The Tucker Carlson Show - Ken Paxton： How Soros Protects Drug Cartels, Being Blacklisted by Fox News, and the Laken Riley Act

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00:00:14.400 Thank you for coming on, Mr. Attorney General. So the most pressing problem, I think it's fair to say, as an outsider in Texas is immigration. It's totally changed your state in every way. Do you expect that the new administration and the executive orders in the first couple of days are going to have a material effect, a noticeable effect?

00:00:33.740 I know they are, just because I saw what happened four years ago, or eight years ago when Trump came into office. I mean, I went through, I've been in politics since Bush was in office, and I've seen how Republicans and Democrats have dealt with immigration. They have not dealt with it effectively because they have not enforced federal law.

00:00:50.080 Trump was the first president to use the force of our federal laws, which are good and designed to protect us, whether it was Romania, Mexico, or whether it was Title 42, or it was stopping catch and release, basic common sense of things like building a wall. Those things work. They just absolutely work. And just what he's done in the first couple of days is significant and changing where Biden was taking us.

00:01:20.080 So one of the things you pointed out off camera was his executive order designating the drug cartels as terror organizations is significant.

00:01:38.380 Yes. We as states don't have much authority to stop illegal immigration, but the federal government has that authority, and by designating these cartels as terrorist organizations, now the military, our military force can be used against them, rather than just using border patrol and leaving the states subject to the cartels' crimes.

00:01:58.880 You do wonder about the power of the drug cartels. They've, you know, a lot of the weapons we've sent to Ukraine have been sold by the Ukrainian military onto the black market. That's a fact. A lot, up to half. And a lot of them have been purchased by the drug cartels you see in Mexico, pitched battles, military engagements between the cartels and the Mexican military, where they're very, you know, they're well-armed. Are you worried about that happening in Texas?

00:02:27.220 Absolutely. I think the Biden administration has indirectly funded the cartels. They have encouraged, by saying no deportations on day one of his administration, they've encouraged illegal immigration, and that's a profit center for the cartels. They make, you know, $8,000 to $12,000 a person. We have, if you just do the numbers on $14 million, that's a lot of money. They're making billions every month. And then they can go and use that money to buy weapons from Ukraine, which we're funding, we're sending that over free.

00:02:53.140 So, indirectly, they're part of the whole process of, one, allowing the cartels to have access to our country and allowing them to make a profit, and then to use that money to arm themselves in a significant way.

00:03:04.500 I was just—

00:03:05.140 That's our government.

00:03:06.420 Well, it's horrifying. I mean, because, you know, some of the weapons are surface-to-air weapons. So, you wonder, like, what's the threat to commercial air travel? You can see things kind of starting to fall apart.

00:03:15.560 Is there, like, widespread acknowledgement of this in Texas, that we could have a serious problem with these cartels?

00:03:23.260 I think even just common people are aware of that, just because of the influx and the just increased crime associated with just everyday crime that people see as it relates to the cartels moving into our state.

00:03:36.940 And that network that they built is not just in Texas. They are building that network all over the country, and they're not going to want to give it up.

00:03:43.840 They're making too much money on drugs, sex trafficking, other crimes, and the importation of people.

00:03:50.880 Every big construction site in this country has prostitution run by the cartels, often of children.

00:03:56.480 I don't see anyone doing anything about it. And it makes you wonder. Like, Mexico is completely—utterly corrupt because of cartel money.

00:04:06.780 Politicians, judges, journalists all on the payroll. You see this in other Latin American countries. 0.52

00:04:12.140 I mean, our politicians are not that expensive. Like, you could do that in a state like Texas, right? Or California.

00:04:17.880 Well, here's one of the biggest problems we have. We have it in Texas. We have it in other parts of the country.

00:04:21.780 George Soros has figured this out. He's gone in and elected DAs in Democratic counties.

00:04:26.840 Austin, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio. So, 70% of our population controlled by Soros DAs. 1.00

00:04:34.220 He went in and knocked off Democratic DAs because we can't get elected Republicans in those areas.

00:04:39.840 So, he went in and knocked off DAs who were actually prosecuting and replaced them with Soros DAs.

00:04:45.020 Now, our legislature could fix that. They haven't.

00:04:47.880 They could come in and say, AG, you have concurrent jurisdiction to go after these crimes.

00:04:51.660 But because they haven't done that, crime is proliferating in all of our cities.

00:04:55.880 Financial crimes, other types of crimes, because they will not prosecute crimes.

00:04:59.140 And so, the cartels have an open invitation. So, do other cartels from other countries.

00:05:03.560 So, if you go out to our financial crime unit in Tyler, they will tell you about all these crime groups coming in from other countries

00:05:11.400 because they know they can get away with it. And our legislature, so far, has not fixed that.

00:05:16.520 Why? Okay. Then, the question of motive arises. Like, why wouldn't you want to stop crime in your state?

00:05:22.280 That's a very good question.

00:05:23.440 I find that DAs have, they have more power in Texas than any elected official I've ever seen because they're not accountable to anybody.

00:05:31.120 If they commit a crime, no one can prosecute them. If it's a state crime, they'd have to prosecute themselves.

00:05:35.680 And they can allow any crimes in their area. And they can go after, in Texas, it is so easy to get an indictment.

00:05:40.000 You just walk in, you can tell the grand jury anything you want to. You can lie.

00:05:43.300 Once you have the indictment, you've got it. There's no getting out of it.

00:05:46.320 And so, I think a lot of our politicians are afraid of their DAs, even if they're liberal Democrats.

00:05:50.380 But if we don't get control of this in our state, in another state, and give somebody like the Attorney General,

00:05:55.960 I'm not going to be there forever, give that authority so that there's another way to prosecute when the Soros DAs, 0.80

00:06:01.180 and Soros has figured it out, but the Republicans have not.

00:06:05.520 I mean, it's so obvious just in your, you know, 45-second explanation that, you know, it makes sense.

00:06:12.260 So, is it that they haven't figured it out, or do they have a higher loyalty?

00:06:16.460 They're afraid of the DAs. They're afraid, the DAs come in and lobby,

00:06:19.520 and everybody's afraid of their own DA, that they'll get indicted if they do it.

00:06:23.040 There's just that power, because to get an indictment in Texas, you don't have to have,

00:06:28.280 there's no recording of it. It's only one side of the story.

00:06:31.620 You can, and if they lie, and they get the indictment, there's no remedy.

00:06:35.680 There's no consequence to the DA, and there's no remedy for the victim of that lie.

00:06:40.120 You are going to trial. You can even, if somehow you could find out what happened in that secret grand jury proceeding,

00:06:46.260 which I have before, it doesn't matter.

00:06:48.860 You can go to the judge and say, they lied.

00:06:50.700 You still are indicted, and you're still at risk of going to prison.

00:06:53.560 You have to tell your kids you've been indicted.

00:06:55.260 And you might be in prison.

00:06:56.880 You might be in front of a jury that doesn't know the truth,

00:06:59.740 and you go to jail, or you're in a, you know, Democratic county,

00:07:02.360 you might go to jail on something that they made up.

00:07:05.360 So you, you really think, I mean, I'm sorry to be so naive, but I grew up in this country,

00:07:09.520 and we didn't have things like this that I was aware of in 1985.

00:07:13.000 But you think that members of the Texas legislature are afraid they'll be indicted if they push back against the DAs?

00:07:21.460 I think there is a fear, and there is this lobby effort.

00:07:24.680 These DAs have so much power.

00:07:26.920 Otherwise, why would they allow Soros to control the major cities?

00:07:33.700 And the, it's obvious that they're not prosecuting crimes.

00:07:36.760 They won't even prosecute shoplifting for, like, if you have a free ride.

00:07:40.420 If you want to, as long as you take $750 a day in Dallas County, whatever the number is,

00:07:44.420 and you go to different stores, you can do that every day.

00:07:46.640 And you will, you, the DA there said, we will not prosecute you.

00:07:49.440 But why would you want that unless you were trying to destroy a civilization?

00:07:53.360 Soros, it's exactly what he wants to do.

00:07:55.880 So there's no political goal here.

00:07:58.040 It's just destabilization.

00:07:59.720 Right.

00:07:59.980 And it's so easy.

00:08:00.920 It is literally so easy to do that.

00:08:03.520 And he also, I believe, got control of our Court of Criminal Appeals, which is our highest court.

00:08:07.720 We have a bifurcated system in Texas.

00:08:09.520 We have the Texas Supreme Court, that's the final appeal on civil, and the Court of Criminal Appeals.

00:08:13.980 But no one knew who they were.

00:08:15.380 And suddenly, they strike down a law that allowed me to, that directed me to prosecute voter fraud.

00:08:20.160 And they took it away just by saying, oh, it's unconstitutional because you're in the executive branch.

00:08:24.160 And separation of power says you can't be in court.

00:08:27.080 How insane is that?

00:08:28.420 So I've had to go run three, I'm trying to take that court back.

00:08:32.760 But we, right now, I can't even prosecute voter fraud, which opens us up to unfair elections in Texas,

00:08:38.760 which we, which I was prosecuting plenty of voter fraud before that happened. 0.79

00:08:41.960 So who, who's supposed to prosecute voter fraud?

00:08:46.580 The Soros DAs.

00:08:49.080 So?

00:08:49.760 That's where we're at in Texas.

00:08:50.920 So that's why I ran, this is a nine-member court, six-year terms.

00:08:54.920 They waited until two days after the filing deadline to announce their decision.

00:08:58.720 This is a 1951 statute that has thousands of cases of precedent.

00:09:02.080 And they came up with this insane idea that it was unconstitutional for the attorney general to be in court because I'm in the executive branch.

00:09:09.400 If that's true, every AG in the country is violating the constitutional constitution.

00:09:13.580 So that was the rationale.

00:09:15.380 I had to wait two years.

00:09:16.500 I recruited three people to take out the three people that were up.

00:09:19.140 So we've replaced three.

00:09:20.160 We've got one good one on there, but we're still down five, four.

00:09:22.840 So until we fix those things in Texas, we're at risk.

00:09:26.560 Oh, big time.

00:09:28.720 Oh, big time.

00:09:29.980 So do you think that the Soros DAs have hesitated to go after the drug cartels?

00:09:37.340 They don't.

00:09:38.880 They don't go after crime in general.

00:09:41.280 They don't work.

00:09:42.420 They do political crimes, but they generally are not there.

00:09:46.700 They don't do their jobs.

00:09:47.780 They don't prosecute.

00:09:48.800 Even when people get killed?

00:09:51.520 Hit and miss.

00:09:52.580 Hit and miss.

00:09:53.160 Yes, but the message from Soros is let as much crime go as possible.

00:09:59.500 It's amazing that a non-U.S. citizen who hates the United States, hates the West, could have that much power in our country. 0.96

00:10:06.140 It's just his money.

00:10:07.100 It doesn't take very much.

00:10:08.280 To elect a DA in a Travis County, which is Austin, you're in a Democratic primary.

00:10:13.320 It doesn't take that many votes.

00:10:15.480 I was working with a DA there who was a Democrat.

00:10:18.440 I didn't agree with her on everything, but she was doing her job.

00:10:20.760 He spends a little bit of money, takes her out, and suddenly now I've got a DA who won't prosecute anything.

00:10:26.060 Same in Bear County, which is San Antonio.

00:10:27.800 I worked with a DA a lot in Bear County.

00:10:29.640 A guy named Nicola Hood.

