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MSNOW’s Antonia Hylton stops by to talk about Tucker Carlson criticizing Trump’s lack of concern for the American people. Then we’ll talk to Texas gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa about her run to unseat Governor Greg Abbott.
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This is an I Heart Podcast. Guaranteed Human Code I Heart All figures preserving a furo-bred C-nutrition facts on Hero.co You already know how AI is changing how everyday work gets done, how much ground you can cover, and how fast a team can scale. To stay ahead, you need the tools to give you a competitive advantage, built for this new era. Welcome to Agenetic Revenue. Adio is the CRM for this world. It meets you where you work. Compounds every customer signal into context, then acts on it across your pipeline to let you move it on match speed and scale. With agents and animations for every job in revenue, Adio orchestrates your work around the clock,
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If you like YouTube, you'll love YouTube Premium. Hi, I'm Sean Evans from Hot Ones, and I want to tell you about YouTube Premium. It has offline downloads, so you can watch without Wi-Fi. Background play. So you can lock your phone, and it still plays, baby. Oh, and it is completely ad free. Yes, I said it ad free. Try YouTube Premium for two months free at youtube.com slash premium. Trial eligibility varies, terms apply, cancel anytime. Hi, I'm Molly Johnfast, and this is Fast Politics, where we discuss the top political headlines with some of two. headlines with some of today's best minds and representative Steve Cohen files 26 articles of impeachment against Donald Trump. We have such a great show for you today. MSNOW's Antonia Hilton talks Tucker Carlson, Trash King, Donald Trump's lack of concern about the American people. Then we'll talk to Texas Goof and a Trial candidate Gina Hina Hosa about her run to unseat Gregg app, but first the news.
Smiley, the Supreme Court just always giving Trump what he wants, and now he has control over some interesting levers of our voting. So I think it's early to know what this means, because it could mean a number of things. The Supreme Court has cleared the way for the Trump administration's expanding system to verify voters, citizenship status. This is one of the Trump world's favorite things to do, solve a problem that doesn't exist. And the question is, will it disqualify normal voters, and also who will use it, and how will states fight against it? The High Court's majority said that the federal government has an obligation to respond to requests from state and local officials seeking to verify the citizenship of voters. And now what exactly does that mean? And that is, I think, a real question. Look, the League of Women Voters has called the decision profoundly pointing, saying it puts millions of Americans at risk of being unlawfully targeted by the administration's unreliable voter purchase, which we have seen that that is sort of their hope.
The DC District Court ruled that the expanded save program violated multiple laws. So they are going to go back, and I think that ultimately that this case may go back up to the Supreme Court. This is a sort of revamped version of the systematic alien verification for entitlement, the save service. An immigration tool that has been long used to verify whether you're eligible for benefits because people were in this country not legally, they do not get benefits. A key part of the effort was expanding save queries using social security. I think that we're going to see more in this, but it could also be dangerous. The three liberal justices, Brown Jackson, so to my ear, and Kagan dissented, and they talked about the potential for disenfranchisement. Most states are barred from systematic voting purchase within 90 days of a federal election. So that means that we are 38 days from the end tomorrow.
We will be 37 days midterms, which means that it's hard to imagine how they would do that if they're banned from doing it 90 days before a federal election. I think Trump did recently lose this postal, you know, he had wanted to fuck with mail and voting, which as you know, a third of all Americans vote by mail. So now this was, you know, they sort of gave him a win. But again, I think we will see, I think this fight is certainly not over. So amazing reporting from the lever AI regulation was coming and then Mr. Trump killed it because he's in on it. Look, the reason why Donald Trump doesn't want to regulate AI is because he and his sons have invested heavily in AI. We know this from the Washington Post. There's reporting in the Washington Post that says that the Trump family millions or billions are actually invested in AI. So that makes a lot of sense as to why it doesn't want to regulate.
