In the January 25 episode, Congressman Keith Self discusses the controversial ICE tactics being used in Minneapolis and why, absent a complete list of known criminals, innocent citizens might get caught up in the dragnet. Dallas City Council Member Paul Ridley tells us why a one city, one vote solution to the DART crisis is “not realistic.” And state Senator Mayes Middleton explains why he’s more “MAGA” than his primary opponents in the race for Attorney General.
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Straight ahead, the Republican race for Texas attorney general crowded and combative. Mays Middleton singles out a fellow Republican by name and why he says some local district attorneys should be removed from office. Plus a power shift decades in the making. Dallas considering surrendering its dominant grip on DART, but is it enough to stop suburban cities from walking away?
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Councilman Paul Ridley with us on mass transit and downtown Dallas after AT&T. That unusual move from the governor Greg Abbott endorsing Nate Sheets over the incumbent Sid Miller for agriculture secretary, but is that enough to derail Miller's re-election? And can relationships be repaired with our allies and NATO?
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Congressman Keith Self, a combat veteran on the developing situations in both Greenland and Minneapolis. Inside Texas Politics with Jason Whitely starts now. Hope you're staying warm this weekend. Here's what's happening politically across our state during this freeze right now. Who is really leading the Democratic race for US Senate? Days after a new poll showed James Talarico leading Jasmine Crockett, she came out with her own numbers.
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Crockett says she is actually ahead of Talarico by 13 points. Hers was an internal survey paid for by her campaign, but a public poll by TSU shows Talarico ahead by 9 points. We are about to see how much an endorsement really matters with Republican primary voters. Governor Greg Abbott endorsed Nate Sheets rather than the incumbent Sid Miller for ag secretary. That is a rare political move for the governor to back someone other than an incumbent statewide official.
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When asked about it, Miller said no comment, but is Abbott's endorsement enough to derail Miller's re-election? And breaking quorum last year is going to cost Texas Democrats thousands of dollars. Each of the lawmakers have to pay $9200 in fines and fees. Only those who left will have to pay. Remember, Dems broke quorum last summer to delay redrawing congressional lines in Texas.
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It didn't help here in Texas, but Dems successfully made it a national issue and got California to do the same for their party. Let's start right now though with the fallout from Greenland and Minneapolis and reaction from Texas Republicans to both of these developing issues. Our first guest, Congressman Keith Self, who represents parts of North Texas. Congressman Self, welcome back to the program here. There looks to be some. Resolution, or at least the beginning of it over the Greenland situation.
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The US is going to station missiles there, get more access to mine minerals, and NATO is supposed to have a larger presence as well. That's the framework for the deal they're trying to work out. But what kind of damage do you think was done to NATO and to our allies during all of this?
< spk_1 - 00:02:58.8890000 >
Well, I think it will pass because this is President Trump's, this is the way he does business. He plows the ground and people get upset and then he says, Well, why don't we do this? Why don't we have an agreement and they come around. So they'll get over it because, frankly, you know, we still spend the majority of NATO defending Europe. We have the power projection. Capability that they do not.
< spk_1 - 00:03:26.3890000 >
So we'll continue to do have a great relationship with NATO in Europe.
< spk_0 - 00:03:32.7880000 >
I'll stay up north here for a moment. I want to ask you about Canada, one of our largest trading partners, obviously. It has now set up trading alliances with China, which we all saw. Are you concerned that we're closing the door on China, or at least closing the door on Canada, or at least sending it towards Asia?
< spk_1 - 00:03:49.8890000 >
Well, this is a knee jerk reaction. That's the way I put it, uh, Jason, because it's a. It's, it's, it's a knee jerk reaction because of what they feel President Trump is his actions. But look, I don't think Canada is going to want to do long term business with China, be deeply in bed with them, because everybody knows the China model. They come in, they take control, they steal, they scale, and then they strangle your market.
< spk_0 - 00:04:17.2000000 >
You mentioned it's a knee jerk reaction you thought, but you know, Canada said the same thing. The Prime Minister is saying, listen. We're concerned about the erratic nature of tariffs from the White House.
