00:00:23.820His 28-point loss on Tuesday night was the worst.
00:00:28.080The worst since at least World War II for a Republican senator.
00:00:32.900We have seen this over and over and over again.
00:00:35.680When a Republican goes up against Donald Trump or Donald Trump really goes up against them,
00:00:41.620it doesn't end too well for that Republican senator.
00:00:44.560We saw it just a few weeks ago with Bill Cassidy getting, what, just 25% of the vote,
00:00:49.220which was the lowest vote share total for any senator, incumbent senator.
00:00:53.060And now when looking at the margin, again, breaking history, the 28 point loss for John Cornyn, the worst for a Republican center since at least World War II, Kate Baldwin.
00:01:05.640That is. Yeah, that fits into historic.
00:01:09.420So Cornyn, Cornyn is kind of, if you were to say, like a Bush era, Texas Republican.
00:01:15.720How much has the party shifted from from the Bush era, if you will, since Trump has come into the.
00:01:22.000Yeah. I mean, look, John Cornyn was first elected back in 2002. And I will just tell you that the George W. Bush era of the Republican Party is simply put, it is dead. It is dead. And this was the capstone to it. And Donald Trump's Republican Party is very much alive. He is the leader of the Republican Party.
00:01:59.480That's an over 100-point shift in the positive direction for Trump.
00:02:02.500And look at what happened to George W. Bush.
00:02:04.040He dropped by 40 points from plus 58 to plus 17.
00:02:07.680So George W. Bush has fallen through the floor since Donald Trump, of course, first really appeared on the political scene,
00:02:13.360first ran for president for the Republican nomination back in 2015, declaring in June of 2015,
00:02:18.460while George W. Bush simply put, as I said, his Republican Party is dead.
00:02:23.000Republican voters are very lukewarm on him, and Republican voters are still very hot to trot on Donald Trump.
00:02:28.540And you saw that in George W. Bush's home state of Texas on Tuesday night with John Cornyn, of course, a Bush-era Republican going down to a historic defeat.
00:02:38.120The bottom line is that Donald Trump, it's his party across the political map, even in George W. Bush's backyard.
00:02:43.880One thing you see in the numbers, one thing we heard from voters on the actual day, on election day there, was that they're going with Trump.
00:02:52.420Trump had accused Cornyn of not being loyal enough, and they were going with Trump when they were going to be supporting Paxton.
00:02:59.860That begs the question of how loyal do Republican voters want their electeds to be to President Trump?
00:03:06.740Yeah, I think when you see this over 100-point shift towards Donald Trump, I mean, that's just crazy.
00:03:12.160But then you just ask the Republican voters, what do they want?
00:03:15.080What do they want from their members of Congress?
00:03:16.680GOP voters want congressional GOP to do more to work with Trump, 80 percent, four and five,
00:03:22.100just 13 percent want him to do more to stand up to Trump. When 80 percent plus of the party is
00:03:26.340with you on any particular question, you know you own the party. This is, as I said, Donald Trump's
00:03:30.960Republican Party. And it's George W. Bush has simply put that Republican Party is dead. It's
00:03:35.540in the graveyard. This is the primal scream of a dying regime. Pray for our enemies because we're
00:04:13.460If that answer is to save my country, this country will be saved.
00:04:20.500War Room. Here's your host, Stephen K. Vance.
00:04:28.580It's Thursday, 28 May in the year of our Lord, 2026.
00:04:33.340Of course, the lazy, and let's just call it what it is, dumb, mainstream media, particularly the folks that cover politics, put the geopolitics in there, national security, and the economics, they always seem to draw the lessons that are just so easy and they kick them around and they become a meme.
00:05:00.400or they become what they want to be, what we call the conventional wisdom.0.91
00:05:05.780Ken Paxson was winning by anywhere from 8 to 12 points when President Trump came in.
00:05:10.980And the power of that was another, you know, he won by almost 30.
00:07:11.040They don't believe really in these trade policies.
00:07:14.440Most of them are not for mass deportations.
