to how difficult this might be and how chaotic it
Speaker 1: might be. Do you want to weigh in on this,
Speaker 1: Matthew and sort of fill us in on which way
Speaker 1: you think it's going to go.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's something that you know needs to
Speaker 2: be kept in mind, is that the number of undocumented
Speaker 2: immigrants in this country is called glossful. It's over I
Speaker 2: believe eleven million. Now eleven million is more than the
Speaker 2: population of the entirety of New York City. Could you
Speaker 2: imagine just removing all of New York City it is
Speaker 2: an enormous enterprise, or acquire billions and billions of dollars
Speaker 2: reasons forces that federal law enforcement just don't have at
Speaker 2: their disposal. I mean, Trump did say that he wants
Speaker 2: to use the National Guard, but even with that, you know,
Speaker 2: just the just the the bureaucracy of verifying people's legal
Speaker 2: statuses will be an incredibly expensive and undertaking. So there
Speaker 2: is a lot of divisions among Republicans about should we
Speaker 2: prioritize violent criminals or should we just kind of go
Speaker 2: after everybody? And that was that was kind of the
Speaker 2: divide there. But but I think like the bigger kind
Speaker 2: of conflict really that's going to arise is how the
Speaker 2: squares with Trump's desire to cut federal spending so much
Speaker 2: with the implementation of this you know new Department of
Speaker 2: Government efficiency, which is you know, a kind of made
Speaker 2: by edict entity, you know, trying to find ways to
Speaker 2: cut where that doesn't touch the Republican you know kind
Speaker 2: of third rails of social Security, Medicaid, medicare, law enforcement,
Speaker 2: immigration enforcement. I mean that's like that's like a lion's
Speaker 2: share of federal spending, so, you know, trying to trying
Speaker 2: to trying to amp up this operation Walls were trying
Speaker 2: to cut spending is going to be a huge debate
Speaker 2: for the next couple of years.
Speaker 1: Matthew. Do you have any sense of which way it's
Speaker 1: going to go, Whether President Trump is going to win
Speaker 1: out in the end and it's just going to be
Speaker 1: a free for all, like let's just deport everyone, or
Speaker 1: there's going to be a more targeted approach.
Speaker 2: I mean, from the legislation that we've seen so far,
Speaker 2: it seems like they're targeting more more people who have
Speaker 2: been convicted of criminals. I mean, it's it's worth noting
Speaker 2: that people who are convicted of criminals are already you know,
Speaker 2: pers in line to be deported. So so yeah, a
Speaker 2: lot of this is kind of politics, but that seems
Speaker 2: to be kind of where the will has been among
Speaker 2: Republican lawmakers. It's kind of to be seen if if
Speaker 2: the if the White House is going to follow through
Speaker 2: on that.
Speaker 1: I mean, Stephen.
Speaker 2: Miller, who's one of Trump's top domestic policy people, he
Speaker 2: is pretty pretty ardent for all documents must be deported regardless,
Speaker 2: So it's to be seen which side of will whine out.
Speaker 3: You remember, of course, many activists for immigrants' rights called
Speaker 3: President Obama the deporter in chief, right as he really
Speaker 3: increased the number of deportations during his administration as a
Speaker 3: part of an effort to try to bring Republicans to
Speaker 3: the table for immigration reform going forward. And the way
Speaker 3: that he really did that was through you know, not
Speaker 3: your like immigration raids on workplaces or things like that,
Speaker 3: but through the criminal justice system, working with local governments
Speaker 3: and states, you know, for people that are already sort
Speaker 3: of interacting with law enforcement, which I think is just
Speaker 3: a much you know, A it's it's a it's easier
Speaker 3: to sell to the public doing that, and B it's
Speaker 3: just much easier logistically, right, Like I know, there was
Speaker 3: some reporting about the Trump administration possibly doing some kind
Speaker 3: of raids in the Chicago area, and then they perhaps
Speaker 3: pulled back on that after word leaked. I would not
Speaker 3: be surprised at all if you see some of that.
Speaker 3: But in order to really increase the numbers of people
Speaker 3: you were removing from the country, the logistics of that
Speaker 3: is just really challenging. And if you're going the most
Speaker 3: efficient way to do that is not to send ice
Speaker 3: agents out in the streets.
Speaker 1: I think that you guys possibly are being too optimistic
Speaker 1: about this. I think President Obama did it that way
Speaker 1: because he also was trying to advance immigration legislation.
Speaker 2: Here.
Speaker 1: President Trump doesn't want to advance any type of immigration
Speaker 1: legislation that would open up paths to citizenship. He wants
Speaker 1: to get people out of the country, and so I
Speaker 1: think we should be prepared for at least some chaos
Speaker 1: when it comes to these massive deportations that he's promised.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think he's probably like he and
Speaker 3: Steven Miller and others are going to want to be
Speaker 3: able to point to enforcement actions that will probably get
Speaker 3: a lot of news and get a lot of attention
Speaker 3: for sure.