But there's also another story here, which is that Trump didn't want to regulate AI because he knows that it's kind of a bubble. And if he regulated it might break the bubble. And then the economy won't do as well. And so we might be into a recession. And that would be bad for him and his president say, look, again, we have yet to see Congress regulate technology period paragraph from Facebook to Instagram to anything they don't regulate it. So the idea that they were going to get their shit together and be able to do it. I don't know that that's true. In this story talks about Bernie Sanders and Peter Welch talking about how they had a plan for regulation. You know, Chuck Schumer's daughter works for open AI in government relation. So I don't know how it's going to work. And doesn't seem good to me. No. So Mr. Trump met with Xi Jinping asking him to stop supporting Iran and Tom Tiles is big mad.
Yeah. I mean, Tom Tiles is like so late to this. Again, look, we don't know that Donald Trump asked she to stop. Do we know this? Well, there's reporting on numerous sites that say it. Okay. So maybe dead. I mean, it's hard for me to imagine if you don't see, you're not listening to anything Trump. You're literally just waiting for the lips to stop flapping. You know, you see the picture of Xi and Trump and Melania all looking miserable. And then you see him with Obama. It looked kind of happy. I mean, like the problem is we need a lot of stuff from China. We need some kind of reproach month with AI. We need a nuclear disarmament when it comes to AI. And we have a problem, which we have a president. No one trusts. So even if I mean, again, like the problem would try to make deals with the Chinese is they don't, they're not very trustworthy. But the problem would try to make deals with Trump world is they're not very trustworthy. So I don't think there's a great solution here. And quite frankly, you know, he's talking to someone who knows a lot more about foreign policy than I do.
And he was saying, you know, honestly, I just hope nothing happens in this summit because there's a parable Tuesday scenario where Trump gives Xi Taiwan or tries to give him some kind of deal for Taiwan. And that would kick all of us into a global depression, the likes of which I don't think we can even guess what it was like. So there's one thing you can always bet on. It's that John Fetterman is going to be a disappointment. And we really saw that yesterday with him casting an important vote on ending the Iran war where he took the side of the Republicans. So let's just talk about this. John Fetterman, there's a lot of talk out there that you actually need to get more than flipping forward seats because Fetterman is going to flip. And so you may end up needing to have five seats. And this is why people think that because he does things like this. So the War Powers Act, Republicans blocked it. Let's talk about this for a second. This is largely ceremonial, right? Say the War Powers Act passed. Say 51 vote for the War Powers Act. It doesn't matter, right? Then Donald Trump is going to end the war. Is he? I don't think he is.
So I don't know. This is ceremonial, but it's also more importantly an opportunity for Republicans to do something that untathers themselves a little bit from Trump and from this unpopular war. And so it's interesting to me that four Republicans, Susan Kahn's of Maine, who's a pre-election, Lisa Murkowski, who doesn't get the fuck, Rand Paul, who is a libertarian. And Tom Tellus all voted in favor of this War Powers Act. It's interesting to me like someone like Roger Marshall from Kansas, who is polling really badly. Why you wouldn't just vote for this? I just am a little bit surprised that there wasn't more of a process. You know those pieces in your closet that you find yourself reaching for over and over again, the sweater that somehow works with everything, the jeans you know will always fit just right or the bag you carry everywhere. Those are the pieces that earn a permanent place in your wardrobe, and that's exactly what Quince does so well. Quince makes elevated everyday essentials using premium materials like Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton and washable silk.
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And Tonya Hilton is the host of the assignment on MS now. Welcome, welcome, Antonio. Hey Molly, it's always good to see you. It's good to see you. I guess that we saw the Tucker Carlson versus Donald Trump fight coming. Yeah, but it feels like it's just getting messier and messier. Yeah, it and it and somehow it's I still feel like there's more mess around the corner actually. Even though he did this extended sit down with npr it still feels like he's probably has like some other punches like coming around the corner at some point soon. I'm like of multiple minds about this whole thing because I do not trust Tucker Carlson like someone who will like switch teams when convenient. I think he's very smart guy who's like aware of where the winds are blowing and the winds are against Trump. So I think it's really easy and like comfortable for him to now be like the profit of what comes next. But you know he was one of the people who like helped get a you know a lot of I believe young men to the polls for Trump back in 24.