00:07:16.640um they're not for the uh hemispheric defense in america first you got tons of neocons in there
00:07:22.900scratch them and they're they're neocon in the senate you got what you got banks you got
00:07:28.220bernie marino you got holly you got schmidt i don't know i said banks you know a couple three
00:07:36.940more get four or five they get four or five they only are with president trump when they need an
00:07:42.120endorsement. Now, how do I know this? Look at the Senate. The Senate treats President Trump as a
00:07:47.740lame duck, full stop. There has not been one day, they still go through this charade every time0.89
00:07:54.340they're on recess, there's not been one day that the Senate's been officially in recess since Trump
00:08:00.160took his hand off the Bible on 20 January 2017. What, six, five and a half years now? Not one day
00:08:08.460because they don't trust him. McConnell said we're never going to do that because Trump could put
00:08:12.060some recess appointments in there big piece today or big thing on cnn about how we're lacking in
00:08:19.140ambassadors we're behind again once again on president trump getting people in there it's
00:08:24.320his own person his own team now that we're a year and a half into this thing and five
00:08:27.820what five or six months away from the midterm elections they treat him the senate treats him
00:08:34.760like a lame duck there's no save america act there's no cooperation they'll do the big beautiful
00:08:41.240bill. When they get a tax cut for their donors, they're all in. You mentioned tax cut for the
00:08:47.700wealthy. Imagine tax cuts for corporations. They're 100%. They'll be doing heavy lifting.
00:08:53.640Anything else? I don't know. Don't know if we can get to that. Look at the Save America Act.
00:08:58.520We were the only channel, the only network that covered every night, every single night,
00:09:05.940We covered the heroic Mike Lee and Eric Schmidt and a handful of others that every night went up there.
00:09:14.900Tommy Tuberville, and Tuberville's part of that, and Mike Lee most of the time is part of what I would say the MAGA, the 5, 6, 7, or 8 in the Senate.
00:09:24.060We would go, you know, they'd go to midnight, go to 11 o'clock every night.
00:09:27.020But you could tell at the time, you know, Jenny Beth was on here, Jenny Beth Martin was on here, Cleta was on here.
00:09:34.100and I kept asking them, I'm thinking, hey, doesn't this feel a little performative?
00:09:37.600The audience, I can tell, the audience doesn't feel the juices running on this.
00:09:40.940They're not ready to go to the ramparts because this is not happening.
00:10:27.280They just want grassroots movement to shut up, show up to vote, send us your money, and you're just going to have to live with what we come up with.
00:10:41.220We're not interested in what you have to say.
00:10:43.380If they were interested in what you had to say, they would have embraced the grassroots movement long before this and said, okay, what do you want?
00:16:45.560with no money and 150 spent against you that you must put it in context and a 24-year incumbent
00:16:51.400you had all that you have to use that as a forcing function to get the senate to stop
00:17:00.120treating president trump as a lame duck and get to work and get the trump agenda done over this
00:17:05.260next 60 days or even take up to september they don't need a vacation the deadbeats anyway if0.83
00:17:11.580they don't do that it's very simply don't do that you're not going i don't care how much money you
00:17:14.960got you have to have grassroots enthusiasm not going to win in georgia not going north carolina
00:17:20.280not going to win uh in maine not going to win in ohio probably not going to win in alaska
00:17:26.800right unless we get a a a a um this radical in michigan not going to win in michigan
00:17:34.180just go across the board because people are not fired up they're not they're not prepared to go
00:17:40.520the extra length. It's all about voter engagement. It's all about low propensity voters. We can do
00:17:46.460this. This is not a persuasion election. That's where they keep the miscalculation of the people
00:17:52.240are spending the money. It's not persuasion. It's motivation. It's get out the vote. Let's go to
00:17:58.140Texas and get it from some leaders. The Texas, the True Texas Project, Julie McCarty and Fran
00:18:05.500roads julie i'll start with you ma'am your assessment get just tell us this audience
00:18:10.200how did ken paxton with no money do have this historic probably the first time in the republic
00:18:18.720if you really compare apples to apples 30 point almost 30 point win against 150 million bucks
00:18:24.940ma'am it's been one because he delivered to the grassroots i think everything you've just said
00:18:31.940is absolutely true. We have loved him for years because it's like every single day you open the
00:18:38.280news and Ken Paxton did this, Ken Paxton did that. And that's what we elected him to do.
00:18:42.920If every politician would do the things that Ken's doing, would follow through on their campaign
00:18:48.620promises, they would all get elected with a 30-point spread or whatever the spread you said
00:18:53.800was. He delivers. And that's what the grassroots, that inspires them to get out the vote.