00:10:31.000 His brother is now converted to Republican.

00:10:33.020 He's a state rep.

00:10:34.080 He was awesome to work with.

00:10:35.920 And he was a Democrat.

00:10:36.900 He was a Democrat.

00:10:38.000 He did his job.

00:10:39.460 Guess what?

00:10:40.060 Soros replaced him with money.

00:10:42.060 So that's what, it doesn't take him that much money.

00:10:44.180 And he controls our whole situation with crime and controls our judicial system, at least on the criminal side.

00:10:50.860 And we're sitting here letting it happen in Texas and other states.

00:10:54.600 What did you think when Joe Biden gave George Soros the Presidential Medal of Freedom? 0.98

00:10:58.500 Disgusting.

00:10:59.300 I mean, the guy's done more to, I mean, as far as I know, there are not many people in the world that have done more harm to our country. 0.94

00:11:05.460 And he's being applauded by Joe Biden.

00:11:07.600 It's not surprising because Joe Biden has the same motivations.

00:11:09.920 I mean, what did Joe Biden do that was good?

00:11:13.580 Can you name it?

00:11:14.420 I can't think.

00:11:14.920 No, they worked from day one to destroy what past generations had built this amazing country.

00:11:19.880 And it had to be on purpose.

00:11:20.880 And the reason I say that is because you would think that randomly he would have done something good if it weren't purposeful.

00:11:27.860 He would have had something economically, internationally, the border, something would have been right, right?

00:11:33.280 Just randomly.

00:11:35.020 The law of averages suggest a victory once in a while.

00:11:38.120 The bell curve tells you he would have had something good.

00:11:40.360 He didn't have anything good.

00:11:41.380 It was all on the other end of the curve, the downside of the curve, which was harm to Americans.

00:11:44.980 That cannot be accidental.

00:11:46.900 And to individual Americans.

00:11:48.440 I think that's absolutely right.

00:11:49.260 But again, I'm so fixated on this.

00:11:51.640 Why would you want to do that?

00:11:52.980 I truly believe that this, and this started, I think, with President Obama, the first president I believe that didn't love America, that really thought we were a bad country, that thought we were racist, and that we deserve to be taken down to another level.

00:12:07.980 And I think they operate under this idea that we're a bad country.

00:12:10.840 There were bad people and that we don't deserve this.

00:12:13.760 And they fundamentally don't believe in what was created here.

00:12:17.400 I truly believe that.

00:12:18.320 And they want to destroy it, take it down, dismantle it.

00:12:20.400 Because they think it's bad.

00:12:21.400 They think we're bad.

00:12:23.280 I don't see another explanation.

00:12:24.980 There's hate behind it.

00:12:25.860 There's no doubt about it. 0.98

00:12:26.880 I mean, how could you wind up with the outcome, with people dying of drug ODs on the street and stores closing because of stealing and kids cutting their own genitals off? 0.95

00:12:36.740 Like, you would have to hate someone. 0.91

00:12:38.420 Do you remember the contempt that Obama said?

00:12:41.860 They cling to their religion and their guns and their God. 0.98

00:12:45.920 There is contempt for that, what the founders put in place, a bunch of white racists who had slaves. 0.97

00:12:51.620 And so that permeates his view of America. 0.53

00:12:55.560 And yet, there's no excuse for slavery.

00:12:59.000 We messed up in that.

00:13:00.240 We fixed it.

00:13:01.240 We were moving in the right direction.

00:13:02.580 But his view is, we're broken because of that, and therefore, we deserve to be dismantled because we don't—

00:13:09.280 It's not about that.

00:13:09.800 I mean, there are countries—well, slavery is still practiced in certain countries, but there were, like, critical U.S. allies that had slavery until the 1970s.

00:13:20.080 And no one ever—1970s.

00:13:21.980 And no one ever mentions that.

00:13:23.580 What holds them responsible?

00:13:24.700 Obama has no problem taking money for speeches in those countries.

00:13:27.780 That's why it doesn't make sense.

00:13:29.320 Slavery's been around in the world forever.

00:13:30.700 And it's awful.

00:13:32.480 It is awful.

00:13:33.260 And the U.S. and Great Britain were the reason that we don't have it anymore, and globally, for the most part.

00:13:39.060 And no civilized country would tolerate slavery.

00:13:41.700 But if you're against slavery, by the way, why would you be for the drug cartels, which practice slavery, which sell people?

00:13:47.220 All I know is it seems like the things they focus on do the greatest harm to America.

00:13:51.420 Oh, I totally agree.

00:13:52.580 But it doesn't—I think it's a mistake to take their explanations at face value.

00:13:56.040 I think there's something deeper.

00:13:57.260 Like, they just hate—they want to hurt people.

00:13:58.920 They do not have an abiding love.

00:14:00.600 Look, I didn't like Jimmy Carter as a president.

00:14:02.580 I think he did a good job.

00:14:03.500 But he didn't have a hatred for this country.

00:14:05.340 I don't think so.

00:14:06.200 I don't think he did.

00:14:07.220 I think we've had a lot of mediocre to bad presidents who still didn't want the country to be dismantled.

00:14:13.760 I agree.

00:14:14.260 But I think it started with Obama.

00:14:16.940 Biden didn't know what he was doing.

00:14:18.740 He was being told by others.

00:14:20.100 He wasn't competent.

00:14:21.540 And that—this was the third presidency of President Obama.

00:14:25.180 And he didn't have to worry about being popular anymore because he limited himself a little bit because he wanted to get reelected.

00:14:30.080 He didn't care if Joe Biden got reelected.

00:14:31.400 But you think it's over for Obama?

00:14:34.900 His influence is permanently diminished?

00:14:37.960 I think it's been impacted and affected.

00:14:40.480 It could be.

00:14:41.280 If we continue the momentum, we don't mess this up.

00:14:43.880 If we get caught up in not focusing on the best things for America, he can come right back in.

00:14:51.360 If we don't take care of the American people and make that our number one focus, what's best for the American people?

00:14:56.940 If we stay on that track, we have a really good chance of being successful for a long time.

00:15:00.520 If we lose sight of that and we start worrying about our power and our—

00:15:03.780 I agree.

00:15:04.740 Once we start taking care of ourselves, then they have a chance back in because the American people will see that.

00:15:10.740 I think that's really wise.

00:15:12.220 Because I'm concerned about that.

00:15:14.540 Not because of any individual acting in bad faith, but because human nature is what it is.

00:15:21.680 It's exactly right.

00:15:22.440 The Presbyterians actually had that right when they set this government up.

00:15:26.940 It was based on the depravity of men.

00:15:28.680 It was the reason they wanted three branches of the government that made it so frustrating to get things done.

00:15:34.080 It's because they didn't trust people in power.

00:15:36.080 Because every human—

00:15:37.300 I wouldn't trust myself in power at all.

00:15:39.900 I don't want power because I don't trust myself.

00:15:42.220 I don't think any honest person can really say my motives are pure.

00:15:47.900 Right?

00:15:48.440 No, I agree with that.

00:15:49.240 We all have this pull towards—

00:15:52.120 Yeah, and anyone who doesn't admit that's a liar.

00:15:54.680 Right.

00:15:55.040 So, yeah, I want oversight of me.

00:15:57.580 Right.

00:15:57.820 You know, and then you see Chuck Schumer and you're like, that guy needs a lot of oversight, like armed oversight.

00:16:02.100 You know what I mean?

00:16:02.800 Like all of us do.

00:16:03.360 Yeah, I think you got it right in your speech at the Bible Museum during the inauguration about humility and realizing your need for God's work in your life.

00:16:13.060 And without that, you have a—we all have a tendency to go down the path.

00:16:17.280 A hundred percent.

00:16:18.020 And you lie to yourself, oh, I'm doing this for the greater good.

00:16:21.740 You know, I have known people personally who've killed other human beings because they thought or they convinced themselves, you know, this is actually for the, you know, some—the humanity will benefit from this.

00:16:33.060 Oh, yeah, that's what we all convince ourselves of.

00:16:34.720 Whatever we're doing, that we're doing this, and it really—we tell ourselves, well, this is really good because we are off-face many times.

00:16:43.340 It's so true. 0.84

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00:18:54.740 Tucker says it best.

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00:19:54.300 So, can I ask you, I was reading in the final weeks before the election that the Biden administration was selling off portions of the materials for the border wall.

00:20:04.580 Is that actually true?

00:20:05.920 I believe it is.

00:20:06.900 And here's what happened.

00:20:07.840 We had sued the Biden administration a couple of years ago.

00:20:10.900 And, you know, these cases, these federal cases don't happen overnight.

00:20:13.580 It took us a couple of years.

00:20:14.840 We sued them and we said, Congress appropriated money for the building of the wall.

00:20:19.740 You are not building that wall.

00:20:20.840 You're actually selling off assets.

00:20:22.000 So, we sued them.

00:20:22.540 We won that lawsuit.

00:20:24.960 And in May, we got an injunction from a federal judge saying, you, DOJ, you, Biden administration, cannot sell any more assets off.

00:20:31.840 So, then I get a call from President Trump, you know, a month ago.

00:20:34.620 And he said, they're selling assets off.

00:20:36.840 So, would you sue them?

00:20:38.400 And I said, well, I don't have to if I've already done it.

00:20:39.840 So, I already got an order.

00:20:41.680 So, we go back into court.

00:20:43.180 We tell the judge, hey, they're selling off assets.

00:20:45.260 We've been told they're selling off assets.

00:20:46.340 We went into accounting.

00:20:47.540 And before we got there, DOJ is calling us, begging us.

00:20:50.440 Hey, we're not selling.

00:20:51.820 We swear, we won't sell any more assets.

00:20:53.520 They didn't say they hadn't.

00:20:54.580 They said, we won't sell any more.

00:20:55.740 So, they signed an agreement and said, we wouldn't sell any more.

00:20:58.000 But the judge, which we asked for, there's going to be an accounting and there's potential sanctions if they lied and they followed it.

00:21:04.420 They did not follow that order.

00:21:05.520 We don't know that yet.

00:21:06.500 But we're going to know that soon now that DOJ is switching.

00:21:09.320 We're going to know that soon.

00:21:10.360 And I truly believe they were selling off assets in violation, not only of federal law, but in violation of a court order that we got in May saying, you can't sell off assets.

00:21:19.620 Because we were trying to protect those assets so that if Trump won, we would come back.

00:21:24.260 Because I knew Biden would never build that wall, even if he was instructed by Congress to do so.

00:21:29.140 How hard is it?

00:21:29.880 I never have really understood why is it so hard to build a – it seems like a pretty straightforward infrastructure project.

00:21:35.220 It is a pretty straightforward infrastructure project, but they hate it.

00:21:38.180 It's some kind of symbol of, I don't know, racism or whatever, but it's not.

00:21:41.920 It protects us from exactly what we've had.

00:21:44.920 So, why not pass a law that says anyone, any elected official who opposes the building of a border wall is prohibited from putting a lock on the front door of his house?

00:21:53.400 Well, that would affect a lot of Republicans.

00:21:54.900 I mean, my own senator would have trouble with that, John Cornyn, because he's been against the border wall saying it wouldn't work.

00:22:01.000 But we all know that walls do work.

00:22:02.440 They do work.

00:22:03.020 And I've seen it.

00:22:04.060 I've seen how it works.

00:22:04.940 The Border Patrol –

00:22:05.540 Why would John Cornyn be opposed to a border wall protecting his own state?