So I just I see all of this is like very tenuous. I don't buy all the motivations behind it. However, that doesn't mean that I that discredits everything that he says in this interview. I think like about his behind the scenes relationship with Trump and alleged conversations there. Yeah, I think that's a really good point. And I also think like Tucker is genuinely like some of the reasons that he's anti interventionist are like the reasons that the old school anti interventionist were anti interventionist like it's not so much that he doesn't want for an adventuring though. I mean, I do think he genuinely believes in not having for an interventioning but like his anti Israel stands. I think it's fueled by more than just a national security angle. I mean, there's clearly shades of anti-Semitism there and we've seen that forever and ever. And like the same people who like circle Carlson who call people on the left anti-Semitic would never say that about about Carlson. So, but I do think that's a real thing. But I also wonder like when we see this together, he is really smart. I mean, Tucker is really smart and he thinks things through and he did in fact call Trump and there's really good reporting in regime change where he says to Trump like, you know, the Middle East is just disaster.
He's going to work out and he says everything always works out for me, which is the kind of high level thinking that you definitely want in the president. Totally, totally. And but you make a good point, which is that what we actually already know from the established reporting and in this book regime change is pretty well reflected in this updated conversation between Steve Inskeep and Tucker Carlson. And what Tucker Carlson is alleging effectively for anyone who has not had the chance to listen to it yet is that he tried to warn Trump about all the pitfalls of what could come with Iran. And on that front, like the things that he thinks are the actual like kind of scenarios here, I think Tucker has been right on many of those things. Again, you make a great point, which is that his motivations and his criticisms and whose side he's on, they're not all clean and he is absolutely at times made anti-Semitic remarks and sort of relations. And that's something that you need to remember when you listen to someone like Tucker Carlson.
But what is real is that he has conversations with the president. We know the two men talk. And he's describing to Steve this conversation where basically he's kind of warning him against what we know the president has now done there. And that Trump's response kind of fundamentally is a very nihilistic response. It's like we're all going to die anyway. That's maybe not a direct quote, but but you know the essence of what he says allegedly back to Tucker Carlson. And you don't want nihilism in the president of the United States. Like Tucker claims he said this that he's like, well, what about our kids and our grandkids and like the future that we're going to leave behind for them. And the president of the United States does not seem concerned in his view about that at all. And that is something that if true, we all really do need to sit with and that really doesn't form frankly a lot of what's been happening on both the foreign and domestic fronts. Yeah. And I think the other thing is there's clearly Donald Trump polling under the bush line, right, less than Bush.
He is so unpopular that we are seeing the kind of fissures you see when a president is this unpopular. And that is the and because this magma media complex is so independent, they can see right away when people don't watch their videos. Like they know they don't have to wait for Neil Sims, right, they can see it right away. And they see it in the comments and they see it. And so that's why you have this story from the Wall Street Journal about how magma influencers are not talking about magma anymore. Yeah. Well, what's so interesting to me and I actually think Tucker Carlson is like a good representative of what's happening here. And I think there are probably people preparing to like write books about this or senior thesis about it right now is that like. And my friend is stead herndon made this point who you know is a director at Vox and host an amazing podcast America actually. And he was basically saying that like one of the reasons why Trump is doing what he's doing right now with the press to MS now political CNN this whole battle that's been going on in the background.
And you're talking about taking away their press access press the press ban. And of course, you know, so far we've had success in court, but we know this is not the end of this battle with the president. And is like what a stead was basically arguing is that like you know Trump has incredibly low poll numbers and credibility right now, but the only institution in America that actually currently has lower credibility than his the media. Yeah, so he can punch kind of down on us because we have struggled to build that relationship. And this is where Tucker comes in. And I think one of the things Tucker is really good at is again kind of like seeing what's on the horizon. Where is the wind blowing and not only can he get ahead of Trump on the sort of like political story of the day, but he can kind of get ahead of the media by by talking about certain behind the scenes conversations and being positioning himself as someone who will say the real things despite what you might call him. And he creates this sort of like air of authenticity and realness around him that contrasts him as this former mainstream media host with like the rest of us now and him where he is in the moment.
