In the November 23 episode, State Rep. Nicole Collier, who slept inside the House chamber during the redistricting battle, tells us why she’s not ready to break out the champagne glasses quite yet even though a federal court struck down the new congressional map. Joe Jaworski explains why he’ll be on the attack more during his second campaign for Texas Attorney General. And Sid Miller, the incumbent Ag Commissioner, talks about his primary against a former donor and why he disagrees with President Trump for the first time ever.
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Straight ahead here, Joe Jaworsi coming out swinging, targeting fellow Democrats in his new run for Texas Attorney general. What he learned from his last campaign and his pledge to investigate Ken Paxton if he wins. Fallout from the decision blocking the Republicans' new congressional maps. Will the US Supreme Court now get involved, and could that delay the primary? State Rep Nicole Collier on the legal win and the uncertainty ahead.
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Another Republican-backed law struck down in the courts. This time the requirement for schools to display the 10 Commandments. And Congress to consider billions of dollars to bail out farmers. So did the tariffs backfire? Texas ag commissioner Sid Miller joins us with his take and what he says about his former donor now challenging him in the primary.
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Inside Texas Politics with Jason Whiteley starts now.
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Thanks for being with us heading into the holiday week. Let's start the program here with the headlines. Another state court has struck down the new law requiring 10 Commandments in public school classrooms. This case involved the Kamau Independent School District in New Braunfels. 15 families with children there sued in September. The judge now ruling that it's impossible to prevent those students from being subjected to unwelcome religious displays. Kamau ISD has to remove the 10 Commandments by December 1st.
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Well, Texas might get reimbursed after all for all the money it has been spending on the border. The one big beautiful bill has $13.5 billion in it to reimburse states that spent money on border security during the last four years of the Biden administration. Congressman Michael McCaul, August Pfluger, along with Senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, now urging Homeland Security to prioritize Texas when distributing that $13.5 billion.
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And President Trump originally wanted to get rid of FEMA. Now there's talk that he might save the agency and move it to Texas. Trump appointed a task force to decide FEMA's future. Well, Politico reports that that panel is going to recommend moving the disaster relief agency to Texas. Homeland Security Secretary Christie Nome is said to be editing the final draft of this report before presenting it to the president next month.
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Democrats got the big win in El Paso, but no one is really celebrating in the party. A federal court sided with them and blocked the newly drawn Republican congressional maps. But now comes the real test the US Supreme Court. Will the justices jump in? Will they overturn the El Paso decision? The outcome could reshape everything for voters, for candidates, and for control of Congress. Our first guest, State Rep Nicole Collier, a Democrat from Fort Worth that we reached on the road in Washington DC.
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Representative, welcome back to the program here. Uh, do you expect the US Supreme Court to take this appeal, which, if so, which way do you think it's gonna go?
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Oh, thank you for having me, Jason. Absolutely, the United States Supreme Court is going to take up this appeal. Uh, you know, it's anyone's guess what would happen at the Supreme Court level. I feel that, uh, Judge Brown's decision is sound, uh, it's reasonable, uh, and it should be upheld.
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Do you expect the March primary to be delayed at all because of all this?
< spk_2 - 00:03:30.4290000 >
Yeah, you know what, when I was elected, the primary was delayed. Uh, my primary was not until May. Uh, and so there could be a delay, and now let's also remember that Governor Abbott could call another special session. To draw yet another congressional map. So we're not out of the woods here. We can't give up.
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Uh, we haven't won yet, uh, so we have to continue to press cause I'm, I'm even concerned even if the Supreme Court upholds the stay for the 2025 map, Governor Abbott could come in and try to undo it all again by, uh, redrawing a new map.
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But is there time for that with a, with a filing open right now with the, uh, you know, March primary coming up? Is there time to, to even do that?
< spk_2 - 00:04:16.0890000 >
You know, I don't put anything past uh the Republicans, they could delay it. Uh, they could call a special session, uh, because you remember the new penalties that are in place, it's going to be harder to get Democrats, uh, to commit to deny quorum again. So I don't put anything past them. They are going to use any tool, and we should, as well as Democrats, use any tool by any means necessary to make sure that we uphold democracy and that there are free and fair elections.