< spk_1 - 00:04:27.7690000 >
I understand that's that's part of his reaction to President Trump in this in this Greenland deal. So, but again, they're one of our largest trading partners. They're a member of NATO. This is, they do not want to get into either a commercial relationship or certainly a defense relationship with China because China is the adversary of the Western world today.
< spk_1 - 00:04:53.5290000 >
And China or Canada will get past that absolutely.
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Let's talk about Minneapolis for a moment. We've all seen the masked agents pulling guns, stopping people at random, asking for papers, even local police officers up there. I'm curious if you support these tactics.
< spk_1 - 00:05:12.7900000 >
Well, that's a, that's a leading question. That's a, that's a gotcha question, and I probably won't answer that. What I do support fully is ICE enforcing federal law. Tactics are up to the executive branch, and I think we're going to have some some hearings on this, but the
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hearings I do, I'm sorry, Congressman. The hearings on
< spk_1 - 00:05:37.2000000 >
the how the ICE is operating, how ICE is doing, how successful they're being, because the executive branch has put out a whole list of the rapists and murderers that they've policed up in Minnesota. Now we know that the Somali environment up there, the people, the Somali people in there have been shipping out suitcases full of money. ICE still has the federal law that they must enforce.
< spk_1 - 00:06:04.5400000 >
So how do you do that if the local police and the politicians up there are not going to support you? It's going to take stronger measures, and that's what we're seeing up there to enforce federal law. That's the issue. So when you have rapists and murderers being policed up by ICE, when you have suitcases full of US taxpayer dollars going out of the country to terrorist organizations, we have to stop that.
< spk_0 - 00:06:29.0700000 >
There's also no denying, Congressman, as you well know, that they're stopping people who aren't rapists and murderers who are actually on a list. They're stopping people at random, police officers and, and, and everyday citizens, separate from the agitators, separate from the agitators, and everyone agrees, get the, get the bad guys out of here.
< spk_0 - 00:06:45.5100000 >
But stopping people at random, which there's videos everywhere, there's reporting all about it, for trained federal law enforcement officers, I'm just curious, is that something that, that you support, whether these tactics are, are I
< spk_1 - 00:06:59.6780000 >
wish that we had a complete list of everybody we wanted to police up. We knew exactly where they were. We know exactly who they were. We knew exactly why we were going to arrest them. That list doesn't exist.
< spk_0 - 00:07:13.2390000 >
Congressman, Always good to see you. Thank you for the time.
< spk_1 - 00:07:15.4400000 >
Thank you.
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All right, let's bring in the round table to talk about the politics of this. Bud Kennedy is here from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Matthew Watkins, editor in chief of the Texas Tribune, Ashley Goode, political director at Caveview in Austin. Bud, let's start, uh, with you here. Democrats made a mistake by basically ignoring the border during the last election. Are Republicans making a mistake by ignoring what's happening in Minneapolis with ICE? Well,
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exactly, yeah. But everybody got upset about, the reason people became so upset about what was going on at the border is it looked like chaos, and now what's going on in Minneapolis looks like chaos and the way ICE is handling the crackdowns, you know, ICE needs to go in. ICE is perfectly allowed to go in and capture fugitives and apprehend immigrants who are here and even revoke some of the privileges to be here, but just to go.
< spk_2 - 00:08:06.6260000 >
Sweeping in and pick everybody up doesn't look like it has any kind of organization to it all. It looks like it's strictly to intimidate and it does not look good for ICE agents and for law officers in general. It's an embarrassment to law officers who are watching this go on television. Makes the job harder for the everyday law officer on the street.
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And Matthew, you know Congress is going to have hearings on this. Should we expect any real revelations though?
< spk_3 - 00:08:32.0300000 >
Yeah, you know, it'll be interesting to see whether they are talking about, you know, defending Trump's action or asking the kind of tough questions, but it's true. I mean, going back to what Bud said, the polling suggests that people are upset about this in the same way the polling suggested people are upset about the lack of enforcement at the border, right? And, and I think, you know, Republicans would be making a similar mistake to what the Democrats made by completely ignoring that and thinking that it's not a problem.