Speaker 1: Okay, we've talked a little bit about the relationship between
Speaker 1: Texas and the federal government in a second Trump administration. Eleanor,
Speaker 1: I want to come to you because when there are
Speaker 1: Democrats in the White House, Texas becomes sort of the resistance,
Speaker 1: I guess, the true conservative leader, and they're suing the
Speaker 1: Obama administration, particularly the attorney general's I'm sorry the Biden
Speaker 1: first Obama then Biden Attorney General Greg Abbott did it
Speaker 1: then Ken Paxton followed in that they were constantly talking
Speaker 1: about it. They're constantly sending news releases about their latest lawsuit.
Speaker 1: I think even up until the last day, Ken Paxton
Speaker 1: was sending emails about his last lawsuit against the Biden administration.
Speaker 1: What happens to the Attorney General's office here in Texas
Speaker 1: now that theoretically they are in line with the federal
Speaker 1: government and what does that open them up to do
Speaker 1: or how does that change that office?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean Attorney General Ken Patton has been very
Speaker 4: you know, proud of the fact that he has sued
Speaker 4: the Biden administration over one hundred times and has really
Speaker 4: sort of set himself up in the media as like
Speaker 4: the litigator in chief against the Biden administration's priorities. When
Speaker 4: we saw the transition from Obama to the first Trump administration,
Speaker 4: Texas did still bring some lawsuits against certain policies, more
Speaker 4: like holdover policies from the Obama administration. But I think
Speaker 4: you know, that energy, the like political litigation energy that
Speaker 4: was being directed the Biden administration, we're now going to see.
Speaker 4: You know, certainly that doesn't go on ice now. I
Speaker 4: think it gets directed in new and perhaps like entirely
Speaker 4: unprecedented ways, right. I mean, we're already seeing lawsuits against
Speaker 4: nonprofits in Texas, like you know, some that help migrants
Speaker 4: at the border. We're seeing lawsuits against individual doctors, you know,
Speaker 4: for allegedly providing gender firming care, or a doctor in
Speaker 4: New York for providing allegedly providing abortion pills to people
Speaker 4: in Texas.
Speaker 1: Like I think we're going to see that.
Speaker 4: You know, a lot of lawyers get recruited here from
Speaker 4: sort of this conservative legal infrastructure because they want to
Speaker 4: take on, you know, aggressively political litigation. And if you're
Speaker 4: not going to direct that at what the presidential administration
Speaker 4: is doing, you're going to find somewhere to direct that energy.
Speaker 1: So I think we're going to see in the.
Speaker 4: Next four years a real explosion of litigation from that
Speaker 4: office that you know, again we're gonna, like the first
Speaker 4: Trump administration, like wear out the term unprecedented.
Speaker 3: I'm really interested to see whether kin Paxton's efforts against
Speaker 3: technology companies continue. You know, I was just scrolling through
Speaker 3: my email. January ninth, kin Paxton sued tech TikTok. In December,
Speaker 3: he launched an investigation into TikTok and other companies. He
Speaker 3: sued TikTok in October as well.
Speaker 1: There's an ongoing lawsuit against Meta as well, right, right,
Speaker 1: And some of these lawsuits are actually good lawsuits, like
Speaker 1: this is a this is a I think that TikTok
Speaker 1: lawsuit that you're referencing is for TikTok advertising that they
Speaker 1: are safe for kids, which obviously we know not to
Speaker 1: be true from like a lot of the social media
Speaker 1: studies that there have been. And the Metal lawsuits are
Speaker 1: also I think very thoughtful lawsuits.
Speaker 3: Well, he won, you know, over a billion dollars in
Speaker 3: a settlement from Meta from a from a prior lawsuit
Speaker 3: as well. Yeah, and that has been a big part
Speaker 3: of the kimpax and playbook is to file these suits
Speaker 3: against technology companies. But that was during the time where
Speaker 3: Republicans have been very hostile to technology companies. You know,
Speaker 3: we've already seen that start to shift. It'll be interesting
Speaker 3: to see whether that shifts in Texas as well.
Speaker 1: Yep. Sure, final thing that I want to talk about.
Speaker 1: We can't leave this week's podcast without talking about abortion.
Speaker 1: Yesterday on Monday, we reported on the passing of Cecil Richards,
Speaker 1: which is a big moment in Texas. I think also,
Speaker 1: I just want to talk about where does abortion go
Speaker 1: under a second Trump presidency, especially in the light of
Speaker 1: Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick this weekend telling Jason Whiteley at
Speaker 1: WFAA that he's perhaps open to changing the language on
Speaker 1: abortion or anti abortion laws in the state. And then
Speaker 1: so this becomes a state versus federal thing. Should we
Speaker 1: expect it to be continue to be a state versus
Speaker 1: federal thing? And I'll get Eleanor and Matthew on this.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I'll start just briefly by addressing Cecil Richards,
Speaker 4: like you said. You know, she was the longtime head
Speaker 4: of Planned Parenthood, also daughter of former Texas Governor Anne Richards.
Speaker 4: She passed away on Monday after a battle with brain cancer.
