The Joe Rogan Experience - Joe Rogan Experience #2352 - James Talarico

00:00:01.000 Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out!

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00:00:12.000 All right, James.

00:00:13.000 You too.

00:00:14.000 Well, how are you?

00:00:15.000 Nice to meet you.

00:00:15.000 Very good.

00:00:16.000 It's nice to meet you.

00:00:17.000 Thanks for having me.

00:00:18.000 My pleasure.

00:00:18.000 I found out about you from my friend Brian Simpson.

00:00:21.000 He was in the green room of the comedy mothership, and he was telling me how excited he was about you.

00:00:26.000 He said he watched some lecture.

00:00:30.000 I think it was probably, not a lecture, a speech you were giving about the Ten Commandments in schools.

00:00:37.000 And so then I watched it, and I said, oh, okay, this is very interesting.

00:00:40.000 So I thought we'd have a cool conversation.

00:00:42.000 Yeah, well, I'm just honored to be here.

00:00:46.000 My pleasure.

00:00:46.000 Thank you for including me.

00:00:47.000 Thank you.

00:00:47.000 Honored to have you.

00:00:48.000 It's always interesting to see a person who is a Christian who is not for the Ten Commandments in schools.

00:00:59.000 Yeah.

00:00:59.000 And I think you made a very compelling argument, you know.

00:01:03.000 Yeah.

00:01:03.000 You know, I've gotten that a lot.

00:01:05.000 People who are like, you're in seminary, you're studying to become a minister.

00:01:09.000 Why wouldn't you want the Ten Commandments in every classroom?

00:01:12.000 So I recognize that it's kind of a weird position to be in.

00:01:16.000 But I grew up in a tradition that cherished the separation of church and state, not just because it protects the church or protects democracy, but it is what allows this democracy to happen where we can all have different faith traditions and live together in peace.

00:01:36.000 And so any attempt to erode that boundary, I feel like I have a special obligation to speak out against it.

00:01:42.000 And so I told my colleagues that I thought the bill was unconstitutional.

00:01:46.000 I thought the bill was un-American.

00:01:48.000 But I went one step further and I said I thought the bill was un-Christian, which again probably sounds weird to people.

00:01:54.000 But in all of Jesus' teachings, he's always focused on the outsider, the outcast, the person who's left out or the person who's different.

00:02:03.000 And so as a Christian, I think my concern is for the Muslim kid and the Jewish kid, the Hindu kid, the atheist kid who's sitting in the classroom, who now has a poster on the wall forced by the government that says, you know, your religion is inferior or you're not welcome here.

00:02:21.000 And I just think if Jesus saw that, he would weep for those students and would demand that we love them as ourselves.

00:02:29.000 And so that's why I kind of spoke out against the bill on theological grounds, not just constitutional grounds.

00:02:35.000 So what is the bill?

00:02:36.000 Can you explain?

00:02:37.000 Yeah.

00:02:38.000 So the bill forces every teacher in the state to display the Ten Commandments in the schools.

00:02:43.000 Is this even in private schools?

00:02:44.000 It's only public schools because that's really where we have authority as the state legislature.

00:02:50.000 And the bill, this is going to sound weird, but it even specifies how big the poster is, the dimensions of it.

00:02:59.000 It has to be in a conspicuous place.

00:03:00.000 It's basically the size of a sheet of paper, regular sheet of paper.

00:03:04.000 The idea is they didn't want anyone to make it too small to where someone wouldn't read it.

00:03:09.000 But the bill says that the school doesn't have to spend money on it.

00:03:14.000 It can be donated.

00:03:16.000 And that sounds fine to most people until you realize there's this huge network of Christian nationalist organizations that are already preparing to flood every school with these Ten Commandments posters for all of their classrooms.

00:03:30.000 So the donation thing sounds like it's kind of innocuous until you realize that the donations are already ready to go from all these outside groups.

00:03:39.000 So there's going to be legal challenges, of course, but if it's not struck down in the courts, every teacher is going to have to put up the Ten Commandments in their classroom against their wills, even if they don't want to.

00:03:49.000 I mean, I just, again, speaking as a Christian, if we have to force people to put up a poster, to me, that means that we have a dead religion, a religion that no longer moves people, a religion that no longer speaks to people's hearts.

00:04:04.000 If we have to prove our legitimacy by micromanaging what teachers put up in their classroom, I mean, to me, that means we have a real crisis in our faith.

00:04:12.000 We should be leading by example, not by mandate.

00:04:16.000 How did this get proposed, and what is the support for it?

00:04:20.000 Well, the support is pretty broad within the Republican caucus.

00:04:24.000 Again, I serve in the state legislature.

00:04:25.000 Is it universal, essentially?

00:04:27.000 Yeah, I don't think there was a single Republican who voted against it this time around.

00:04:31.000 And again, I serve in the state legislature.

00:04:33.000 A lot of people think that I'm a congressman.

00:04:36.000 I serve here in Austin at the state capital.

00:04:38.000 What is your position?

00:04:39.000 So I'm a state representative.

00:04:40.000 So I serve there are two chambers just like the federal government, a Senate and a House.

00:04:45.000 I serve in the House and the State House.

00:04:47.000 So the Republicans have a majority in the House and in the Senate.

00:04:51.000 I'm a member of the Democratic Party.

00:04:53.000 So I literally can't get anything done without working on a bipartisan basis.

00:04:58.000 It's actually a blessing in this modern era where we're all tribalized and polarized that I am forced to work with people who have completely different views than I do.

00:05:08.000 And I actually, you get to know them.

00:05:10.000 In D.C., from what I hear, I've only been to D.C. a few times in my life, but from what I hear, you're really kind of separated physically from your colleagues.

00:05:19.000 You don't spend a lot of time talking to each other anymore.

00:05:21.000 It's a lot of fundraising and events and not really a lot of relationship building.

00:05:26.000 In the state capitol, you don't have the same media scrutiny, the same spotlight.

00:05:32.000 So we can still get to know each other and go out to eat with each other and meet each other's families.

00:05:37.000 And I actually think it's something that we could benefit from at the national level is that kind of camaraderie and professional working relationships with people across the aisle.

00:05:50.000 Casey Gabbard told me she tried to do a lot of that when she was a congresswoman. 1.00

00:05:56.000 And she said it was very difficult and she would get pushback from other Democrats.

00:06:00.000 Yeah, the system doesn't encourage that at the national level.

00:06:04.000 Here, we do not, I think in D.C., the minority party appoints the committee chairs or ranking members.

00:06:13.000 Here at the state level, the Speaker of the House who is elected by Republicans and Democrats, that's the person who decides what committee you're on and what bills you can get passed.

00:06:23.000 And so in some ways, that forces you to be loyal to the body rather than loyal to your party or your caucus.

00:06:30.000 Again, I'm proud to be part of the Democratic caucus, but I literally can't get anything done if I don't have some kind of Republican support.

00:06:39.000 And so that just, and I get a lot, you know, I'm able to pass a lot of bills as a Democrat, and it's because I have good relationships with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle.

00:06:48.000 But yeah, on the Ten Commandments issue, it kind of became one of these culture war fights.

00:06:53.000 And so there wasn't room to have kind of an honest conversation about what it was.

00:06:58.000 When did this get proposed?

00:06:59.000 So it originally got proposed two years ago in 2023 during the regular session.

00:07:05.000 I spoke out against the bill.

00:07:07.000 I kind of kicked up a bunch of dust about the bill.

00:07:10.000 And it went all over social media.

00:07:13.000 And I think that pressure ended up delaying the bill enough to where it died on the deadline.

00:07:18.000 So it didn't pass.

00:07:20.000 Then it came back this session, 2025, and eventually passed both chambers and got signed by the governor.

00:07:26.000 So unless it's stopped in the courts, it's going to be law in the state of Texas.

00:07:30.000 Wow.

00:07:32.000 And I, you know, here's what I try.

00:07:36.000 I try to always take someone's argument at face value and assume best intentions.

00:07:42.000 This is how I'm able to work in a place like the legislature here in Texas, because I try to listen to what someone's argument is.

00:07:48.000 And if I'm being charitable, the best argument for this is that the kids are not all right.

00:07:56.000 Young people are growing up without the structure of faith, whether it's the Christian faith or Islam or Judaism or Hinduism, whatever it may be.

00:08:06.000 Students are just less religious than they once were.

00:08:08.000 People are less religious than they once were.

00:08:10.000 We know that's a fact.

00:08:12.000 And so this rise in mental health issues, anxiety, depression among young people, there are folks out there, and I would even put myself in this camp, who say it's that children are growing up in an incoherent universe.

00:08:28.000 There's not a tradition, a story that helps them make sense of their lives in a profound, almost cosmic way, which is necessary for human beings.

00:08:37.000 I mean, no matter who you are, you need that structure and that meaning in your life.

00:08:43.000 And so I recognize that as a problem, but what I firmly and passionately believe is that the government forcing teachers to put up a poster actually makes that problem worse.

00:08:55.000 Because I think, and again, I was a middle school teacher before I became a politician, so I know students, they have the best BS detector around, right?

00:09:05.000 They are now going to, I think this bill will create a whole new generation of atheists who think that my religion, my faith tradition, that means everything to me, is more about power than it is about love.

00:09:18.000 And they already kind of think that.

00:09:20.000 I mean, young people already think that about religion.

00:09:22.000 I think this is just going to confirm just the worst, people's worst inclinations and impulses about organized religion.

00:09:31.000 Yeah, I would agree with that.

00:09:33.000 And it just doesn't make sense that we've always had a separation of church and state.

00:09:38.000 It's been very important.

00:09:41.000 And that this imposing this on kids in school, in non-religious schools, just seems kind of crazy.

00:09:49.000 Well, and the staunchest defenders for the separation of church and state throughout American history were Protestant Christians, Baptists in particular, right? 0.94

00:09:57.000 I mean, the letter Jefferson writes where he first uses that phrase, a wall of separation between church and state, was to the Danbury Baptists.

00:10:05.000 Because, I mean, these Protestants were fleeing Europe as religious minorities, right? 0.98

00:10:13.000 I mean, this is kind of essential to the founding of this country was religious freedom.

00:10:18.000 And so those Christians understood that once the government starts preaching your religion, starts making decisions about your faith, that that doesn't lead anywhere good.

00:10:30.000 And so we should be very suspicious of the state usurping the role of pastors and Sunday school teachers.

00:10:36.000 I mean, if you want to deepen your faith, we have churches on every street corner.

00:10:41.000 A lot of them don't have a lot of people in them, right?

00:10:43.000 We've got mosques and temples and synagogues that have a ton of room in them.

00:10:47.000 And so why would we have the government start to teach kids about or preach a certain religion when we have houses of worship that can do that?

00:10:56.000 Yeah, I think it's also a really important point you made earlier that if you try to force kids into doing things, they don't like to do it.

00:11:02.000 Correct.

00:11:03.000 And especially if you try to force kids that they're secular and they come from households that maybe are atheists or agnostic, and then you have this on the wall and you impose it on them.

00:11:16.000 They're going to think about it like they think about a lot of other government BS.

00:11:16.000 Yeah.

00:11:21.000 As they should.

00:11:22.000 I mean, I honestly think that Christianity has a lot to share with the world at this moment of kind of crisis everywhere.

00:11:32.000 But this, again, is giving Christianity and religious people broadly a bad name.

00:11:37.000 Because this is what people think about religious people, that we're more interested in imposing our faith or our values or our beliefs on others instead of living it out ourselves.

00:11:47.000 Yeah.

00:11:48.000 What do you think this is in response to?

00:11:50.000 Like, why do you think they're trying to impose this?

00:11:55.000 What would make them want to put this in schools?

00:11:59.000 I think fear.

00:12:00.000 Fear.

00:12:01.000 And I get that fear.

00:12:02.000 I just want to acknowledge that I also feel this fear that I look across my church on Sunday mornings and I see a lot of gray hair.

00:12:13.000 I worry about the future of my church, of my faith in this country.

00:12:17.000 Everyone has seen the charts of declining religious participation and the decline in the number of people who belong to faith.

00:12:26.000 What do you think that's about?

00:12:28.000 I think a lot of it is well justified because organized religion has done a lot of damage to people, particularly if we're talking about this country.

00:12:39.000 It's going to be Christianity, right? 1.00

00:12:41.000 Now, in India, it may be a conversation about Hindu nationalism, but here the dominant religion is Christianity.

00:12:51.000 And we've seen that too many churches, too many faith leaders have abused that trust.

00:12:59.000 A lot of Gen Z, a lot of my fellow millennials, when they hear me talking about my faith and how it informs my public service, they're like, I've never heard of this kind of Christianity, right?

00:13:11.000 Like I was told that if you wanted to be a Christian, you had to hate gay people.

00:13:16.000 If you wanted to be a Christian, you had to want to control women. 1.00

00:13:19.000 If you wanted to be a Christian, you had to reject science. 0.94

00:13:22.000 And so when Gen Z and when millennials were faced with that choice, it was a pretty easy choice for them, right? 0.84

00:13:28.000 They chose their gay friends.

00:13:29.000 They chose women's rights. 1.00

00:13:31.000 They chose believing in science.

00:13:33.000 And that, in my opinion, was always a false choice.

00:13:38.000 And in fact, a lot of those positions that I just mentioned are contrary to biblical values, to the teachings of Jesus.

00:13:45.000 And so, you know, there's always going to be progressive Christians and conservative Christians.

00:13:49.000 That's a very healthy debate we should always have.

00:13:52.000 But in this country, it's become synonymous with right-wing politics.

00:13:56.000 So much so that when people hear I'm a Christian politician, they just assume I'm a Republican.

00:14:01.000 I mean, it's just, I think that has pushed a lot of people away.

00:14:06.000 So where does that come from?

00:14:08.000 Okay, let's start with gay. 0.92

00:14:11.000 Where does this rejection of gay rights come from?

00:14:15.000 Well, I think broadly we should say that using religion to control the people is a tale as old as time. 0.97

00:14:20.000 I mean, this is powerful stuff.

00:14:22.000 It's part of why I made the decision to go to seminary because I was like, if I'm going to talk about my faith and my beliefs and my values in a public setting or on this podcast when millions of people are going to listen, I better know what I'm talking about.

00:14:37.000 I better be thoughtful in how I approach these things because it has real power on people's lives.

00:14:43.000 And so I think you've seen that from the beginning of the Christian tradition.

00:14:47.000 You've seen it across traditions of those in power, whether it's people with political power, social power in terms of homosexuality or economic power using that faith to hurt and control other people. 0.70

00:15:01.000 You know, let's take the issue of homosexuality in particular.

00:15:08.000 One is something Jesus never talks about, even though gay people existed in the ancient world.

00:15:13.000 Is it in the Old Testament?

00:15:15.000 So in the Old Testament, there is a prohibition against men lying with other men.

00:15:21.000 And here's the thing, and any biblical scholar will tell you this.

00:15:25.000 In a lot of ways, we're dealing with ancient euphemisms.

00:15:28.000 And it's hard to tell what a euphemism means thousands of years later, right?

00:15:33.000 I had a professor at seminary.

00:15:35.000 This is going to sound weird, but he was like, think about 2,000 years from now, how difficult it'll be for people to tell the difference between a butt dial and a booty call, right?

00:15:46.000 Like, those are two things that sound very similar on a piece of paper and they have very different meanings.

00:15:52.000 And so, you know, so like in the Hebrew Bible, you do have this prohibition.

00:15:59.000 We're not sure exactly what it means.

00:16:01.000 And if we're taking it just literally, does that mean that we're prohibiting same-sex relationships between women?

00:16:10.000 Because that's not prohibited in that particular scripture.

00:16:10.000 Right?

00:16:13.000 How is it described?

00:16:14.000 So what is the actual passage?

00:16:16.000 I mean, that's the one I just gave to you about.

00:16:18.000 What is the punishment?

00:16:20.000 I mean, I think in most of these violations of the law, you know, the punishment, if it's called an abomination, this punishment can sometimes be death.

00:16:30.000 And this is true of eating certain foods, of planting two crops, different crops next to each other.

00:16:35.000 Wearing two different types of shirts.

00:16:36.000 Shira.

00:16:37.000 And again, again, I'm not a rabbi, so I hesitate to be able to speak with authority on the Jewish scriptures, but this was a people who had found freedom from slavery in Egypt.

00:16:37.000 Sure.

00:16:52.000 And they were trying to be able to set themselves apart from that domination that they knew in Egypt. 0.85

00:16:58.000 They wanted a completely new world where God was in charge, not some pharaoh, not some emperor.

00:17:04.000 So this was a radical community they were trying to build.

00:17:07.000 And so they put rules in place to remind themselves that while it may only take a few, you know, it may take a few weeks to get out of an empire, it takes a lifetime to get the empire out of you.

00:17:19.000 So we now, 2,000, 3,000 years later in terms of the Jewish scriptures, we're now reading it with modern eyes, trying to interpret what they mean and then apply it to our modern context.

00:17:30.000 One, I think that's sloppy theology.

00:17:34.000 Two, I think it's disrespectful to the Jewish people.

00:17:38.000 Three, it's a misunderstanding of Christianity because the whole idea of Jesus' movement was that he was simplifying the law, right?

00:17:47.000 He simplified it into two commandments, love God and love neighbor.

00:17:50.000 Those are the only two commandments that we Christians should keep our focus on.

00:17:55.000 And Jesus regularly got into conflicts with the religious authorities, right?

00:17:59.000 Jesus is always getting in trouble with the church of his time because he is rejecting legalism and embracing the spirit of the law, which is loving your neighbor as yourself.

00:18:10.000 And so in our modern context, that should mean loving our gay neighbors as ourselves.

00:18:17.000 And so to me, you know, when I'm looking at the teachings of Jesus, I think it's very clear how we should treat those who are different, those who are left out, those who are on the edges. 0.96

00:18:28.000 And I think trying to take the Hebrew tradition and interpret it for our own political benefit really does a lot of violence to that scripture.

00:18:38.000 I mean, the word homosexuality wasn't even invented until the 19th century.

00:18:42.000 So if you see the word homosexuality in your Bible, that's an interpretation.

00:18:45.000 That's a translation and using a word that didn't even come around until thousands of years later.

00:18:52.000 Well, what do you think it meant in the Old Testament, though?

00:18:55.000 If you're looking at a literal translation of it, a man lying with another man is an abomination. 0.94

00:19:01.000 What do you think they were trying to accomplish?

00:19:03.000 And where do you think it came from?

00:19:04.000 It could be a whole host of things.

00:19:06.000 I mean, some of these things were put in place for health reasons.

00:19:10.000 Obviously, they didn't have modern medicine.

00:19:12.000 And so if there were things that were considered hazardous to your physical well-being, sometimes those were included in the law.

00:19:21.000 Preserving family structure, right?

00:19:23.000 You obviously had a patriarchal structure in the ancient world where it wasn't just about your commitment to your Wife, it really was about how land and wealth will be passed on to children.

00:19:37.000 And so all those things were important to protect that family structure.

00:19:42.000 So some of these ancient commandments, which again, I don't claim to know what the original meaning was, may have been put in place for some of those reasons.

00:19:52.000 But again, if this was something that really was central to Jesus' ministry, I would think he would have said something about it, right?

00:20:02.000 We have four gospels with tons of teachings from Jesus, and none of them are about this.

00:20:08.000 So it just, I get suspicious when anybody, whether it's a televangelist or a politician, tells me that something is central to my faith when Jesus never talks about it.