00:22:10.100 I don't understand it.

00:22:11.560 I've seen quotes from him.

00:22:12.760 I've seen video clips from him over and over how it's not enough.

00:22:16.980 It doesn't work.

00:22:18.020 It's a bad – he is opposed to the border wall.

00:22:20.400 But he's – I mean, boy, he's helped appropriate billions and billions and billions of dollars for border security in other countries.

00:22:26.580 I know.

00:22:26.920 It's really odd that he thinks it works other places, but it doesn't work in Texas.

00:22:30.640 And he's sort of mocked it and said it doesn't work.

00:22:34.620 It's not effective.

00:22:35.540 I'd love to hear him mock Israel's border walls. 0.97

00:22:37.380 Do you think he will?

00:22:38.040 No.

00:22:38.960 I'd love to hear him mock Ukraine's territorial integrity.

00:22:42.260 Do you think he will?

00:22:42.900 Nope.

00:22:43.300 Never heard him do that.

00:22:44.080 What is that about?

00:22:45.420 I don't understand it.

00:22:47.080 I mean, I think the Bushes had the same idea that open borders were relatively good.

00:22:52.420 I don't think that he or the Bushes –

00:22:54.440 But only for us.

00:22:55.380 No one's calling on China to open its borders.

00:22:57.520 No.

00:22:57.540 I don't know why they have this view.

00:23:00.100 But they – I mean, even under the Bush presidency, I don't think they took immigration seriously.

00:23:04.080 The first president I've ever seen take it seriously is Donald J. Trump.

00:23:06.940 How did John – I mean, this is a question I could ask of so many – no offense.

00:23:10.760 I say this is a Texas lover who's got a lot of relatives there, including a child.

00:23:14.420 So I love Texas.

00:23:16.280 However, I think you've got some of the worst politicians in the country.

00:23:20.540 How did that happen?

00:23:21.460 How does that happen?

00:23:22.300 So, you know, I think about, like, the Texas House and what's going on there.

00:23:27.960 What's gone on there for 16 years were a small group of Republicans for power align themselves in the House with the Democrats so that the speaker is elected by mostly Democrats and a few Republicans.

00:23:38.640 They just did it again.

00:23:39.400 Dustin Burroughs just got elected by a minority of Republicans after he put the rules in place that the caucus, the Republican caucus, would decide who the speaker was.

00:23:48.620 And when he lost that vote in caucus, he walked out, cut a deal with the Democrats, and he just became Speaker of the Texas House.

00:23:54.720 That is for power.

00:23:56.220 That is for his own personal, you know, power.

00:23:59.480 And the Republicans that do that have traded getting good policy done, getting property tax done, school choice, protecting the border, not doing impeachments of guys that just got elected.

00:24:10.020 They traded that to have power.

00:24:12.740 That's all it is.

00:24:14.300 With all this drug cartel money in your state, it's not going to get better.

00:24:17.060 Because you could just buy a member of the Texas legislature.

00:24:19.660 What would that cost?

00:24:20.520 Not too much, right?

00:24:21.280 Not too much.

00:24:21.600 I mean, these guys, I mean, they only make $600 a month.

00:24:24.240 So, you know, anything is good after that, I guess.

00:24:26.340 We're pretty vulnerable that way.

00:24:27.580 I think we are.

00:24:28.420 And I think a lot of these people, because Texas House, you get paid $600 a month.

00:24:32.760 So most people that run have to have money.

00:24:35.780 You can't.

00:24:36.320 Of course.

00:24:36.620 And if you don't have money, you're getting paid somewhere for something because it's impossible to live on, obviously, $600 a month.

00:24:43.280 So everybody has to either work, and it's hard to work when you've got a job that may take a year out of every two years.

00:24:50.980 So specifically on John Cornyn, how did he get to be a senator when statewide in Texas?

00:24:59.040 So this goes back to George W. Bush appointed him to be a U.S. Supreme Court judge, not a U.S. Supreme Court judge.

00:25:08.980 And when he did that, he authored an opinion that created this thing called Robin Hood, which takes from the wealthy school districts and gives to the poor, supposedly.

00:25:18.880 And what that did to our system was it created a mediocre school system because it's just socialism.

00:25:23.640 Instead of just letting the wealthy school districts make their schools however they want to, we've got to take their money away.

00:25:28.640 Why don't we just fund the poor school districts? 0.99

00:25:30.160 It makes no sense.

00:25:31.300 But I think it's not about helping the bottom.

00:25:34.100 It's about crushing the top.

00:25:35.120 It's about making it all equal.

00:25:36.960 That's socialism.

00:25:37.740 It doesn't work.

00:25:38.400 It's never worked anywhere.

00:25:39.140 We have no example that it actually works.

00:25:41.320 And yet, John Cornyn did that for George W. Bush because George wanted to be president.

00:25:46.440 He didn't want to pass a major tax increase, so he let John do it judicially.

00:25:49.960 It was a 5-4 decision.

00:25:51.100 John Cornyn was on the 5-4.

00:25:52.380 And I'm pretty sure he authored it.

00:25:54.620 This was in the late 90s.

00:25:55.940 Yes.

00:25:56.240 And for that, they pushed him, Rove and Bush, pushed him to be the Attorney General of Texas, first Republican, actually.

00:26:03.660 And then they pushed him into the U.S. Senate.

00:26:05.480 So he has been pushed and funded by that group.

00:26:08.780 And fortunately, Texans have caught on to that and realized that group, whatever they say they believe, isn't really what they believe because they don't actually follow through on it.

00:26:18.720 Well, I mean, we kind of know what Bush believes.

00:26:22.820 I mean, his family's out there campaigning for Planned Parenthood, voting for Kamala Harris.

00:26:27.160 I was with him two days ago.

00:26:29.100 And Obama, at the inaugurations, right next to them, across from him.

00:26:33.160 I watched him, you know, pal around with, you know, he's friends with Obama.

00:26:36.660 That's his world.

00:26:37.440 Right.

00:26:37.580 That's his world.

00:26:38.600 That's all well known.

00:26:39.820 But what's, and pretty distressing, was running mate endorsed Kamala Harris and his sad little daughter campaigned for Kamala Harris.

00:26:48.720 So that whole world is now, they're all Democrats.

00:26:50.700 But John Cornyn is still an elected, statewide elected official in Texas.

00:26:55.720 He's a puppet of the left, obviously.

00:26:58.560 Like, how does that continue to happen?

00:27:01.020 So I think it's because people weren't as aware of what the Bushes did and what he's done.

00:27:06.340 But they've become more aware because of people like you and others who have outed that.

00:27:11.200 So he's never had a real prime.

00:27:13.080 He had four people running against him.

00:27:14.760 None of them had money.

00:27:15.440 Nobody had ever run before.

00:27:16.600 No one even knew who they were.

00:27:17.520 It was all fake.

00:27:17.960 And he claims, you know, he got 76% of it.

00:27:19.960 Of course, he had nobody running against him that I could tell you who it was.

00:27:23.680 And I'm pretty involved in politics.

00:27:25.980 Somebody needs to run against him this time because he has been there for, what, 16 years, just in that position.

00:27:30.960 Count his AG, that's four years.

00:27:32.280 He was Supreme Court, Texas Supreme Court Justice.

00:27:35.960 And before that, he's been doing this a long time and he's gotten away with this.

00:27:39.480 It's about time that he'd be held accountable because I can't think of a single thing that he's done for Texas that's good.

00:27:45.680 But he has no acclaim for doing things good for Texas or our country.

00:27:50.260 No, he's helped Zelensky and that's pretty much it.

00:27:53.020 So how did – okay, so what's the process?

00:27:56.040 The guy – I mean, I've never met anyone who likes John Cornyn.

00:27:59.280 Never met anyone who thought he's achieved anything.

00:28:01.280 Never met anyone who thinks he's smart.

00:28:03.260 He's pompous. 0.81

00:28:04.440 He's quite a self-righteous little guy.

00:28:06.560 So I think he's very unpopular with every person I've ever met in my life.

00:28:10.260 And yet, all things being equal, he gets reelected.

00:28:13.380 So how do you – how do you stop something like that?

00:28:16.500 So I'll give you an example of what you're just saying.

00:28:18.300 So to – right after I beat George P. Bush, who he came out and endorsed, of course, and then he made disparaging comments about me being an embarrassment to Texas.

00:28:28.700 And he made some comment about me being part of Russia propaganda.

00:28:34.080 Oh, you're a Russian propagandist?

00:28:34.980 Oh, I don't know how that happened.

00:28:36.200 I'm in Texas.

00:28:36.820 I became part of the Russian propaganda because I criticized him on Ukraine.

00:28:40.600 He said that you were a Russian propagandist?

00:28:42.800 Yes, yes.

00:28:43.160 That's what he said.

00:28:43.960 Crazy stuff.

00:28:44.680 You know, people didn't used to say things like that.

00:28:46.680 Right.

00:28:47.300 Well, guess what?

00:28:48.340 So –

00:28:48.480 Who's the more loyal American, you or John Cornyn?

00:28:51.440 Look, I'm –

00:28:52.040 Who's more focused on the fortunes of his own country and his own people, you or John Cornyn, who obviously doesn't care at all, didn't say anything as his own state was invaded?

00:28:59.000 And lectures us endlessly.

00:29:00.520 It's a tool of the intel agencies lecturing us about Ukraine. 0.81

00:29:03.740 But you're the disloyal American. 0.99

00:29:05.180 It's actually – like, you shouldn't say things like that.

00:29:08.000 People should not talk like that.

00:29:08.800 It's crazy.

00:29:09.660 It is.

00:29:10.360 And so, justice.

00:29:11.920 The crazy thing, we have a Texas Republican convention shortly after the election where I win by 38 points against George P. Bush, which is a pretty significant margin and a primary.

00:29:20.900 So, we have the convention.

00:29:22.000 There's 12,000 Republicans there.

00:29:23.560 He and his wife walk up on stage, and for 10 straight minutes, he doesn't say a word, he gets booed.

00:29:27.780 And for the 20 minutes that he's speaking, he never adjusts his speech.

00:29:30.840 He gets booed the entire 20 minutes.

00:29:32.380 He gets booed 30 minutes straight.

00:29:34.280 I'm standing, waiting to go on stage.

00:29:36.200 I walk away because I'm afraid of what I might say after he's said these things public to me.

00:29:40.280 I go up and get a standing ovation.

00:29:41.640 So, there is – the people of Texas know John Cornyn, and I don't think he'll survive another primary.

00:29:47.780 So, how do you stop this cycle?

00:29:49.560 So, I think in Texas, it's very doable because people realize now who John Cornyn is.

00:29:54.480 We have a primary next – not this March, but the next March.

00:29:57.360 So, somebody needs to run against him in that primary.

00:30:00.360 So, in a year, basically in a year and two months, you have a primary.

00:30:03.060 Yep.

00:30:03.460 So, that primary –

00:30:04.340 Oh, it's imminent.

00:30:05.100 It's coming.

00:30:05.680 Yeah, absolutely.

00:30:06.900 So, he's – I don't think he's long for this Senate world.

00:30:12.140 So, well, I'm sure he's got such an enormous reservoir of skills and talent that he'll thrive in the private sector.

00:30:19.440 Doing what?

00:30:20.540 I don't know if he's ever been there.

00:30:22.240 He couldn't start my truck on a cold day.