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And we are in an election year, Ashley.
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Indeed we are. And so I think the real test is going to see if this continues, right? We know that especially here in Texas, primary voters are different from the voters who are going to turn out in November. If we're still seeing the type of tactics that we're seeing now come November, I'm telling you, you're going to see the impact of it in the polls,
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and we will be watching as well. Guys, thanks so much for that. Back to you in just a moment. A lot more ahead here, including this. When we come back here, the Republican race for Texas Attorney General. Mays Middleton with us pledging to try and remove district attorneys from office.
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And is it time for Dallas to release its dominant grip on DART, Councilman Paul Ridley on mass transit, and what he would like to see happen to AT&T's headquarters building in downtown. Now to the latest on mass transit in North Texas.
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4 suburban cities will vote this spring on whether to leave DART, and for the first time Dallas is discussing whether it should release its dominant grip on the transit agency and maybe give up some of its majority power on the board. Councilman Paul Ridley chairs the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee at Dallas City Hall. Councilman, welcome to the program here. Well,
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thank you, Jason.
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Let's talk about the power struggle over DART. How likely is a one city, one vote scenario to happen in DART where all member cities have an equal vote? Is that likely at all?
< spk_5 - 00:10:31.1500000 >
No, and it's not realistic. It doesn't fairly represent. The different population, the different ridership, and the different financial contributions to DART.
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If these cities withdraw though, do people in Dallas pay more for DART?
< spk_5 - 00:10:46.6900000 >
Well, that's going to be up to number crunching by DART. Um, I don't think that's necessarily the case because obviously the service areas would be reduced and therefore. For the costs of service
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so that they could trim things down if they're not covering as much territory you represent a big chunk of downtown Dallas, the city center, uh, including the, uh, area where AT&T has its global headquarters. It announced it's moving to Plano. Do you think Dallas needs to reimagine downtown after losing this this massive corporate resident?
< spk_5 - 00:11:19.1450000 >
I believe that Dallas downtown is transitioning to. A center of not only employment but also residential entertainment, the cultural arts represented by our tremendously successful arts district in the downtown loop and um sporting events as well.
< spk_0 - 00:11:40.8900000 >
But at the end of the day, I mean, you, you, any downtown wants huge corporate residents, don't they?
< spk_5 - 00:11:48.2290000 >
Well, in terms of the city's revenue generation, as long as they're in the city, that tax revenue doesn't really change, and, uh, although it's regrettable that AT&T is leaving downtown. I look at this as an opportunity to redevelop their campus. Um, they're leaving behind a building that could very possibly be converted into residential use.
< spk_5 - 00:12:17.3800000 >
There's still a continuing demand for conversion of some. Office buildings downtown that have less occupancy into mixed use buildings with residential hotels and office use and so I see this as an opportunity to continue that trend.
< spk_0 - 00:12:35.2440000 >
Councilman, thanks for the time we appreciate
< spk_5 - 00:12:36.5250000 >
it. OK, my pleasure.
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The Republican race for Texas attorney general is competitive and becoming combative. We're speaking to each of the four candidates running. Next up here, Mays Middleton, the state senator from Galveston who has loaned his campaign millions of dollars. Senator, it's good to see you here.
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Thank you, Jason, for having me. Absolutely.
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Your, your ads say MAGA Mays Middleton. What makes you more MAGA though than the three candidates you're running against?
< spk_6 - 00:13:02.6790000 >
So Jason, this is a calling, not a job for me, and from day one in office I have fought for conservative values in the House. I was always ranked as the top 1 or 2 most conservative members. Then I was chairman of the Freedom Caucus, and now in the Senate always ranked as the top 1 or 2 most conservative members. And look, President Trump said I was a MAGA champion when I ran for Texas Senate. He also said my conservative record was second to none. And, and compare that.