00:20:18.000 To me, that should, I think, ring alarm bells as to what is the agenda here.

00:20:24.000 What is someone trying to get across?

00:20:27.000 And I think if we're looking at the last 40, 50 years, the religious right has made a concerted effort to make homosexuality and abortion the two biggest issues for Christians.

00:20:39.000 And, you know, the Southern Baptist Convention was pro-choice until the late 1970s.

00:20:46.000 So this idea that to be a Christian means you have to be anti-gay and anti-abortion, there really is no historical, theological, biblical basis for that opinion.

00:20:55.000 Well, when was abortion even invented?

00:20:58.000 Well, there were certainly abortions in the ancient world.

00:21:02.000 Well, there's some, there's, and again, I haven't stated this enough to say this definitively, but there are interpretations of certain passages from the Torah where some folks will even say that there is some subtle instructions for how to perform an abortion in the ancient world, certain things to drink, things like that.

00:21:23.000 The point is that this idea that there is a set Christian orthodoxy on the issue of abortion is just not rooted in scripture.

00:21:32.000 We can have an honest debate about it.

00:21:34.000 If Pope Francis were to come back and sit at this table and tell me, James, I'm pro-life and anti-abortion.

00:21:42.000 Here's my theological argument.

00:21:43.000 I am here to listen and respect that opinion.

00:21:46.000 I have dear friends who are anti-abortion.

00:21:50.000 All I'm asking is that for Christians who are pro-choice and who respect the bodily autonomy of women, that we be given the space to make our theological argument.

00:22:00.000 Because I think there is a lot of biblical evidence to support that opinion.

00:22:05.000 What do you think is the biblical evidence to support the opinion of being pro-abortion?

00:22:09.000 So one, you know, in Genesis, God creates life by breathing life into the first human being, which we later call Adam, that life starts when you take your first breath.

00:22:22.000 And that is actually the mainline position in Judaism, is that that's when life starts.

00:22:32.000 Then if you think about it from a Christian perspective, what something interesting that Jesus does throughout his ministry is he is breaking first century norms about women, talking with women, learning from women, having women lieutenants in his movement.

00:22:48.000 And this was something that was kind of unheard of in the first century.

00:22:52.000 The longest conversation Jesus has with anybody in the whole Bible is with the Samaritan woman at the well. 0.74

00:22:59.000 And so this affirmation of women as full and equal people is a huge part of the Jesus movement, especially the early church.

00:23:07.000 And then the last, I think, story I would go to is the story of Mary.

00:23:12.000 Mary is probably my favorite figure in the Bible, the mother of Jesus.

00:23:18.000 And, you know, she's an oppressed peasant, teenage girl, living in poverty under an oppressive empire as a Jew.

00:23:28.000 And she has a vision from God that she's going to give birth to a baby who's going to bring the powerful down from their thrones, going to scatter the proud, who's going to send the rich away empty.

00:23:40.000 I mean, this revolutionary song that she sings, it's called the Magnificat.

00:23:45.000 It's actually been banned by certain authoritarian regimes because it is so radical.

00:23:51.000 But I say all this in terms of, in context of abortion, because before God comes over Mary and we have the incarnation, God asks for Mary's consent, which is remarkable.

00:24:07.000 I mean, go back and read this in Luke.

00:24:10.000 I mean, the angel comes down and asks Mary if this is something she wants to do.

00:24:16.000 And she says, if it is God's will, let it be done.

00:24:19.000 Let it be.

00:24:20.000 Let it happen.

00:24:21.000 So to me, that is an affirmation in one of our most central stories that creation has to be done with consent.

00:24:28.000 You cannot force someone to create.

00:24:30.000 Creation is one of the most sacred acts that we engage in as human beings.

00:24:36.000 But that has to be done with consent.

00:24:37.000 It has to be done with freedom.

00:24:40.000 And to me, that is absolutely consistent with the ministry and life and death of Jesus.

00:24:46.000 And so that's how I come down on that side of the issue.

00:24:49.000 Again, I'm very open for my fellow Christians to disagree with that.

00:24:53.000 And they may have scriptural passages they point to to be anti-abortion.

00:24:59.000 And I think that's a debate that we should feel comfortable having.

00:25:02.000 All I'm saying is that it shouldn't be assumed that just because you're a Christian, you are anti-gay or anti-abortion, because there are so many Christians out there who don't subscribe to either of those policy positions.

00:25:16.000 So there's a lot of nuance if you're talking about abortion, right?

00:25:21.000 Because you're not just talking about a woman's right to choose, but you're also talking about rape and incest.

00:25:31.000 That's right.

00:25:32.000 So you're talking about a woman's right to choose whether or not she carries a baby when it was not her choice to begin with. 0.67

00:25:32.000 Right. 0.67

00:25:42.000 And it's why I think that almost everyone in this country is pro-choice to some extent.

00:25:42.000 That's right.

00:25:48.000 Because the polling indicates that the vast majority of Texans, the vast majority of Americans support exceptions for rape, incest, or threats to the mother's health.

00:25:58.000 Now, I've had arguments with People that don't support that, though, which is interesting.

00:25:58.000 Yeah.

00:26:02.000 They say the argument that they give is that two wrongs don't make a right.

00:26:06.000 And, you know, it's a crazy argument because they're even talking about it with underage girls.

00:26:12.000 But at least they're consistent.

00:26:13.000 Again, if you believe that a fetus is a person, now it certainly has a potential to be a person, right?

00:26:20.000 Well, and a fetus is alive in terms of just biologically alive.

00:26:24.000 But we do have literally trillions of living organisms in us right now.

00:26:29.000 They don't have the potential to be a full-grown human being.

00:26:32.000 Absolutely.

00:26:32.000 But the question is, is a fetus or is an embryo a person with full legal rights that trump the rights of a woman?

00:26:40.000 Or a girl, as you mentioned, because if you're a 16-year-old girl who's been raped, does that embryo or that fetus, does it have, does its rights trump the rights of that girl?

00:26:52.000 Right.

00:26:53.000 And I just, I say no.

00:26:54.000 I think most Americans say no.

00:26:56.000 And to me, that exposes kind of the lack of support for fetal personhood.

00:27:01.000 Again, we can have conversations about limits to abortion, all those things.

00:27:05.000 But I do think it's clear that most Americans believe that a woman or a girl should have the autonomy to make those decisions about their own body.

00:27:15.000 I think most Americans probably would agree with that, but I think also most Americans are very uncomfortable with the concept of late-term abortions.

00:27:23.000 Sure, yeah.

00:27:24.000 And I would say- What are your thoughts on late-term abortions?

00:27:27.000 Well, I think if you look at the data, the late-term abortions that happen are almost exclusively to save the life of the mother.

00:27:35.000 Because, I mean, now you're talking about people who have picked out a name, who have bought a crib, people who want this baby.

00:27:42.000 And so the only time this happens is for immediate life-threatening medical reasons.

00:27:52.000 Right, but there are exceptions to that, right?

00:27:55.000 There are people that change their mind.

00:27:57.000 Well, and I think within Roe v.

00:28:00.000 Wade, there was a legal framework for states to be able to make decisions about how you regulate abortion.

00:28:06.000 And so if a state decides that they wanted to ban elective late-term abortions, if those things happen, then that was completely fine within the framework of Roe versus Wade.

00:28:17.000 But we're not having that conversation, right?

00:28:19.000 We're having a conversation about a total extreme ban on abortion here in Texas.

00:28:25.000 The thing about Roe versus Wade, though, was Roe versus Wade, the issue was that it was a federal thing and that it was supposed to be up to the states to make their own decisions, right?

00:28:36.000 So how did it get passed in Texas that it was, I think it's six weeks, right?

00:28:42.000 Which is very early.

00:28:44.000 Which is the point where a lot of women don't even realize that they're pregnant. 1.00

00:28:47.000 Well, and that was the original ban that passed, but then Texas had a trigger law in place, which was if Roe v. 0.91

00:28:55.000 Wade is overturned, which it was, then Texas would automatically ban abortion in all cases.

00:29:01.000 So no longer a week-by-week framework.

00:29:06.000 It was a total ban.

00:29:08.000 So there was that original ban that went into place, but then that was because Roe was overturned was then replaced by a total ban.

00:29:19.000 So in Texas, again, we're not recognizing any of the shades of gray in this conversation.

00:29:25.000 It is the most extreme ban in the country, and we've seen the devastating consequences of it.

00:29:31.000 We saw Texas women who were forced to wait in emergency room parking lots until they went into sepsis. 0.99

00:29:39.000 I mean, we've seen women banned from using public highways to travel out of state to get an abortion. 0.86

00:29:45.000 I mean, that's what they were just trying to do in Lubbock was prevent women from using public highways. 1.00

00:29:50.000 Well, there was also the thing where they were trying to go after women that traveled to other states.

00:29:56.000 Yes.

00:29:56.000 Right.

00:29:57.000 And even if there was no evidence, like say if a woman travels to see her in-laws or her parents or something like that and then has a miscarriage, that to me was very creepy.

00:30:11.000 If this woman had traveled somewhere where abortion is legal and then lost her baby, they would then be accused.

00:30:18.000 Even if they had not had an abortion, they would be questioned.

00:30:22.000 And that, to me, is incredibly insensitive, especially when you take into consideration that some of these women might not have had abortions at all.

00:30:30.000 They might have just lost the baby, which happens quite often where there are miscarriages.

00:30:35.000 Aaron Powell, Jr.: It's interesting you bring up miscarriages because if I'm, again, trying to take people at their word, trying to assume the best intentions and hear a good faith argument on the other side of this, if my concern is with the life of an embryo or the life of a fetus, the greatest threat to that life is a miscarriage.

00:30:57.000 I mean, if your concern is how many embryos or fetuses we're losing, the number that we lose to miscarriage versus the number we lose to abortion, I mean, it's dwarfed.

00:31:09.000 And so I'm always interested why the pro-life movement is not more interested in figuring out how we prevent more miscarriages.

00:31:17.000 Because again, if your concern is that embryonic life seems like finding ways to prevent miscarriage, which we have best practices that can do it, right?

00:31:26.000 Making sure people are covered by health insurance once their pregnancy starts.

00:31:31.000 I mean, that is a huge opportunity to prevent miscarriages.

00:31:36.000 You're not going to prevent all of them, but there are things we could do to stop it.

00:31:40.000 And so the fact that all the attention is on abortion rather than on some of these other things that maybe we could all agree on, to me, again, it makes me suspicious about the true motives of some of these politicians and some of these activists who are pushing some of these bans.

00:31:57.000 Because it doesn't seem like it's about children.

00:31:59.000 It doesn't seem like it's about mothers and women and girls.

00:32:03.000 It does seem like it's about control.

00:32:05.000 And I think that's what we see across this Christian nationalist movement is controlling what you do with your own body, controlling what you read, controlling what you learn, controlling where you travel.

00:32:17.000 I mean, this is religion at its worst, is trying to control people and what they do. 0.99

00:32:22.000 How do you define Christian nationalism?

00:32:24.000 What is that to you?

00:32:25.000 Yeah.

00:32:25.000 So I think there's lots of different ways you could describe it.

00:32:28.000 The way I define it is a little broader.

00:32:31.000 I say Christian nationalism is the worship of power, whether it's social power, economic power, political power, in the name of Christ. 0.82

00:32:41.000 And I think it's relevant to describe it this way because it's something we've struggled with within the Christian church from the very beginning.

00:32:48.000 So the first followers of Jesus didn't even call themselves Christians.

00:32:51.000 They called themselves the way because their crucified teacher had taught them a different way of being human, a different way of relating to other people, of understanding your relationship to neighbor and to God.

00:33:06.000 And this transformed them.

00:33:08.000 They became these peculiar people is how the Bible describes it, because they didn't participate in the economy, the military, the culture.

00:33:19.000 They were persecuted because they turned the world upside down.

00:33:22.000 Again, that's how it's described in Acts.

00:33:25.000 But 300 years after that, after the Roman Empire crucified Jesus, Emperor Constantine made Christianity the official religion of that very same empire, the same empire that crucified Jesus.

00:33:39.000 So this is 300 years later, and now Christianity is the official sponsor of the empire, of Western civilization. 0.98

00:33:46.000 Do you think Constantine was a Christian, like legitimately, or do you think that he was using it?

00:33:52.000 It's always hard to tell with politicians, and I say this as a politician myself.

00:33:56.000 When was Constantine baptized?

00:33:58.000 Well, he was baptized, I don't know the year, but he was baptized after he had this vision before a decisive battle when he saw the cross and decided that his soldiers would put the cross as part of their emblem.

00:34:14.000 And then they won that battle, right?

00:34:17.000 Which, you know, who knows if it was because of his vision or not.

00:34:20.000 But it started a trend, which we've struggled with for literally more than 1,500 years of powerful people, emperors, billionaires, dictators, megachurch pastors using religion to protect their own wealth and power.

00:34:42.000 And to me, Christian nationalism is just the latest iteration of that, whether it's the Ten Commandments bill, whether it's the bill, I don't know if you read about this, a bill that we passed that allows schools to replace school counselors with untrained, unsupervised religious chaplains. 0.68

00:35:00.000 Sometimes people who go online and become a chaplain within five minutes.

00:35:04.000 That to me, again, is an example of Christian nationalism.

00:35:08.000 It's using the state, it's using political power to elevate one religious tradition over all the others.

00:35:15.000 It's using governmental power to dominate our neighbors instead of loving them as ourselves, which is exactly what we're called to do as Christians.

00:35:23.000 And then, of course, most recently we saw this bill that defunded public schools here in Texas to subsidize private Christian schools.

00:35:33.000 And to me, again, that is a bill that's right in the middle of this Christian nationalist movement to erode the separation of church and state and force a certain interpretation of Christianity on everybody against their wills. 0.50

00:35:47.000 Yeah, there's this narrative that this is a Christian nation.

00:35:53.000 It was founded as a Christian nation.

00:35:55.000 And I think they call upon that when they're making these decisions and talking about it in this very particular way.

00:36:04.000 Yeah, and I think no one would disagree that Christianity was influential in the founding of this country and is still influential.

00:36:15.000 I mean, it's suffused throughout our culture, our politics.

00:36:20.000 It is a central part of who we are as a nation.

00:36:23.000 But I think it's really important to clarify that we were not founded as a Christian nation.

00:36:28.000 We were founded as a nation where you are free to be a Christian, or a Jew or a Muslim or a Sikh or a Buddhist or an atheist.

00:36:35.000 I mean, that's the promise of America, is that we are this multicultural melting pot where no one is told how to pray and no religion is elevated over the others.

00:36:47.000 It's also important to point out that it wasn't in the Pledge of Allegiance until communism was an issue in this country.

00:36:52.000 Yeah, and to be fair, the Declaration of Independence does mention a creator.

00:36:58.000 And now it doesn't necessarily mention the Christian God, but it does mention a creator.

00:37:02.000 I think probably in a deliberate attempt to be less sectarian and more open.

00:37:10.000 I mean, a lot of our founders, if we're being honest, some of them weren't religious at all, Thomas Paine.

00:37:16.000 And then a lot of them weren't really what we would consider Christians today.

00:37:20.000 A lot of them were deists, where they saw God as this impersonal clockmaker who created the universe and stepped away.

00:37:30.000 Clockmaker.

00:37:30.000 And I'm not.

00:37:32.000 That's an interesting way of describing it.

00:37:34.000 Well, and I'm not casting aspersion that.

00:37:36.000 Where did you come up with that?

00:37:38.000 I think this is how deists would describe it.

00:37:40.000 I think they were described as a clockmaker, really?

00:37:42.000 Yeah, that the universe is...

00:37:54.000 And they saw that the universe fit together in this perfect way, almost like a clock or a watch.

00:38:02.000 And so they assumed that God was this watchmaker, this clock maker, and then kind of stepped away from God's creation.

00:38:11.000 That is a very different view.

00:38:13.000 It's not an invalid view.

00:38:14.000 I don't mean to cast aspersions on that view, but it's very different than a lot of Christians today who have a personal relationship with God and feel God's intervention in our lives and in our world.

00:38:27.000 And so those are very different kinds of religious.

00:38:31.000 And so for Christian nationalists today to say that our founders were these evangelical Protestant Christians is just not quite historically accurate.

00:38:42.000 These were Enlightenment thinkers.

00:38:44.000 They had their own suspicions of religion.

00:38:45.000 I mean, Thomas Jefferson created his own Bible where he took out all the miracles.

00:38:50.000 Yeah.

00:38:50.000 Really?

00:38:51.000 He also owned slaves.

00:38:53.000 Well, yeah.

00:38:54.000 I mean, all these guys had.

00:38:59.000 But again, Christianity was used to justify slavery. 0.95

00:39:02.000 It was also used by abolitionists to tear it down, right?

00:39:07.000 Christianity was used by Bull Connor and white officials in the South to maintain Jim Crow.

00:39:15.000 And it was also used by Dr. King and the Civil Rights Movement to tear down that system.

00:39:19.000 So, you know, faith, it's really in the hands of the user.

00:39:24.000 It can be used to do a lot of damage to people, but it can also be used to move us toward a more just and loving world.

00:39:33.000 That's where it gets weird, right?

00:39:34.000 It's like we need someone who interprets faith in a way that is beneficial for all and not personally beneficial or beneficial to their ideology or the narrative that they're trying to push, right?

00:39:49.000 Well, and I honestly think, if I'm being my most hopeful self, that Gen Z and millennials, young people are going to be the ones to lead us out of this.

00:39:59.000 Because let me tell you.

00:39:59.000 Why?

00:40:00.000 Because of TikTok?

00:40:02.000 Because of the TikTok.

00:40:02.000 Because they're addicted to video games.

00:40:04.000 What is it?

00:40:05.000 Because there is power in disillusionment.

00:40:09.000 Okay.

00:40:10.000 Because that's fertile ground.

00:40:11.000 So let me back up.

00:40:13.000 So in my faith tradition, Jesus is not just a great teacher.

00:40:22.000 Jesus is the embodiment of the pattern of the universe.

00:40:27.000 This is trippy stuff.

00:40:28.000 I like trippy stuff.

00:40:30.000 Yeah.

00:40:31.000 He, in his person, his life, his death, his teachings, that we somehow learn something about God, this ultimate reality.

00:40:39.000 And Jesus' life, again, in our tradition, the milestones are incarnation.

00:40:44.000 That's Christmas, right?

00:40:46.000 When God takes human form.

00:40:48.000 Incarnation, by the way, is not just limited to Jesus.

00:40:50.000 It's everybody, right?

00:40:51.000 Everybody bears the image of the sacred, right?

00:40:54.000 Joe Rogan does, James Salarica does, every listener to this podcast bears the image of the sacred, made in the image of God.

00:41:02.000 A radical view, right?

00:41:04.000 So that's incarnation.

00:41:06.000 The second is crucifixion, right?

00:41:07.000 That's Good Friday, where Jesus, because he confronts the powerful, is executed on a cross, a humiliating death along with other criminals.

00:41:20.000 And then the last step is resurrection, that something new and beautiful rises from those ashes.

00:41:29.000 So those three things, incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, that's the pattern of the universe.

00:41:34.000 Again, just take religion out of it for a second.

00:41:36.000 Let's just think like a physicist or a biologist.

00:41:39.000 Creation, destruction, recreation.

00:41:42.000 I mean, that is the story of the physical universe.

00:41:46.000 It's the story of our lives, right?

00:41:48.000 That we are all headed toward a brick wall at the end of this, right?

00:41:52.000 There is birth, death, rebirth.

