Ken Paxton is the Attorney General of the great state of Texas. He is also the head of Turning Point USA, an organization dedicated to fighting for freedom on campuses across the country. In this episode, we talk about the new pro-life law that has been passed in Texas, the Google lawsuit, and is Texas going blue?
00:01:36.000He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.
00:01:42.000We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
00:02:20.000We are super thrilled to be joined by the Attorney General of the great state of Texas, Ken Paxton, who's doing a wonderful job, who actually is in my studio as I'm in Fargo, North Dakota.
00:02:33.000Attorney General Paxton, welcome to the Charlie Kirk Show.
00:02:36.000Hey, I'm enjoying your studio without you, but you were actually in my birthplace.
00:02:39.000I was born in North Dakota, so I hope you're enjoying it.
00:02:42.000So Attorney General, can you walk us through what's happening right now in Texas as far as the Supreme Court intervening and saying that the law that was just passed by the legislature is constitutional?
00:02:55.000Well, so what happened was this was obviously passed last session, which ended in May.
00:03:01.000And the Texas legislature put in a bill that was designed to protect the unborn when a heartbeat could be detected.
00:03:10.000And we were sued by, I don't know, 14 plaintiffs or more.
00:03:18.000And so we defended that all the way up to the Supreme Court.
00:03:22.000And the Supreme Court basically left it in place.
00:03:25.000They didn't say necessarily that it was constitutional, but it's an interesting case because this provides a private cause of action, which is different than other abortion laws in the past, which provided a government action that where a district attorney would have to bring a criminal case.
00:03:39.000In this case, there's no government action.
00:03:42.000It's just an individual cause of action.
00:03:45.000And so it's much harder for a plaintiff to sue right now when there's really been no case.
00:03:52.000So let's walk through what the law actually does.
00:03:55.000This was passed in the legislature back this last spring, if I'm not mistaken.
00:03:58.000And it says that abortions will not be performed after six weeks or when a heartbeat is detected.
00:04:15.000And ours went into effect literally yesterday.
00:04:17.000So, yeah, can you just expand on that a little bit more of why this law was different than, for example, the Alabama law in 2019?
00:04:27.000What was the way that the legislature and maybe your office advised that this law was created?
00:04:34.000Well, it makes it much easier for a federal court to enjoin or stay or stop a law that puts a state in the position of prosecuting somebody.
00:04:46.000In this case, because these are individual claims, it'll be individuals that will be suing doctors or anybody involved in the abortion procedure if they violated this law going past six weeks or the heartbeat.
00:05:00.000And so it makes it much harder for a federal court to step in and join it now.
00:05:05.000And now these cases can be tried not just in, so we would normally get sued in a pretty liberal county, maybe not have the best record to go defend.
00:05:13.000Now individuals can choose their own place where they want to sue in state district court and potentially get a better record to take up if there's a challenge to this, which of course there will be when one of these cases actually gets filed.
00:05:27.000Well, that's a brilliant way of going about it.
00:05:33.000Which is what the left has been doing to us for the last 40 years is kind of saying, how can we, you know, in a clever fashion, try to find the right case to try to compromise whatever, you know, conservative policy we don't like.
00:05:46.000So what you're saying is that this Texas law was written with the intent to try to not have it be overturned by unelected federal judges, basically.
00:05:56.000It was, I thought, a very smart, maybe clever way of empowering individuals who are potentially harmed by abortion and by doctors and other providers who perform abortions to have a cause of action to go seek some type of legal redress.
00:06:13.000And I'm not saying there won't be federal questions that come up, but they aren't there right now.
00:06:20.000They didn't say they were resolving this issue once and for all.
00:06:23.000Obviously, you know, we still have Roe v. Wade in place, but now there is going to be a collision at some point with our law and the precedent that was created by the courts, you know, back in 1972.
00:06:36.000Well, and I just want to compliment you and your office for being wise enough and also having perseverance because we've been told there's nothing you could do.
00:06:46.000Roe versus Wade is the law of the land.
00:06:49.000And Texas has just said, well, let's see if that's true.
00:06:52.000We're going to have this maybe a new way to go about it.
00:06:56.000And so the Supreme Court issued an opinion yesterday, which they didn't reverse Roe versus Wade.
00:07:48.000And are you guys going to be representing the Texas law if that's the case?