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Uh, but yes, absolutely there's time for them to, to do some more.
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What tools do Democrats have left? This is now on the front steps of the US Supreme Court. It seems like everything's been played out. Are there tools that remain?
< spk_2 - 00:04:56.8800000 >
Well, of course, there's always the quorum, deny quorum, uh, but it's the voter making sure that the people are aware about what's going on. I mean, when we denied quorum this, uh, this summer, the 51 Democrats who did deny quorum, then we brought the word gerrymandering and became a household word. People hadn't, you know, didn't really understand it, now they do, and so we raised national attention. To what was going on in Texas.
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So the voters, yes, the people in America are, are watching and they're listening, and they're expecting a fight from their elected officials. So yes, they, it's just time to take it to the
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people. What do you expect to happen next in this?
< spk_2 - 00:05:40.4100000 >
Uh, again, it's not over. We can't break out the champagne glasses yet. There are still some legal maneuvers that could happen, that could delay the election. The United States Supreme Court could even put a uh reinstate the 2025 maps and then. Uh, take up the case, or they could put them on hold and, and, uh, take up the case. I mean, and they could send it back to the lower court.
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There's so many things that could happen at the, in the legal realm that, uh, we just all gotta stay on our toes and mindful and ready to take action uh when, when we need to.
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Representative, it's always good to see you. Thank you for the time. Absolutely. You know, we dug much deeper into this topic, not just what's at stake in the next move, but the legal principles at play here. A Republican and Democrat dive into this with us on this week's episode of Y'alllitics. It's ready to download right now wherever you get your podcast. But let's bring in the roundtable to talk about the politics of this here. We have Bug Kennedy with us from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Ashley Goode, political director at Caveview in Austin.
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And I amitra in studio with us from the Texas Tribune. Guys, it's good to see you. You know, let me ask you about the, uh, the, the state rep from Fort Worth there. It is not over for Democrats and things do they look that good for
< spk_3 - 00:06:57.7350000 >
Dems? Nothing is over and of course the Supreme Court could easily look at it and say, you know, they did talk about race. There was a bad premise for this, but the result was partisan. And it was the, the intention of the result was the same map they would have drawn if they had not talked about race. Uh, it was a big mistake for the DOJ to set this up with a racist, with a racial premise, racist premise you could say, but you know, was the outcome racial? That's
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the question. And also, you know, Ashley, it seems like that, you know, Democrats won round one here, but Republicans tell me they are just as confident that the Supreme Court's going to take this up and rule in their favor.
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You, there is, when I say there is no way to know how this is gonna go, I mean there is just absolutely no way to know. I mean, you know, they're looking at the politics of the court, obviously, um, that's gonna play a role into it, but to, to Bud's point, I mean, so much of the conversation, not only from that DOJ letter and when it was said and what was said, but so much of the conversation even during the debate of these maps was, oh well this is a minority majority district and so is this one, and so how can you ignore some of that when those.
< spk_4 - 00:08:02.8030000 >
Conversations were happening, but who knows what the Supreme Court is going to do? No one knows.
< spk_0 - 00:08:07.9230000 >
And as this plays out legally, Ian, I mean, there's a lot here at play. Candidates are waiting to file. Voters don't know who they're going to support. Donors don't know where they're gonna put their money, right?
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Yeah, you know, yeah, you know, say a prayer for your, your local county election official too. It's gonna be rough for them as they kind of scramble too. But look, all of this is just a lot of uncertainty and you know, people aren't sure about who's going to be in their races, what the districts are. It's going to create a lot of confusion and also remember too, a lot of the pressure is not going to be coming just in the state, but it's also going to be coming from Washington and the Trump administration too on this.
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Jason, after this, after this we get to the debate over whether Republicans can knock candidates off the ballot they don't want off the ballot, whether people can vote in the Republican primary if they didn't register. There's going to be a lot of nice fights between now and
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March, a lot of legal things to get hashed out between now and the primary. All right guys, thanks so much. Thanks so much for that. A lot more ahead here, including this. When we come back here, Joe Jaworski on the attack against fellow Democrat Nathan Johnson in the race for Texas attorney general. And agriculture commissioner Sid Miller directly responding to his former donor that's now running against him.