00:41:55.000 Hindus would say reincarnation, right? 0.99

00:41:58.000 This pattern of reality is something that's recognized across traditions.

00:42:04.000 I say all this in response to your question because all of us in our faith start off with order, disorder, and then reorder, if we get to that last step.

00:42:17.000 All of us kind of inherited a faith from our parents.

00:42:21.000 It was usually pretty stable.

00:42:23.000 We didn't ask any questions.

00:42:25.000 And it was comforting, right?

00:42:27.000 You were childish in the best sense of that word, innocent.

00:42:32.000 You grow up, you have experiences, you meet new people, you're exposed to new ideas.

00:42:36.000 Suddenly you start to question all those things that you were taught.

00:42:40.000 And now you have disorder, disillusionment, right?

00:42:42.000 That maybe what I was told wasn't real.

00:42:45.000 Maybe this isn't right.

00:42:46.000 Maybe I've got to question everything.

00:42:48.000 And that's healthy and essential.

00:42:51.000 You need that crucifixion to break apart what was there before.

00:42:56.000 That third step of resurrection, reincarnation, rebirth, reorder, however you want to describe it, to me, it feels like that's what we're on the precipice of.

00:43:06.000 And it does feel like young people in particular are the ones that are asking these questions, because young people have always, on every major issue, have usually been the ones who have been able to kind of think outside the box and see things anew.

00:43:18.000 But it does feel like they are waking up to how broken organized religion is and they are starting to yearn for something bigger and something better and something that's more true and more honest.

00:43:32.000 I hear from people all day long, yes, on TikTok, but also in real life where they're just like, I want a relationship with God and I'm just not sure how to find that.

00:43:44.000 I mean, I think that's, maybe it was the pandemic, but there is something brewing out there where people, they're hungry for something bigger and deeper.

00:43:55.000 So again, that's me on my hopeful days.

00:43:57.000 I've also had my days where I'm more cynical.

00:43:59.000 What happens on your cynical days?

00:44:02.000 So I actually, so I'm in my fourth term in the Texas House and their two-year terms.

00:44:08.000 So that's eight years.

00:44:12.000 In my second term, I kind of had a crisis of confidence, I guess.

00:44:19.000 It was a brutal session.

00:44:21.000 It was a lot of really vicious fights on the House floor, a lot of really terrible bills.

00:44:27.000 The abortion ban, which we just talked about, was passed in my second term.

00:44:32.000 And I just kind of, I honestly lost faith in the impact I was making and maybe even in democracy as a whole, whether this thing was even going to work.

00:44:43.000 This idea that we were all going to try to solve our conflicts nonviolently and peacefully through a political process.

00:44:52.000 I don't know, all of that kind of, I started to doubt in a profound way the work I was doing.

00:44:59.000 And throughout my life, whenever I've felt that doubt, I've always fallen back on faith.

00:45:03.000 Faith is the thing that is kind of the foundation for me.

00:45:07.000 And so in that second term, I had thought about quitting altogether.

00:45:11.000 I thought about resigning my seed and just going off to do other things that maybe would be more fruitful.

00:45:16.000 But through a lot of praying and a lot of soul searching and a lot of meditation, I made a slightly different choice, which was to go to seminary and go back to school and go through the process of becoming a minister.

00:45:28.000 My granddad was a Baptist Minister in South Texas.

00:45:32.000 And so it was a part of my part of my upbringing.

00:45:35.000 And I had really not thought about doing it myself, but I think I had just loving thy neighbor is really hard sometimes.

00:45:47.000 And the work I do in the legislature is my attempt to love my neighbor through the bills I pass, through the work that I do on prescription drugs, on childcare, on public schools, on justice reform.

00:46:00.000 But I was losing faith on whether I was actually doing what I came here to do.

00:46:05.000 And so I made that decision to go to seminary to follow Jesus' first commandment, which is to love God.

00:46:10.000 Those are the two commandments he gave us, love God and love neighbor.

00:46:14.000 And as a seminarian and a lawmaker, I'm kind of, I'm starting to figure out how these two commands, how they relate to each other, how they sustain each other.

00:46:24.000 You need that inner life, which I feel like I'm cultivating at seminary.

00:46:29.000 And then you also need this outer life of how does that impact your relationships and the work you do out in the world.

00:46:34.000 And you really can't have one without the other, because if you do the second one, the work out in the world, you can burn out so easily, which I think I was about to burn out in that second term.

00:46:46.000 You can burn out if it's not sustained by that love of God.

00:46:50.000 And again, I don't mean God as that word is charged for a lot of people.

00:46:53.000 I don't mean like a sectarian religious orthodoxy definition.

00:46:57.000 I just mean that ground of your being, whatever that is.

00:47:00.000 Anyway, I don't know if it answers your original question.

00:47:03.000 What was the main struggle?

00:47:05.000 Like what were you facing in the House that was causing you to have this crisis?

00:47:12.000 Well, so there were several bills.

00:47:13.000 I mentioned the abortion ban.

00:47:15.000 Was there a few others?

00:47:16.000 The human beings, though?

00:47:18.000 Was it the actual...

00:47:24.000 Toward the end of that legislative session, my Republican colleagues brought a, again, this is the way I would describe it, a voter suppression bill, making it more difficult to vote in the state of Texas.

00:47:37.000 Again, Texas is probably the hardest place to vote in the country, just in terms of the paperwork, the requirements, the hoops you got to jump through.

00:47:45.000 How so, though?

00:47:46.000 There's a whole host of things.

00:47:48.000 You know, the fact that we don't have online voter registration in this state, when a lot of other states do.

00:47:54.000 I mean, think of all the things you do online.

00:47:55.000 Voter registration is not one of them.

00:47:57.000 The IDs that now count for registering to vote or voting are very selective.

00:48:03.000 So for instance, you've got a concealed carry license.

00:48:06.000 That license counts as ID, which I agree that it should. 0.76

00:48:09.000 But a student ID from a college or university doesn't count as an ID.

00:48:13.000 You have to get a driver's license.

00:48:15.000 Yeah, you got to go get a driver's license.

00:48:17.000 And again, whether it's a passport or a paper passport.

00:48:20.000 But again, I didn't have a passport for most of my life.

00:48:23.000 I didn't travel outside the country until I was in my 30s.

00:48:30.000 And so I didn't have a passport.

00:48:31.000 A lot of people don't have a driver's license, especially older folks.

00:48:36.000 So the point is that these rules get added on top of each other and make it even more difficult.

00:48:43.000 What's the reason for these rules?

00:48:46.000 They're trying to keep people that are non-citizens from being able to vote, right? 0.99

00:48:51.000 Well, not exactly.

00:48:52.000 I mean, there is that concern.

00:48:54.000 And here's where it kind of breaks down.

00:48:57.000 The main concern is voter impersonation, which is the idea that I would show up to vote as if I was someone else.

00:49:05.000 Like I was going to go and impersonate Joe Rogan and vote for Joe Rogan.

00:49:08.000 That does happen, though, right?

00:49:10.000 Vanishingly few incidences of this happening.

00:49:13.000 Right, because it requires zero.

00:49:16.000 Yes, of course.

00:49:17.000 And Ken Paxton, you know, decides to, he's our attorney general here in Texas, decides to spend millions of dollars trying to find voter fraud, right, to try to prove that this is a widespread problem.

00:49:32.000 And, you know, if he comes up with anything, it's usually like one or two cases of some mom who made a mistake on her form.

00:49:38.000 I mean, the Secretary of State here in Texas, a Republican, said that our elections are safe and secure.

00:49:44.000 So I'm all for making sure that our elections have integrity.

00:49:47.000 I think you have to have that in democracy.

00:49:50.000 My concern, though, is when some of these bills are adding unnecessary regulations on top of that just to make it harder for some folks to be able to vote rather than make everyone have the same opportunity to vote.

00:50:02.000 Who do you think they're trying to make it harder for?

00:50:04.000 I think young people.

00:50:05.000 I mentioned this issue of colleges, universities, and those student IDs not being eligible.

00:50:12.000 Two, in Texas, you've got to change your registration every time you move counties.

00:50:17.000 Not necessarily if you move within a county, but every time you move counties.

00:50:20.000 This is something we don't have to do.

00:50:22.000 There are logistical systems in place where we could track voter registration across counties.

00:50:27.000 But think about the people that disenfranchise us, the people who move a lot, who moves a lot.

00:50:31.000 Young people move a lot. 1.00

00:50:32.000 Every time you get a new job, get a new apartment, if you go to a college or university, then you are moving and your voter registration has essentially been erased until you redo it.

00:50:42.000 And young people are more likely to vote progressive and liberal.

00:50:46.000 I mean, I don't even know if that's true anymore because a lot of young people voted for President Trump in the last election.

00:50:53.000 I think that's because a lot of young people felt very disenfranchised by some of the laws that were being passed by the previous administration and some of the actions they were taking to suppress freedom of speech.

00:51:04.000 My point is, when Republicans in my workplace try to disenfranchise certain groups, I think it's almost they should give themselves more credit and believe in their ability to actually win over those groups, right?

00:51:04.000 I think it's fair.

00:51:20.000 Instead of trying to make it harder for young people.

00:51:21.000 I'm not going to be able to them.

00:51:22.000 Well, but my point is, instead of making it harder for young people to vote, why don't you just go out and try to win their votes?

00:51:28.000 Clearly, Donald Trump was able to do it.

00:51:31.000 And if Donald Trump was able to do it, I think more Republicans should feel they can compete for those votes.

00:51:36.000 Competition is a good thing.

00:51:38.000 A lot of the reason why people were voting for Trump was a rejection of the previous administration and the idea that this is a continuance, that the Kamala Harris administration would be a continuance of the previous administration.

00:51:49.000 Yeah, I think that's true.

00:51:50.000 But again, I'm arguing for my Republican colleagues here.

00:51:54.000 I do think there is something that Donald Trump tapped into, I think that other Republicans Could tap into.

00:52:01.000 And again, this is weird because I'm a Democrat making an argument for Republicans.

00:52:04.000 The reason I'm doing this is I think when politicians feel that they can win over voters, we all compete to win over those voters, and that leads to better public policy.

00:52:15.000 If you write off voters, then that leads to extremism in your policymaking because you're only focused on pleasing your people.

00:52:21.000 Well, that was an issue with young men.

00:52:24.000 Yep.

00:52:24.000 Yes.

00:52:25.000 And so the fact that I do think the Republican Party can speak to this desire to be an entrepreneur.

00:52:35.000 You know, Democrats too often, my party, we think that people are going to be happy with a handout.

00:52:41.000 No one, I've never met someone who wants a handout, right?

00:52:44.000 I mean, people want to work.

00:52:46.000 You've never met someone who just wants free money?

00:52:49.000 I actually haven't.

00:52:50.000 I have.

00:52:50.000 Have you?

00:52:51.000 Sure.

00:52:51.000 I should hang out with different people.

00:52:52.000 Well, there's a lot of people that just want the government to take care of them.

00:52:55.000 Here's the thing.

00:52:56.000 I think some people may think they want that.

00:52:59.000 And let's take the government out of it.

00:53:00.000 Some people think they just want to sit on their couch.

00:53:02.000 Right.

00:53:03.000 And I do too, right?

00:53:04.000 When I'm like exhausted, the last thing, I just want to rot.

00:53:08.000 My point is, after a while, that doesn't make you feel good.

00:53:12.000 Right?

00:53:12.000 No.

00:53:13.000 Every human being, you need the desire to work, to produce, to contribute.

00:53:18.000 I think that is a natural human urge that's like built into us.

00:53:21.000 That is true, but I also think there's a lot of people out there that feel completely disenfranchised, and the idea of working sounds abhorrent to them.

00:53:29.000 The idea of giving your life every day to something that you hate to do.

00:53:34.000 And if there's enough money out there where that's not necessary, they would rather do that.

00:53:38.000 I think that's absolutely true.

00:53:40.000 And I think that one should be that means that we aren't creating enough jobs where people can find meaning.

00:53:40.000 Yeah.

00:53:48.000 How does your job find meaning?

00:53:51.000 I don't think you and I have, and I don't want to speak for you, but I don't think of this role that I have as work, right?

00:53:58.000 This is something that moves me every day to get out of bed and work on these issues.

00:54:04.000 Now, I don't get paid to do this, so I have to actually have a whole another job, but it's a whole different issue.

00:54:10.000 But there's a difference between a career and a job.

00:54:13.000 Yes.

00:54:14.000 I think everyone that I've met, everyone I grew up with wants a career.

00:54:18.000 Yes.

00:54:19.000 And that career can look very differently.

00:54:21.000 That career does not have to be in an office, right?

00:54:24.000 I mean, that career, one can be outside, can be with your hands, or that career can be at the home, right?

00:54:29.000 My little sister just had her first child two years ago, my baby niece, Jane.

00:54:35.000 And she's stay at home.

00:54:38.000 Madeline is, and she's spending so much time with Jane.

00:54:43.000 And I've never seen my sister more alive than the work that she's doing.

00:54:49.000 And my sister wasn't a successful accountant. 1.00

00:54:52.000 She worked at Alamo Draft House.

00:54:54.000 She had cool jobs. 0.94

00:54:56.000 But I think this is the career that she wants.

00:54:59.000 She knows that she could do other things if she wants to, but this is what's giving her meaning in her life.

00:55:05.000 And I want to have kids one day.

00:55:07.000 So I definitely see that.

00:55:08.000 There is work that I want to do.

00:55:10.000 Part of why I'm going to seminary is that this is something I feel called to do.

00:55:14.000 It's something that's giving me purpose and meaning in my life.

00:55:17.000 I just think every single person deserves that.

00:55:20.000 And I don't know the best way to do it, but how do we give everyone that opportunity to give the gift that they're meant to give?

00:55:27.000 I mean, we're all here for just a short amount of time.

00:55:30.000 We are all so different.

00:55:32.000 There is literally no one in the history of the universe that is you, right?

00:55:36.000 Joe Rogan, this collection of atoms and elements is only going to exist once.

00:55:41.000 And thank God you found a way of how do you shine that light?

00:55:44.000 How do you give that gift?

00:55:45.000 But think of all the people across this state and this country who don't have a way to give that.

00:55:50.000 What are we missing out on?

00:55:52.000 The cure for cancer is trapped in the mind of a kid in a low-income school.

00:55:56.000 Right.

00:55:57.000 But this is all great sentiment.

00:55:59.000 But what are the actions that could be taken in order to give people a path to a career rather than a job?

00:56:05.000 So let's just talk about, I think we're all either thrilled or terrified of this AI future.

00:56:15.000 And who knows what it's going to look like?

00:56:17.000 It's probably not going to be apocalypse and probably not going to be utopia.

00:56:20.000 It'll probably be something in the middle.

00:56:22.000 But it is going to change how we understand work.

00:56:28.000 It's going to change how we understand our jobs and our careers.

00:56:31.000 It's going to eliminate a lot of jobs, I would imagine.

00:56:34.000 And so this is now going to be a spiritual question about what does it mean to be a human being?

00:56:39.000 It's one that we are not equipped to answer right now because in a lot of ways we have thrown out the baby with the bathwater.

00:56:46.000 And because of the problems with organized religion that we talked about earlier, we've just jettisoned the whole thing.

00:56:51.000 So we're no longer having conversations about what it means to be a human being.

00:56:54.000 But to get to your question about what specifically this could look like, you know, I'm intrigued by some of the pilot programs on universal basic income and what they've provided.

00:57:05.000 But I think what's missing in this idea is how do you provide people the support to go off and realize whatever dream has been festering in their brain for a long time?

00:57:17.000 Almost like entrepreneurial grants, right?

00:57:20.000 Of where we invest in someone's next big idea for an industry, for art, whether it is community work or nonprofit work or solving a community problem.

00:57:32.000 My point is, my life shows me that people are just, they have this creativity and this imagination that we are not tapping into.

00:57:43.000 And it is, and so much of that is trapped in people who are either in these meaningless jobs or either gone to inadequate schools and therefore don't even get into a job where they could express themselves and give this gift.

00:58:00.000 But I do know that it's out there and that if we tap into it, it could be a game changer.

00:58:04.000 So I don't know what this looks like, but it does seem like the disruption that's coming could be an opportunity.

00:58:10.000 Again, back to out of crucifixion comes resurrection.

00:58:13.000 Disruption is an opportunity.

00:58:16.000 Yeah, I would agree.

00:58:17.000 I think it's also very dependent upon the individual.

00:58:20.000 And I think the best thing we can give them is inspiration.

00:58:24.000 And oftentimes the best thing you can give them is an example of someone who also did it.

00:58:30.000 And so there's a lot of people that feel completely disenfranchised by the system that's currently in place now that I think is going to be upended by AI.

00:58:39.000 So there is an opportunity for them to do something completely different.

00:58:42.000 And the positive aspect of universal basic income is that, first of all, I think we could both agree that if an enormous amount of jobs just go away, that probably is the only way to sustain society.

00:58:56.000 You can't just have people go poor and go hungry when we have unfathomable wealth that's being created by these same systems.

00:59:04.000 Right.

00:59:05.000 So universal basic income, on one hand, has a lot of hope because there is this potential that you now no longer – And that this is what most people are doing with most people in this country right now are working check to check.

00:59:31.000 They're living paycheck to paycheck and they're essentially getting by.

00:59:36.000 And any catastrophe, medical or otherwise, will eliminate all savings instantaneously and they're doomed.

00:59:44.000 And so what they're doing is just working, giving most of their life just to sustain whatever state they're in currently.

00:59:54.000 And that's very frustrating for people because they don't think they ever get ahead and they don't think they have any potential to get ahead.

01:00:02.000 So if something comes along that takes care of that aspect of life, so if universal basic income can provide you with food and shelter, now you no longer have to think about food, you no longer have to think about shelter.

01:00:14.000 Now you have to find meaning.

01:00:17.000 The problem is, for a lot of people, there are so many distractions that are unproductive, like social media, like video games, like many things that people participate in all day long.

01:00:30.000 And then you add in a factor of drug addiction and partying and a lot of other fruitless things that people participate in.

01:00:40.000 If you only were living for the first 35 years of your life just to deal with food and shelter, and now food and shelter is provided for you.

01:00:54.000 Now at 35, you have to sort of reformulate your view of the world and find meaning and find something.

01:01:01.000 And maybe you're an atheist, so you don't find meaning in religion and you don't have any desire to find meaning in religion.

01:01:07.000 Okay.

01:01:08.000 Well, what do you do?

01:01:10.000 And how do you educate these people?

01:01:11.000 And how do you, I think there's going to be an upheaval, the likes of which we have never seen before.

01:01:17.000 And there's going to be a lot of chaos.

01:01:19.000 And it's going to be very, very uncomfortable for a lot of people.

01:01:22.000 I think we're going to deal with unprecedented levels of addiction, whether it is with drugs or with fill in the blank, whether gambling, whatever things that people get addicted to, because I think people are going to look for thrills.

01:01:35.000 They're going to look for something that entices them, that gives them some excitement, because they're just getting a check every month.

01:01:43.000 Unfortunately, just the way humans are wired, that's not good for us.

01:01:51.000 We know that from lottery winners.

01:01:53.000 Like people get an enormous chunk of money.

01:01:55.000 You might win $200 million.

01:01:57.000 You hit the mega bonus, whatever the hell it is, and then you're living in hell.

01:02:02.000 For whatever reason, you don't like it.

01:02:05.000 You now find yourself surrounded by people that are trying to take money from you.

01:02:10.000 You feel like you're a target.