00:07:52.000So absolutely, we're going to represent the Texas law.
00:07:54.000My job is to represent the legislature, the governor, whoever gets sued over this law, we will represent.
00:08:01.000And even if it ends up being an individual claim, if there's a way for us to intervene on behalf of the Texas law, we're going to be there to do this.
00:08:10.000It was a very, it's a very exciting moment because it was a very creative approach to dealing with the abortion issue, which we have thought from the beginning shouldn't have been taken away from the states.
00:08:22.000And we all know that the precedent that was created by Roe v. Wade was made up and that their constitutional right to an abortion doesn't really exist.
00:08:31.000And so there's a whole nother case we're involved in, the Mississippi statute that we're actually challenging Roe v. Wade head on.
00:08:39.000But this is a way that this law is in place now and we can protect.
00:08:43.000This allows the unborn to be protected if they're in this situation of at least six weeks or have a heartbeat.
00:08:51.000I want to read about the Mississippi law.
00:08:52.000The next critical moment will arrive this fall when the Supreme Court takes up Mississippi's 15-week abortion ban in a case Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization.
00:09:03.000Are you helping the Mississippi Attorney General?
00:09:26.000If you read our amicus brief, it's pretty well done.
00:09:28.000It just discusses the precedent, how it's constantly been changing, how states don't have any certainty as to what the law is.
00:09:35.000And this idea that somehow there was this constitutional right doesn't make a lot of sense since that constitutional right and that standard keeps changing from trimesters to the KC rules about undue burden to women.
00:09:49.000They should just get out of the business of changing the law, the Supreme Court, that is, of changing the law every couple of years and just let the states regulate abortion and let each state make that decision.
00:10:11.000And also, Ken, you look at the polling, it's also popular.
00:10:15.000If you look at the people in Texas, 60% of Texans believe they're right in that kind of middle ground where they say that we want more restrictions on abortion and that six weeks or a heartbeat is a good place to land.
00:10:29.000Now, obviously, I would like to see abortion go away completely as a grassroots conservative, but Texans want this.
00:10:39.000I mean, we had abortion restrictions before the Supreme Court came in in 1972 and struck them down, not just in our state, but every state.
00:10:47.000And the reality is, you know, these legislators who make these laws are elected by the people.
00:10:52.000And we ought to let those people debate and decide what's best for their citizens and not have some court in D.C. tell us, you know, make up a constitutional right that never existed before in the history of this country.
00:11:05.000So, you know, I'm encouraged because we're making progress and we've continued this fight and we're going to continue the fight until we are in a position where our state controls these decisions and we can have the opportunity to save some of these unborn children.
00:11:18.000Well, the Biden DOJ is going to do everything they can to go after it, which means they're doing the right thing.
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00:13:25.000So I want to get to many other topics here, but let's get into election integrity.
00:13:32.000You see, the other side, they're not just upset about the Texas pro-life law.
00:13:37.000They're also upset about the law that they say it's the hardest state in the country to vote in.
00:13:43.000And tell us what's really going on in the fight for election integrity in the great state of Texas.
00:13:47.000So we almost ended up in the same situation as Georgia and Arizona and some of these other states where we would be counting votes.
00:13:54.000What we did differently in Texas is we defended 12 lawsuits that were aimed in pretty liberal counties, Travis, which is Austin, Houston, which is and then Bear County, which is San Antonio.
00:14:08.000And in those counties, we were sued over our laws related to mail-in ballots and signature verification.
00:14:18.000We won every single one of those lawsuits.
00:14:20.000So instead of counting votes on election day, we had already protected our elections.
00:14:25.000Now what we're doing is we're actually expanding voting hours and we're limiting some of the little tricks that were attempted in Harris County and some other places to go beyond what the legislature authorized as far as it relates to voting.
00:14:40.000And so we've tried to tighten up mail-in ballots by requiring a photo ID, which I think is very significant because my office prosecutes voter fraud.
00:14:50.000We have more voter fraud cases going now than we ever have.
00:14:53.000We have, I think, over 500 cases in court, another almost 400 cases that we're investigating, and more than a majority of those relate to mail-in ballot fraud.
00:15:02.000So what the legislature was trying to do was expand ours, give more opportunity to vote.
00:15:06.000We already have two weeks of early voting in Texas, so it's pretty significant.