And you can see that sort of that evolution is part of his like his cell of credibility. And I think that he and and other folks like him are having success in that space. And then I think that there are these other mega creators that are really failing because they're kind of like trying to do the old game and and losing in the process. Now the question is though like we talk about a bench pier out like that's a really good example of someone whose numbers have just cratered the problem with bench pier out bench pier out is deeply pro Israel and a very religious Jew. So the question here is we know that the right has a sort of handshake with anti-semitism and racism and sexism and you know and so the like the so literal out and out grippers and like yeah and I mean the Nazi group chat is a great example right where they were all young men of 30 so not old enough to make good choices.
That's what sort of JD vans but but you know what there was this group chat where they were like literally using Nazi ideology. So the question is like is this the beginning of a sort of mega plus plus plus that does all the things that they you know is like this new mega even more sort of anti everything that we believe right that you know is it like the difference between Reagan and Trump and Trump and you know the sort of James fish back types the people who are genuinely genuinely embrace the sort of basis of base instincts and I think that's a real scary question that could be denied to be honest I think it like for the Republican party is sort of the story of the next several years. It's certainly going to be the story heading into 2028 and as people try to figure out who inherits Trump's thing and to be honest I think Tucker is someone who is at least considering trying to be that person.
Oh yeah and Ben Shapiro is a really interesting figure because I think two things can be true which is that like part of the reason that he's lost audience part of the reason why there's tension in his relationships with figures like JD vans who can't even bring themselves to disavow someone as horrendous as Nick Fuentes is because there are parts of his coalition that are now motivated by anti-Semitism and anti-Semite spirit sees and they they they mistreat him and I don't mean that like I have my own issues with Ben Shapiro no for sure and so then to turn the page to my issues with Ben Shapiro I think one of the challenges he then has with another sort of segment of the media consumer right is that like there are people who are frustrated with Ben Shapiro for speaking out on behalf of like only his own sort of view of the world and engaging in Islam of phobic and right system rhetoric at times and and so very famous come to his defense right now right hey those are not sees and this is F.D. up and we believe they're kind of like not coming to
Ben Shapiro's defense and they're not going to watch his YouTube videos because they're like I remember what you said about my community like right here ago and I'm not interested dude I think there's I think two things can be true at once which is that he's like the there are elements of what's happening to him that are not just not fair and then there are elements where it's a little bit like a leopard's eating my face to a situation like you thought you could get in bed with some of these people and that they wouldn't turn on you like and that's the by Randall's problem right he's running for governor of Florida he's Trump sky he can't get over 50% and the places he can't get over 50% are the same places that have historically voted for the very white supremacist candidates and so you can see that the map is like these people do not they are too racist to vote for a candidate even if he espouses all their views it's going to be such a fascinating all of Florida is like so fascinating to me yeah in fact this weekend on the assignment we're going to have a guy named Jimmy Glover on who is running to you know he hopes to take the seat of one of the moms for Liberty stars right
regular there and like in Florida I feel like all politics is sort of local and a lot of what happens at the ground level in Florida tells you sort of more broadly about what's happening in the state and just there is this massive shift in Sarasota County which is a very you know that their school district is part of a very red part of the state and you know these more liberal school board members are now snatching up these seats and it's motivated by things like all the book banning and and sort of self-censorship that we saw in Florida over the last several years but also because of the way in which some of those board members have spoken about the Latino community in Florida which is still huge their reaction to what's happened with ice and so there are so many like cultural changes happening at like a just like grass roots level in Florida that are working against a Byron Donalds and probably working for someone like Angie Nixon and so you have Byron who's like both of them are the potential historic firsts so interesting yeah and but it's like so it Angie needs more help from the Democrats who are investing in