00:30:23.980 He has no idea.

00:30:25.340 He has no skills.

00:30:25.940 But anyway – sorry, I'm being too mean, but it's all true.

00:30:30.900 How do you beat him in a primary?

00:30:34.860 So, I mean, I don't know.

00:30:37.340 I'm running for sure.

00:30:38.300 I'm looking at it probably in the next few months.

00:30:40.140 I'll be talking to people around the state.

00:30:41.700 But, I mean, I've run two primaries against George P. Bush and another guy, Dan Branch, who was one of George W.'s close –

00:30:47.600 I knew Dan Branch, yeah.

00:30:48.480 Yeah, one of his close friends, but very moderate.

00:30:52.360 You're a nice guy.

00:30:53.000 I beat him nicer to you than he was to me.

00:30:54.900 Yeah.

00:30:55.540 I served in the household.

00:30:56.700 It wasn't always so nice to me.

00:30:58.620 65-35 him.

00:31:00.760 He had a lot more money.

00:31:01.960 Same with Bush.

00:31:02.680 I beat him 68-32.

00:31:03.620 So, primary voters, if they're educated, will make good choices based on what you've actually done.

00:31:10.540 And that was always me.

00:31:11.680 With Dan Branch, we were in the House together for 10 years, and I moved over to the Senate for two while he was in the House.

00:31:15.800 And I said, don't listen to the rhetoric.

00:31:18.440 Look at the record.

00:31:19.080 We both have a record.

00:31:19.940 Go look at the record.

00:31:20.680 Compare them.

00:31:21.220 See if they're the same.

00:31:21.980 They're not.

00:31:22.980 He can say what he wants.

00:31:24.400 He is not what he's – he's running on my record.

00:31:27.240 Look at his record.

00:31:28.080 And that works in primaries.

00:31:30.480 And the same thing with John Cornyn.

00:31:31.780 I bring out what he said about Trump and how disparaging he was to Trump in 2016 and 2000, just in those last elections, saying he shouldn't run.

00:31:38.780 He's not the right guy.

00:31:40.120 I mean, John's wrong about most everything.

00:31:42.040 There's very few things.

00:31:42.780 He tends to side with the swamp in Washington, and he does what Karl Rove tells him to do.

00:31:47.460 So that doesn't work in Republican primaries, not in Texas.

00:31:52.200 What does Karl Rove have?

00:31:53.200 I mean, Karl Rove is – I mean, he's got to be 70 anyway at this point, I would think.

00:31:57.680 He's been around – I mean, I've known him for pushing 30 years.

00:32:02.300 I don't think his track record is something anyone could brag about at all.

00:32:06.840 He's been wrong about it.

00:32:08.000 He's a sub-genius, I would say, for sure.

00:32:11.420 I'm a genius.

00:32:12.340 No, you're not.

00:32:13.620 And his record suggests he's not.

00:32:15.340 And so, like, why does he still have influence?

00:32:17.200 Is he still effective?

00:32:18.920 Let's be honest.

00:32:19.820 He's propped up by Fox News.

00:32:21.080 He has the platform.

00:32:22.200 They take care of him.

00:32:23.340 He can keep people – like, for instance, I can't get on Fox News anymore.

00:32:25.960 He's still on Fox News?

00:32:26.920 He's still on Fox News, and he's kept me off for a couple years because when I ran against Bush, they got Bush on and took me off.

00:32:33.460 And all the shows I used to be on, almost all of them –

00:32:36.240 Are you serious?

00:32:37.080 I know that for a –

00:32:38.020 I don't have a TV.

00:32:38.920 This is a disadvantage.

00:32:39.940 Karl Rove is still on Fox.

00:32:41.200 He's still on Fox.

00:32:42.340 I just saw him during the inauguration.

00:32:43.780 He's there a lot.

00:32:44.400 I used to go in studio at the same place in Austin.

00:32:47.580 I used to trade out with him.

00:32:49.000 Yeah, I've been to that studio.

00:32:49.760 Yeah, and he got me cut out for sure.

00:32:52.320 And I know that from hosts of shows who have said, sorry.

00:32:55.600 No way!

00:32:56.780 They will even, like, I will have a case.

00:32:59.360 They will – we will get – we will – Jesse will talk to my communication.

00:33:03.420 We'll talk to him.

00:33:03.860 They'll book me.

00:33:04.500 Then they'll cancel me.

00:33:05.540 Then they'll go try to find another AG.

00:33:07.300 They'll call the Republicans.

00:33:08.120 Can we find another AG?

00:33:09.300 Or they'll ask for somebody else in my office other than me.

00:33:12.520 That was Karl Rove, Blacklist, Steaming on Fox.

00:33:14.180 Karl Rove is booking shows at Fox News.

00:33:15.960 He just goes around and he controls.

00:33:18.620 That's so crazy!

00:33:19.860 No, I've been told by people you know that have shows.

00:33:22.900 Well, I know everyone there, yeah.

00:33:24.200 I just don't want to out them.

00:33:25.440 Yeah, no, I get it.

00:33:26.340 That have told me, we can't have you.

00:33:29.920 And for the last two years, I've been on Fox, like, maybe a couple times.

00:33:33.420 I used to be on every day.

00:33:34.480 Sometimes multiple times.

00:33:35.720 Imagine, if I can just say, since I know these systems, I lived it, imagine you're the host of a show and you get a call saying the sitting Republican attorney general of the second biggest state is not allowed on your air because of reasons we won't explain. 0.59

00:33:51.380 Because, like, Karl Rove is, like, a totally discredited buffoon, doesn't like the guy. 0.91

00:33:56.680 Be like, buzz off. 0.96

00:33:57.820 Well, I think he went to, like, Paul Ryan, the board, and just got – it's like, I am –

00:34:01.720 No, but why would you cave to that?

00:34:03.240 Like, no job is worth taking orders like that.

00:34:05.480 You didn't cave to that.

00:34:06.220 Well, I got fired.

00:34:07.000 Exactly, but that's –

00:34:07.820 Why wouldn't you even consider that?

00:34:09.080 Like, what?

00:34:10.060 I would always say on the three or four times they ever said anything like that to me, I'd be like, no, it's totally great.

00:34:14.460 Just put it in writing.

00:34:15.620 Just send me an email explaining why we can't have this guest, the rationale for it, and I'll assess and I'll respond in writing.

00:34:23.320 The second you say put it in writing, they're like, ugh.

00:34:26.340 They never call you again.

00:34:27.800 I'm just telling you.

00:34:29.320 Just put it in writing.

00:34:30.500 It's totally fine.

00:34:30.940 You know what?

00:34:31.640 I've got some hearing issues, so if you could just write it down.

00:34:34.940 Explain what exactly about Ken Paxton is, like, verboten.

00:34:38.100 I was supposed to go on a show.

00:34:39.940 There was still one host that would sort of have me, and I was supposed to go on this show, and I had two different settings to go on, and both got canceled.

00:34:47.260 I was told – you got canceled from –

00:34:50.180 We're moving in another direction.

00:34:51.540 Yeah.

00:34:52.720 Even if it's my case.

00:34:54.200 I mean, I file a case, and they want another attorney general to come on and talk about it.

00:34:57.160 Yeah, so I would just never put up with that.

00:34:58.900 That's what they do.

00:34:59.500 I would always call and say, like, what – you know, what is this?

00:35:02.260 Well, the decision's been made.

00:35:03.180 By whom and why?

00:35:04.120 But that's why Karl Rove still has his platform.

00:35:07.160 But it's all the most disgusting kind of power, which is, like, stealthy feline power, behind-the-scenes power.

00:35:13.140 Rather than just say, you know, here are my views, and this is what I think, and I'm happy to debate it or whatever.

00:35:18.560 I think you're wrong.

00:35:19.600 I don't like – you know, Ken Paxton's evil.

00:35:21.020 Here's why.

00:35:21.800 They'll never do that because they're not honorable people.

00:35:25.340 And I'm not just talking about it, that company.

00:35:26.780 I mean, more broadly in our society, like, the people who win every bureaucratic battle are exactly the same.

00:35:32.240 They're all – they operate in darkness.

00:35:35.660 You know, they're never straightforward about anything.

00:35:37.660 You talked about my – I came in – you were the first person I talked to about the impeachment.

00:35:41.200 That was how my whole impeachment went.

00:35:42.800 It was done in three days, no due process.

00:35:45.340 I didn't get any information.

00:35:46.420 I wasn't allowed to participate or respond, all behind closed doors.

00:35:50.020 And then they leak stuff to the media that's not even true, and I've got a gag order on me, and I can't talk.

00:35:54.380 It's so dishonorable.

00:35:55.880 How do you survive that?

00:35:56.800 It's really hard.

00:35:57.700 Also, how do you live with yourself?

00:35:58.980 Like, how do you live with yourself if you operate that way?

00:36:01.080 They convince themselves.

00:36:02.240 If I don't like someone, I'm always delighted to call them on the phone and say, I don't like you, and here's why.

00:36:06.300 They convince themselves that, like, I deserve it because I'm a bad person because all of this stuff is true, but none of it was proof.

00:36:12.680 You know why?

00:36:13.040 Because it wasn't true.

00:36:15.220 But why do it behind the scenes?

00:36:18.240 Because – I can tell you why.

00:36:20.020 So I had friends that were called into the Speaker's office, Republican House members, and they were saying, look, we need you to vote for this impeachment.

00:36:26.020 They said, well, can you just show us, like, some evidence?

00:36:28.120 Well, you have this, you know, three-hour hearing.

00:36:31.100 Well, there's no evidence there.

00:36:32.160 Can we see some evidence?

00:36:32.840 No, you're not getting any more.

00:36:33.700 Well, can we, like, have a little more time to, like, kind of figure this out?

00:36:37.900 We've only had, like, three days.

00:36:39.740 We're going to vote on this in three days.

00:36:40.820 No, we're not giving you any more time.

00:36:42.520 What about, like, can we talk to the witnesses?

00:36:44.400 We don't even know who they are.

00:36:45.300 None of them were sworn in.

00:36:46.240 We don't even know who the witnesses against him are.

00:36:49.280 And they said, no, we're not going to let you do that.

00:36:51.340 And they said, well, why is it that we can't see the evidence?

00:36:54.780 Why is it that we can't see the witnesses?

00:36:56.720 Why is it that it has to be in three days over Memorial Weekend?

00:36:59.240 And they said, because if we give Ken more than three days, he'll win.

00:37:03.760 That's what they told them.

00:37:05.180 That is, you know, if you find yourself living your life like that, you have to make a change because that's really deceptive.

00:37:12.460 That was the Republican, supposedly the Republican House, controlled by the Democrats.

00:37:15.780 Oh, they're all like that. 0.55

00:37:16.880 I got called in one time by executives of a company, and they're trying to tell me that Roger Ailes was a rapist who, you know, I knew well and really loved.

00:37:27.520 You know, he's a flawed guy like we all are, but I didn't feel like a rapist to me.

00:37:31.000 Pretty sure he wasn't a rapist.

00:37:32.260 And I remember saying, like, okay, who did he rape?

00:37:36.500 Well, we know this.

00:37:40.600 We just know this.

00:37:41.440 You know, we had Ropes and Gray do this investigation. 0.99

00:37:43.680 He raped people. 0.96

00:37:44.360 And, well, okay, who were they? 0.99

00:37:46.580 I was like, no, I work there.

00:37:47.800 I know everybody.