00:15:10.000But at the same time, we realize we still have some voter fraud issues, especially as it relates to mail-in ballots.
00:15:15.000So I want to kind of zero in on something you just said.
00:15:17.000There's 500 cases that you've brought to indictment.
00:15:24.000So we have over 500 counts that we're prosecuting right now.
00:15:29.000We have not brought them into indictment because COVID actually shut the courts down in Texas for quite a while.
00:15:35.000And we're now waiting in line behind violent offenders to get those cases in.
00:15:39.000But we have more cases going right now related to voter fraud than I think we've had in the entire history of Texas.
00:15:46.000So if you add up the number that we're investigating plus the number that we're prosecuting, I think it's a larger number than all the cases ever prosecuted in Texas.
00:15:54.000Can you give us a taste or an example of some of these cases?
00:15:58.000Because we are told every day with almost religious incantation, voter fraud doesn't exist.
00:16:04.000If you believe it, you're a racist bigot.
00:16:06.000Just give us one or two of the examples that your office uncovered and that will eventually get to trial.
00:16:48.000And so those are the types of things that we prosecute.
00:16:51.000And I would argue that it actually has increased voting in Texas because people vote when they have confidence in the election being credible.
00:17:01.000And so this is really important because we're told that voter fraud does not exist.
00:17:05.000But you're also setting an example here, Ken, that if you violate the law, you will also prosecute it.
00:17:12.000It's not just like pay a fine that you could go to jail.
00:17:15.000And I think that's important because that also sends some fear into some people that might be thinking that they can institutionally break our laws when it comes to voting.
00:17:26.000We also are prosecuting a woman that admitted on tape that she had committed 7,000 violations of the laws, gotten over 7,000 votes that were illegal.
00:17:54.000If I had more lawyers, if I had more lawyers allocated to this or could get more money, we would be prosecuting even more voter fraud.
00:18:01.000And what I think is going on is most states don't dedicate the resources to go find the fraud and then prosecute it.
00:18:08.000Well, I just think it's terrific what your office is doing with that specific issue.
00:18:12.000So many other states are not doing that.
00:18:15.000In Arizona, Attorney General Mark Bernovich, it looks like he's going to really zero in on this in Arizona, which we're cheering for him to do that.
00:18:24.000And we're actually going to see him sometime soon.
00:18:28.000He has a big opportunity right now in Arizona to go after a lot of this.
00:18:33.000Look, when was the last time you had American meat?
00:20:58.000We spent a lot of time talking to professors who knew a lot about tech and obviously antitrust experts and just all kinds of different people.
00:21:06.000And we really came down to this case against Google.
00:21:08.000We thought there are plenty of other things to look at, but that was where we thought we should start.
00:21:13.000And our case is complicated in a way, but it's also simple in another way.
00:21:17.000We have an obligation to protect consumers, make sure that there's competition.
00:21:21.000And so an antitrust case is designed to make sure that one company doesn't take over the entire market through unfair trade practices.
00:21:28.000And we believe that Google has done that.
00:21:30.000And they've done it in what's called the ad tech market, which means that they control almost all the advertising on the internet.
00:22:00.000And we too think we have a pretty good case.
00:22:02.000Although, as you might imagine, Google has a lot of resources.
00:22:06.000One, to try to, you know, go up against me in elections, but also to fund lawyers really however much they want because they make so much money.
00:22:16.000Well, I want to just kind of mention something here that might be missed on most listeners.
00:22:22.000Attorney General Paxton, how many people do you have working for you in the Attorney General's office in Texas?
00:22:56.000I mean, we have budgets and, you know, my entire budget for a two-year period is $1.3 billion, which sounds like a lot of money.
00:23:02.000It's $600 and something million, but a year, which is a lot of money.
00:23:06.000And we do a lot of great things with that money.
00:23:08.000However, if you think about Google making, you know, $135 billion a year in profits, they could hire every attorney in Texas if they wanted to and every lobbyist in Texas.
00:23:20.000There's no limit to what they can do, the experts they can hire and what they can do to try to go into a legislative session like I just went through where they try to lobby to have my budget cut by 25%.
00:23:38.000So Google, being its own government, basically, within our own country, never should have been allowed to be this big or powerful, comes in and says, oh, we don't like the attorney general's office in Texas because their lawsuit is so brilliantly written.