01:02:13.000 All the people that you grew up with and all people that know now looking for handouts.

01:02:18.000 And it gets really crazy.

01:02:19.000 And most of them wind up penniless within a short period of time.

01:02:22.000 I think it's like, how many years is it where most lottery winners wind up broke?

01:02:27.000 I think it's like less than 20 years, even when they have enormous amounts of money.

01:02:31.000 So like the only thing that you can do for those people is to somehow or another inspire them to live in a different way.

01:02:42.000 And I don't think that's a function of the government.

01:02:45.000 I think it's a function of individuals and of inspirational people that can provide some sort of an example that differs from what they're surrounded by.

01:02:54.000 I agree.

01:02:55.000 And so if we approach this when it happens, which I agree it's about to happen and I don't think any of us are ready for it, if we approach it as a technological problem or even an economic problem, I think we're missing the full picture here because I do agree with you that it is primarily, first and foremost, a spiritual problem.

01:03:14.000 And what I do know about human beings is that all of us ask these questions.

01:03:23.000 What does it mean to be a human?

01:03:25.000 What is all this about?

01:03:26.000 Where is my life going?

01:03:28.000 Why are we all here?

01:03:30.000 Late at night, I can assure you, almost everybody has asked those big, deep questions.

01:03:36.000 That is essential to being a human being.

01:03:38.000 Whether you're religious or not, whether you're an atheist or not, we all do struggle with these ultimate questions.

01:03:47.000 And I think what's borne out over thousands of years of our species history is it's best to wrestle with those questions in community.

01:03:56.000 Yes.

01:03:57.000 I agree.

01:03:58.000 Because right now, especially on my side of the aisle, where religion has declined among certain populations, there's this tendency of like, well, I'm not religious, I'm spiritual, which I'm very open to people who say that, and I understand where they're coming from.

01:04:15.000 But you want to be careful that it is not private spirituality only, meaning that it's only something that you own, that only impacts you and has no connection to other people.

01:04:28.000 I do think we've got to be a part of communities where we ask and struggle with these questions together.

01:04:34.000 It can look like a church or a mosque or a synagogue.

01:04:37.000 It could also be a book club, to be honest, right?

01:04:40.000 I mean, or a podcast, right?

01:04:42.000 Like this space in a lot of ways for the whole country has become a place where people are having these bigger conversations that aren't just about your job, aren't just about the current events of the day, but something deeper.

01:04:56.000 And I think we're going to need that now more than ever.

01:04:58.000 And right now we're not equipped.

01:05:00.000 No, I agree too.

01:05:01.000 And there's also a lot of people that don't have a legitimate in-person community.

01:05:04.000 That's right.

01:05:05.000 That's part of the problem, too.

01:05:06.000 And, you know, and the people that do reject the concept of religion finding an in-person community that doesn't turn into a cult, which is also a problem because generally these in-person communities are led by charismatic people who tend to want all the glory for themselves and tend to want to be praised and tend to want, yeah, you know, it gets real weird sexually.

01:05:33.000 It gets real weird with control and then they impose rules on the group.

01:05:38.000 It always goes sideways.

01:05:40.000 There's not a good example of a new religion or a new cult that's been formed.

01:05:44.000 They're like, oh, those guys really nailed it.

01:05:47.000 You got a benevolent leader who really just cares about everybody else and wants the best for everyone.

01:05:52.000 And I think, weirdly enough, podcasts do fit into that space for whatever strange reason.

01:06:02.000 If you can find someone who really does profess these thoughts that generally you want good for other people and you genuinely want the world to be a better place and you genuinely don't want all this for yourself.

01:06:20.000 You genuinely want people to do better and that you enjoy it and you take real joy in watching people succeed and get their life together and find purpose.

01:06:32.000 But that's rare.

01:06:34.000 Most people are selfish.

01:06:37.000 And most people also feel suppressed and they feel dismissed most of their lives and they feel suppressed by larger organizations or more powerful people, more powerful groups.

01:06:52.000 So when they do get into a position where they have power of their own, they want to exert that power on others because this is a pattern that they've grown up with, unfortunately.

01:07:04.000 Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Well, and everyone contains multitudes.

01:07:08.000 So we are all selfish.

01:07:10.000 I completely agree with that.

01:07:11.000 But I also think we're all selfless, too.

01:07:14.000 Like, you know, it depends on that.

01:07:16.000 I mean, it depends on whatever situation a person is put in and what roots someone has to draw upon.

01:07:16.000 Right.

01:07:25.000 And it's why I feel so lucky that I was brought up in a faith tradition that really emphasized my own experience as a validator for faith.

01:07:35.000 Because what you just described of a pastor or a clergy consolidating power is something we see all too often in organized religion.

01:07:44.000 And so if you don't empower your congregation or someone who is seeking answers to check everything based on their experience and use that as a measure for what's true and what's good, then you make people dependent on that one guy, which is way too much power for one person.

01:08:05.000 It's intoxicating.

01:08:06.000 It has to be, you have to use your own life as a way of saying, like, does this work for me?

01:08:06.000 Right.

01:08:11.000 Right.

01:08:12.000 Or does it not?

01:08:13.000 Does this ring true with everything I've lived through?

01:08:16.000 Or does it not?

01:08:17.000 Trust yourself in some ways.

01:08:20.000 But a lot of people don't have a reason to trust themselves.

01:08:23.000 They don't have confidence.

01:08:25.000 They don't have a history of overcoming adversity and obstacles, which is also difficult.

01:08:31.000 And this is also part of the problem with meaningless jobs.

01:08:34.000 Like meaningless jobs that don't give you a sense of purpose.

01:08:38.000 They never develop your feeling of accomplishment.

01:08:41.000 So you just exist.

01:08:42.000 And then again, you find yourself 35, 36.

01:08:46.000 I don't know why I'm coming up with that number, but this is like a point of no return where, you know, if you haven't had a family by that point and you haven't had real love and relationships by that point, now your body's starting to get tired.

01:09:00.000 So now you don't have the energy that you had when you were 20.

01:09:03.000 When you were 20, where you could get four hours of sleep and just still show up and go do things.

01:09:07.000 And you had the courage to say, you know what, I'm going to quit this thing that I'm doing and I'm going to go pursue some completely different thing because I think I can do it because I'm young and brash.

01:09:18.000 And when you get older and then you're, you know, you do have a bunch of bills.

01:09:21.000 And then one of the things that I like that you talked about was that if we were really a Christian nation, we would forgive student loan debt.

01:09:29.000 And I am a big fan of that.

01:09:31.000 And I do not like that we are predatory towards young people and condemn them to loans that are unforgivable regardless of any other kind of bankruptcy, which is really kind of sick.

01:09:46.000 The idea that we have put education that may or may not be even helpful for you in the future and may just be complete nonsense.

01:09:58.000 Like say, you know, you spent hundreds of thousands of dollars getting some degree in the humanities, getting some degree in gender studies, some just a nonsensical degree that you're never going to get a job from.

01:10:13.000 And now you're condemned to not just pay that initial debt, but with interest forever.

01:10:20.000 There's people right now that are on Social Security that are getting their Social Security docked.

01:10:26.000 They get chunks of it taken out to pay for their student loan debt that they will never pay off.

01:10:31.000 They will go to the grave in debt for predatory loans that they took out when they were so young, their frontal cortex wasn't even fully developed yet.

01:10:42.000 They didn't have any idea what they were doing.

01:10:44.000 They were being coerced by a bunch of people that told them this is the only way that you have to do this, otherwise you're going to be a loser.

01:10:51.000 That easily could have been me.

01:10:53.000 I was very lucky that I didn't fall into that.

01:10:57.000 But I only went to school.

01:11:03.000 I went to UMass Boston.

01:11:04.000 I only went there because I didn't want to be a loser because I thought you had to go.

01:11:10.000 Because I got tired of telling people that I wasn't going to school after high school.

01:11:14.000 And so I was like, I better just go do something.

01:11:16.000 Otherwise, I feel gross telling people that I'm not doing anything.

01:11:21.000 And that is a sickness in our culture.

01:11:25.000 That's a sickness in our society.

01:11:27.000 It's a sickness in our civilization that We have allowed these financial institutions to prey upon the youngest and most vulnerable people with inescapable loans that they will carry with them often for decades and decades.

01:11:44.000 And it's sick.

01:11:45.000 And the resistance to forgiving that is also sick.

01:11:51.000 It's like we spent so much money on other countries.

01:11:55.000 So much money went to U.S. aid.

01:11:58.000 You know, developing foreign nations and influencing elections and regime change.

01:12:06.000 And we're so resistant to giving people the freedom to have education as a thing that doesn't burden you with financial ties that you can't escape.

01:12:20.000 The idea that you can't escape it even with bankruptcy is so sick.

01:12:24.000 It's just a sickness, man.

01:12:27.000 And we've just accepted it.

01:12:29.000 Well, that's just how it is.

01:12:30.000 Well, someone's making money.

01:12:32.000 Someone's profiting off of that.

01:12:33.000 So you're allowing people to profit off vulnerable young kids to the tune that we're, you know, the interest compiles every year and you're stuck with it forever.

01:12:44.000 Why?

01:12:45.000 That's not a situation that allows.

01:12:47.000 Listen, I said this before, but I'm going to say it again.

01:12:50.000 You want to make America great again?

01:12:52.000 You want less losers.

01:12:53.000 Okay?

01:12:54.000 How do you get less losers?

01:12:55.000 You get less people that are financially crippled by student loans.

01:13:00.000 You get less people that grow up in a neighborhood where there's no hope.

01:13:04.000 We find neighborhoods that have no hope and that are riddled with drug addiction and crime and gang violence and we just leave them alone and we just say that's their problem.

01:13:16.000 No, that's our problem.

01:13:17.000 If we really want to think of ourselves, the United States of America, as a community, which is I, that's how I like to look at it.

01:13:25.000 I like to think of us as a big community.

01:13:28.000 I don't like to think of us as right versus left and blue and red and all this nonsense.

01:13:33.000 It's a bunch of people that agree we're all the same.

01:13:36.000 So if we are a community, how are we allowing these places to create these disenfranchised people generation after generation and do nothing about it? 1.00

01:13:48.000 And those kids were doing exactly what we told them to do.

01:13:51.000 Exactly.

01:13:51.000 Right?

01:13:52.000 I mean, they go to school kids.

01:13:54.000 Go to college.

01:13:54.000 Right.

01:13:54.000 Yeah.

01:13:55.000 Go to college.

01:13:56.000 Again, I think we've overcorrected, or now we tell every kid to go to college, which does a lot of damage too, because a lot of kids, one, don't want to go to college.

01:14:05.000 Two, their gifts and their skills aren't going to be fully developed at a four-year university.

01:14:11.000 Also, we're dismissing the value of trades.

01:14:14.000 Like, my God.

01:14:15.000 Got how much more money they make.

01:14:16.000 Great plumber is so important.

01:14:19.000 Having a great carpenter is so important.

01:14:21.000 Electrician.

01:14:22.000 No, I mean, so important.

01:14:24.000 And you make a lot more money.

01:14:26.000 I mean, the guys I went to high school with that have a boat out at Lake Travis are not the ones who went to a four-year university like I did.

01:14:32.000 Well, they certainly didn't study, you know, get your head out of the books.

01:14:37.000 The nonsensical stuff that doesn't get you anywhere.

01:14:40.000 But, you know, so I mentioned to you before I was a politician, I was a public school teacher, which is kind of an unusual route to serve me.

01:14:49.000 I taught sixth grade language arts at Rhodes Middle School.

01:14:52.000 Oh, so that's something that's valuable.

01:14:55.000 I often say teaching middle school is the best preparation for politics.

01:15:00.000 It's a lot more like middle school than people think.

01:15:03.000 The egos, the drama, just all of it is.

01:15:08.000 Isn't it crazy how no one gets past that?

01:15:10.000 Yeah.

01:15:11.000 I mean, well, we could talk about this all day, but there are lots of stories I have where I'm just blown away by the ego.

01:15:21.000 And again, I have an ego.

01:15:22.000 You have an ego.

01:15:23.000 There's no way you can do this kind of difficult work without an ego that, you know, to be able to say, I want to make decisions for 200,000 constituents.

01:15:32.000 I mean, that's the job I have, right?

01:15:33.000 I mean, that takes a certain amount of ego to make those kind of decisions.

01:15:37.000 You just can't let the ego be the problem.

01:15:38.000 Correct.

01:15:39.000 And this was the problem.

01:15:40.000 I mean, we focused so much on President Biden's age, which I agree was a problem.

01:15:45.000 But I don't think we've really discussed that the biggest problem was ego.

01:15:50.000 It was his inability to step aside and let someone else do the job.

01:15:56.000 Right.

01:15:56.000 I mean, it should have happened a lot earlier than when.

01:15:56.000 Yes.

01:15:59.000 This should have never happened in the first place.

01:16:01.000 Let's be realistic.

01:16:02.000 In 2020, we all knew anybody that was paying attention knew that he was compromised.

01:16:07.000 Yeah.

01:16:07.000 Well, and that he said he was a transitional figure.

01:16:11.000 I mean, he, I don't know how explicit he was, but he certainly made it sound like he was stepping in so that he could usher in a new generation.

01:16:19.000 And that never happened because when you get into these offices, and I, again, I'm just a little state rep at a low level, but even I know like people call you representative.

01:16:29.000 Your mail, your mail says the honorable.

01:16:32.000 Yeah, right.

01:16:33.000 And you're like, that's tough.

01:16:34.000 This feels pretty good, right?

01:16:36.000 People, people, you know, and you have a bunch of new friends, right?

01:16:40.000 All the lobbyists are like, now you're, you know, they're professionally friendly.

01:16:43.000 Right.

01:16:44.000 And all that can go to your head very quickly.

01:16:47.000 I'm sure.

01:16:48.000 And think about someone who's been in it for 60 years.

01:16:51.000 I mean, it almost becomes a fused part of your identity to where you can't step aside.

01:16:57.000 Everything is for self-preservation.

01:16:58.000 Well, look at these politicians that are in their 80s that are still in office.

01:17:02.000 Desperately clinging to.

01:17:04.000 Desperately clinging.

01:17:05.000 I mean, and I look at these people and I'm like, you have grandkids.

01:17:08.000 Well, it's not just that.

01:17:09.000 It's also the support system that's behind them, right?

01:17:12.000 Because all those people need that person to stay in office.

01:17:15.000 Yeah, they all depend on.

01:17:15.000 Correct.

01:17:16.000 But I'm like, if I'm...

01:17:21.000 If I'm 80 years old and I'm still in elected office, it's like, go home.

01:17:26.000 Well, maybe not.

01:17:27.000 Spend some time with your grandkids.

01:17:28.000 You're still valuable at 80.

01:17:30.000 I'm not dismissing.

01:17:32.000 Age comes for all of us, right?

01:17:33.000 Yeah, but I don't dismiss the possibility that you could be an elder statesman and be like very wise and kind and benevolent and doing a really good job.

01:17:42.000 But to me, it suggests that you think there's no one younger with more energy who could do this better.

01:17:42.000 I guess.

01:17:48.000 Well, why do you have to have no energy if you're old, if you take care of yourself?

01:17:52.000 See, I think there's a lot of people that have learned a lot in their time.

01:17:59.000 I mean, you've got your situations where you've got like your Nancy Pelosi's where they're clearly using the system for extreme wealth.

01:18:08.000 They're generating preposterous amounts of wealth for a reasonable income.

01:18:14.000 They may have a reasonable income of $170,000, $200,000 a year, but yet they're worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

01:18:21.000 That's kind of crazy, right?

01:18:23.000 That's kind of crazy that you're supposed to be, that's above board, that's level, that's okay.

01:18:29.000 That's nuts.

01:18:31.000 Or, I mean, I just saw the story about this congressman right before the Big Beautiful Bill passed, and he sold all his stock in a company that does Medicaid reimbursements.

01:18:41.000 Oh, Jesus.

01:18:42.000 So like, you know.

01:18:43.000 Because you knew it was coming.

01:18:44.000 Right.

01:18:44.000 Yeah.

01:18:45.000 Crazy.

01:18:45.000 Insider training.

01:18:46.000 And by the way, insider trading, everyone wants to use Nancy Pelosi as an example. 1.00

01:18:51.000 She kind of gets used as an example just because she's been so good at it.

01:18:56.000 But if you look at the actual insider trading, it's red and blue.

01:19:00.000 It's the whole thing.

01:19:01.000 It's filled with people that are benefiting.

01:19:04.000 Well, and I, so going into this, when I first decided to run, I was 28, had never run for anything else.

01:19:11.000 How old are you now?

01:19:12.000 36.

01:19:13.000 I just turned 36.

01:19:16.000 And I was, like I said, a former teacher, so I didn't know about how to run for office.

01:19:19.000 How did you decide to run for office?

01:19:22.000 Well, so I was a teacher on the west side of San Antonio, which is a, for those your listeners who are in San Antonio, the west side is this, it's this beautiful historic neighborhood, Mexican-American neighborhood.

01:19:34.000 It's also one of the poorest zip codes in the whole state of Texas.

01:19:37.000 So every day I saw my students struggling to overcome poverty and these systems that were designed to hold them back.

01:19:47.000 And the school I was at was underfunded.

01:19:49.000 I mean, Title I school, I taught 45 kids in one classroom, and the classroom was not that much bigger than the studio.

01:19:56.000 Oh my gosh.

01:19:57.000 So you imagine 45 kids in here.

01:20:00.000 I literally had kids sitting on the air conditioning unit because there weren't enough desks.

01:20:04.000 I mean, this is the 21st century in the United States of America.

01:20:09.000 And it pissed me off.

01:20:09.000 Wow.

01:20:10.000 I mean, so I had one student.

01:20:13.000 I was a first-year teacher.

01:20:15.000 What happens in schools, especially schools in high-poverty neighborhoods where things are really hard, you know, the administration of the school will oftentimes give the kids who need the most help, the kids who have the most troubles to the first-year teachers, right?

01:20:27.000 Almost like a hazing thing.

01:20:28.000 So I remember my first year of teaching, my principal told me that I was going to get this kid named Justin, who had gotten kicked out of his elementary school the year before because he had brought a knife to school and threatened to stab his fifth grade teacher.

01:20:43.000 So I was, again, first-year teacher, kind of freaked out, right?

01:20:46.000 The kid shows up.

01:20:48.000 One, he's not a monster.

01:20:49.000 He's an 11-year-old boy, right?

01:20:50.000 Like this high, right?

01:20:54.000 I took him aside, introduced myself, told him I was happy he was in class, told him I wanted to get to know him.

01:21:00.000 He gradually started to raise his hand a little bit more in class.

01:21:03.000 He was super smart, super just quick.

01:21:06.000 He also had like a great smile.

01:21:08.000 He's very popular with the girls in the class, a lot of personality.

01:21:13.000 And I started to invite him to our little lunch group because I had kids who came and ate in my classroom during lunch.

01:21:19.000 And we started to kind of build a rapport.

01:21:23.000 And he didn't have a lot of male teachers.

01:21:26.000 So I think that was helpful to see a guy as a teacher and be able to build a relationship with him.

01:21:32.000 Anyway, right before winter break that year, he was the last day of school, he brought me this wrapped gift.

01:21:40.000 The wrapping was all jankity, but I opened it up and it was this little cup with a snowflake on it that he had bought at the Dollar Tree for his teacher.

01:21:48.000 Again, this is a kid who was going to stab his fifth grade teacher.