00:37:49.160 No, you can't.

00:37:49.920 Just trust me.

00:37:51.700 If you saw what we saw, you.

00:37:54.000 And I was like, okay, but can you just tell me, like, what were the circumstances of the rape?

00:37:57.200 This is like an elderly man who's got hemophilia.

00:37:58.940 I don't think he's raping anybody.

00:38:00.660 And they were very annoyed that I asked the basic questions.

00:38:03.960 And, look, I don't know so many things I don't know, but I did come out of that meeting thinking he didn't rape anybody.

00:38:09.200 You know what I mean?

00:38:09.900 Oh, absolutely.

00:38:10.360 I see it all the time where people get accused of things, then they get overwhelmed by media,

00:38:13.760 and then they get overwhelmed.

00:38:15.060 And people always say the same thing.

00:38:15.960 We know this.

00:38:16.900 Look, I've talked to people.

00:38:17.800 We know this.

00:38:18.420 Like, look, let's just start there.

00:38:19.620 We know this.

00:38:20.320 Karl Rove did that to me.

00:38:20.960 He went to people and said, we know this.

00:38:22.240 We know this.

00:38:22.680 We know this.

00:38:23.140 And they're like, well, where's the proof?

00:38:26.440 I've got it somewhere.

00:38:28.360 It's what he does.

00:38:29.200 But I do think all you need is self-respect.

00:38:32.040 Like, I'm not going to be lied to.

00:38:33.200 If I can help it, I'm lied to all the time and I don't know it.

00:38:35.960 But I'm not going to allow myself to be lied to if I can help it.

00:38:39.760 But people are just like, they're willing to be lied to.

00:38:43.660 It's the vaccine safe and effective.

00:38:45.180 Okay.

00:38:45.840 Then it turns out it's not safe and effective.

00:38:47.580 And they don't have enough self-respect to demand an accounting of those lies.

00:38:52.420 Like, you told me this turned out not to be true.

00:38:53.760 Why did you do that?

00:38:54.800 No one ever does that.

00:38:56.000 Or Karl Rove shows up and is like, we know Ken Paxton's a criminal.

00:38:59.680 Okay.

00:39:01.600 Where's everyone's self-respect?

00:39:03.100 Like, I'm an adult man.

00:39:04.060 You can't lie to me.

00:39:05.940 Okay?

00:39:07.020 It just seems like I'm kind of baseline.

00:39:09.120 It is a baseline.

00:39:10.120 And that's why when I was in the middle of that impeachment and I had no voice, I could

00:39:13.120 not respond.

00:39:13.820 I'm getting beaten up every day.

00:39:15.820 Tell my lawyers, I know you think I'm going to resign, but I haven't told no one I'm going

00:39:20.600 to resign because I'm not even allowed to talk to the media.

00:39:22.640 So how could I even tell them?

00:39:23.620 Because there were printing stories I'm going to resign.

00:39:25.640 I said, I want you to know, I don't care how bad it gets.

00:39:27.860 I don't care what they say.

00:39:29.280 These senators are going to, I'm going to make them vote.

00:39:32.260 They're going to, I got elected four and a half months ago by the people.

00:39:34.880 Let them vote me out.

00:39:36.160 If they do, they will be accountable to the voters, but I will not give in no matter what.

00:39:42.080 I watched it up close and you won.

00:39:45.540 It was amazing.

00:39:47.320 It was hard to, so how many times did you win at the Supreme Court with the Biden administration?

00:39:53.500 How many times?

00:39:54.280 Yeah.

00:39:55.040 Gosh, I mean, we had 106 cases.

00:39:57.580 We won over 75% of our cases, but several of them, I can't even keep track of what we

00:40:03.040 have done.

00:40:03.220 But yeah, 106.

00:40:04.380 A lot.

00:40:04.920 We went there a lot.

00:40:05.280 Yeah, you sued them 106 times.

00:40:06.400 So I'm kind of thinking, since this is politics, that that may have had a role in your impeachment.

00:40:11.220 I have no doubt.

00:40:12.580 You know how I know they were there?

00:40:14.680 I'm convinced that the Biden administration went to the house, Texas House, with the Democrats,

00:40:18.800 said we want him impeached.

00:40:20.380 And then Biden sent two lawyers from the Department of Justice to help the General Investigating

00:40:24.860 Committee, which was five member of the committee, three Republicans, two Democrats.

00:40:27.720 They had four lawyers.

00:40:28.560 Two of them came from the Justice Department, just randomly showed up to help.

00:40:34.220 Was the Biden administration involved? 0.91

00:40:36.100 I don't have proof, but I'm not stupid. 0.98

00:40:38.560 You can't prove it. 0.98

00:40:39.140 I'm not stupid. 1.00

00:40:40.380 That's unbelievable. 0.68

00:40:41.500 So do you expect that Karl Rove will be involved in this primary?

00:40:45.980 Oh, absolutely.

00:40:46.740 He will do whatever he can to stop.

00:40:48.460 He does whatever he can to stop conservatives in Texas in general.

00:40:51.580 But not just in Texas, nationally.

00:40:52.960 Yeah, his fundraising, everybody thinks he's out to help Republicans, he goes into primaries

00:40:56.900 to get Republicans, to take out conservatives.

00:40:59.440 He is not there raising money to go after Democrats.

00:41:01.700 He's there to go after Republicans.

00:41:03.120 What do you think he's doing?

00:41:04.940 I mean, it's amazing the number of Republicans who are, Republicans who are mobilizing against

00:41:10.800 Trump's nominees, particularly Bobby Kennedy and Tulsi Gabbard.

00:41:16.480 He must be having, I don't know this, but do you think Karl has a hand in any of that?

00:41:20.460 I would not surprise me at all.

00:41:21.660 It wouldn't surprise me.

00:41:22.360 Not at all.

00:41:23.240 And the reason they want to go after those two is because they're effective.

00:41:27.160 Oh, of course.

00:41:27.440 They're courageous.

00:41:28.560 Of course.

00:41:29.140 And they're going to change America if they're given the opportunity.

00:41:31.620 That's exactly right.

00:41:32.440 And they're, you know, so sad to see some Republicans who I know well mobilizing against Bobby Kennedy

00:41:39.760 and they're saying, we're doing it because he's pro-choice.

00:41:41.780 And while I'm vehemently, passionately pro-life, I have always been, I will always be.

00:41:46.700 But these are all people who are themselves pro-choice and have supported plenty of pro-choice

00:41:52.500 nominees.

00:41:53.700 And it's not about that.

00:41:55.300 It's about the fear that Bobby Kennedy means it, that he's sincere and that he'll get something

00:42:00.960 done.

00:42:01.320 And by getting done, it's like fighting the corruption that controls Washington.

00:42:04.260 The thing that's most missing in political leadership is not knowledge of what to do or how to

00:42:10.260 do it.

00:42:10.780 It's courage.

00:42:11.580 And the thing that Bobby Kennedy has, he will take on the Democrats, his own family, and

00:42:19.060 the food, the big food world.

00:42:21.060 That's exactly right.

00:42:21.680 And they know that.

00:42:22.960 And that's what they're afraid of.

00:42:23.840 And so they have to stop them.

00:42:25.180 Yeah.

00:42:25.720 It's the testosterone level that scares them.

00:42:27.660 It's totally, you're absolutely right.

00:42:29.160 Unafraid.

00:42:29.680 He's unafraid.

00:42:30.240 So in September, we went across the country, coast to coast, 17 different cities on a nationwide

00:42:35.740 live tour.

00:42:36.460 And it was amazing.

00:42:37.600 We brought the entire staff with us like we always do because we all work together for

00:42:41.580 so long and enjoy traveling together.

00:42:43.680 And one of our producers is a documentary filmmaker.

00:42:46.860 And so he decided to make a documentary film about our trip, a full month across America

00:42:51.520 with some of the most interesting people around.

00:42:54.640 Different people join us every single night.

00:42:56.060 Bon Gino and Russell Brand and Bobby Kennedy and J.D. Vance and Donald Trump, et cetera,

00:43:01.100 et cetera.

00:43:01.880 We had the best time.

00:43:02.900 And the fruit of that is a documentary called On the Road, the Tucker Carlson Live Tour,

00:43:07.680 which is available right now on TCN.

00:43:11.420 On the Road, Tucker Carlson Live Tour.

00:43:13.360 It is hilarious.

00:43:14.340 You will like it.

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00:44:23.480 You only need them once.

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00:44:25.280 That's interesting.

00:44:27.800 Do you think it's fair to keep a list?

00:44:30.100 I mean, I'm probably too fixated on this just because I've lived in a Republican world in Washington for so long.

00:44:33.900 But I think it's fair to keep a list of, like, the Republicans who are working against reform,

00:44:40.820 who are working against Trump's best decisions, which are reform-minded decisions,

00:44:46.060 like nominating Bobby and Tulsi.

00:44:47.920 Like, we should keep a list of that.

00:44:49.640 And it should be open.

00:44:50.420 We should be transparent.

00:44:51.220 We should tell the world, like, who's working against us.

00:44:53.880 Because they've done all this, and they try to do this in secret.

00:44:56.320 And then they go back and tell their constituents, well, yeah, I did my best.

00:44:58.800 No, they did not do their best.

00:45:00.120 They were behind the scenes.

00:45:01.200 This is John Cornyn's career.

00:45:02.560 This is what these people do.

00:45:05.240 Transparency, just like my impeachment, but transparency of a trial actually helped me.

00:45:09.500 Because the truth comes out.

00:45:11.800 Transparency is what we need in government.

00:45:13.420 And we don't get it with people like the people you're talking about.

00:45:16.980 I think that's really deep and true.

00:45:19.500 The thing they hate most is exposure.

00:45:21.900 Or I've always thought that's why they hated Trump.

00:45:24.380 They were worried he was going to declassify stuff or say secrets out loud that, you know,

00:45:28.620 that implicate the people running things.

00:45:31.380 They hate him for that.

00:45:32.100 And they hate him because he also is courageous.

00:45:33.840 And he doesn't.

00:45:34.740 His agenda is the American people.

00:45:36.700 Yeah.

00:45:37.020 No, I think that's interesting.

00:45:38.920 So do you think you may run against Cornyn?

00:45:41.820 I'm strongly considering it.

00:45:43.040 I haven't made a decision.

00:45:44.220 I have the spring to kind of work it out.

00:45:46.080 And, you know, I'm still doing my job.

00:45:47.480 I had a lot to do under Biden before he left.

00:45:50.640 It's a lot easier with Trump because we're working cooperatively instead of having to be adversarial on everything.

00:45:56.320 So, you know, I'll be looking at this spring and seeing what people see.

00:45:59.620 I'm going to travel the state and get a feel for it.

00:46:01.680 But my sense already is that John Cornyn is not loved in my state by Republicans.

00:46:06.900 He may be loved by the Democrats, but he is not loved by the Republicans.

00:46:09.560 How long do you think Texas has before it becomes a Democratic state?

00:46:15.700 It's totally up to us.

00:46:16.760 We can preserve it.

00:46:18.400 We can, just like with this thing I told you about America, if we do the right things and we take care of the people in our state and we give them opportunity, we give them a good education, which the state is responsible for.

00:46:30.160 Or if we provide opportunities for their children, if we provide just freedom to go be the best you can be and not get in their way with regulations and taxes, we give them, we will be a Republican state.