Speaker 4: You know, I for in writing her obituary, was going
Speaker 4: through some of her social media and she had this
Speaker 4: tweet the day of that Trump won his second election
Speaker 4: where she said, you know, people, to paraphrase her, you know,
Speaker 4: she's like people who do the sort of work that
Speaker 4: we do. Know, like you lose, you lose, you lose,
Speaker 4: and then you win, which is you know, sort of
Speaker 4: frankly the where the abortion access movement is in Texas, right, like,
Speaker 4: they're losing. They've lost a lot the last couple of years.
Speaker 4: That's also where Republicans were and you know, sort of
Speaker 4: anti abortion folks were for fifty years. Right, they were losing,
Speaker 4: they were losing, they were losing, and then under President Trump,
Speaker 4: they got this huge win. They got the thing they wanted,
Speaker 4: which was, you know, the Supreme Court justices that they
Speaker 4: needed to overturn Roe v.
Speaker 1: Wade, which is something he's sort of avoided during the election.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I think where do you go with
Speaker 4: that now is like a much messier question, right, Like
Speaker 4: there's a if you give a you know, the one
Speaker 4: thing many people, everyone in the anti abortion movement agreed
Speaker 4: on was like Roe v. Wade needs to be overturned.
Speaker 4: President Trump made that happen. The next steps are a
Speaker 4: little bit I think less people are less cohesive on
Speaker 4: what those next steps should be. As you mentioned, even
Speaker 4: within Texas, like sort of you could argue like the
Speaker 4: leading state for anti abortion laws and litigation. This weekend,
Speaker 4: Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick said, you know, he would be
Speaker 4: open to clarifying the existing abortion laws to ensure that
Speaker 4: doctors feel safe treating women with complicated pregnancies that like
Speaker 4: is not if that happens. And we should note that
Speaker 4: Senator Brian Hughes, who authored the law, came out and
Speaker 4: said he'd be open to talking about that, and we
Speaker 4: heard some stuff from House members as well. If that happens,
Speaker 4: that is certainly not going to be a repeal of
Speaker 4: these laws, right, Like, the Texas will remain a state
Speaker 4: where abortion is banned. They clarify that language to sort
Speaker 4: of leave doctors feeling more empowered to treat complicated pregnancies.
Speaker 4: We're talking incremental changes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm noticing a big hesitation on or skepticism. You
Speaker 1: keep saying if, yeah, you don't seem convinced that it's
Speaker 1: going to move forward.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick saying anything
Speaker 4: is more than we've heard in a long time on this, and.
Speaker 1: He lays out sort of what the agenda is in
Speaker 1: the sense, right, so what is possible to pass?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 4: So, I mean, certainly, could we see this get talked
Speaker 4: about more than it did last session? Absolutely, could we
Speaker 4: maybe even see some clarify I mean, we saw a
Speaker 4: bill last session that went really under the radar where
Speaker 4: it sort of gave doctors affirmative defense if they treated,
Speaker 4: if they like, terminated a pregnancy to treat sort of
Speaker 4: specific conditions, which was heralded as sort of this like
Speaker 4: we we did something. We you know, clarified these laws
Speaker 4: a little bit. And doctors you know have said offering
Speaker 4: us an affirmative defense, which says, if we get to
Speaker 4: you know, if we get face criminal charges, then you
Speaker 4: can defend it yourself, is not enough to like free
Speaker 4: them up to practice medicine the way they want to.
Speaker 4: And I'll say, you know, before the last session, Attorney
Speaker 4: Governor Greg Abbott said, if we need to clarify these laws,
Speaker 4: we will, and nothing happened. So I'm I wouldn't say skeptical.
Speaker 4: I would say I'm standing by for more information.
Speaker 1: Matthew. Let's close it out with you, like I said
Speaker 1: during the election present and Trump sort of site stepped
Speaker 1: a lot of these questions about abortion and potential national
Speaker 1: abortion bands. It becomes again, he said, we're going to
Speaker 1: leave it to the states, so it becomes again a
Speaker 1: state versus federal thing. Should we expect any movement on
Speaker 1: abortion from the federal government from a Trump administration.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they haven't really indicated that so much. I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, the official kind of line from the Trump
Speaker 2: camp has always been like, this is the state's issue,
Speaker 2: so let's let the states decide, and you know, just
Speaker 2: in terms of the kind of political play of it,
Speaker 2: Republicans throughout the cycle has indicated that abortion, defending abortion,
Speaker 2: defending their bands on abortion is not a winning political
Speaker 2: issue in any of the polling or focus grips they've done.
Speaker 2: They'll also say, on the other side that Democrats had
Speaker 2: way too much confidence in campaigning off of abortion, and
Speaker 2: that's the reason why they did so poorly in several
Speaker 2: key elections, including in Texas. But I mean that without
Speaker 2: that kind of strong political will and also such a
Speaker 2: large agenda list you ahead with reconciliation this year, we
Speaker 2: haven't really seen that much momentum on the national front
Speaker 2: for a national band.
Speaker 1: Okay, thanks Matthew. That's gonna do it for this edition
Speaker 1: of the Trip Cast. Thanks to Eleanor thanks to the Matthews.
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