00:23:51.000Let's go cut their budget because we have offices in Austin and somehow we can justify that.
00:23:57.000And that's what they're willing to do.
00:24:01.000I mean, if they get my budget cut by 25%, which was the strategy, that makes it very difficult for me to carry forward.
00:24:07.000I actually asked also for money for the Google case.
00:24:10.000I asked for $43 million to go fight Google.
00:24:12.000Well, they obviously were trying to fight that as well.
00:24:15.000But imagine I don't get the money to fight them, but I also lose the rest of my, you know, a high percentage of my budget and I have to lay off a bunch of lawyers instead of ramping up to go fight them.
00:25:19.000And so obviously we're not going to put a wall along the entire range of that.
00:25:24.000But we do have some challenges funding that wall, even in the places that we absolutely need it.
00:25:32.000Yeah, I mean, I think that with all due respect to Governor Abbott, a $250 billion biennial state budget, you guys can peel off some more money for border security.
00:25:53.000Well, I think we have the power of eminent domain.
00:25:55.000And one of the things I think we're trying to do is a lot of these property owners are afraid.
00:26:00.000I met with several of them last week, ranchers who are afraid they're having to move their cattle because they're afraid that their cattle are going to be harmed, their property is being harmed.
00:26:11.000So a lot of them may be willing to donate some of the land instead of the state having to come in and pay them based on some legal proceeding.
00:27:05.000We're playing a lot of defense too, because we've got a Biden administration that doesn't follow federal law in all kinds of ways.
00:27:11.000But I think that we definitely need the resources of not just my state, but every attorney general that's willing to defend the Constitution.
00:27:22.000We need the forces of all of these states fighting together and not necessarily going off on their own little tangents.
00:27:30.000We need to join forces and join as many causes together because, you know, just like this abortion case I talked about, 25 states, that's pretty significant when you've got 25 states banded together saying, hey, Supreme Court, this isn't right.
00:27:42.000And so instead of just having Texas on some of these lawsuits, like Texas and Missouri sued over the migrant protection protocols, and we just won at the Supreme Court.
00:27:51.000We stopped the Biden administration from keeping asylum seekers in the country indefinitely when they don't really qualify for asylum.
00:27:59.000And two, they're not having their hearing.
00:28:10.000I would be more encouraged if we were doing more and we were joining more.
00:28:16.000And so one of the other issues that we're getting emailed a lot about is this refugee resettlement issue.
00:28:22.000Right now, it looks like Texas is planning to receive in Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, and Houston Afghan refugees.
00:28:28.000Is there anything your office can do to get more clarity there or challenge this seemingly massive infusion of foreigners into the state of Texas?
00:28:36.000Look, I think it's pretty purposeful they're bringing them to Texas, just like I think it's purposeful that they are leaving so many illegals in our state and allowing hundreds of thousands to come across every month.
00:29:08.000So it's hard for local law enforcement to prepare and to track people or even to know who to track because the federal government brings them in.
00:29:20.000And so I appreciate your office trying to do what you can in that regard, but it seems to be not a losing issue, but a difficult one.
00:29:30.000Now, around vaccine mandates, this is one that a lot of our listeners are asking about.
00:29:34.000What is the state in Texas around this issue?
00:29:37.000A lot of people are asking for representation.
00:29:39.000I know there's limitations at times in what the court can do.
00:29:42.000Other states are passing vaccination status as a protected class.
00:29:46.000What is the state of this in the state of Texas?
00:29:49.000So right now we're involved in, I don't know how many, I'd have a hard time adding up the number of lawsuits over masks.
00:29:54.000And then we also have one over San Antonio ISD, the school district, trying to force employees to get the vaccine.
00:30:03.000We are suing all of these counties and cities and other governmental entities that are trying to do this because we have a disaster relief act.
00:30:14.000And under that disaster relief act, the governor can issue these executive orders.
00:30:18.000And he's done that as it relates to the pandemic.
00:30:20.000And he said no governmental entity can require a vaccine or require a mask.
00:30:27.000I don't have any authority to do anything about businesses or individuals.
00:30:30.000Individuals can make their own choices.
00:30:32.000The business issue is a little harder because they feel, I know that they feel some risk related to liability if they don't have their employees vaccinated.