yeah despite the fact that like the polling is so tight you would think that they would at this point and then Byron is struggling because he is like he can't even run on the fact that like he is a historic first and and connects necessarily with the black community in Florida it is going to be in my view one of the most interesting states to watch I mean it's always like Florida Florida Florida so interesting to watch but I think people have like kind of or Democrats have put Florida like on the back burner in terms of their dreams and I really think they need to like wake up and and and lock in. Well and I also think Angie Nixon is a really interesting candidate because she's a single mom she's not you know it's a very interesting situation to be Angie Nixon at this moment because she really also you know when you a lot of this sort of advertising about her is that she's so progressive but the reality is she was a state you know she worked in the state house and ran in opposition to DeSantis which turns out now that DeSantis is pretty unpopular termed out and has 10 million dollars that has disappeared under his watch nobody knows where it is that's what the
the grand jury said they're not blaming anyone I don't know why not but um and so you know you do have to see like that you know in a moment where Florida's Floridians are really struggling with not being able to afford a shirt in shirt flood insurance I mean there really is a sense and this that this is actually sort of untenable yeah I've had the chance to interview Angie Nixon twice now and one of the things that strikes me is that like you know Ashley Moody her opponent and other Republicans like they of course because of the DSA label are labeling her as a socialist and they like they kind of are Republicans one of their strongest arguments in their view right now is like okay we we know you're not happy but like do you really want these crazy people to take over you know like that that's our argument and and so Angie is like mixed up in part about strategy but when you actually talked to her and I think one of the things that makes it hard for them to define her on the ground is that like she has a long history in the
state she has she's a union organizer right she does like real like ground level door to door signing up my own volunteers kind of work and when you talk to her she's a very like common sense direct person um and she even has like she's not afraid to talk to you about the fact that she has like tons of disagreements with the actual DSA platform yeah basically what when you talk to her and you like step away you're my impression of her is that she's part of the DSA because she feels like they're the closest to being willing to fight in the way that working people need to be fought for right now yeah she is not like co-signing every single thing they've ever said and doesn't agree with every person who like has something in in their in their national chapter to say and in like a New Yorker podcast or whatever you know what I mean and so like it i just it's interesting it to see the like reality of who she is go up against what they're sort of trying to paint her ass and it also feels like she is genuinely not
wealthy and not right she's genuinely struggles and i think that is profound because a lot of times many of the candidates we get who are meant to be authentically working class tend to be like grand plan or right there working class they work for their mother's restaurant oyster farming or there you know like they're they're not like genuinely working people and i think that when you know she talks about when those pink jackets she gets them you know she doesn't get them sent to her by the designers right she gets them at the good well and like i think that that has to resonate i mean the authenticity of that i think has to resonate definitely um i also i there is an interesting slate of very working class democrats right now yeah that's another area in which i think the larger party infrastructure hasn't like they don't like it they haven't like made much hay of
that when you think they would there's Angie Nixon there's now of course Troy Jackson and main and it has been conversation about him but in large part because he's the substitute for grand blockers as you just said um but like a real real working class working class yeah you know resume or background um you have Brian point Dexter running in Ohio against Max Miller another candidate who i'm like i am surprised sometimes that more democrats aren't flying out to Ohio right now i know that there are there are some that have plans to and and have but like he's running against Max Miller a man who is a alleged tevton broken his eyes it two-year-old daughter's collarbone that's the allegation yeah and so you know there's an argument to be made that like like like okay i would vote for a teddy bear like over you know like a literal and an amendment object over yeah somebody facing allegations like that like that's one argument but Brian is like an actual like hardworking union member like but you know it's kind of represents that and i'm just like what it would but i'd
be like there are all of these like union members and also max villars from a very rich Ohio family i would you know like there's so much weird class stuff happening in this election that we're not talking about you know that they are it there are like legitimately working class candidates and again i think like this phenomenon of the Bernie dogs right these candidates that are endorsed by both Bernie Sanders and the blue dog democrats like that is i mean there are like seven congressional candidates who are like that i mean yeah sam forestag and montana i mean you know that are just and bob brooks and pennsylvania that are just that kind of candidate which i think is new yes i think it's it's new ish and i i wonder i guess i'll ask your thoughts on this maul is not that this is my podcast i don't get that question so no way like it i like it it's very casual you know we're