01:21:51.000 A few months later, he's bringing a snowflake cup to his sixth grade teacher.

01:21:55.000 And I was feeling like I was on top of the world as a teacher.

01:21:57.000 I was like, who's going to make the movie?

01:21:59.000 Right.

01:21:59.000 Like, here I am, right?

01:22:02.000 Saying the books, right?

01:22:04.000 Yeah, who's going to play me?

01:22:06.000 And then I came back after winter break.

01:22:09.000 I was in my third period of class and I heard this commotion out in the hallway.

01:22:13.000 So I immediately stepped out of the room to see what was going on.

01:22:16.000 And there were two of our coaches and they were both restraining Justin, either side of him.

01:22:22.000 They were carrying him out of the school.

01:22:24.000 He was screaming.

01:22:25.000 His feet didn't touch the ground.

01:22:27.000 Like he literally was just carried out of the school.

01:22:29.000 I found out that he had started a fight in his third grade class and that was his last strike.

01:22:35.000 And it was the last time I ever saw Justin.

01:22:39.000 I did some digging to figure out what had happened.

01:22:41.000 Turns out in the previous semester, Justin had been seeing a therapist that was provided by the school district.

01:22:48.000 And it was this lady that he really was hitting it off with and getting along with.

01:22:52.000 And they were going through all his issues because Justin had been abandoned by his mother at a very early age, which that'll screw anybody up, right?

01:23:00.000 Justin had experienced violence, had experienced all this trauma.

01:23:05.000 And so for the first time, there was a professional who was helping him work his way through it.

01:23:10.000 And there was a teacher who liked him and who believed in him.

01:23:12.000 And that was all it took for Justin to see all these improvements.

01:23:16.000 And I found out that after winter break, that because of budget cuts from the legislature, the district had eliminated the therapist.

01:23:24.000 So this lifeline suddenly went away for Justin.

01:23:28.000 So literally everybody had abandoned Justin, including his own mother.

01:23:31.000 And now the adults that he was trying to trust again were abandoning him.

01:23:36.000 And so that was the kind of radicalizing experience for me because these people at the state capitol had cut $5 billion from our schools.

01:23:45.000 Who knows why?

01:23:46.000 Who knows what the justifications were?

01:23:48.000 But I saw firsthand how that screwed up a kid's life.

01:23:52.000 I saw the damage that did to real flesh and blood human beings.

01:23:57.000 And so I promised myself right then that if I ever got a little bit of power or a little bit of influence, that I would do everything I could with every fiber of my being to stop that from happening again.

01:24:07.000 So literally, Justin and my students are the ones I think about when I'm at the Capitol.

01:24:12.000 They are the criteria that I use to evaluate public policy, not if it's a Democratic bill or Republican bill, not if it's going to get me ex-lobbyist support.

01:24:21.000 It is, will this help my students or will it hurt my students?

01:24:24.000 Period.

01:24:25.000 And it makes things a lot easier.

01:24:28.000 I have a picture of one of my class periods on my desk at the Capitol.

01:24:34.000 So that is what got me into this whole mess.

01:24:38.000 I miss being a teacher because I miss having that immediate impact.

01:24:42.000 All the impact I make now, if I make any impact at all, feels very diffuse and far away because there's all these layers.

01:24:50.000 But I like to think that some of the bills I'm passing are at least helping teachers like me and students like mine.

01:24:57.000 That's beautiful.

01:24:58.000 It's beautiful that you made that decision.

01:25:00.000 And I think that's what we need.

01:25:02.000 We need people that have legitimate personal real-life experience with other people that are benefiting from certain social programs and certain things that should not be cut.

01:25:13.000 I think there's too many wealthy people that are just very disengaged with everyone else.

01:25:18.000 And that's a real concern.

01:25:22.000 And they sort of huddle up in these elite groups and go to these elite meetings and have these conferences.

01:25:30.000 They fly on private jets and try to figure out how the world should operate.

01:25:33.000 Climate change on their private jets.

01:25:34.000 It's fucking crazy.

01:25:35.000 It's crazy.

01:25:37.000 It's really crazy and gross.

01:25:39.000 And I don't think it has anything to do with climate change.

01:25:42.000 I think it's like a boys' club, a weird club where these elite people get to hobnob and eat caviar together.

01:25:50.000 My point is, if you're going to a conference to discuss climate change, but you're taking your giant private jet.

01:25:55.000 I've seen Bill Gates justify that because of all his work that he does.

01:25:59.000 Or even Bernie Sanders when he's talking about campaigning.

01:26:03.000 And he was saying, how old am I going to go to all these different places?

01:26:06.000 We go southwest like fucking comedians do, dude.

01:26:10.000 We travel all over the country too, buddy.

01:26:11.000 Southwest is great.

01:26:12.000 Yeah, listen, when I was traveling, I was doing a lot more dates than him.

01:26:17.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:26:18.000 And I never took private jets.

01:26:21.000 Look, there's ways to do it.

01:26:22.000 And the idea that there's only one way to do it, well, that's no, that's just the nicest way.

01:26:28.000 It's certainly more convenient.

01:26:29.000 It's easier.

01:26:30.000 It's more comfortable if you've got the money.

01:26:32.000 But the idea that you're going to preach to everybody else how to live their lives, like you're so disconnected from most people.

01:26:39.000 Well, I would say that I am probably the poorest member of the Texas legislature.

01:26:44.000 And I'm not poor, but relatively speaking, most of the people I serve with either very successful lawyers who own their own law practice, doctors and surgeons who operate their own medical practice, or it's trust fund babies.

01:27:00.000 No offense to those people.

01:27:01.000 Yeah, that is a weird thing.

01:27:03.000 It's just people who have a lot of family money.

01:27:04.000 And here's, because I mentioned earlier that I don't make any money at this job.

01:27:08.000 So unlike a congressman, because I think congresspeople make like $150 or something, which is a real salary, I make $7,200 a year.

01:27:18.000 That's $400 a month after taxes as a state rep. That's my salary.

01:27:23.000 Now, I also get a per diem when we're in session, which is a little bit more, which is helpful.

01:27:27.000 But the reason I say that is because there are systematic barriers to a regular person running for the job that I have.

01:27:34.000 Got it.

01:27:35.000 Right?

01:27:35.000 Like unless you have an ability to support your family or sustain your life or pay your bills, a teacher can't run for the job I have.

01:27:45.000 A firefighter, a police officer, construction worker, you can't run for state rep. And you wouldn't be able to take time off.

01:27:50.000 No.

01:27:51.000 How are you going to do it?

01:27:52.000 Yeah.

01:27:52.000 So the only people who end up serve, and again, I understand why paying politicians no one wants to do, right?

01:27:58.000 Like I understand that I'm not a sympathetic character here, but when you don't.

01:28:02.000 Well, but when you, the problem is when you don't pay a politician, especially a state legislator who's making most of the big decisions about that affect your life, it's really not people in Congress.

01:28:02.000 Oh, you are.

01:28:11.000 It's the state level people.

01:28:13.000 But if you're not paying them a living wage, then you're only going to get trust fund babies and lawyers and surgeons.

01:28:20.000 What do you think is the motivation of those people that are involved?

01:28:24.000 I mean, do you find people that are benevolent that are trust fund babies and surgeons and doctors?

01:28:29.000 For sure.

01:28:30.000 I mean, FDR was a trust fund baby, right?

01:28:32.000 Okay, really?

01:28:33.000 Yeah.

01:28:33.000 I mean, one of the wealthiest families in New York.

01:28:36.000 Bobby Kennedy was a trust fund baby and still sympathized with working people.

01:28:40.000 So I don't think that you have to be born poor to be able to do that.

01:28:45.000 I do think it provides a helpful perspective.

01:28:49.000 I was born to a single mom, and that experience has helped inform how I view things.

01:28:55.000 So a lot of my colleagues, I would say, just have no experience.

01:28:59.000 So for instance, there was a bill that we passed, unfortunately, that would make it easier for landlords to evict people.

01:29:05.000 And we were trying to work with the author of that bill to add some exceptions for, you know, if you just miss a bill because you're late, you shouldn't get evicted, right?

01:29:14.000 Like we were trying to build that out.

01:29:16.000 And the author just kind of had no conception with how you could miss a bill, right?

01:29:22.000 Like it just, because when you're that, when you have people who do that, right?

01:29:25.000 Like he was like, he was like, his accountant does all that.

01:29:27.000 I'm like, but when you're a working person, you're balancing raising kids, working multiple jobs, right?

01:29:32.000 Maybe trying to exercise when you can.

01:29:34.000 Like when you're doing all that, and God forbid you have a medical problem, like, yes, some stuff falls through the cracks.

01:29:40.000 100%.

01:29:41.000 And like evicting that family because of a mistake or because they missed a bill.

01:29:46.000 To me, it's not that he's trying to be malicious.

01:29:48.000 It was that he just had a complete blind spot on what it was like to be a working person.

01:29:52.000 But there's also people that do, they are malicious.

01:29:55.000 They don't care about people that are struggling and they only care about their peers.

01:30:01.000 They care about enriching the people that are already wealthy.

01:30:04.000 Yes.

01:30:05.000 I do feel like those people I have found are very loving parents and spouses and even friends.

01:30:13.000 Isn't that crazy?

01:30:14.000 And to me, that means they have just not, they haven't broadened that circle of concern.

01:30:19.000 Uh-huh.

01:30:19.000 Right.

01:30:20.000 I'm always, because you want to, you want to think some of these people are just two-dimensional villains.

01:30:25.000 I sometimes fall victim to that thinking.

01:30:28.000 But then I spend time with them.

01:30:29.000 I'm like, this person is kind and funny and good-hearted and treats his wife well and treats his kids well, treats his neighbors, his immediate neighbors.

01:30:38.000 So my challenge is always like, how do I try to expand that circle a little bit more to where they care just as much about a neighbor who lives in a completely different city than the one who's right next door to them in Highland Park or River Oaks or one of these nice neighborhoods, right?

01:30:55.000 That to me is the challenge is seeing everyone as your neighbor, not just the people who live right next to you.

01:31:01.000 And that's the central teaching of my faith and in most of the great faith traditions.

01:31:06.000 I mean, sometimes we try to pretend that there's all these diverse religions and who knows who's right. 1.00

01:31:13.000 In reality, there is giant ethical overlap between the major world religions.

01:31:19.000 There is literally not a faith tradition that tells you when someone gets sick, see how much money you can make off of them.

01:31:24.000 No religion teaches that.

01:31:26.000 None of them, right?

01:31:27.000 Right, right.

01:31:28.000 You know, there's no one that's, you know, love your neighbors only when they agree with you.

01:31:32.000 Like it's just those, that's not what any of the faith traditions teach.

01:31:36.000 Like there is this consensus, this ethical consensus.

01:31:40.000 And the reason I think we try to pretend that all these religions are so different is because we are threatened by that moral consensus of how you should treat one another, how we should treat the least among us.

01:31:51.000 And that's a threat to the people who are in power, the people who run the status quo right now.

01:31:56.000 I mean, it upends the status quo.

01:31:58.000 They didn't kill Jesus for being a nice guy.

01:32:01.000 Right.

01:32:02.000 That's part of the problem is that the people that are in power want to stay in power.

01:32:05.000 And the best way to stay in power is to enrich the other people around you that are like you and create laws and create a structure that allows you to maintain ridiculous wealth and suppress competition.

01:32:22.000 And divide everyone to keep them distracted.

01:32:26.000 This is my personal.

01:32:28.000 The more I've done this, I've done this for four terms now.

01:32:33.000 I think of politics now less as left versus right and much more as top versus bottom.

01:32:40.000 Because I just see how we are all pitted against each other.

01:32:44.000 And I mean literally, these social media platforms, they only get clicks when there's conflict.

01:32:51.000 They don't get clicks when we're having a conversation, when we're understanding each other.

01:32:55.000 When we're coming to some kind of understanding of mutual agreement, that doesn't get anybody any profit.

01:33:02.000 And so the Rupert Murdochs of the world, the cable news networks, the social media platforms, the Zuckerbergs and Musks, I mean, these platforms are literally tearing us apart by design.

01:33:15.000 And I just, I think there has to be something better than that.

01:33:19.000 Well, I didn't even know if it's by design, but that's the way that it's the most profitable.

01:33:23.000 And I think like algorithms, like people always like to want to point towards algorithms as being by design.

01:33:30.000 But they only work because they work, right?

01:33:33.000 They only work because people do engage with the things that piss them off the most.

01:33:38.000 That's if we're measuring engagement as the sole good.

01:33:41.000 Right.

01:33:43.000 If we were measuring people's well-being, now you have a different metric.

01:33:47.000 Right, but it's almost impossible to do.

01:33:50.000 It's like, how do you judge?

01:33:52.000 You'd have to get to an individual human being and find out why they're engaging with what they're engaging.

01:33:58.000 What you do when you manage at scale is you try to figure out what's the best way to keep people engaged.

01:34:04.000 Well, if human nature made you only engage with things that you're interested in, and that is possible.

01:34:11.000 You can do that.

01:34:12.000 I've done that.

01:34:13.000 It's possible to do.

01:34:14.000 But obviously, I'm in a privileged position to be able to do something like that.

01:34:18.000 But like my friend Ari did this experiment once where on YouTube he only looked up videos of puppies for like a long time.

01:34:26.000 That was his whole feed was puppies.

01:34:28.000 And the experiment, the reason why he was doing it is he's trying to show that it's not the algorithm.

01:34:35.000 It's not like the algorithm was feeding him Holocaust deniers and a bunch of shit that pissed him off.

01:34:40.000 It didn't.

01:34:41.000 It only fed him puppies.

01:34:42.000 That's what he was interested in.

01:34:44.000 The problem is people are interested in things that piss them off.

01:34:48.000 And I think a lot of that also is a distraction from your own issues in life is that you look towards external things that maybe don't even really affect you, but provide you with a source of you can pay attention to them and get invested in them and get angry and ignore maybe the shortcomings of your lack of discipline and your lack of focus and the things that are really holding you back in life.

01:35:14.000 You know, you can get distracted by some other stuff.

01:35:17.000 You can get distracted by some things.

01:35:18.000 It may be legitimate issues, maybe real, but how much do they affect you in day-to-day life?

01:35:26.000 Very little, probably.

01:35:27.000 Well, I just think we all, and I know I have this experience of just feeling terrible when I'm on a lot of these platforms.

01:35:35.000 Oh, yeah.

01:35:36.000 I mean, it does feel like everything is making us feel terrible, whether it's the news we're watching, the TV, the social media algorithms.

01:35:36.000 Right?

01:35:47.000 But I think this podcast is evidence in the opposite direction.

01:35:51.000 Yeah.

01:35:52.000 Because why would people tune into these really long conversations with very different people?

01:35:58.000 I mean, you had Trump and Bernie Sanders in the same chair.

01:36:02.000 So why are people attracted to that, though?

01:36:05.000 Because this is not clickbait stuff on your feed that's just trying to provoke conflict for clicks.

01:36:15.000 So clearly this format exposes that people do have a hunker for something healthier, something that builds understanding, right?

01:36:24.000 Yeah.

01:36:25.000 So people have both of those things inside them, I guess.

01:36:27.000 Well, I think people, listen, there's a reason why we have complex technologies, society, cities, urban development.

01:36:36.000 It's a reason why we have all those things.

01:36:38.000 It's because the human mind has a genuine, there's a desire for improvement and for innovation and to learn.

01:36:48.000 It's normal.

01:36:49.000 But we can be distracted.

01:36:51.000 For sure.

01:36:51.000 But you have to decide not to be distracted.

01:36:55.000 And a lot of my shows are distracting.

01:36:57.000 A lot of my shows are complete nonsense because I can get caught up in nonsense too.

01:37:03.000 But this show is a reflection of my own personal interests.

01:37:08.000 But it's also long form.

01:37:12.000 The platforms that I'm, the social media platforms just abuse your attention so much.

01:37:16.000 Do they, though?

01:37:17.000 Yes.

01:37:17.000 Or do you allow them?

01:37:18.000 Well, you can take over.

01:37:20.000 They don't abuse mine, you know, but they have to be able to.

01:37:23.000 Do you not use the typical platforms?

01:37:26.000 Very little.

01:37:27.000 Really?

01:37:28.000 Yeah, very, very little.

01:37:29.000 I go on Twitter every morning when I go to the bathroom to find out what everyone's mad at, and then I leave it.

01:37:34.000 It's the best place to be on Twitter.

01:37:36.000 And even then, I don't feel good and I leave it alone.

01:37:38.000 I don't look at anything about myself.

01:37:41.000 I look at stuff that's going on.

01:37:43.000 I follow thousands of people.

01:37:45.000 So, my feed is very diverse.

01:37:48.000 It's filled with all kinds of different voices.

01:37:51.000 And I just see a few things that people are pissed off about or people are interested in.

01:37:56.000 I find a bunch of cool science stuff, a bunch of cool James Webb telescope discoveries, and then I leave it alone.

01:38:05.000 But you, I mean, and I, to some extent, we had the privilege of growing up in a childhood without that.

01:38:12.000 Right.

01:38:13.000 So I just want to acknowledge that for kids, right?

01:38:16.000 Like, they don't have the same impulse control.

01:38:18.000 100%.

01:38:19.000 So if we're feeding this to them, it's almost, I mean, it's just as bad as some of the junk food we're feeding them.

01:38:24.000 Right, but you know what else is popular with those kids?

01:38:26.000 Me.

01:38:26.000 That's right.

01:38:27.000 So if I tell them I'm not doing it and I tell them why I'm not doing it, and it's clear.

01:38:35.000 It's clear by what I pay attention to.

01:38:38.000 It's clear by what I focus on that I'm not caught up in that the way a lot of people are.

01:38:43.000 And then I'm open to a bunch of different perspectives and ideas and I welcome them because I really want to know how people think about them.

01:38:50.000 As long as they're genuine, real thinkers, as long as they have good faith arguments and discussions about things.

01:38:58.000 There's a lot of people out there, particularly in mainstream media, in corporate media, that just by nature of the format of those things, they're grifters.

01:39:09.000 They latch on to whether it's a right-wing perspective or a left-wing perspective.

01:39:14.000 And they're the champion of that perspective, and they argue with it, and they don't see humans.

01:39:19.000 It's professional wrestling.

01:39:20.000 And I loved it.

01:39:20.000 Yeah.

01:39:21.000 When I was growing up, I loved professional wrestling.

01:39:23.000 See, I didn't.

01:39:24.000 You didn't?

01:39:25.000 I mean, I did when I was in high school.

01:39:27.000 I mean, I did when I was a young boy, I should say.

01:39:29.000 But then once I started competing in martial arts or something.

01:39:32.000 Yeah, I didn't like it anymore.

01:39:32.000 An actual sport?

01:39:34.000 Well, because it's entertainment.

01:39:35.000 Yeah.

01:39:35.000 Right?

01:39:36.000 I mean, it's not a sport.

01:39:37.000 I mean, I know there's athletic ability, but it's the heroes and the villains.

01:39:40.000 Sure, it's fun, but it didn't have real consequences to me.

01:39:44.000 And to me, like real life consequences were so much more fascinating.

01:39:48.000 Real competition, like an actual real wrestling match between two Olympic champions.

01:39:52.000 That to me was so much more fascinating.

01:39:54.000 Yes.

01:39:56.000 But, you know, you have to engage in some sort of a discipline to appreciate that, to appreciate the difference between someone who's really had a singular focus in their life of excellence and trying to figure out a way to be really good at something and then watching them compete with other people that have had a similar thing and try to figure out what separates the champions from other people and what are the characteristics,

01:40:25.000 what are those things, and how do those apply to everyday life?