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To Chip Roy, you know, while I was fighting for the America First agenda, he was on the floor of the US House saying that Trump had committed impeachable conduct, saying that he stood with Liz Cheney against the president. Not only that, wanted Liz Cheney to run the House Republican conference, and just recently, after January 6th, yes, this is after January 6th, and not. Only that, his most recent antic, you know, I fought to ban child transgender surgeries.
< spk_6 - 00:14:00.3200000 >
This is gender mutilation. This is an evil practice, and there was a great bill in Congress to ban that practice on the federal level. Uh, he offered an amendment, tried to offer an amendment to make it not a ban and allow that practice to continue, which would have given a huge victory to Gavin Newsom.
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And frankly, a huge victory to the transgender lobby and, and one of our leading Christian conservative activists in Washington DC, uh, Terry Schilling, said there's no greater ally to the transgender lobby in Washington than Chipperoy.
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You list a number of, of, uh, priorities if elected on your website, but on day one, if you win this position. What, what are the top two things that you would want to accomplish?
< spk_6 - 00:14:42.8460000 >
One of the first things that I want to do is use every resource and tool available in the AD's office to back up President Trump in his border security and deportation agenda, and there's a very powerful tool in the AD's office. It's called the ban on sanctuary cities, and what that will allow me. To do is sue those that are in the way of that border security agenda for three things civil penalties, criminal penalties, and removal from office. That's the most powerful tool.
< spk_6 - 00:15:12.8920000 >
Not only that, I want to start an anti-corruption division to go after cartels, organized crime, you know, waste, fraud, and abuse. We're seeing a lot about that in the news right now, but cutting it out of the budget is not enough. We have to go after those that have committed.
< spk_6 - 00:15:28.1190000 >
The waste and the fraud and the abuse and also we don't know what came over the border in the last 4 years when Joe Biden had an open border and he was putting our citizens second at the expense of illegal immigrants, but it's up to us to clean that up to keep our family safe because my goal is really simple here. I wanna make sure that Texas is the safest state in America to live and raise a family.
< spk_0 - 00:15:51.8490000 >
So, so what's your idea? Would you go after local DAs or county judges if, if they decide they don't want to cooperate with the federal government?
< spk_6 - 00:15:59.9290000 >
All of the above. Look, our laws, our constitution, those are not suggestions. We just passed a very important law this session, SB 8. It's new and it requires all of the counties in Texas to cooperate with the ICE detainer program, the 287G program that just went into effect January 1st, and I'll tell you I'm expecting some of these.
< spk_6 - 00:16:25.5050000 >
Big blue counties to not cooperate and to not sign those 287G agreements and when they do that, when they refuse to cooperate and when they materially limit our ability to enforce our border security laws, they're subject to removal from office under the ban on sanctuary cities. Senator, thank you for the time. Thank you. Appreciate you, Jason.
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The roundtable is ready when we come back here on Inside Texas Politics. And keep up with Texas politics all week with our podcast. It's called Y'alllitics, new content, fresh interviews. Episodes drop every Sunday, wherever you get your podcasts. This is Inside Texas Politics with Jason Whiteley. All right, time now for reporters roundtable to put the headlines in perspective. Bud, Matthew, and Ashley all back with us here. Bud, let's start with you.
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In that Democratic poll we mentioned earlier in the broadcast, I think I may have mentioned TSU did the poll. It was Emerson and Nexstar doing it. Public poll shows Tallarico ahead by 9. Days after that one came out though, Jasmine Crockett comes out and says, no, no, no, my internal polls show I'm beating him by a lot, by 13.
< spk_2 - 00:17:35.6300000 >
Well, remember, Crockett had led the two previous polls in this race, the legitimate polls. This was a. An in-house poll by her campaign, they didn't even give us much of the details. They said they talked to about 1000 people, and they didn't even tell us how the poll was conducted, what the questions were, so it's tough to tell how valid that is, you know, in general, Crockett's argument is that she is drawing out a lot of people who don't show up to the polls who aren't regular voters, but will come out and vote for her. What that ignores is that she'll also draw out people to vote against her.