00:18:59.600you're one in one of the most important parts of texas particularly you have to win big up there
00:19:06.480in tarrant county uh how was it just walk us through the mechanics how did you guys actually
00:19:12.120pull this off honestly we have been training our activists for 17 years we've been here so
00:19:20.920um we have a reputation for telling it like it is for for making the hard decisions and taking
00:19:27.400the heat for it. And after doing that for 17 years, people, they may not like it, but they do
00:19:33.700trust us. And so when we put out our voting recommendations statewide, we make our endorsements
00:19:39.780and people all across the state, whether they are near a True Texas Project satellite or not,
00:19:46.280they are relying on us for our voter recommendations. We always encourage our people,
00:19:53.020you've got to work hard, you've got to be getting out the vote, you've got to work the polls,
00:19:56.320and they get it. It's not the first time we have won a campaign that was the grassroots beating a
00:20:04.120Goliath. We've done it before. We'll do it again. We're going to get Ken Paxton elected to the
00:20:11.240Senate. Talk to me about most of the mainstream media is, I think, totally misinterpreting
00:20:17.220what went on in Texas. What would you tell the mainstream media, what the real story is, ma'am?
00:20:23.200Well, the media likes to say that this was all Donald Trump's doing. And I don't want to discredit the favor that Donald Trump has among the Republicans. But Ken Paxton was going to win this before Donald Trump ever made his endorsement. I don't think Trump would have made the endorsement if he didn't already see that Ken Paxton was going to win. He was on the fence. He was very wishy-washy.
00:20:43.260you know, am I going to support Cornyn or am I going to support Paxton? And in the end,
00:20:47.960he supported Paxton. But the grassroots knew long before that, that that's who we were going to
00:20:53.040elect. So I remember very vividly when Ken Paxton came to me before he had even announced and he was
00:20:59.800just kicking the tires. And I was disappointed because I would rather have him be governor.
00:21:04.240But my very first response was, oh, this is going to be fun. Because, you know, Texans booed John
00:21:09.320cornyn at our convention and we were just itching for a good candidate that could take him out and
00:21:15.060we did it i i remember that very well fran rhodes um talk to me about the 150 million dollars now
00:21:22.880we had the show down we moved the show down to the patron mobile guys and some other places down in
00:21:27.260north of dallas uh for a couple of months early on and i remember seeing these ads and uh and
00:21:34.220the olympics was on for part of the time we watched broadcast tv the nightly news the local
00:21:38.840news as you know is the one of the most expensive parts and they're just on nightly news every night
00:21:44.320every broadcast channel on every cable just carpet bombing and i told people i said these ads are so
00:21:50.440awful i i can't imagine ken paxton's mother's going to vote for him i mean it just it was just it was
00:21:55.680just the scale of it was something that no one had ever seen before how did that play to the
00:22:00.200grassroots, ma'am? It doesn't play very well, truthfully. We mostly, down here in Texas, we
00:22:09.200believe that money doesn't necessarily win a campaign. Of course, it's important, but we've
00:22:14.900seen it over and over again where the most money spent is the loser. And I think this Cornyn
00:22:21.180race, Cornyn-Paxson race, is a great example of that. We've been trying to get rid of John Cornyn
00:22:29.200for the last two election cycles that I can recall, but we've just never had a candidate
00:22:35.320that was recognizable, that had name recognition, that could stand up to the money that Cornyn
00:22:41.740raises. So we love Ken Paxson in Texas, and we're going to be happy to have him in the Senate.
00:22:50.380What, I'm going to get to, I'm going to ask both of you guys about Tallarico in a second, but
00:22:54.480one of the reasons I want to have grassroots leaders on here for Texas, having spent so
00:22:58.680much time down there with you guys. There are lessons for the nation in two things. One,
00:23:05.260what the grassroots did in all these states on redistricting, including Texas, where it kind of
00:23:09.900kicked off this time, but also in this race. What would you tell the senators? Because they're all
00:23:15.460sitting up there and they're not working with Trump. They're kind of treating him like a lame
00:23:19.440duck. And they all think the same Senate leadership fund, the exact same money that came in and back
00:23:25.600Cornyn to destroy the grassroots in Texas and destroy Ken Paxton, their champion.
00:23:30.380The exact same people are sitting up here in D.C. right now saying, well, hold it.
00:23:34.320We got such a massive fundraising advantage over the over the Democrats that we've got this.
00:23:39.720Ma'am, Fran, what would you what would you tell the Senate Leadership Fund and the leaders in
00:23:43.880the Senate right now that are not moving any of the legislation that President Trump needs?