00:46:43.120 Because what, it doesn't matter what your skin color is, if you get a chance to be successful, you're going to vote with the people that gave it to you.

00:46:49.240 I think that's right.

00:46:50.040 I think that's right.

00:46:51.080 And I'm embarrassed to say that I kind of bought, I guess, intuitively, I didn't really think about it, but the idea that demographics is destiny.

00:47:00.560 And I do think there's a lot of truth in that.

00:47:03.240 However, you know, Texas went from a majority white state to really a majority Hispanic state.

00:47:09.520 But that doesn't mean that it has to be like a dystopian left-wing state at all.

00:47:14.200 Hispanics are conservative socially.

00:47:16.800 They are hardworking.

00:47:17.720 They are family people.

00:47:20.740 And they want to be successful, too.

00:47:23.040 Well, but it's interesting.

00:47:23.940 So that, I first heard that line from Karl Rove, actually.

00:47:28.060 How surprising.

00:47:28.900 My next-door neighbor.

00:47:29.800 And he would always say, you know, Hispanics are natural conservatives.

00:47:33.480 And I would say, well, I'm from California.

00:47:35.480 And that became majority Hispanic state.

00:47:37.440 And it just went right off the cliff.

00:47:39.580 It became, you know, really, really dark socialist dystopian place.

00:47:45.200 And I would say, so what do you make of that?

00:47:48.080 What I didn't realize was it was actually the liberal whites who are the problem.

00:47:54.420 I mean, that state's run by Gavin Newsom.

00:47:56.300 He's not from Oaxaca.

00:47:57.900 You know what I mean?

00:47:58.680 He's from Britain County.

00:47:59.660 And a lot of the decisions are made by people like that.

00:48:03.120 And actually, Hispanics are conservative.

00:48:07.280 I mean, that's real.

00:48:08.300 Look at El Salvador.

00:48:09.940 And so what's happened, though, is that the party is controlled by neoliberals like Gavin Newsom, like Karl Rove.

00:48:20.560 And they use the power of the Hispanic vote to affect outcomes that I think a lot of Hispanic voters reject, right? 0.64

00:48:27.740 Yeah.

00:48:28.220 And look, Trump is winning counties in Texas that have never been won before.

00:48:32.320 And we are having more and more Democrat Hispanic politicians move to our party.

00:48:37.860 And their positions are not changing.

00:48:40.360 They're just realizing.

00:48:41.380 No, I agree.

00:48:42.240 That the Democratic Party, allowing all this illegal immigration and hurting their areas and all those types of things, they don't want that.

00:48:49.500 They're leaving the machine.

00:48:50.760 I guess the only thing I would say, just as an outside observer, is if the drug cartels are allowed to control the machinery of democracy in Texas, like it could become Mexico.

00:49:02.220 That's why the whole DA thing that I was telling you about is so important.

00:49:05.300 I remember when I was coming into the attorney general's office, Abbott had served as long as serving AG in Texas history, 12 years, becoming governor.

00:49:11.920 I'm now about to tie that.

00:49:13.600 But it was, he was the one that told me the most powerful elected officials in the country are the Texas district attorneys because they can do whatever they want.

00:49:23.940 They can allow any crime they want.

00:49:25.300 They can let their friends commit crimes.

00:49:26.780 And there's nothing that can be done to them.

00:49:28.600 They are free to do what they want.

00:49:30.320 So we had problems like this in the 50s and 60s after Brown versus Board where, you know, certain states just didn't want to comply with federal law.

00:49:39.400 There was, and, you know, Eisenhower sent the 101st Airborne to Little Rock and said, I'm sorry, you can't violate federal law.

00:49:47.380 You can't, you're not your own country, actually. 0.97

00:49:50.000 And you wonder, like, how serious could the Trump DOJ be in reigning in this crap? 0.99

00:49:55.680 No, you're not allowed to have chaos in your state. 0.99

00:49:58.260 This is an American state.

00:49:59.520 No.

00:50:00.380 I agree with that.

00:50:01.180 And I think you're already seeing it on the board.

00:50:03.300 He's already sent federal troops down there.

00:50:04.900 And I think he, as long as it's following federal law, I know that Trump is going to be aggressive at protecting this country.

00:50:12.220 I hope so.

00:50:13.820 And I believe it.

00:50:15.060 So here's a question I've been obsessed with recently.

00:50:17.220 I don't know the answer, but you're an attorney general.

00:50:19.760 How are states allowed to have sanctuary cities in open violation of federal law?

00:50:23.880 And that's not insurrection.

00:50:25.040 Because we've allowed it.

00:50:25.880 To me, that should, I mean, like in our state, we banned them.

00:50:28.940 You cannot have a sanctuary city.

00:50:30.300 And we can remove people from office that put that in place.

00:50:35.240 But can states just say we're going to ignore federal law?

00:50:37.580 I think we had a civil war over that, didn't we?

00:50:39.460 No.

00:50:40.100 As long as the federal law is constitutional and it is not infringing upon states' rights.

00:50:44.540 Not every federal law is correct, right?

00:50:46.880 But the ones that are, that are correct, then yes, it has to be followed.

00:50:52.520 Well, these are the borders of the nation.

00:50:55.040 Yes.

00:50:55.560 Right.

00:50:55.760 So what states do with immigration affects the other 49.

00:50:59.980 Any individual state.

00:51:00.920 That's exactly right.

00:51:02.180 Because it does seem like there was a standard in place under Biden where illegal aliens who are by their presence committing a crime were held to a lower standard than American citizens.

00:51:14.060 We had to sue the Biden administration.

00:51:15.780 We sued them specifically over letting criminals into this country, known criminals.

00:51:19.940 And they fought us on it.

00:51:21.000 But they fought us on a very, yes, we are in litigation over whether the Biden administration can purposely bring criminals.

00:51:28.940 And, of course, all these countries were emptying their prisons to get rid of their bad people from all over the world. 0.87

00:51:33.840 And Biden say, come on in.

00:51:36.840 That's what I say, evil.

00:51:38.160 Like, I don't believe they were trying to do good for America.

00:51:40.300 You cannot do that.

00:51:42.160 And tell me you are trying to help America.

00:51:44.860 How hopeful are you that we can deport millions of people?

00:51:51.100 Look, I've seen Donald Trump do things that I never thought could be done.

00:51:55.340 He said he's going to do it.

00:51:57.060 I think it's, you're not going to get every one of them.

00:51:59.900 But I think Tom Holman, I love that guy.

00:52:02.160 I think there's going to be a real serious effort to get as many out as possible.

00:52:06.420 And that's really all you can do.

00:52:07.460 But I think it will be a success in the end because they are going to, one, stop the, you've got to stop the bleeding, right?

00:52:13.560 We've been bleeding, like, profusely.

00:52:15.240 And then, second, start moving, don't accept the fact that these people came in here illegally and just let them stay. 0.92

00:52:25.320 There will be a lot of forces arrayed to stop that, obviously.

00:52:31.800 I already know the Democratic AGs.

00:52:33.940 I mean, I know the game plan.

00:52:36.080 What's the game plan?

00:52:37.020 The game plan is to sue Trump and stop him at every turn legally.

00:52:39.620 Go to a liberal judge, try to get an injunction, and then, you know, slow, just slow it down.

00:52:45.440 So, I know, I think California AG, they've already allocated $25 million to this fight.

00:52:50.920 To stop Trump from deporting criminals.

00:52:53.040 And to stop his agenda in every possible way.

00:52:55.740 So, the Democratic attorney generals are going to be suing and trying to stop all of this.

00:53:00.340 The good thing is, you know, I've got one of my guys that was my offensive coordinator to sue the Biden administration.

00:53:05.540 And he's, if he gets confirmed, he'll be in a strategic position, and he knows exactly the game plan and how to deal with it.

00:53:13.360 If you go and beat Cornyn in the Senate, which I certainly hope you will, is there someone coming up behind you who can get elected who will be as aggressive and focused on the needs of Texans?

00:53:24.580 So, one of the reasons I didn't want to leave last time, one is, I don't want to be forced out.

00:53:27.440 Like, I didn't want them to, I didn't want to step away under their terms, because I just thought it was wrong.

00:53:32.320 That's the spirit.

00:53:32.960 The second was, I didn't, I mean, I ran against three people that I just thought would be horrible for that job.

00:53:38.680 They didn't know what they were doing.

00:53:40.000 There are certainly people that will run that, I mean, there are lawyers who've never practiced law that want that job because they're in politics.

00:53:45.660 That's not the right way.

00:53:46.620 I want somebody that knows how to practice law, that understands the law.

00:53:49.560 And yes, there are a couple people that I know that could run, and I think might run.

00:53:55.500 Otherwise, I'd have a hard time walking away from it, because I don't want to give, this is such a crucial position, really, for the entire country.

00:54:01.440 The Texas Attorney General has the largest Republican office with the most resources and has the most ability to go fight.

00:54:08.160 We can attract talent.

00:54:10.040 And so, we have a lot of ability to take DOJ straight up.

00:54:13.380 That's why we've run up one over, you know, three-fourths of our cases, because we can fight them toe-to-toe.

00:54:17.820 I just think it's, you see this weird dynamic in Texas where, I mean, there's so many great people in Texas, but all the money, not all the money, but a lot of the money in, you know, Highland Park and River Oaks, you know, your richest zip codes, pretty liberal.

00:54:36.000 So, what is that?

00:54:37.860 And by the way, I know a lot of those people, and I really like them, and I'm not attacking anybody personally, because I know, you know, I know a lot of them.

00:54:45.780 But, boy, they seem to be funding people who will not continue Texas as currently organized.

00:54:54.420 It's exactly right.

00:54:55.640 So, a lot of, it's very strange.

00:54:57.500 So, this group, Texas for Lawsuit Reform, used to take a lot of that, they would funnel their money through them, so it wasn't them directly.

00:55:04.160 And that's the group that spent, you know, $10 million recruiting the Supreme Court Justice who was a DEI person, as it turns out.

00:55:10.040 That's how we exposed that, and she blew up. 0.99

00:55:13.220 That's who they supported.

00:55:15.560 I don't totally understand it, but it's a-

00:55:16.920 Well, they don't like you, too.

00:55:18.080 They're like, oh, Paxton's so embarrassing.

00:55:20.600 I know.

00:55:21.080 It's because-

00:55:21.660 But if you asked them to write on a piece of paper, like, what are your political priorities?

00:55:24.660 They would be not so different from yours.

00:55:26.660 It's that whole thing-

00:55:27.740 But they don't like it when you actually try to implement what you say you believe.

00:55:31.220 Here's part of what I think happened.

00:55:32.540 I think that I, when I ran against Dan Branch, he was W's, one of his best friends.

00:55:35.640 Of course.

00:55:36.360 I knew Dan Branch.

00:55:37.340 He was not, his deal was always this.

00:55:40.080 I've spent 10 years with him.

00:55:41.860 I would say, hey, we need to do this.

00:55:43.220 This is the right thing to do.

00:55:43.920 He goes, man, what are the optics here?

00:55:45.700 I'm like, who cares what the optics are?

00:55:47.340 This is the right thing to do.

00:55:48.360 It was always the optics.

00:55:49.220 How does it look?

00:55:50.480 And his voting record, you can look at it, is not consistently what most voters, most Republican voters,

00:55:56.660 would want, but it was for Highland Park.

00:55:59.380 I don't know what-

00:56:00.140 Which is an affluent part of Dallas.

00:56:01.260 Yes.