< spk_0 - 00:18:04.2340000 >
And can you tell yet or can we tell yet, Matthew, who really has momentum, which of these two candidates?
< spk_3 - 00:18:09.9000000 >
I don't think so. It's really hard to pull primaries in Texas, particularly Democratic primaries, particularly where one candidate, well, really both candidates hasn't had a statewide presence in politics. A lot of people are still learning about these candidates. Um, it's hard to say who will show up and who will not. So I think we're just gonna have to see this play. Out for a little while before we really get a sense of who the strong favorite is or if there is a strong favorite in this race
< spk_0 - 00:18:35.1700000 >
and Ashley, one thing that struck me is Tallarico released some Spanish language ads. You know, Democrats have been accused of ignoring their Spanish language voters or Hispanic voters for a long time, but he's making a targeted effort, it looks like to go after them.
< spk_4 - 00:18:51.5100000 >
Yeah, I mean, I think you know and we're we're seeing now another ad coming from the Tallarico campaign while Congresswoman Crockett has not released any TV ads yet. I think that he shows some strong polling, uh, amongst the Latino community, but I think it's also worth noting that one poll that showed him leading is really an outlier, right? It doesn't fall in line with the other polling that we've seen, um, it doesn't necessarily, uh, if you look at the numbers of. Many people they talked to, they talked to a very small number of voters.
< spk_4 - 00:19:20.3020000 >
100 of them said they weren't even likely to vote. So I think he definitely knows he has a long road ahead of him still, and that's why he's starting to spend all this money on these ads.
< spk_0 - 00:19:29.2220000 >
He's spending it early here too. But let's talk about the lengthy opinion that came from the Attorney General's office on DEI. Attorney General Ken Paxton saying DEI is unconstitutional, even going after private companies saying you can't have DEI. There he released this on MLK Day. He went after John Cornyn in this long opinion. Is this anything more than a campaign stunt?
< spk_2 - 00:19:50.2030000 >
Well, he's just tripling down on me here. I can't imagine when President Reagan signed King Day into law that he would think that anyone would ever use Martin Luther King Day to issue an extensive opinion against any sort of affirmative action or racial progress in America. The Republican. After 60 years have decided that's enough affirmative action. I understand that, but to come out and issue something like this on Martin Luther King Day was just trying to rub people's nose in it.
< spk_0 - 00:20:17.7760000 >
And Ashley, let me ask you, Paxton says this is about fairness and the government, government is helping one person, it's hurting another, and he even told private companies you can't do this at all. Can the Texas Attorney general legally tell private companies what they can and cannot do inside their organizations when it comes to culture?
< spk_4 - 00:20:35.8290000 >
Jason Wiley, we both know the answer to that question is no. The Texas Attorney general cannot. And in fact, the bigger question is who asked for this opinion? The Texas Attorney general is not supposed to just put out opinions, uh, whenever he feels the need to put out opinions. There's a limited list of state leaders who are allowed to ask him for an opinion, and we have not heard yet. I know I haven't, who asked for this opinion. Yeah,
< spk_0 - 00:20:56.9890000 >
and this is a non-binding opinion, Matthew. Do, do you expect anyone to challenge this though?
< spk_3 - 00:21:01.4890000 >
No, I mean, not really. As you said, it's non-binding, so I think the people who want to ignore it will just ignore it. But I think one of the things we know about the Republican primary electorate these days is that they like the idea, or many of them like the idea of people who don't play by the rules or who are trying to, you know, step out of the way we normally do things. And so. When people say this isn't how you normally do things, that's appealing to a lot of the voters in this race,
< spk_0 - 00:21:26.1990000 >
and he needs some of those voters to vote for him coming up in the primary here when he's running against, uh, John Cornyn and Wesley Hunt for US Senate. Guys, thanks so much for the input as always in the context. We appreciate that and thank you for watching as well. We're back next Sunday to take you inside Texas politics. We hope to see you then. Take care.