very casual but you know it's like what is it about the democratic establishment right now that makes it hard for them to tell that story that makes it hard for them to fully stand with some of those people like when when there's so much opportunity and when they're pushed by reporters they love to say yes we're doing this yes we're looking for these people we're going to invest in these people and then it's like they're standing there going like this and like waiting for dollars and i'm wondering where where you think that disconnect is so why do i think the establishment is not meeting this moment and i think it's a really good question because there's a really great piece by Rebecca tracer and york magazine this week about how troy jackson that the consultant class is like ruining his campaign they are going in there and not letting him answer questions the way he wants to and having him say like instead of like having moral clarity on Palestine situation he's saying well there are good people i'm both you know he clearly know you know the rest of the
electorate has decided that what's happening in israel is not okay the median voter knows this to be the truth but the the elites are still like well there are good people on both sides of this and i think that's not tenable the consultant class is really bad you cannot underestimate how bad they are and how they've just done such a bad job at every which way and i do think like when we look at him and and also when we look at some of these like the data center situation right and ai you know this is something it's an 80-20 issue voters hate it and you had consultants saying like don't go too hard on that that was a political piece that was yeah yeah no i mean how can you not go to this is if you're not going hard unlike the death of you know human are you know creative expression what are you going to go hard on yeah yeah and and this has been what you're that was a conversation that started back in 2024 when Harris was running was like in tim walls
and everything it was like who's like like he had had all these initial appearances where he was very clearly being himself and then kind of pulled back from some of that and there was this sense and reporting to back it that like folks had gotten in a room and decided the things needed to be handled a certain way and like you would think with enough time between that election in the moment we're in right now there'd be some more reflection of like hey thank you for your service maybe we're in a new era and those rules like need to be relaxed a little bit but those people those people should go work for crypto and Tony some of them are Molly I know that that's what I said um thank you thank you thank you you Gina Kina Hosa is a member of the Texas House of Representatives representing the 49th district and the Democratic nominee for governor in the state of Texas welcome welcome Gina thanks Molly it's
good to be with you it's good to have you I wanted to talk to you because you are in one of the most interesting gubernatorial races talk to me about just the last couple of weeks and what's happened in your race and be a woman running for governor in Texas and then shoes of Ann Richardson was hard to tell you it's been having in the last couple of weeks because every day is like a year let's get paid there's so much happening but we start off in October when we launched last year nine to 12 points down and now we have 11 12 polls within the margin of error we have two polls in two weeks like big reputable polls see in a poll Maris poll showing us beating Greg Abbott so yeah this is this is a real race we are neck and neck and we are searching and it's just the right time so I think what it is showing in the polling is that people just want change because that's what we feel all over this state that's what we hear all over the state even Republicans even truck voters
have come our way because they're struggling in a big way and they just want a candidate a governor who will work for them Abbott would be running for his fourth term explain how that changes the environment yeah so like to be clear the support we're picking up is not because people in Texas are suddenly team Democrat no people are just anti-incumbency people want change that there's this really strong anti-incumbency energy in Texas and there is no more entrenched incumbent than Greg Abbott and so people know who he is he's got like 99% name ID right and so they know where to lay the blame for increased struggle over the last decade it is harder to make it in Texas than it was 12 years ago before Greg Abbott was governor people feel that in their daily lives and they know who to blame and so we've got that going for us now we still have about 20% of the electorate who don't know who I am so when I kicked off this risk I think I had 20% name ID if that so as people got to know who I am
they're with me and we still have that final 20% to reach and so these last now a few weeks of this campaign is about Chris crossing the state meeting with voters up on broadcast TV we've been streaming for months now reaching key demographics where they are so yeah we're we're doubling down to bring it home for a win in November so Abbott will not debate you why why do you think because he has a record that is indefensible we have in Texas despite the fact that Texans work harder than anybody like we never been afraid of work we work more than the national average in terms of hours work right but we have the most people without health insurance of any state we have the most children without health insurance of any state we have the most bankruptcies of any state Texas which is a world economic powerhouse right and it's our small businesses that are really struggling we have the most people being disconnected from their electricity because they cannot afford to pay their bills and in the state which is an energy powerhouse this country and beyond right they can't