00:23:47.640well i can tell you there's several uh candidates here in texas at the state level that have said
00:23:56.960we don't need the grassroots to get elected and we have uh handily proven them wrong and they are
00:24:04.800no longer state representatives or state senators whatever so i mean i would send the same message
00:24:10.960to the the senate they may not care what the grassroots think but it's time that they start
00:24:17.480caring because the grassroots people care. And if enough other states do what Texas has done here
00:24:27.020and elect a really hardworking candidate that's going to defend their state the way
00:24:33.720Paxton has defended Texas, then we could change the face of the Senate.
00:24:40.860Julie, what would you tell the president? What are the lessons that you believe he should take
00:24:45.660away from Texas, particularly as it relates to his relationship with the United States Senate
00:24:51.700right now? Ma'am. The president, he's got a great agenda. I wish that he would push it a little bit
00:24:59.760harder. And I think he can maximize this win with Paxton and prove that the grassroots are with him.
00:25:07.700The grassroots want to do what his agenda says. And they'll win if they do that. I've never
00:25:13.060understood politicians that don't answer to the grassroots, only because you know when they do
00:25:19.640the right thing. Like when Paxton walks out onto a stage, he's going to get a thunderous roaring
00:25:24.660applause from the grassroots that are so grateful for what he does. Now, does not every politician
00:25:30.160want that thunderous roaring applause? Would they rather be booed like Corning gets booed because
00:25:35.220he betrays the grassroots? That makes no sense to me. So the more you can push Trump's original
00:25:40.820agenda, the more people are going to praise you. But I mean, not accomplishing that agenda
00:25:48.760makes Trump look bad and makes them look bad and it makes the grassroots angry. And then people
00:25:53.760want to go home and say, forget it, I'm done. So the only way to save America, to succeed in
00:26:01.560politics is to listen to the grassroots every time, every time. Hang on, I'm going to hold
00:26:08.760you guys through the break. We've still got a couple of minutes because I want to ask you what
00:26:11.660the political class and particularly the media class don't understand about what's happening
00:26:16.340in Texas right now. Fran, I'll start with you. It appears to me, having spent a couple of months
00:26:21.740down there, that the media in New York and D.C. think that Tallarico is the second coming and
00:26:27.720he's a perfect NPR candidate, but that he's not really defined in the minds of the people in the
00:26:33.720state of Texas. Fran, would you agree with that? Do you think that people, and as you look at
00:26:38.640Tallarico as the opposition here. Does he strike fear into the grassroots in Texas as someone
00:26:44.540that's unbeatable? Not at all. I think he's easily beatable. He is a total freak. We're
00:26:54.740calling him Tallarico down here in Texas. I've observed him in the Texas House for the last
00:27:00.980several sessions and he not he not only believes these crazy things he works hard to get them
00:27:08.980passed in the legislature and we are constantly having to fight back against it uh it it's just
00:27:16.100a constant battle to keep these democrats from trying to do things that are just crazy in my
00:27:22.060opinion so yeah i think i've thought from the moment ken paxton announced and people started
00:27:28.120saying oh he'll never defeat Tallarico I just think that's crazy I think Paxton will easily
00:27:35.620defeat Tallarico in Texas now if Tallarico wants to run for senate from the state of New York
00:27:41.760or you know California or one of those states sure he'd have a great chance because he's their
00:27:47.660dream candidate. Fran hang on for one second Julie hang on for one second I want to hold you guys
00:29:01.320I think they're always going to try to scare the people into giving their money away to a campaign.
00:29:07.260So, yes, of course, they're going to talk about how expensive this race is going to be.
00:29:11.020But let me just give you an example of something that happened just yesterday.
00:29:14.880I had a True Texas Project supporter, you know, probably more educated on politics than most, and he had a friend talking to him saying, well, hey, I have Tallarico, and he sounds pretty good, and, you know, he's got all these churchy kind of things going on, and maybe he's better than Ken Paxson because, you know, we don't like Ken or whatever.