00:56:01.640 And same with, you were talking about River Oaks in Houston.

00:56:05.360 Those, that Bush world that supported Bush and-

00:56:08.660 I have family in both those places and I think they're wonderful.

00:56:11.200 They're not, no, they're not-

00:56:11.900 And I like all the people.

00:56:12.720 And as I said, I like Dan Branch.

00:56:13.980 I mean, I think I'm probably susceptible to charm in a way I shouldn't be because, like,

00:56:18.680 I like all those, they're all good guys.

00:56:20.200 But, like, they, in the end, it's considered somehow gauche or bad to actually try and do

00:56:27.360 what you say you're going to do.

00:56:28.480 That's why they don't like you.

00:56:29.340 I've just, no offense, hope it doesn't hurt your feelings, but I've been at dinner and

00:56:32.080 people are like, oh, Ken Paxton, you know, ooh, ooh.

00:56:34.960 Ken Paxton, it's like, why?

00:56:36.360 Because he's doing what you say you believe?

00:56:39.240 The same thing happened. 0.97

00:56:40.540 What the hell? 0.97

00:56:40.940 It's the same thing with Trump. 0.69

00:56:42.200 People had, I mean, I don't know.

00:56:43.760 I know you're right, it is.

00:56:44.300 I was at his announcement at Marlowe.

00:56:46.040 You know, you elected officials were there to support him that first, there were lots

00:56:49.740 of regular people there.

00:56:51.220 Me and Troy Nels at the very first announcement.

00:56:54.380 Everybody then was like thinking it might be somebody else and no one wanted to tell you

00:56:57.420 they weren't sure because you had these indictments and it's the same thing with Trump.

00:57:01.740 If you actually go out and do the hard things, then you're controversial and then they

00:57:05.020 attack you for being, the media attacks you.

00:57:06.420 Yeah, they don't like it.

00:57:06.980 And then people go, well, you know, we need to see, and I'm like, okay, you're, you know

00:57:11.780 what, you don't want Trump because he's controversial.

00:57:13.600 That means you don't want somebody to actually get something done.

00:57:15.800 The people that aren't controversial are the people that don't get anything done.

00:57:18.640 The media doesn't attack them.

00:57:20.280 And so then all these people are like, oh, I just don't like his tweets, you know, blah,

00:57:23.260 blah, blah.

00:57:23.560 And I'm like, what, I care about what he gets done.

00:57:25.760 I think it may be that rich people are so insulated from the effects of everything that

00:57:31.980 they don't really feel like these arguments are existential, that they really, really matter.

00:57:37.120 Whereas, you know, if you make 120 grand a year and you live in Houston and you see the

00:57:40.560 city, like you can't use the hospitals and crime's out of control and like everything

00:57:44.560 is changing too fast to metabolize and you can't really, you make 120 grand a year, you

00:57:48.460 can't really do anything about it.

00:57:49.620 You're powerless.

00:57:50.540 And that's, by the way, twice what the average person makes.

00:57:52.820 Yes, you're like, you realize this is not a joke.

00:57:56.760 They're wrecking my city for real.

00:57:58.540 It can't be fixed.

00:57:59.280 I think you've hit it because those people, even those people are affected by inflation,

00:58:02.620 right?

00:58:02.900 Everything is more expensive.

00:58:04.060 Gas is more expensive.

00:58:04.800 No, it's totally right.

00:58:05.540 The average American and even above average American feels all of those negative effects

00:58:11.380 every day.

00:58:12.900 If you're a billionaire, it just, you just, it just, it's, you don't care what it costs

00:58:17.680 to fill up your gas.

00:58:19.260 You don't even think about it.

00:58:20.880 It's just weird in Texas.

00:58:21.920 So if you go to California, if you go to Marin or downtown San Francisco or, you know,

00:58:26.460 the town that I grew up in, affluent town, you know, everyone's kind of openly liberal.

00:58:32.200 You know what I mean?

00:58:32.800 Like they're smoking weed with their kids and they're whatever, they're liberal.

00:58:36.000 You go to Texas and you meet the affluent class in Texas and boy, they're just great

00:58:41.860 people.

00:58:42.360 They're just great people who share your values.

00:58:44.360 And, and I think they really do, by the way, at least the ones I know, they sincerely 0.97

00:58:48.520 do, but they don't feel that sense of, of eminence of like, holy shit, we got it. 0.98

00:58:55.360 This is like a crisis. 0.94

00:58:56.440 They do not feel that.

00:58:57.300 Well, those are the people that elect me.

00:58:59.220 If you look at my campaign finance reports, I usually have a massive number of people

00:59:03.360 giving, but a lot lower level than some of the other statewide officials.

00:59:07.360 The numbers are just staggering.

00:59:09.020 I, I raise less money, but my contributions from the number of people I get, I think I

00:59:13.840 had the last report.

00:59:14.380 Right.

00:59:14.740 Maybe I'm off on this move.

00:59:15.760 It's one for 8,000 contributors in six months.

00:59:18.780 Well, I don't think anybody comes close to that, but it's a, it's, it's not the million

00:59:23.860 dollar checks.

00:59:24.420 I don't get million dollar checks.

00:59:25.360 I have a much lower contribution, but I love it because I like the fact that the people

00:59:31.500 as a group are helping me.

00:59:34.700 That's who I'm beholden to those people.

00:59:36.580 I think that's right.

00:59:37.480 And there's a, um, by the way, I just want to be clear, especially in Texas, like the rich

00:59:42.460 people I know in Texas are good people with nice, you know, love their families, their

00:59:46.200 children turn out well, like they're good people for real.

00:59:49.340 I love them actually.

00:59:51.200 But I, and they would agree with everything you say, but in practice, it freaks them out.

00:59:57.760 And you see this with Bobby Kennedy too.

00:59:59.580 Like anyone who's kind of tuned in and realize, yeah, Bobby Kennedy was like a turbo liberal.

01:00:03.260 He's a Kennedy.

01:00:04.260 You know, he said all this crazy gun grabby pro abortion nonsense, but then you watch him

01:00:08.420 and you're like, oh no, that guy's on the same wavelength as me.

01:00:11.520 And he might actually get stuff done.

01:00:13.680 It's only, it's, it honestly, it's the rich Republicans who he freaks out.

01:00:18.640 He scares them for the same reason you scare them because you mean it.

01:00:23.120 And they're like, ah, this is embarrassing.

01:00:25.740 Maybe I can't fully control it.

01:00:27.280 I'm not sure I'm for this.

01:00:28.400 Part of the problem is they all talk to each other and they all get their ideas from like

01:00:31.360 each other.

01:00:32.040 It's just almost too inbred.

01:00:34.240 They don't get, they don't get down to talk to the people that you're, that you and I

01:00:37.240 are talking about.

01:00:38.080 They don't know them.

01:00:39.020 They are not around them.

01:00:39.880 They don't live with them.

01:00:40.640 So they don't feel it.

01:00:42.120 It's part of what your original point was.

01:00:43.600 They just don't know these people.

01:00:44.900 If they knew those people, I think, like you said, they're not bad people.

01:00:48.900 I think if they can connect with people that are not billionaires instead of just with each

01:00:53.860 other, it would help them.

01:00:56.320 I think it's totally right.

01:00:57.480 I grew up in a rich person world.

01:00:58.800 The greatest gift I ever got was, you know, spending time in a non-rich area for a portion

01:01:04.940 of every year and it really changed my worldview, like so dramatically.

01:01:09.240 Just having contact with people who aren't, you know, in that world, like just getting

01:01:13.680 out of it a little bit.

01:01:15.200 It's called perspective.

01:01:16.740 I don't have a ton of perspective, but I have like a little bit of perspective.

01:01:19.840 Right.

01:01:20.320 You know what I mean?

01:01:21.260 So like, that's super helpful.

01:01:23.060 It's super helpful.

01:01:23.900 It is.

01:01:24.380 It's super helpful.

01:01:25.580 And wow, that's so interesting.

01:01:27.760 Can you win if you don't have the support of the big money in Texas?

01:01:32.720 Well, all I can tell you is I've been statewide for 12 years and I've won my closest primary

01:01:38.800 runoffs when there weren't, you know, four people in the race was 65-35.

01:01:43.220 The last one was better, 68-32.

01:01:45.480 So I just go to the people and I usually get outspent.

01:01:49.480 As long as I can be within like two to one spending, I have a really good chance of winning

01:01:53.580 a primary.

01:01:53.980 And I think anybody that whole is consistent on views that are, that take care of their

01:01:59.180 constituents, that's the key to winning is take care of your people, care about them.

01:02:04.880 Yeah.

01:02:05.080 Well, I've always thought that, but then I up and down the ballot in state after state,

01:02:08.860 you see people elected who are basically promising to destroy their own constituents and all the 0.78

01:02:14.560 black leaders in Chicago who are like, you know, lecturing about black political power 0.96

01:02:18.560 and how important it is. 0.81

01:02:19.420 And then they make this, the city Hispanic. 1.00

01:02:21.960 Now they have no political power.

01:02:23.260 It's like, I mean, whatever you think of identity politics, I'm opposed to it.

01:02:27.880 I don't think you should be running on your race anyway, but it's just a fact that they

01:02:30.960 did exactly the opposite of what they promised their constituents.

01:02:33.580 And really now nobody cares what those people think.

01:02:36.400 It's the same problem.

01:02:37.520 People like that were taking care of themselves.

01:02:40.000 They were not actually looking out for the people they said they were looking out for.

01:02:42.840 And then they, they leave them in a terrible situation.

01:02:45.160 They're not better off what Donald Trump supposedly the guy that doesn't like those people.

01:02:48.480 Well, when he's finished, these all categories of people, black, white, Hispanic are better off. 1.00

01:02:54.540 No, I know.

01:02:54.820 That seems like a good thing, right?

01:02:55.980 I know.

01:02:56.700 But yet he's a bad guy.

01:02:59.040 It's amazing.

01:03:00.300 So here's a complicated issue that I think I know that you've addressed it in court.

01:03:04.660 Data privacy.

01:03:05.300 The idea that you ought to be allowed to have like conversations without other people listening

01:03:10.960 to them.

01:03:11.480 The idea that people shouldn't be able to steal information about you and profit from it.

01:03:16.380 Where are we on that?

01:03:18.360 So, you know, my first term was about stopping Obama.

01:03:22.360 Yeah.

01:03:22.580 And so I think in two, two years that he was there, I've seen him 27 times.

01:03:26.400 Now I stepped it up a little bit with Biden, but we had four years with Trump.

01:03:29.920 And the reason I ran the second term was to deal with exactly that issue.

01:03:33.000 I saw, I saw big tech and I saw big corporations and people felt powerless because all their

01:03:39.040 information is being taken.

01:03:40.220 They have no control over it.

01:03:41.600 They're being censored.

01:03:42.920 And I'm like, how do I solve this?

01:03:44.140 So I went out to Palo Alto.

01:03:45.180 I spent like a year of my life going out there talking to professors, talking to lawyers who

01:03:49.800 were tech experts.

01:03:50.840 And we ended up putting together many lawsuits, several against Google, several against Facebook.

01:03:54.920 We just had like, we sued Facebook because they, there's a Texas law that says you cannot

01:03:59.500 steal somebody's face, take somebody's face or their voice without their permission.

01:04:03.580 And then once you've taken it, you have a certain amount of time, a reasonable period

01:04:06.780 of time to keep it.