afford to keep the lights on so that's Greg Abbott's record right he owns it and he's hiding from it he is a coward but frankly he would be a full to debate me because how does he defend a record that is indefensible that is why he is mired in these culture wars because that's all he's got he has nothing left to throw at us and really the culture wars in 2026 aren't working nobody has the luxury of fighting culture wars in this high cost economy i have talked to a bunch of different candidates in the real grand valley or further down in the state like Garcia and also Bobby Polito and one of the things they talk about is Hispanic voters and just that they were part of this 2024 Trump coalition and they are largely not anymore why do you think Trump has lost that coalition and do you see that in Texas yeah i think there are lots of reasons i think one is that people are just struggling a lot in this high cost economy and Trump ran on bringing costs down and far from it
i mean we're now seeing diesel in Texas over six 20 like that's just enough a week we rely a lot on diesel for work here in Texas lots of diesel trucks i think we're the most of any state but the cost of gas is out of control the cost of everything is out of control in Texas so that coupled with the corruption when people are struggling just to make ends meet and they see just all this drift in the system and ballrooms and all of the things it makes people angry and so people do feel betrayed by that and these immigration ice rates are also making Latinos angry and scared because we all want border security in Texas right i mean i'm from the border like we want secure communities safe communities but what's happening with these ice rates is having the opposite effect it is putting us all in danger we had last week in Austin a man was shot and then left overnight on a detention floor with the bullet lodged in his back with no pain medication
right the level of inhumanity we have Latinos being racially profiled to young men 17 years old in south Texas a couple weeks ago on their way to enlist in the Marines pulled over by ice and being with a man in Houston a couple of months ago who was shot and killed on his way to work it was a case of mistaken identity right ice pulled him over in an and mark our like on and on and so in that environment nobody safe and people are angry about it they want accountability they want you feel safe living in their communities going to work and we need change so Texas has this really interesting electrical grid which is sort of independent will you explain is there an opportunity there especially because isn't it so sort of independent that it could be ultimately cheaper run on some renewables oh we have a lot of renewables we have more renewables both wind and solar than any state we we rely on more renewable energy than any state we also produce the most
carbon dioxide of any state you by far twice as much as the next state which is California remember in 21 our grid went down we lost over 700 Texans when that happened during winter stormy rain that was on Greg Abbott's watch but our number one priority is really a stable grid because it's essential for life we have found out the hard way Texas and what is the latest threat are these data centers because these data centers are big energy guzzlers water guzzlers too but talking about the grid energy guzzlers and we just don't have the capacity for all these data centers that Greg Abbott invited into Texas with a richest tax breaks in the country so people are really concerned about the future of our grid about a stable grid and there's just no plan there has been no plan to make sure that we can accommodate this extra industrial traffic on the grid yeah and I mean it's major major like how many of those projects do you think are online at this moment well we know there are hundreds of data centers that have descended upon Texas and these
are like so to be clear like hyper scale data centers there are 800 900 acres large right so the level of impact and resource use is also hyper scale and that's why there's all this pushback and anger in Texas about the data centers we are a pro business state but this is next level this is something we haven't seen before even in Texas and Texans have been left out to fed for themselves it gets these massive data centers that are owned by these multinational corporations richest men in the world knowing we're paying for it knowing we're subsidizing them knowing that they're guzzling our water and our electricity and there are no laws to protect us has really angered voters and it has created single issue voters in Texas especially in rural areas where they really really descended and when I say there are no rules there's just no protections for these Texans how you seeing in Texas what we're seeing the rest of the country where data centers are really an 80 20 issue like it's pretty hard to find people who are pro data center absolutely
1000 percent it's data centers and it is the latest physical manifestation of a governor and a government that does the bidding of the money interest and not the full of Texas and so in that way it is a stand-alone issue but it ties into this corrupt system that people have realized we are all paying into that Greg Abbott has been leading for over a decade so interesting how it plays in 2026 as a threat in and of itself and then a symptom of just a broken government. Gina one of the most famous Texans a guy called Joe Rogan is extremely mad about the marijuana ban that that Abbott has enacted will you explain to us because marijuana is such an interesting drug in the fact that it's regulated to hit really nilly and every state totally different so what did Greg Abbott do to marijuana. It kind of nuts because Greg Abbott unilaterally he directed his agency to classify THC derived from him as a felony to possess right and so this product