00:29:34.420and and this educated voter got confused and he's like well wait a minute maybe i should be
00:29:41.200supporting talafrico and it took us 2.2 seconds to just give him some quotes from from talarico
00:29:48.520things that he believes just bullet pointing you know his his beliefs on gender and his beliefs on
00:29:54.620jesus and and and it's so obvious so quickly that he really i mean his name is apt talafrico that's
00:30:01.940Ken Paxton came up with that, and man, he nailed it because it doesn't take any time at all for0.56
00:30:07.360the grassroots to realize this guy is a nut job, and nobody's going to vote for him. I know everybody0.61
00:30:13.800is afraid that this could go either way, and it's going to be a close race. I'm with Fran. I don't
00:30:18.220think it's going to be a close race. I think we got this. It's going to be a lot of hard work,
00:30:23.320but I agree with you. I think it's going to be a five or ten point spread because I think more
00:30:26.840Texans get into it. And now, you know, he's already started apologizing. He starts off this
00:30:31.000thing with the apology you know about uh god being binary and all that no no no no dude that's
00:30:36.360what you absolutely believe and on your rise up and with the with the media in new york city and
00:30:42.040in dc and in hollywood you rode this so now you gotta live with it it's absolutely what he believes
00:30:47.300and basically what he believes behind closed doors so he is a total freak he's being defined
00:30:52.460even as we speak and i think ken paxton's team are doing a great job uh julie i'll start with
00:30:57.500Where do we go for your social media and where do we go to get True Texas Project, particularly people around the nation that want to get some of the lessons learned of this massive victory down in the Longhorn State?
00:31:09.900Yeah, we're at TrueTexasProject.com, all spelled out, TrueTexasProject.com.
00:31:17.940People can become a certified True Texan.
00:31:20.440They take five classes and they basically get trained to be an activist.
00:31:24.160We've had people around the state that they go to our satellites and they're speaking to our different groups and they'll tell us that the true Texans that they speak to, their activism, their level of intelligence, their level of engagement is off the charts compared to other groups that they speak to because we have put so much into training them and it's all on our website.
00:31:45.180That's amazing. Do you have a personal social media?
00:31:48.000Yes, I'm Julie White-McCarty on Facebook, and HeyJulieSue on X.
00:31:54.800HeyJulieSue. Fran, what's your personal social media?
00:32:02.220Yes, on Facebook, I am Fran Waters Rhodes, and on X, I am Fran Rhodes TX1.
00:32:11.200guys don't ever change a historic win i mean historic historic for this country about
00:32:19.720our past but more importantly it's historic because i think this is the game changer
00:32:24.900that leads us on to victory both in the house and the senate and we'll get the senate well
00:32:30.700we're going to use this as a club to browbeat them into submission and doing the right thing
00:32:36.120so historic win and it was people like you that did it on your shoulders love you guys thank you
00:42:15.920And you get to talk to Philip Patrick and the team over at Birch Gold.
00:42:19.560You know, Philip Patrick, I highly respect Scott Besson.
00:42:32.900I admire Scott Besson, and I'm glad he's got the job because of a safe pair of hands.
00:42:38.660And if Elon Musk had his choice of Lutnick, it would have been a complete and total unmitigated disaster.
00:42:45.820So the war room was right there, and he's done a great job.
00:42:48.900I do disagree with his response today a little bit on AI.
00:42:55.660Our business model for the country is a highly leveraged bet on really unproven technology,
00:43:02.460massive productivity gains to grow our way out of here.
00:43:06.000If we're going to grow our way out of here through manufacturing, okay, that's one thing.
00:43:11.280But AI and the investment AI, I'm not so sure about that,
00:43:14.560particularly on the when you add in the modicum of restraints that have to be put in here so i
00:43:19.980don't know that's an open question but right now how should people be thinking about uh the dollar
00:43:25.820in the dollar in respect to ownership of physical gold how should they be thinking about it what's
00:43:31.480your recommendation where they go to contact you guys yeah well that was that was a lot there so
00:43:36.180first of all i agree with you vehemently uh scott berson is the best guy for the job for sure and i
00:43:42.540I think theoretically, you know, this investment in AI, AI boom could help increase productivity, reduce costs, create new growth.
00:43:50.380Right. So the theory is there. But to build a national strategy that completely relies on technological development that hasn't produced any profits yet, let alone the tax revenue needed to close the gap, I think is hopeful.
00:44:04.120And I don't think it's the way we should do it. When it comes to the debt, listen, this problem isn't going away.
00:44:10.120The deficit this year is going to be $1.9 trillion.
00:44:13.040It's heading to over $3 trillion over the next decade.
00:44:16.760Debt held by the public is already around the size of the entire economy.
00:44:20.740It's projected to hit 120% of GDP by 2036, which means Washington's going to get backed