01:40:28.000 And they do apply to everyday life.

01:40:31.000 When I was a kid in martial arts, one of the things that my instructor told me at a very young age is that martial arts is a vehicle for developing your human potential, that you're engaging in this very, very difficult thing to learn about yourself.

01:40:44.000 And that you could apply these lessons to everything in life.

01:40:47.000 And there's too many people that don't get that lesson.

01:40:51.000 They don't understand that you can figure this thing out.

01:40:57.000 And your path is going to be different than my path.

01:41:00.000 It's going to be different from everybody's path.

01:41:02.000 But there's certain principles that you can apply to whatever your individual path are.

01:41:07.000 And you can learn about the value of discipline and of personal autonomy and understanding and personal accountability and figure out how to get better.

01:41:18.000 You're going to have failures and they're going to feel awful.

01:41:21.000 They're going to feel terrible, but they're very valuable.

01:41:23.000 And you can't shy away from them because that's where you really learn how to get better.

01:41:28.000 And then your feelings of success, don't dwell on those either because it's not about that.

01:41:34.000 It's really about this path.

01:41:37.000 The path is what it's really about.

01:41:39.000 And it's really about learning how to live and learning how to exist in a harmonious way with not just other people, but also with yourself.

01:41:51.000 And you have to have respect for yourself.

01:41:52.000 And the only way you develop respect for yourself is you have to know what you've done.

01:41:56.000 You have to know that you've worked really hard, that you've overcome things and known that you've had these little mental battles where you've had these little bad ways of thinking that you've turned around and you realize like, oh, yeah, that's possible.

01:42:12.000 I'm going to do it again.

01:42:12.000 I did it before.

01:42:13.000 And you're going to have these moments where you're like, oh, this one's impossible.

01:42:16.000 I can't get through it.

01:42:17.000 But you can get through it.

01:42:18.000 And you can, and it can be done.

01:42:21.000 And if there's anything that I try to teach people, it's what I've done.

01:42:29.000 I have overcome a lot of these little personal demons.

01:42:33.000 I've overcome a lot of these little things.

01:42:36.000 They're not little.

01:42:37.000 They're huge.

01:42:38.000 It's huge in your mind.

01:42:40.000 But this can be done.

01:42:42.000 And it's not going to be done on TikTok.

01:42:45.000 It's not going to be done dedicating yourself to just fucking off and scrolling and playing video games and doing drugs all day.

01:42:53.000 That's not going to do it.

01:42:54.000 It's not going to help you.

01:42:54.000 It's not going to do it.

01:42:56.000 But you can learn.

01:42:58.000 You can.

01:42:58.000 And you can be a better person.

01:43:01.000 And you can respect yourself more.

01:43:03.000 I mean, it's a practice.

01:43:04.000 Yeah, it's a practice.

01:43:05.000 And it's a way of life.

01:43:08.000 And again, the failures are very valuable.

01:43:11.000 And the successes are very valuable too, but you can't dwell on them either.

01:43:16.000 You just got to keep going.

01:43:18.000 There's no end.

01:43:19.000 And I think the thing that's encouraging about both this podcast, but also the format in general, is that it is long form.

01:43:27.000 And so it forces you to pay attention in a different kind of way, right?

01:43:32.000 Your attention on TikTok or Instagram or some of these other platforms, it is so superficial and shallow.

01:43:40.000 And that attention, I think, is abused on those platforms.

01:43:43.000 And I think I've talked to people in my own life who feel like the more time they spend on those platforms, the less you're able to pay attention to something in your daily life.

01:43:53.000 But the fact what you mentioned about martial arts is this focus, right?

01:43:59.000 I mean, you can't do anything great in your life without that focus.

01:44:02.000 It's all, I mean, I'm going to sound like a Buddhist, but the ability to kind of control your own mind and focus that mind and that spirit on something right in front of you on the here and now, I mean, that is the key to all success.

01:44:15.000 And whether you're doing a podcast, whether you're doing sports or politics or, but it feels like there's a whole generation of kids who are growing up who aren't getting that training for their attention.

01:44:28.000 And it's just getting abused and shot and scabbed.

01:44:31.000 The only way for them to get that is to see an example of someone who's doing it.

01:44:35.000 And this is sports.

01:44:37.000 This is where sports come in, where I think really excellent sports figures that excel, that they do something that the other people that are their peers can't do.

01:44:49.000 And then you can learn, like, what is he doing?

01:44:51.000 What is LeBron James doing that's different?

01:44:54.000 What is this guy?

01:44:55.000 What is Ronaldo doing?

01:44:56.000 What are these people that are doing that's different than anything?

01:44:58.000 And almost all of them is discipline and focus.

01:45:00.000 That's a giant, there's genetic factors and coaching and where they started.

01:45:06.000 There's a lot of variables, but you can apply those things to your life.

01:45:13.000 Or I think one of the things that's unique about podcast is that it was a mistake in that no one saw it coming.

01:45:23.000 So no one cashed in on it.

01:45:25.000 So no one, it's not cashed in.

01:45:29.000 No one controlled it.

01:45:31.000 No one dictated how you do it.

01:45:34.000 No one told you what the question should be or how you should talk to people.

01:45:41.000 You had to kind of figure it out on your own.

01:45:42.000 So you got unique individual perspectives that are legitimate.

01:45:48.000 They're authentic.

01:45:50.000 And authenticity is the thing that's missing from television news.

01:45:57.000 It's missing from anything that's corporate controlled because you wouldn't allow it to be so scattered and so chaotic and so kind of dangerous because if you're banking all your money on something succeeding, you would want to narrate it.

01:46:14.000 You would want to curate it.

01:46:16.000 But it doesn't work that way.

01:46:17.000 And humans don't work that way.

01:46:19.000 And I think in this landscape where we don't have authentic perspectives, the thing that rises is authentic perspectives.

01:46:29.000 And I think that's, if you look at most of the successful podcasts out there, the people that are doing them are authentic human beings.

01:46:36.000 And their perspective is uniquely their own.

01:46:40.000 And I think when they go sideways is when they become a part, they get bought out.

01:46:44.000 They become a part.

01:46:46.000 They sell a piece of it to some corporation and then they get curated and there's a lot of weirdness that gets involved.

01:46:52.000 And I've managed to resist all that.

01:46:54.000 But it was also because it got so big before anybody came calling that I had already figured out the right way to do it is just to do it my way.

01:47:03.000 And my way is to have genuine curiosity, to be a real human being, and just to talk to people.

01:47:10.000 Well, and you're, I mean, I've just noticed just in this conversation we've had that you have a gift for listening.

01:47:16.000 And I think this is something these platforms or most of our cable news or most of our media environment doesn't value anymore is actual listening and learning, right?

01:47:28.000 It is now all about what you say, what your opinions are, rather than actually creating a connection with another person.

01:47:35.000 I've fallen victim to that too.

01:47:36.000 I had to learn how to do it.

01:47:38.000 If you go back to my earlier podcast, they were terrible.

01:47:41.000 Why?

01:47:42.000 Because you were talking.

01:47:43.000 I thought I would talk too much or I'd want to speak.

01:47:46.000 But I genuinely have always wanted to know how other people think and why they think the way they think.

01:47:54.000 And you can find holes in the way people think and you can find strength in the way people think.

01:47:59.000 And it's very inspirational.

01:48:00.000 I've had an unexpected and unintended education from doing this.

01:48:06.000 Yeah, I didn't intend when I first started doing it, it was just me and my friends, and we were just fucking around.

01:48:11.000 And I just thought that was fun.

01:48:13.000 I was like, it'd be fun to get together with my comedian friends.

01:48:16.000 Like, we only work at night.

01:48:17.000 Like, what are we doing during the day?

01:48:19.000 Most of us during the day are just screwing off.

01:48:21.000 It's like, what should we do?

01:48:22.000 Let's get together and just have a bunch of laughs.

01:48:25.000 And then all of a sudden, it was like, okay, this has gotten so popular that people want to come on.

01:48:29.000 Okay, let me see what Anthony Bourdain has to think about things.

01:48:33.000 What does he have to say about stuff?

01:48:34.000 What does Graham Hancock have to say about things?

01:48:36.000 And people that I found genuinely interested were willing to sit down and talk to me.

01:48:40.000 I'm like, well, this is cool.

01:48:41.000 Now I've got this weird platform so I can ask questions and really find out why do people think the way they think?

01:48:50.000 Why do they live their life the way they live?

01:48:52.000 And what can I learn from that?

01:48:54.000 And how can I apply that to my life?

01:48:56.000 And how can I give them this ability to express themselves as clearly as possible?

01:49:04.000 Like where I'm not getting in the way of it and I'm just trying to help them get it out as clearly as possible, whether I agree or disagree.

01:49:12.000 I want to know like why do they think the way they think?

01:49:15.000 Like what is it?

01:49:17.000 And I want to know if you're a real thinker or if you're just a grifter.

01:49:21.000 What's really fascinating to me is watching these people that were exiled from mainstream media because obviously the ratings have crashed and their credibility has plummeted.

01:49:31.000 So then they try to pivot and become podcasters.

01:49:34.000 But they're still like Elon Musk said this so good, so well about Don Lemon.

01:49:41.000 He's like, he's trying to do CNN outside of CNN.

01:49:44.000 And you can't do that.

01:49:45.000 You can't bullshit people in this world of no bullshit.

01:49:48.000 And that's the podcast world.

01:49:50.000 The podcast world is, it is certainly some bullshit.

01:49:53.000 But for the most part, what attracts people is if they know that this is really how you think.

01:50:01.000 And I know this is resonating with a lot of people out there that you're forced to go to a job where you pretend to be a certain person all day.

01:50:10.000 And if you step outside of those lines, you're going to risk career opportunities.

01:50:17.000 You're going to risk advancement.

01:50:20.000 You have to stay within the very rigid confines of whatever your occupation is.

01:50:26.000 And it's not very satisfying.

01:50:27.000 It doesn't feel right.

01:50:28.000 It doesn't feel like you're a human being.

01:50:31.000 And they think that's the only way.

01:50:33.000 And then they hear people talk and they go, okay, this is not the only way.

01:50:37.000 There's other ways to think and there's other ways to live your life.

01:50:40.000 Trevor Burrus: Well, and the fact that you have people from such different perspectives on, I think, I just don't, I don't think we have very many platforms like that anymore.

01:50:52.000 And to me, that is probably the best thing about working in the legislature.

01:50:57.000 I think I told you this, of being forced to get outside of my bubble.

01:51:02.000 Because of course, I live in a bubble like everybody else does, right?

01:51:05.000 My information feed is curated like everybody else is.

01:51:11.000 And I try to break out of that whenever I can.

01:51:15.000 But my job forces me to break out of that because I have to sit down with very far-right Republicans, very far-left Democrats, and hammer out solutions to problems.

01:51:26.000 I mean, that's what I do all day at the Capitol.

01:51:28.000 Or when things are going well, that's what I'm doing.

01:51:30.000 But, you know, I think about there was a colleague.

01:51:34.000 I hope he doesn't mind me mentioning him on here.

01:51:36.000 His name is James Frank out of Wichita Falls, very, very conservative Republican.

01:51:42.000 And he and I met when I got elected and we bonded over the stupidest thing, which is that we both have the same first name.

01:51:48.000 Like that's when you meet someone, like that's sometimes you go off of like the most superficial basis to create a friendship.

01:51:48.000 Right.

01:51:54.000 James is a really common one.

01:51:55.000 I know, I know.

01:51:56.000 That's his joke.

01:51:57.000 But we started this joke of like, we're the James caucus and you're vice chair, blah, blah, blah.

01:51:57.000 But we, yeah.

01:52:02.000 Right.

01:52:03.000 It was a stupid basis for a friendship, but it was a basis.

01:52:07.000 And from there, he started to like come back to where I sat on the floor.

01:52:10.000 And like when things were slow, he would just come kind of sit and shoot the shit.

01:52:15.000 And he would say, like, he would, he would reveal some of the interesting, non-orthodox views that he has about politics, which then gave me an opening to kind of express some of my dissatisfactions with this political system and both parties and the way it forces us into tribes, all that stuff.

01:52:34.000 Anyway, all those conversations really created an actual friendship, and I consider James an actual friend.

01:52:40.000 And then what got interesting is how we took that friendship into public policy.

01:52:46.000 Because I think it was two sessions ago, James had a bill that all the Democrats hated, including me.

01:52:52.000 I hated the bill too.

01:52:53.000 It was a bill to allow homeschool kids to participate in UIL.

01:53:00.000 Yeah, I was going to say.

01:53:01.000 That is basically school sports in Texas.

01:53:04.000 It's like the sports league.

01:53:05.000 And as you know, sports are very important.

01:53:07.000 Why did you say that?

01:53:09.000 Well, my concern was that the public education system is not a buffet table, right?

01:53:14.000 Where you can just come and say, I want to do the sports, but I don't want to participate in the actual school or the academics, the life of the school.

01:53:23.000 I didn't want it to become this fragmented thing that everyone could just pick apart and just do the fun stuff.

01:53:27.000 That was my first reaction.

01:53:30.000 James sat down with me, which right there, a Republican coming to a Democrat and like actually having a private conversation about a bill, that doesn't happen enough.

01:53:40.000 And it should.

01:53:41.000 Because when he sat me down, he was able to use all the conversations we'd had to talk about this policy.

01:53:48.000 And he said something to me that just blew my mind.

01:53:51.000 He said, James, whenever we talk about immigration, you always say don't punish kids for the decisions their parents make.

01:54:01.000 There you go.

01:54:02.000 Right.

01:54:03.000 And immediately I was kind of first embarrassed and ashamed, right?

01:54:06.000 That's our natural reaction when we're wrong.

01:54:09.000 But I was like, James, he's absolutely right.

01:54:11.000 Like these kids didn't decide to be homeschooled.

01:54:15.000 This may be their only opportunity to interact with kids their own age in a public school setting.

01:54:21.000 This, you know, the opportunity to do UIL football or choir or theater or debate, like this could be a door that opens for these kids.

01:54:30.000 So anyway, I ended up crossing party lines to support that bill.

01:54:34.000 And I got a bunch of blowback from my folks.

01:54:37.000 But I felt like this trust that I had with James, someone who was on completely polar opposite side of me, moved me in a way that I actually changed my opinion on that.

01:54:48.000 That's awesome.

01:54:50.000 I think also, if you just look at it objectively, that would be socially beneficial to those kids.

01:54:57.000 For sure.

01:54:57.000 If it's beneficial to those kids, those kids would be better members of the community.

01:55:01.000 And you know what?

01:55:02.000 We passed that bill a couple of years ago, and I got to talk with some of the homeschool kids that are participating, and it has been a game changer for them.

01:55:08.000 That's awesome.

01:55:09.000 And what's interesting is that that has become a great recruitment tool for the local public schools.

01:55:14.000 Right?

01:55:14.000 Because then the public school is able to show off the UIL how much fun it is and then the kids sometimes enroll.

01:55:20.000 The point is, like I was open to changing my own mind, and that goes both ways.

01:55:26.000 The next session, I had filed this bill.

01:55:28.000 Sometimes I file a bill that I know is not going to pass in a Republican legislature, but I file it anyway so that I can at least start a conversation, right?

01:55:36.000 I passed a bill that was actually a Bernie Sanders idea.

01:55:39.000 Or sorry, I filed the bill.

01:55:41.000 It was to import cheaper prescription drugs from Canada directly to Texas because Canadians pay half of what we pay for the same prescription drugs.

01:55:51.000 And I didn't think it was going to go anywhere.

01:55:52.000 And all of a sudden, James calls me and it's like, I just read your bill.

01:55:55.000 I love it.

01:55:57.000 I'm a big believer in the free market, and big pharma is disrupting the free market.

01:56:01.000 So suddenly it was me and James Frank.

01:56:03.000 We got it through the House.

01:56:04.000 We got it through the Senate and we got it signed by the governor.

01:56:07.000 And now Texas is working on its application to the FDA to import cheap prescription drugs from Canada.

01:56:13.000 That's awesome.

01:56:13.000 So like it goes both ways of you being open to changing your mind and the other person being open.

01:56:19.000 And suddenly progress is possible when there's a relationship.

01:56:22.000 Well, that begs the question, like, why are you a Democrat?

01:56:25.000 Well, my mother, so I told you I was born to a single mom.

01:56:31.000 She was a preacher's daughter from Laredo down on the border.

01:56:35.000 She left home at 19.

01:56:36.000 She moved up to Austin.

01:56:38.000 She met my birth father, who was a high school dropout and had a drinking problem.

01:56:47.000 And that drinking problem sometimes led to being violent with my mother.

01:56:52.000 And there was one night, it was me and mom and my birth father, and he had too much drink and got violent again.

01:57:00.000 And that was kind of the straw that broke the camel's back.

01:57:03.000 And my mom decided right then and there that she was leaving.

01:57:06.000 So she packed all our stuff.

01:57:08.000 She put me in her little Ford escort.

01:57:10.000 She drove me to the hotel where she worked downtown.

01:57:13.000 The manager let us stay in one of the rooms for a few weeks until we found a little apartment in East Austin.

01:57:21.000 And mom, you know, she took on double duty at the hotel. 1.00

01:57:25.000 She like fought for me at every instance, even when it was her own physical safety was at risk.

01:57:32.000 And back then, this was early 90s, you know, she could look over at the Texas Capitol and she saw Texas Democrats like Ann Richards, Bob Bullock, people who fought for the little guy, for working people, people who were forgotten and left behind.

01:57:48.000 That was the classic Democratic Party.

01:57:52.000 And so I remember when I was, I guess I was maybe kindergarten and someone in school, they were talking about political parties, and I asked my mom what we were, and she was like, we're Democrats because Democrats fight for the people.

01:58:03.000 That was what she said.

01:58:05.000 And my mom is still a Democrat today, but like, I don't know how much our party is still true to that, but I do know that that's our historical legacy is the party that fights for the little guy.

01:58:19.000 And I think we're at our best when we do that today.

01:58:22.000 We're at our worst when we stray from that.

01:58:25.000 I would agree with that.

01:58:26.000 So I still believe the Democratic Party can get back to those roots.

01:58:30.000 I hope last year was a wake-up call, especially to the National Democratic Party, about what needs to change and how we need to be different if we're going to build a big coalition to take on the issues that we care about.

01:58:43.000 But that's why I'm a Democrat and why I hope the party can get back to those roots.

01:58:49.000 What are your aspirations politically outside of what you're doing right now?

01:58:54.000 So, you know, I told you I went to seminary.

01:58:56.000 I'm still in seminary.

01:58:58.000 I have about a year left of coursework.

01:59:00.000 I'm going slow since I'm doing all this other stuff.

01:59:04.000 My goal is to go full-time into the ministry whenever I'm done with seminary and I get ordained.

01:59:10.000 You basically kind of like passing the bar after you go to law school.

01:59:13.000 Like you go through seminary and you've got to get ordained, which is a whole different process.

01:59:17.000 But I basically, I want to become a minister full-time and I would love, my pastor is probably listening to this podcast, whenever he's ready to hang it up and retire, I would love to take over and lead my home church.

01:59:31.000 So I say all that because I don't want to do politics forever.

01:59:35.000 I like the work that I'm doing.

01:59:37.000 I do think I'm making an impact.

01:59:38.000 A lot of the bills that I've passed are actually helping people, helping students like the ones I taught.