01:04:07.420 And then you have to destroy it and you can't sell it without their permission. 0.55

01:04:09.540 Well, guess what?

01:04:10.880 Meta, now Meta, they were doing it.

01:04:13.200 They just did it anyway.

01:04:14.940 Yeah, why do they care?

01:04:15.700 So we sued them.

01:04:16.440 And we got the largest settlement between a state and a business ever, $1.4 billion.

01:04:21.460 We have sued Google, I think five times.

01:04:24.040 We've won two of those cases.

01:04:25.080 We've got two settlements, but the three biggest are coming.

01:04:27.260 One of them is about the same thing that Meta did.

01:04:30.200 They stole our faces.

01:04:31.160 Another was about incognito, where they told people, by the way, you go into this incognito,

01:04:35.480 you sign up for this, we will not track you.

01:04:37.320 Lie, they tracked us anyway.

01:04:38.820 That's a deceptive trade practice in Texas, where they tell you one thing and do another.

01:04:42.360 They lied and they're so big and they make so much money, they just think they can win

01:04:45.620 everything.

01:04:46.580 Well, the final one was, this is one that everybody thought was crazy, but we did it.

01:04:51.120 And then DOJ filed a copycat case under Biden, actually, where Google controls 97% of the

01:04:58.280 ad market and they destroy the competition.

01:05:00.360 If you're competing, and we believe they cut a deal with Facebook to keep them out of

01:05:03.800 it, pay them off, and they destroy you if you're small enough, they buy you if you're

01:05:07.980 big enough, and they cut a deal if you're super big, and all of that's illegal under

01:05:11.800 antitrust law.

01:05:12.540 So we, in April, we are going to trial in Texas.

01:05:15.100 They delayed me for two years by forcing me into what's called multi-district litigation,

01:05:19.180 and I got put in New York, but we got a piece of legislation stuck on a bill that got us

01:05:23.860 back out of that, so we're back in Texas.

01:05:25.340 So we are going to take on the big tech companies, we're taking on General Motors, because General

01:05:29.360 Motors would sell you a car and they wouldn't tell you that their OnStar system, when you

01:05:32.700 signed up for it, was tracking all of your driving, and then they're selling that to

01:05:36.920 insurance companies, and then you get canceled and your insurance goes up because they're

01:05:39.900 tracking every turn of your car, what time you're driving, how much, but they don't

01:05:43.760 tell you.

01:05:44.160 That's a deceptive trade practice, and of course, we sued Pfizer for lying to us about

01:05:49.360 the vaccine.

01:05:50.940 It was a little weird after all of that to see Larry Ellison stand up and be like, everyone's

01:05:55.560 getting an mRNA vaccine for cancer, what?

01:06:00.020 I mean, it's crazy.

01:06:01.380 I don't even know.

01:06:02.900 I'm trying to digest all that.

01:06:04.320 Maybe just living in lanai is, you know.

01:06:06.360 Yeah, exactly.

01:06:08.100 But do you have a hope?

01:06:10.560 It does seem, look, I'm not against, well, that's a lie, I am against technology, but

01:06:14.960 I don't think I should be against technology.

01:06:16.760 I should be a little more open-minded, but, you know, there's a place for technological

01:06:22.000 progress.

01:06:22.420 Of course, there is, but it does seem like it's unrestrained.

01:06:26.340 It does, you know, I believe in force, counterforce.

01:06:28.860 I believe in balance.

01:06:29.720 I believe in marriage, which is that, you know what I mean?

01:06:32.940 Two forces having to accommodate one another, and in that, you find peace.

01:06:37.600 I don't see that dynamic with tech right now.

01:06:40.460 It's just, it just seems unrestrained.

01:06:42.640 The charge of the elephants, like nothing can get in the way.

01:06:45.180 So that is a reason.

01:06:46.000 I saw, I saw that if we didn't step in soon, and I didn't see anybody else doing it, it

01:06:50.380 wasn't, DOJ wasn't doing it.

01:06:52.160 I didn't see other states doing it.

01:06:53.380 So it was my, that's why I ran the second time.

01:06:55.020 My mission was, if we don't stop this now, they make so much money.

01:06:59.620 They just buy their way out of everything.

01:07:01.320 So they get sued by the, you know, European Union.

01:07:03.800 They just pay two billion.

01:07:04.780 They just jack up their price.

01:07:05.640 When you're making $130 billion a year, that's just a minor little tax, right?

01:07:09.200 For Google.

01:07:10.220 So that is why I didn't just, I'm not just doing this for money.

01:07:13.620 I'm asking for restructuring of Google.

01:07:15.820 I don't want them to be able to do this to us anymore.

01:07:18.400 They need to divest things so that there is competition in the marketplace.

01:07:21.640 I'm not, I am totally free market, but one company that controls 97% of the market and

01:07:26.420 then destroys competition, that is not good for consumers.

01:07:30.040 And that's why we have antitrust laws.

01:07:31.640 So if we don't stop them now, they'll control all our speech.

01:07:35.040 Wait, we still have antitrust laws?

01:07:36.820 We do.

01:07:37.400 You'd never know it, would you?

01:07:39.120 We brought them back.

01:07:40.940 And by the way, DOJ copied our Google case.

01:07:43.220 Exactly.

01:07:43.940 Biden did.

01:07:45.600 Is there any hope?

01:07:47.300 There is hope.

01:07:48.040 And I think, I think the fact that you see after we settled with Mark Zuckerberg, he's

01:07:54.360 shown up at Trump.

01:07:55.480 So he was, he spent what, 400 million trying to beat Trump last time?

01:07:58.380 Yeah.

01:07:58.880 You're seeing the CEOs come in.

01:08:01.180 Now they're, they're trying to keep their profit motive going and they're, it's hard

01:08:04.540 to get anything done in Congress because they give so much money.

01:08:07.020 But I think the state AGs and hopefully DOJ with Pam Bondi are key to making sure that

01:08:14.100 they play fair.

01:08:16.240 Look, go make billions.

01:08:17.460 I don't care.

01:08:17.820 I want you to go make a lot of billions.

01:08:19.320 I want American companies to do well all over the world, but play fair and allow consumers

01:08:25.000 choices.

01:08:25.580 Don't destroy choice.

01:08:26.960 Yeah.

01:08:28.640 And it just acknowledged that what you do has an effect on a lot of other people.

01:08:32.600 And, you know, it's okay for other people to weigh in and have an opinion.

01:08:36.160 It's, you, you get this.

01:08:37.180 I mean, I know all these people, you get the scent.

01:08:38.840 They're so annoyed.

01:08:40.340 If there's any impediment to what they want, like so annoyed, like they can't even believe

01:08:44.260 it.

01:08:44.440 Like what?

01:08:45.180 You're getting in the way of progress.

01:08:46.420 It's like, well, first of all, I'm not totally convinced this is progress.

01:08:50.640 Like that's a subjective term.

01:08:52.360 We can debate what that is.

01:08:53.620 But second, like, I don't know.

01:08:56.620 There are all kinds of things I want to do, but I have to negotiate with the people who

01:09:00.040 are affected by those things to reach some accommodation.

01:09:02.500 That's just what life is.

01:09:03.740 But the idea, and you see this with some countries too, like, oh, you know, our neighbors don't 1.00

01:09:07.380 like a tough shit. 0.99

01:09:08.060 It's like, I don't know. 0.99

01:09:09.880 That's not what life is.

01:09:10.780 Like everything is.

01:09:11.840 Give and take.

01:09:12.260 Is a give and take.

01:09:13.260 Compromise.

01:09:13.540 Where do we get these attitudes?

01:09:15.600 Like, I just get to do exactly what I want.

01:09:17.700 It's going to totally overturn your life. 0.99

01:09:19.140 And if you don't like it, like, shut up. 0.92

01:09:21.400 These are super companies, right? 0.98

01:09:22.460 Companies are bigger than most countries.

01:09:23.860 They have more money.

01:09:25.380 And I think that arrogance that we talked about in politics, it happens in business.

01:09:29.520 And so not only do they want to control every market and control every transaction on the

01:09:34.740 internet, but they also want to tell you what to say and what you can say on their platforms.

01:09:39.680 And then they tell you they're not censoring, but they are.

01:09:41.480 And so even with the Pfizer case where we went in and sued them, we sued them not just

01:09:46.040 for lying about the effectiveness of the vaccine, which they did do.

01:09:50.040 I noticed.

01:09:50.980 But secondly, for trying to censor people once they found out that their vaccine didn't work.

01:09:56.460 I want to do that with this podcast.

01:09:58.320 So what I want is Congress to pass a law preventing anyone from suing me no matter what I do.

01:10:03.380 And then anyone who criticizes me is pulled off the internet and called a racist.

01:10:08.120 That's a pretty good deal, don't you think?

01:10:09.660 Absolutely.

01:10:09.940 And then if you happen to like not participate in their little scheme with the vaccine, then

01:10:14.060 you lose your job and you're socially-

01:10:16.260 Listen to my podcast or you're fired.

01:10:18.080 Right.

01:10:19.300 Yeah.

01:10:20.200 That does seem like an unfair business advantage.

01:10:22.680 It's pretty unfair.

01:10:24.400 And I actually, it's crazy because then there's no incentive for them to test it.

01:10:28.200 They didn't test the vaccine.

01:10:29.280 Of course not.

01:10:29.820 They don't have to.

01:10:30.940 Why would they?

01:10:31.680 They test it for like six days.

01:10:33.360 Well, they're fully indemnified.

01:10:34.720 There's nothing you can do to them.

01:10:36.040 So we got, actually, we sued Pfizer over the vaccine.

01:10:39.060 We got dismissed by a federal judge who said we didn't have, because of that federal law,

01:10:43.100 our state laws don't apply.

01:10:44.140 I don't think that's right.

01:10:44.860 So we've appealed to the Fifth Circuit saying, wait a minute, they have their federal laws,

01:10:47.900 but our state law, if you deceive someone, you lie to them, that is a violation of state law.

01:10:52.340 Who cares what the federal immunity thing is?

01:10:54.380 It has nothing to do with our state laws.

01:10:56.240 And that's our argument.

01:10:57.800 Man, you guys, you know, there's so many arms available in the black market.

01:11:01.660 I think Texas should buy some just to give a little more influence.

01:11:05.420 You know what I mean?

01:11:06.300 That's not my department.

01:11:07.600 I always tell people, they want me to go, why don't you do something, why don't you do

01:11:10.560 something to the board?

01:11:11.120 I said, well, I am, but they didn't give me any guns.

01:11:12.960 They just gave me like lawyers.

01:11:14.680 All I have is lawyers.

01:11:15.580 Be like the drug cartels.

01:11:16.600 Just buy them on the dark web.

01:11:18.360 Oh, hilarious.

01:11:19.280 Kim Paxton, thank you so much for taking all this time.

01:11:21.340 Oh, I enjoyed it.

01:11:21.900 Thanks for having me.

01:11:22.700 And I hope you crush that John Cornyn.

01:11:24.480 And I really do, I just, I'm rooting for you.

01:11:26.480 Well, thank you.

01:11:26.980 No one else agrees, but I'm in Highland Park, but I'm on your side.

01:11:29.760 Hey, thank you.

01:11:30.360 Appreciate it.

The Tucker Carlson Show - February 12, 2025

Ken Paxton： How Soros Protects Drug Cartels, Being Blacklisted by Fox News, and the Laken Riley Act

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