00:30:40.000And so there's a little tension between liability and individual choice, which I certainly believe in because I don't want to be told to get the vaccine if I feel like that's not in my best health interest.
00:30:49.000And so that's an issue I think our state is still struggling with as it relates to businesses and the liability versus individual choice on health.
00:30:58.000Well, I applaud you for that because so many states are not taking that stance.
00:31:02.000And while I can understand that at times of the businesses' liability, they're operating from a false premise.
00:31:09.000The data is showing that the vaccine is actually potentially contributing to more people getting infected, as Israel is the most vaccinated country in the world with some of the highest COVID rates, even higher than what happened last winter.
00:31:21.000Well, and I think you're right about that.
00:31:22.000And I think if you look at the Swedish model, they took a totally different approach.
00:31:26.000They have vaccinated the high-risk people and left everybody else alone or encouraged the high-risk people to stay out of the public.
00:31:33.000So, their approach is actually, I think, seemingly worked the best.
00:31:38.000And it's been less governmental intervention and more choice.
00:31:42.000And as you said, you've got Israel that's been highly vaccinated and doesn't seem to have worked as well.
00:31:48.000And it seems like the vaccination may end up being, it could end up being more of a problem because it's not been fully tested.
00:31:56.000Yeah, Sweden has just banned travelers from Israel, which they don't want people from the most vaccinated country in the world coming to Sweden.
00:32:04.000I do want to say your website, Ken, is what?
00:32:06.000Because people should know how to support you.
00:32:13.000And also, I want to say people say, Charlie, how do I keep liberals out of my state?
00:32:16.000Well, when you start to pass laws like Texas is passing and defend them, liberals are not going to want to go to your state.
00:32:22.000In fact, you're going to get more conservatives that move to your state.
00:32:24.000You're going to get more Americans that move to your state that want to actually be represented and be able to own firearms and have pro-life laws.
00:32:36.000With the ever-increasing numbers of makes and models, it is now impossible to stock all the parts you need on a traditional chain storefront.
00:32:42.000Why endure often pointless or seemingly intimidating questions and wait while the counterman orders the parts in your computer, snickering and mocking you, knowing that you are the latest overpriced victim when you actually have the access that he has at rockauto.com.
00:33:00.000You guys know the jingle, all the parts you ever need, rockauto.com.
00:33:03.000One reason to repair and maintain your cars is to save money.
00:33:52.000So Attorney General, talk about the new Second Amendment bill that was just passed that has everyone freaking out of what's happening in Texas.
00:34:16.000We have constitutional carry, which allows people to carry concealed or out in the open without going through the government to get permission.
00:34:26.000And so are there any possible legal challenges to this?
00:34:30.000I'm sure some groups are going to try.
00:34:32.000I mean, Robert Francis O'Rourke, who calls himself Beto, is making all sorts of videos about this and saying this is the worst thing ever, but I don't think that's going to hold up in court.
00:34:40.000No, I mean, I have no doubt we'll get sued.
00:35:35.000I think there's another bill they're considering on looking at potential type audits like you guys are doing here.
00:35:42.000I think we've got to do that to make sure that our elections are fair and that people can trust them.
00:35:47.000Because once you lose, if we lose control in Texas, I'm not sure that we'd ever get it back because if they open up mail-in ballot elections, we're going to end up with a lot more fraud and we may never be able to take it back.
00:35:59.000And so it's pretty important that we secure our elections now because you go to California, there's a lot of mail-in ballots.
00:36:07.000And I don't know if we'll ever know if there's a fair election in California or Oregon or Washington.
00:37:00.000And it made it difficult for the Republican legislators and even the Democrat legislators that were actually there all summer, not being able to go work because they only get paid $600 a month plus their per diem.
00:37:12.000But they weren't able to go back to their jobs.
00:37:14.000They weren't able to be with their family.
00:37:16.000It was very challenging for those who had to go beyond the regular session, which is five months.
00:37:21.000And we have a citizen legislature, and these people, they work basically for free.
00:37:25.000So it was very challenging and I think very unfair for the Democrats that left to put everybody else in that bad situation, especially the ones that left and then went on vacation to Europe and the Bahamas or wherever they were.
00:37:36.000Well, they're back now and we'll see what I hope.
00:37:38.000I hope they're back only because there's some more movement that needs to happen.