01:59:44.000 But it is a bruising business to be in.

01:59:50.000 It's interesting because you're the type of person I want to go into politics.

01:59:55.000 But I've always said that.

01:59:56.000 The people that you want to do it don't want to do it.

01:59:59.000 Because it's terrible.

02:00:00.000 I mean, everything about it is terrible.

02:00:02.000 But unfortunately, terrible people excel at it.

02:00:02.000 Exactly.

02:00:06.000 There are great things about it.

02:00:07.000 I really don't want, I don't, I am not a victim here.

02:00:09.000 I have a great, this is a, no one was given this job away.

02:00:12.000 I had to work to get this job, right?

02:00:13.000 I had to raise money.

02:00:14.000 I had to knock on thousands of doors.

02:00:16.000 And I do, I mean, the fact that I went from serving 150 students at Rhodes Middle School in room 112 to now serving 5.5 million Texas public school students as part of the public education committee in the Texas House.

02:00:30.000 So like that's, you know, I passed a bill to allow incarcerated minors to get a high school diploma while they're in prison.

02:00:36.000 And then I got invited out to speak at their first graduation ceremony in the prison.

02:00:41.000 And I saw these kids who made horrific mistakes, but I saw them with their parents with a cap and gown.

02:00:49.000 And suddenly their whole conception about who they were changed in an instant because of the bill that I passed.

02:00:55.000 That's amazing.

02:00:56.000 There's all kinds of terrible stuff in this, the corruption, the partisanship, the polarization, the tribalism.

02:01:02.000 It's all terrible.

02:01:03.000 But then like you give a kid an opportunity to earn a diploma and you're just like, I can hang it up.

02:01:10.000 There's a pathway where that stuff can be at least minimized, the negative aspects of politics.

02:01:17.000 Yes.

02:01:18.000 What is that pathway?

02:01:19.000 One, I think this is a model right here.

02:01:21.000 Like having a place that we can all come together and listen to each other.

02:01:27.000 I told you about your talent for listening.

02:01:29.000 I learned this in my seminary training because what pastors do is listen a lot and how hard it is to actually listen to someone, right?

02:01:36.000 It's easy to stop talking and then start talking when the person is done, right?

02:01:40.000 Like exchanging monologues.

02:01:42.000 That's easy.

02:01:43.000 But actually, being open to hearing someone is a whole different ballgame.

02:01:48.000 You have to genuinely care.

02:01:50.000 Yes, you have to recognize something in someone else, a part of yourself, right?

02:01:54.000 Again, I would describe it as the image of God, but I don't want to make people feel weird about religion.

02:01:54.000 That image.

02:01:59.000 But that's something, that is what it is.

02:02:02.000 Well, because I think the most revolutionary teaching in my religion is the teaching to love your enemy.

02:02:08.000 I mean, it's crazy from two perspectives.

02:02:10.000 One, it's Jesus is acknowledging that we're going to have enemies.

02:02:13.000 Because you could see a world where he's just like, don't have enemies, right?

02:02:17.000 But if you're going to do difficult work, if you're going to speak your mind, if you're going to stand up to entrenched power, you're going to get some opponents, right?

02:02:25.000 But then the revolutionary part is that you are called to love your opponents and your enemies just as you love yourself.

02:02:25.000 Yeah.

02:02:32.000 It's easy to say in church.

02:02:33.000 Right.

02:02:34.000 Imagine, I mean, I try and fail every day to do that in the legislature, to see my opponents as children of God, to see Donald Trump as a child of God.

02:02:45.000 I'm probably going to get a primary challenge right there for saying that.

02:02:49.000 But he is.

02:02:50.000 He is.

02:02:51.000 And that's a hard thing for progressives and Democrats to get their head around.

02:02:56.000 But it's like until you...

02:03:13.000 Wow.

02:03:14.000 You only truly love God as much as you love the person you love the least.

02:03:19.000 In other words, the test of Christianity is not, do you love Jesus?

02:03:22.000 Because Jesus is pretty lovable.

02:03:26.000 The test is, do you love Judas?

02:03:30.000 I mean, now that is radical.

02:03:33.000 Yeah.

02:03:34.000 And I think that is the key to saving this whole American experiment.

02:03:39.000 Right.

02:03:40.000 Is how do you love your enemies?

02:03:41.000 And how do you get that idea out there in the zeitgeist?

02:03:45.000 That's part of the key, where you reject the idea of being this person that attacks their enemies and which is also.

02:03:53.000 Conquers their enemies.

02:03:55.000 This is a big aspect of social media is constantly attacking people that disagree with you.

02:04:00.000 I reject that.

02:04:02.000 I haven't engaged in that in forever.

02:04:04.000 I used to argue with people online.

02:04:06.000 Then I realized I never feel good.

02:04:07.000 I never change their opinion.

02:04:09.000 It doesn't do any good.

02:04:10.000 And then even if I would like win, you know, air quotes, win some online thing.

02:04:17.000 No.

02:04:17.000 I never felt good.

02:04:18.000 I felt terrible.

02:04:19.000 So I actually had an, this happened to me in my first campaign.

02:04:24.000 Facebook was the main platform at that time.

02:04:26.000 And there was a guy who had written kind of a snarky comment about how I was a Democrat who wanted to take away everybody's guns.

02:04:33.000 And I, again, I wanted to respond in anger, right?

02:04:37.000 Because that's always your first instinct.

02:04:41.000 But I tried to check that anger, tried to remember my teachings.

02:04:44.000 And I responded and I asked him to get coffee.

02:04:48.000 The good thing, this is a guy, just a guy in my comments, right?

02:04:51.000 Oh, that's wild.

02:04:52.000 And so we actually met up for coffee.

02:04:54.000 Turned out to be a lovely guy.

02:04:56.000 He actually brought his wife and his kids, adorable kids.

02:04:59.000 He talked about how he was a gun enthusiast and he was also a certified NRA safety officer.

02:05:07.000 And so the more we talked, we actually got down to how we both really value safety in this conversation and how he was talking about how gun owners in many ways are the biggest advocates for safety.

02:05:17.000 And then we found some consensus on background checks, stuff like that.

02:05:21.000 But it turned from this dunking in comments on social media to when we were face to face, human to human.

02:05:28.000 Suddenly we heard each other, right?

02:05:31.000 We listened to each other.

02:05:32.000 And he realized I was not trying to take people's guns.

02:05:34.000 I have no interest in that.

02:05:35.000 He recognized that I was just trying to find a way to safety, which is his value too.

02:05:40.000 Suddenly that's a conversation.

02:05:41.000 I'm not saying I don't want to be, I'm not naive.

02:05:44.000 This stuff often doesn't end well, right?

02:05:46.000 You don't often get to an agreement.

02:05:48.000 But I have seen over and over again that when you extend an open hand instead of a closed fist, it's a game changer.

02:05:54.000 Yes.

02:05:54.000 People mirror that behavior.

02:05:56.000 And person to person, which is the only way human beings are really supposed to talk.

02:06:00.000 And that's one of the beautiful things.

02:06:03.000 That's also one of the reasons why it's been so easy for me to disengage with social media, because I engage with social conversation, like real social conversations.

02:06:13.000 So it's like, you know, social media to me is not attractive.

02:06:17.000 I get plenty of interaction with human beings, even human beings with completely different perspectives than I do.

02:06:24.000 I'm very fortunate.

02:06:25.000 I know that's not available to a lot of people.

02:06:27.000 I get it, but I think people get something out of these conversations because of that.

02:06:33.000 And they're hungry for it.

02:06:35.000 People are hungry for connection.

02:06:35.000 Yeah.

02:06:36.000 And social media is almost like empty calories.

02:06:39.000 It feels like you're eating, like you're getting connection, but actually it just ends you more hungry.

02:06:44.000 You're hungry at the end of the day.

02:06:45.000 There's a guy who I've had on the podcast.

02:06:45.000 Yeah.

02:06:48.000 Is it Alan Levinovitz?

02:06:50.000 Is that his name?

02:06:51.000 Yes.

02:06:53.000 He describes it as the same way consuming processed foods is bad for you, processed information is bad for you.

02:07:01.000 Oh, it's so good.

02:07:03.000 It feels like a food thing.

02:07:04.000 It feels like information.

02:07:06.000 It feels like interaction, but it's not.

02:07:07.000 It's overly processed and it's gross.

02:07:10.000 Well, and this certainly exists on both sides of the aisle, but I think in recent years, this cancel culture on my side of the aisle has just become kind of the default spirituality on the left.

02:07:24.000 And it is so toxic because nothing is more antithetical in my faith than canceling another human being.

02:07:32.000 If we are all endowed with this sacred image, if we are all holy, then we are all of infinite worth and we are all entitled to unconditional love.

02:07:43.000 Like that is, as a progressive, as a Democrat, like that is central to how I understand the world.

02:07:47.000 That's why I fight for universal health care and against big money.

02:07:50.000 It's because I believe each person is sacred.

02:07:53.000 So then in a conversation where someone happens to not agree with you on a policy, even an important policy, the fact that you would write them off as irredeemable, as trash, I just can't imagine anything more diametrically opposed to my values, my faith, but also to, I would think, the values of the Democratic Party.

02:08:15.000 I mean, the way you win in a democracy is you persuade people, you win the argument.

02:08:20.000 But to say, you know, you are now a bad person, you're a villain.

02:08:26.000 I mean, it's making everyone two-dimensional.

02:08:27.000 It's also a byproduct of social media because there's this frustration that you're not face-to-face with that person.

02:08:34.000 I don't like the way they're talking.

02:08:35.000 I don't like their perspective.

02:08:36.000 Let's get rid of them forever.

02:08:38.000 Cast him out of the kingdom.

02:08:40.000 And, you know, Mark Andreessen had this very interesting way of describing what's going on with people that it's akin to cult-like rituals, is that you demand complete, total compliance.

02:08:55.000 When that person does not comply, you cast them out of, you get them out of the social group.

02:09:02.000 You eliminate them, which is what cults do.

02:09:05.000 When someone doesn't agree, they're kicked out.

02:09:08.000 And then you no longer engage with that person, and you treat that person like a pariah.

02:09:15.000 And that also reinforces this idea that everybody has to be compliant.

02:09:19.000 Otherwise, you will face the same fate as those people do.

02:09:22.000 In the absence of any sort of religion, people form their own religion.

02:09:27.000 Politics becomes a religion.

02:09:29.000 100%.

02:09:30.000 Ideologies become religions. 0.97

02:09:32.000 They find we have, for whatever reason, we have a default setting in our mind and the way we interact with reality that is very religious, whether we like it or not.

02:09:47.000 I mean, that is inherent in our species.

02:09:50.000 I mean, we are a moral believing species.

02:09:53.000 That's what separates us from all the other animals is that we can think abstractly, think about the future and the past, Tell stories and then ask questions about what this all means.

02:10:02.000 Why are we all here on this floating rock out in the middle of the vast infinite universe?

02:10:07.000 And the least connected, most lost people I know are atheists, and that is really weird to me.

02:10:14.000 It's really weird.

02:10:15.000 These people that reject religion for whatever reason seem less connected and less engaged with reality.

02:10:27.000 It's very strange.

02:10:29.000 It's very strange.

02:10:30.000 And also more rigid in their perspectives, more rigid in their ideology.

02:10:38.000 Their ideology becomes their God.

02:10:41.000 It becomes, yeah.

02:10:43.000 Well, and I, you know, oftentimes I feel like atheists or agnostics have very valid criticisms of organized religion.

02:10:52.000 You know, sometimes they see the church more clearly than I can on the inside of how it's not living up to its values.

02:10:52.000 For sure.

02:10:58.000 I think the thing you're hitting on is that there is a baby in that bathwater.

02:11:03.000 Right.

02:11:03.000 If we just throw out the whole thing.

02:11:03.000 Yes.

02:11:05.000 Yeah.

02:11:06.000 I mean, now we're conducting an experiment on humanity in real time of what happens when you take this believing species and rob it of any community to make sense of the world.

02:11:18.000 I mean, now that's why you're, I honestly believe that's why we see higher rates of anxiety and depression, especially among young people, is because they're growing up in an incoherent universe.

02:11:27.000 Yes, absolutely.

02:11:28.000 And accentuated by social media for sure, this over-processed information.

02:11:34.000 I think there's a perspective that people have that their way is the way that they have to defend and that other ways are the wrong way.

02:11:44.000 And I think there's a spectrum when it comes to everything.

02:11:48.000 And religion, like if you're looking at someone who's a right-wing person, who's a conservative person, conservative Christian, who's a Republican, they look at the left like Antifa.

02:12:02.000 They see Antifa.

02:12:03.000 They see the summer of love in Seattle.

02:12:07.000 They see that as the worst aspects.

02:12:10.000 And I think someone who's agnostic or atheist, they look at like the Joel Olsteins.

02:12:16.000 They look at these mega church pastors.

02:12:18.000 They look at these hypocrites that drive Rolls-Royce's and fly in private jets and make millions and millions of dollars off of their followers as the worst aspects of Christianity.

02:12:27.000 You know, because that is the worst aspects of Christianity in a lot of ways. 0.99

02:12:31.000 It's the bastardization of the teachings, taking advantage of people that want to believe and using it for their own personal gain.

02:12:43.000 And so they think of those people as hypocrites and they think of all these people as the worst aspects of society because they're looking at the worst aspects of this one group that's comprised of a billion people, which is kind of crazy, but that's what we do.

02:12:59.000 And it's not just religion.

02:13:00.000 I mean, a big criticism I have of my own side is that, you know, I mentioned earlier this pattern of order, disorder, reorder as the pattern of the universe that these religions are talking about.

02:13:12.000 And we all, you know, were born into certain stories, whether it's religion, patriotism, masculinity.

02:13:21.000 These are stories that we're born into.

02:13:23.000 And we grow up and we start to question these stories, which is natural.

02:13:27.000 I feel like my side is stuck on that second step.

02:13:31.000 We haven't made it to that third step, that reordering, that resurrection, reincarnation, where we're taking these things and we are understanding them anew.

02:13:40.000 Because religion can be toxic, but it is not inherently toxic.

02:13:45.000 Patriotism can be toxic, but it is not inherently toxic.

02:13:49.000 Masculinity can be toxic, but it is not inherently toxic.

02:13:53.000 Like understanding that these are things that we can reclaim and be proud of, I think is something that hasn't quite seeped in on my side.

02:14:02.000 So we end up just rejecting all of it.

02:14:05.000 All religion is bad. 1.00

02:14:06.000 Patriotism is bad and naive, right?

02:14:08.000 And I just don't think those things are true.

02:14:11.000 So I do think our challenge on my side of the aisle is how do you get to that third step of feeling disillusioned, but then using that to rise and create something new and reclaim.

02:14:23.000 Yes, politics is corrupt, but it doesn't have to be.

02:14:27.000 Every system we have is a choice.

02:14:29.000 They're human systems.

02:14:30.000 We made them.

02:14:32.000 I mean, we can make it better if we make that decision to do so.

02:14:36.000 You know, I do feel like right now cynicism is like the hottest thing.

02:14:39.000 It's very cool to be, you know, too cool for school.

02:14:43.000 But I do think earnestness and hope and optimism are going to make a comeback.

02:14:48.000 Well, that's why people like you, I'd like to see more of in politics.

02:14:53.000 And you're just trying to get a lot of people.

02:14:54.000 You're trying not to leave.

02:14:55.000 You're trying to get out.

02:14:56.000 I'm not leaving right away.

02:14:59.000 I do think there are other ways to make an impact outside of politics.

02:15:02.000 You've shown that.

02:15:04.000 I can do that in the ministry.

02:15:06.000 I do think we're missing that moral clarity in our political conversation that really can only come from faith leaders.

02:15:12.000 I think the cynical perspective is that at the highest levels, it's all being controlled by money, and that's not going to change.

02:15:19.000 The people that were very hopeful for change when Trump got into office, one of the things that everyone was promised was you're going to find out the Epstein client list and you're going to find out who killed JFK and what the UFOs are all about.

02:15:33.000 You haven't heard a fucking beep about any of that shit.

02:15:36.000 No one knows nothing.

02:15:37.000 And today, they just finally said there's no client list.

02:15:40.000 There's no videos.

02:15:41.000 I mean, I had Cash Patel.

02:15:43.000 These people, you know, Cash came on the podcast and said there's nothing that you want to see.

02:15:48.000 You know, he's got Dan Bongino, who's always like shouting from the rooftops.

02:15:52.000 We're going to get to the bottom of this and find out who these people are.

02:15:55.000 Everyone's saying, no, no, Epstein killed himself.

02:15:58.000 No, nothing to see here.

02:15:59.000 And it's like, okay, well, that's why people are cynical.

02:16:02.000 People are cynical because you had all this hope for change, and then you realize like, oh, the same people that are pulling the strings are still pulling the strings.

02:16:12.000 Well, and it doesn't help when there are videos of the president hanging around with everybody else, including Nobel Prize-winning scientists.

02:16:21.000 Yes.

02:16:22.000 It's not just limited.

02:16:23.000 Yeah, I mean, whatever that compromise organization was, whatever that thing was that they were running, whatever this game was, I'm sure they're running another version of it right now where they provide experiences to people that have a very difficult time getting out there and having their fun, you know, and then they compromise them.

02:16:47.000 I mean, I think this is a time-honored tactic of control.

02:16:53.000 It's been around forever.

02:16:55.000 And obviously it works.

02:16:56.000 Look, if you have so much interest in getting to the bottom of this, like universally on both sides of the aisle, and yet nothing gets done, that tends to give people this fear that cynicism is the correct perspective.

02:17:18.000 And I want to validate that, that there is reason and good reasons to be disillusioned.

02:17:25.000 I guess all I'm pushing back on is that second step of it's always going to be this way.

02:17:30.000 Right.

02:17:30.000 It doesn't have to be this way.

02:17:31.000 That is the key step.

02:17:32.000 So you need to run for president.

02:17:32.000 Right.

02:17:37.000 We need someone who's actually a good person.

02:17:39.000 Well, you know, because the Democrats have very few candidates that are.

02:17:43.000 Can I actually push back on that?

02:17:44.000 Please.

02:17:45.000 Because we were talking about how religion, how politics has become a religion.

02:17:48.000 This is one of the ways it does is people put all their faith in a politician.

02:17:53.000 Because I've seen that.

02:17:54.000 I've seen it with Bernie.

02:17:55.000 Yeah.

02:17:56.000 I mean, people, and I like Bernie a whole lot, but some people treat him as if he's a messianic figure.

02:18:01.000 Well, because he's a fairly famous person.

02:18:02.000 And Trump on the right, people treat him as a messiah in some ways.

02:18:05.000 Like, this is a problem.

02:18:06.000 One of the only ones that's been remarkably consistent in my entire career.

02:18:10.000 I know.

02:18:11.000 But he's still a flawed human being, right?

02:18:12.000 I mean, just like we all are.

02:18:14.000 It's so rare.

02:18:15.000 I know, but my point is, but instead of like the change is going to come from your listeners, not from me.

02:18:22.000 Right.

02:18:23.000 I can be a part of that.

02:18:24.000 But I mean, if there's any hope I can give people, it's that the people in power, including the billionaire mega donors who basically run this whole thing, and I can get more into that if you want.

02:18:34.000 But they are very afraid of the power that the people have.

02:18:34.000 Please do.

02:18:41.000 That I know for sure.

02:18:42.000 How so?

02:18:43.000 Because they spend so much time.