which people were buying at even pharmacies and stores legally just months ago is now a felony to possess and people aren't clear they're not sure is what they have illegal or not what they have is that silks or in the fridge that Abbott is at illegal like people don't know that is not the way the criminal law spits work in America right that it is nuts most people don't understand that Greg Abbott did this people think that a law was passed a law was passed weirdly to do the same thing and Greg Abbott vetoed it and then just a few months ago on his own directed his agency to do the exact same thing so the alcohol lobby has really pushed against legalization of THC because they see it as a threat to their bottom line and so it's always follow the money Molly in Texas when something doesn't make sense there's always a big money interest that is behind it and with Greg Abbott of course like Greg Abbott I can guarantee you there is a big money interest behind it because
that's what motivates him it's funny because it's like it's the what's the matter with Kansas election right like people are seeing the government that honors big money and corporations over them is going to be problematic for their life yeah that's right people are feeling everybody is now feeling it everybody feels it in their lives we're all 99% of us are in the same boat what I say is 20 26 this fight is about is Texas going to be a state that is by and for the people or is this the billionaires world and we just live here that is the fight in America it is the fight for Texas and it is a unifying fight right because it's all of us it's all of us it gets like 15 billionaire tech dudes I have one last question this is like really in the weeds but in the packs and impeachment it played out that there were sort of two big Texas donors who were bankrolling you know who went to different people and said if you don't vote against conviction we're gonna we're gonna run
challengers are those guys involved in these elections and are they protecting their guy because it seems like Abbott had a lot of juice in the primary and seems to have less in the general yeah I don't know of those guys in particular involved there are so many billionaires behind Abbott it is hard to keep track I just had a press conference this week where I denounced his plan to convert 100 public schools to AI schools in Houston Texas he took over this well it means it is this model that was developed by one of his biggest donors McKenzie Price who's given him millions of dollars and it replaces teachers with education guides right and kids sitting front of screens and that's how they learn and it is what no parent wants but it is that corruption in the system that corruption that drives Greg Abbott it is a legal corruption right it is it is in in Texas we have no caps no limits
you can give a politician as much money as you want if they're running in the state race but it is our corrupt system nonetheless and Greg Abbott has taken full advantage of it and people are finally seeing it the data centers kind of drove it home hammered it home and people are done with it keynote thank you thanks for coming on thank you Molly appreciate you Jesse Cannon Somali we recently saw a huge uproar of people being angry because United Healthcare was using an AI that got 90% of the cases presented to it wrong about whether to deny the healthcare or not and now we see the Trump administration is using AI to deny medical care for seniors with this disastrous experiment yeah I am shocked shocked to see there's incompetence going on in this government are you shocked to see that AI is doing a bad job of something I mean this is the thing this is the fucking problem here there are a lot of mistakes
with AI I mean it's like the self-driving cars or it's like you know I watched the first half of the Musk documentary and in the first half of the Musk documentary there's a lot in there about how the self-driving mechanism on the Tesla doesn't work right yep yep it's been very reported it doesn't work people have died they've written big checks to these people have lost their lives and in fact the video the advertisement where the guys where it's being self-driven they had a mechanic in the trunk remotely controlling the car so it's like AI you know the technology may someday be there but it's not there today and so part of what's happening here is that you have them using software that's incompetent by design because remember the larger project here the larger project of Trumpism is to meet the federal government fail to make a fail so that people don't think the government works so that we can be done with the taxes and the social services
and the things that help people survive and so this is not about AI this is about trying to make the government not work that's it for this episode of Fast Politics tune in every Monday Wednesday Thursday and Saturday to hear the best minds and politics make sense of all this chaos if you enjoy this podcast please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going thanks for listening you already know how AI is changing how every day work gets done how much ground you can cover and how fast a team can scale to stay ahead you need the tools to give you a competitive advantage built for this new era welcome to a gentig revenue adio is the CRM for this world it meets you where you work compounds every customer signal into context then acts on it across your pipeline to let you move it on match speed and scale with agents and animations for every
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