02:18:45.000 Let me just, so let's talk about the two billionaires that I think basically control state government here in Texas.

02:18:51.000 And you, I don't know if you or even your listeners necessarily know about them.

02:18:55.000 It's two billionaires from West Texas.

02:18:57.000 Their names are Tim Dunn and Ferris Wilkes.

02:19:00.000 Dunn and Wilkes.

02:19:02.000 They made their money in oil and gas.

02:19:04.000 I was just going to say, some people get them confused with Brooks and Dunn.

02:19:09.000 Wilkes and Dunn is the bad one.

02:19:10.000 Brooks and Dunn, good one.

02:19:13.000 But they made their money in oil and gas, but they are also Christian nationalist pastors.

02:19:19.000 Oh.

02:19:20.000 Which, you know, billionaire pastor, you know, you would think that's an oxymoron.

02:19:24.000 But on Sunday mornings, these two billionaires, they preach at these far-right churches, and they've got very extreme views.

02:19:33.000 They don't think anybody who's not a Christian should serve an elected office.

02:19:37.000 Whoa.

02:19:38.000 In fact, you can look this up.

02:19:40.000 Don't take my word for it.

02:19:41.000 Do your own research.

02:19:42.000 But they told the former Republican speaker of the Texas House, a guy named Joe Strauss from San Antonio, that he didn't have a right to be speaker because he's Jewish.

02:19:51.000 And that's a Republican.

02:19:54.000 So they are Dominionists.

02:19:56.000 They're Christian nationalists.

02:19:57.000 This is the world that they have.

02:19:58.000 But they basically, every single Republican state senator in Texas has taken their money.

02:20:04.000 Every single one.

02:20:05.000 A majority of the Republicans in the state House have taken their money.

02:20:10.000 And for some of those lawmakers, a majority of their total campaign contributions come from just these two guys.

02:20:16.000 Like they increasingly run this whole government here in Texas.

02:20:22.000 And you ask where the Ten Commandments bill comes from.

02:20:26.000 You ask where that school counselor chaplain bill comes from, the voucher bill, the abortion ban.

02:20:33.000 A lot of this is driven by these two billionaires.

02:20:36.000 That's wild.

02:20:37.000 And they give to politicians, but it's actually much bigger than that because they have this sprawling network of think tanks, advocacy organizations, media outlets, the Daily Wire, right, funded by them.

02:20:50.000 So like they are they are creating an empire to control every aspect of the state.

02:21:01.000 I mean, I don't mean to sound alarmist, but that is, that's what's happening.

02:21:04.000 And again, your listeners should do their own research on this to learn about it.

02:21:08.000 but there's been a lot of stories about these two billionaires and their control over state government.

02:21:11.000 And I say this because And Ben Shapiro is very Jewish.

02:21:19.000 Well, and these two billionaires hosted a meeting with Nick Fuentes, who is a Holocaust denier, and got a lot of pushback.

02:21:29.000 He's a denier?

02:21:30.000 Nick Fuentes?

02:21:31.000 He's a denier, or does he debate the numbers?

02:21:35.000 Well, to be fair, I don't listen to a lot of Nick Fuentes, which is on me.

02:21:40.000 Who funds it?

02:21:41.000 Duo Surves.

02:21:42.000 Yep.

02:21:43.000 Dan and Ferris Wilkes.

02:21:45.000 Daily Wire was launched in 2015.

02:21:47.000 Billionaire Petroleum Industry Brothers.

02:21:49.000 And again, I think the important part about these two guys that's maybe more important than the oil and gas stuff is that they have this extreme religious worldview, and they have the money to be able to actually implement that worldview on 30 million people in the state of Texas.

02:22:04.000 And now they're trying to go national by trying to win a U.S. Senate seat.

02:22:10.000 So, I mean, if your listeners haven't heard of Tim Dunn and Ferris Wilkes, they need to.

02:22:14.000 One, because not only do they make policy increasingly for 30 million Texans, but now they're trying to go national.

02:22:20.000 And a lot of their views and a lot of their politics are going to become nationalized.

02:22:24.000 I interrupted you when you were talking about Nick Fuentes.

02:22:28.000 My point was that Dunn and Wilkes, and I've probably become the most outspoken critic of these guys because I do think people need to know their names, right?

02:22:39.000 You open up your social media feed, you listen to the news, and you hear about Greg Abbott and Dan Patrick or even James Tallarico, but you don't actually hear about the two guys who run the whole thing.

02:22:50.000 But my point is that they spend so much of their energy and their money and their time trying to create wedges between people.

02:22:59.000 So let's just Take schools, for instance.

02:23:02.000 The centerpiece of their agenda was this school voucher bill, which you probably heard about, which is basically taking money that would go to neighborhood public schools and sending that money to religious private schools.

02:23:15.000 Those who are around Dun and Wilkes say that their ultimate vision is to replace public schooling with religious schooling for everyone.

02:23:22.000 That's what they're trying to get to.

02:23:24.000 Yes.

02:23:25.000 Wow.

02:23:26.000 And so, but they know that Texans love their public schools, right?

02:23:30.000 Like, I mean, public education is enshrined in our state's constitution.

02:23:34.000 Friday night lights, in a lot of these small towns, the school is not just an academic institution.

02:23:39.000 It is the community hub that brings people together.

02:23:43.000 So if Dun and Wilkes want to get rid of public education, which I think they do, and I think the journalism bears this out, they've got to drive a wedge between people in their public school community.

02:23:54.000 And so they deliberately fund a lot of the book stuff, a lot of the cultural stuff, the craziness at school boards.

02:24:04.000 A lot of that is kind of funded and organized through the Dun and Wilkes Empire.

02:24:08.000 Of course, you know, people should go to the school board if they have an authentic problem with the school district, which that happens a lot.

02:24:15.000 But when you actually look into where, when you follow the money about who's getting the people to show up, who is distributing the information, who is riling people up about some of this stuff and undermining trust in public education, it's often done in Wilkes.

02:24:31.000 And it is in pursuit of this policy goal, which is to defund and close neighborhood schools.

02:24:37.000 We've already seen schools close all over the state of Texas because they're being systematically underfunded.

02:24:43.000 So I just, I use this as an example.

02:24:46.000 There are valid critiques of public schools.

02:24:47.000 Don't get me wrong.

02:24:48.000 And I've made those critiques myself.

02:24:50.000 But when you look at where the money is coming from and the fact that it is intentionally drawing a wedge or putting a wedge between people and undermining trust in education so that they can privatize it and profit off of it, I think that whole story needs to be recognized so people can understand how the left versus right stuff is actually not as important as the top versus bottom stuff.

02:25:12.000 That these billionaires are going to, we're not going to have public schools.

02:25:16.000 There's no way I'd be on Joe Rogan right now if I hadn't had Texas public schools because my mom didn't go to college. 1.00

02:25:22.000 The only way I got to college is because of public schools, free, high-quality public schools, period.

02:25:28.000 And I think there's a lot of people who would say the same thing.

02:25:31.000 And these two guys are terrified of.

02:25:35.000 Yes.

02:25:36.000 Because what they're worried about is, and I'll take the voucher fight in particular.

02:25:40.000 We almost beat this voucher bill because it was a coalition of Democrats in urban and suburban areas and then rural small town Republicans coming together because we all benefit from public schools, right?

02:25:54.000 We set aside our party differences, even some of our ideological differences, and we said, we all need well-funded public schools that can actually give our kids the opportunities they deserve.

02:26:06.000 That coalition was not only a threat to Greg Abbott or Dan Patrick, it was a threat to Dunn and Wilkes.

02:26:13.000 Because if we recognize that we have far more in common than the stuff that divides us, then that's a threat to their power.

02:26:21.000 It's a threat to their wealth.

02:26:23.000 That unity, that loving your enemy is not just morally good.

02:26:28.000 It's not just idealistic.

02:26:30.000 It is good strategic advice because when we're united, when we're together, then we make it a lot harder for those two guys to come in and dismantle these ladders of opportunity that we have.

02:26:44.000 And we have fewer and fewer ladders of opportunity.

02:26:46.000 Public schools are one of them.

02:26:47.000 So I think this is a prime example of what I mean when I say a lot of the divisions, a lot of the platforms that are dividing us that are run by billionaires, all of that is intentional so that we are fighting each other instead of asking hard questions about the wealthy special interests and what their agenda is.

02:27:04.000 That is just the phenomenon that I have seen in my four terms.

02:27:08.000 And I don't know if everyone is fully awake to that, that we're getting played.

02:27:14.000 I don't think people are.

02:27:15.000 And I think you saying it is very important.

02:27:19.000 I think most people are unaware of it.

02:27:21.000 Well, and how would they know?

02:27:23.000 Right?

02:27:23.000 I mean, they're not, and this is a problem with media.

02:27:26.000 Like the mainstream media, for some reason, will not name these two guys.

02:27:31.000 It's probably, I think it's like this gentleman's agreement or like you have to talk about the elected officials.

02:27:31.000 Right?

02:27:35.000 I'm like, it doesn't matter who the elected officials are if these billionaires buy whoever's elected.

02:27:41.000 Right.

02:27:42.000 I mean, this to me is the real story.

02:27:44.000 And I honestly don't.

02:27:46.000 There are some outlets that are covering it, but just most of them don't.

02:27:49.000 I'll even bring them up in an interview, like on local news.

02:27:52.000 It'll get taken out of the interview.

02:27:53.000 Really?

02:27:54.000 Yeah.

02:27:55.000 Because they don't want the lawsuits.

02:27:56.000 I get it.

02:27:57.000 They don't want the attention.

02:27:59.000 I even put a video on TikTok explaining Dun and Wilkes.

02:28:03.000 And it was like the TikTok was getting a lot of engagement, then it stopped all of a sudden.

02:28:09.000 And I think it was because the algorithm or the, I don't know how it works, but the platform itself had decided to stop the video from spreading.

02:28:17.000 Wow.

02:28:18.000 So, I mean, that is, I just do think people have to, your listeners, who maybe some of them are sick of politics.

02:28:24.000 They think it's all corrupt.

02:28:25.000 That is all true.

02:28:26.000 I validate that.

02:28:27.000 But until you educate yourself, until you do dig a little deeper, until you recognize the way this system is operating, you're not going to have the tools and the knowledge you need to upend that system, which it can absolutely be upended.

02:28:41.000 We almost beat their voucher bill because we had that coalition of across the aisle and scattering the tribal dynamics of our politics. 0.84

02:28:51.000 So ultimately, we didn't win, kind of came down to a photo finish.

02:28:55.000 But it did to me provide a template for what happens if we actually loved our enemies, if we rebuilt these relationships.

02:29:02.000 Like, who could we take on if we did it together?

02:29:04.000 Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and progressives?

02:29:08.000 Like, I don't know.

02:29:09.000 Sometimes I sound a little Pollyanna.

02:29:11.000 No, no, I think you're onto something.

02:29:14.000 I think what you're saying is absolutely true, though, that it's not us versus them.

02:29:19.000 It's the top versus the bottom.

02:29:21.000 They have all the power.

02:29:22.000 Yeah.

02:29:23.000 It seems like they enjoy wielding it for their own benefit.

02:29:23.000 And it's.

02:29:27.000 And what's their ultimate goal?

02:29:31.000 You know, I think if I'm taking the journalism that's been done on Dunham Wilkes, I think their ultimate goal is a theocracy.

02:29:40.000 And again, this is very personal given how important my faith is to me, but I'm a Christian, and I think there is no more dangerous form of government than theocracy.

02:29:50.000 Because the only thing worse than a tyrant is a tyrant who thinks they're on a mission from God.

02:29:54.000 We haven't had any good examples of that in the past.

02:29:57.000 This is not one that you go, well, that one worked out.

02:29:57.000 No.

02:29:59.000 Right.

02:30:00.000 And so I, again, this is people trying to use my religion to control people.

02:30:05.000 That's the name of the game.

02:30:06.000 And we're seeing that here.

02:30:08.000 I mean, Texas is, I'm an eighth-generation Texan.

02:30:10.000 My family's been here since it was Mexico.

02:30:12.000 I love this state.

02:30:14.000 But I've just seen people like Dunn and Wilkes just take us in this far-right culture war direction at the expense of actual problems we need to solve.

02:30:23.000 One of the bills that didn't pass last legislative session was a bill that would have provided funding for flood mitigation and emergency systems to get the word out when there's a flood.

02:30:36.000 And we literally just saw the consequence of not passing that bill over the weekend.

02:30:41.000 Why would they not want that passed?

02:30:43.000 That seems like...

02:30:45.000 Okay, we're honestly here.

02:30:47.000 That bill was passed by Representative Ken King, a Republican, someone I often have disagreements with, but he's a good man.

02:30:47.000 Okay.

02:30:53.000 He's from far north Panhandle, where they saw historic wildfires last year.

02:31:00.000 So he put this bill that would have addressed wildflowers, wildfires, also flooding, and would have, I think, saved some of the lives in the Hill Country over the weekend during those catastrophic floods.

02:31:12.000 That bill passed the state house, the lower chamber that I'm in, on a bipartisan basis, overwhelmingly.

02:31:17.000 Democrats and Republicans said, this is good policy.

02:31:19.000 Let's pass it.

02:31:21.000 Dan Patrick, the lieutenant governor who controls the state senate, which is the upper chamber, he held that bill hostage so that he could get his THC ban through.

02:31:33.000 And again, I know this may be confusing people outside of Texas.

02:31:35.000 We legalized hemp a few years ago.

02:31:38.000 It's a booming industry.

02:31:39.000 It's a product that's providing people a lot of relief.

02:31:42.000 Dan Patrick decided to put this bill forward that would ban all THC products in the state of Texas, basically close hundreds of businesses across the state, lay off thousands of people.

02:31:51.000 Why do you think he does that?

02:31:53.000 Let's go back.

02:31:54.000 Follow the money.

02:31:55.000 What industry do you think was most invested in taking this new product off the market?

02:32:02.000 Pharmaceutical drugs.

02:32:03.000 No.

02:32:04.000 Alcohol.

02:32:04.000 Big alcohol.

02:32:06.000 Big beer.

02:32:07.000 And I guess I love beer.

02:32:09.000 This is not a critique of them.

02:32:11.000 My point is they use their influence to take a competitor out of the market.

02:32:16.000 By the way, a competitor that is research suggests is safer and less addictive than alcohol.

02:32:24.000 Again, I'm not disparaging alcohol, but it has a lot of negative side effects and a lot of negative and is very addictive.

02:32:31.000 I have members of my family who struggle with addiction and struggle with alcoholism.

02:32:35.000 THC can be, under the right circumstances, an alternative.

02:32:40.000 I mean, there are seniors who use it for chronic pain.

02:32:43.000 There are veterans who use it for PTSD.

02:32:45.000 There are just Texans with anxiety who use it to chill out at the end of a long, stressful day.

02:32:50.000 And so the fact that the lieutenant governor, one, would do the bidding of one industry over the other, two, would hold up literally a life-saving bill that could have possibly saved lives over the weekend in those floods just to cater to wealthy special interests, to me is just an encapsulation of everything that's wrong with politics.

02:33:14.000 Right.

02:33:14.000 I mean, yeah, I would agree with that.

02:33:17.000 So that's the kind of, when I told you in my second term, I started to feel discouraged.

02:33:20.000 That's the stuff.

02:33:21.000 Because you just walk, I mean, I'm still, politicians are still people.

02:33:25.000 Like I walk out of that chamber just feeling totally and utterly defeated.

02:33:30.000 Right.

02:33:31.000 Like I feel like I'm pushing against the ocean sometimes.

02:33:34.000 Yeah.

02:33:35.000 And people are going to suffer with this THC ban if it goes into place.

02:33:39.000 Needlessly.

02:33:40.000 Needlessly.

02:33:41.000 It's foolish.

02:33:43.000 It's really foolish.

02:33:44.000 And it's not in the direction the country's going.

02:33:45.000 The country's going towards legalization, which it should, and then also taxing.

02:33:50.000 It would be a tremendous tax benefit to everybody, a tremendous revenue benefit to the state.

02:33:56.000 And regulation.

02:33:57.000 I actually voted for a regulation bill, right?

02:33:57.000 I'm open.

02:34:00.000 We shouldn't have smoke shops right next to schools.

02:34:02.000 The packaging shouldn't look like kids' candy.

02:34:04.000 I'm all for that.

02:34:05.000 Pesticides, herbicides, toxic chemicals being used on them.

02:34:10.000 But to do a total draconian ban, again, there's the thing with abortion.

02:34:15.000 It's just for the alcohol industry.

02:34:17.000 That's fascinating.

02:34:20.000 Again, all I do is follow the money.

02:34:22.000 Again, I don't want to cast aspersions.

02:34:24.000 It's not like the lieutenant governor said, I'm just doing this for the alcohol industry.

02:34:27.000 I'm just, I'm reading the tea leaves, and especially when a policy doesn't make sense.

02:34:27.000 Of course.

02:34:32.000 That's when I ask questions.

02:34:34.000 Right.

02:34:34.000 When you're just like, you know, because they'll be like, well, you know, too many kids are getting these products.

02:34:38.000 Well, okay, let's pass a reform bill where we keep it out of the hands of kids. 1.00

02:34:42.000 But the kids have been getting weed since the beginning of the time.

02:34:44.000 I mean, that's also true.

02:34:45.000 It's stupid.

02:34:46.000 Well, I mean, this is the whole thing about...

02:34:48.000 This is the whole thing.

02:34:51.000 I want to say this.

02:34:52.000 I never thought when I got elected to the state legislature, I would talk so much about sex.

02:34:56.000 I literally, there are so many weird bills about pornography.

02:35:00.000 There was a bill about dildos, which I can't believe I even said that on this podcast.

02:35:04.000 What's the bill about dildos?

02:35:07.000 I think it's a bill regulating where dildos can be in like a store.

02:35:12.000 Anyway, like I just, I didn't, I have not, I've heard a lot of things from my constituents, healthcare, crime, you know, education.

02:35:21.000 I've literally never had a constituent reach out about dildos. 1.00

02:35:24.000 But my colleagues feel the need to need to pass bills about this stuff.

02:35:28.000 So I end up being in a weird position where I'm having to talk about some of these issues, like this issue of pornography, which has been used to do book banning.

02:35:39.000 And it's an interesting discussion that we should get into.

02:35:42.000 But the idea that teenagers are going to the school library for their pornography, again, just kind of, you know, it's common sense that I feel like sometimes we're just completely lacking in in places like the Capitol.

02:35:57.000 Well, listen, James, I really appreciate you Coming on here because you're providing a perspective that I think is very difficult to acquire.

02:36:05.000 I don't think most people have any idea how the system actually works.

02:36:09.000 And the fact that you're willing to do this and to speak so frankly and so well about this and really explain it to us in a way that's digestible.

02:36:20.000 I really appreciate it.

02:36:21.000 I appreciate it.

02:36:22.000 This is a special platform you've created here, and it really is an opportunity, I think, to love our enemies again.

02:36:29.000 So I just couldn't be prouder to be invited on.

02:36:31.000 My pleasure.

02:36:33.000 So let's do it again sometime.

02:36:34.000 I'd love to.

02:36:35.000 Don't quit.

02:36:36.000 Okay?

02:36:36.000 Stay in there.

02:36:37.000 Thank you.

02:36:38.000 Thank you.

02:36:38.000 Thank you very much.

02:36:39.000 All right.

The Joe Rogan Experience - July 18, 2025

Joe Rogan Experience #2352 - James Talarico

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