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Inside Texas politics back in a moment.
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This is Inside Texas Politics with Jason Whiteley.
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Welcome back to Inside Texas Politics. Now to the Democratic race for Texas attorney general. This is not a sleepy one here, folks. Joe Jaworski is the former mayor of Galveston. He's running for AG again and this time he is on the attack. We spoke with him after a recent debate in Denton against rival Nathan Johnson. Mayor, it's good to see you
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again. Jason, thanks so much for having me on. Absolutely,
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thanks for coming back in. Last weekend, the first Democratic debate for the, uh, Democratic race for, uh, Texas Attorney General, you came out blazing against your opponent. This is not the Joe Jaworski I remember from 4 years ago.
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Well, you know, I have grown as a candidate and each race is different. Senator Nathan Johnson is a different opponent than Rochelle Garza. Um, Nathan, uh, I punched hard, uh, because his record is punch worthy. And in the Democratic primary, that's the tone I wanted to set early on, and it's going to continue.
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On what issues do you differ most from Senator Johnson?
< spk_6 - 00:10:38.7390000 >
Well, I think that I can give you specific issues like I did at the debate, the fact that he would acquit Ken Paxton on two. Serious charges, the fact that he would side with the MAGA agenda to suppress free speech on all our campuses, uh, and be one of the two Democrats who voted with all Republicans for the Campus Security Act, which thank God was found unconstitutional by a Reagan judge.
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And finally, uh, being one of the votes on the Democratic side to put Proposition 16 on the ballot last week, which clarified that you had to be a United States citizen. In order to vote in Texas? Well, we already knew that. So my question is, if you're a senator trying to elevate to the Attorney General's office, why are you voting for this MAGA agenda when what Texas needs is a fighter?
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You ran in 2022 when we first met. Uh, you didn't make it out of the primary then. What has really changed in your campaign besides the tone and being on the offense though?
< spk_6 - 00:11:38.7700000 >
Well, certainly. Four years later, I have had a chance to exercise my voice. Jason, as you know, I've written op-eds and all the major newspapers since 22 expressing my concerns about government, talking about how reform is needed. Trump gets elected, then I had a radio show in Houston where I had all the major thought leaders in the Democratic Party, from media.
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Two candidates and then I announced in July the difference is uh America is different, Texas is different, we can't survive another term of Greg Abbott or Ken Paxton's successor, and I think what we need right now are people who are about economics, education, freedom of speech, and the Republican Party is not that so I don't see. Myself right now as an attorney general that needs to reach across a barbed wire aisle.
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There's no hand extended on the other side anyway, Jason. What I want to do is be an attorney General that brings back the Bill of Rights as it existed when it was passed to
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Texas. Two last questions here. I want one sentence responses on these. Why should a swing voter consider you over a Republican opponent if you're the nominee?
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Because the Republicans have damaged Texas' notion of fairness that have led us for over 200 years, it's time for balance.
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And last question, why should a progressive primary voter pick you over another
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Democrat? Because my agenda is pure and I know I can fight. And for a progressive agenda to survive right now in this environment, you need a fighter to fight for it.
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Mayor, it's good to see you. Thanks for the time. Thank you,
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Jason.
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The Republican race for Texas agriculture commissioner is also interesting this cycle. Incumbent Sid Miller faces a challenge from a former donor of his named Nate Sheets. We had Mr. Sheets here on the program a couple of weeks ago. Now though, it's Miller's turn. How did he get into this position? That's where we started with the ag commissioner. Commissioner, welcome back here. Good to be with you. Let's start with politics. You drew a primary opponent, not just anyone, a, a former donor of yours, Nate Sheets, has decided to run against you.
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Why do you think he wants to challenge you?
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You know, I, I really don't know. Didn't make a lot, a lot of sense to me that it's not really an, an ag guy. He doesn't have ag background. He's kind of a one trick pony. He's a, a, honey distributor, and that's about his only connection to. Uh, to agriculture,
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how concerned are you about this because he says he's going to be able to raise the money. He also says this is his quote. He says there's been far too many distractions that have been happening in agriculture that really tears down the things that we need to go accomplish and said that you have had a lot of ethics issues. What's your reaction to that?
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Well, typical. And, and, uh, you know, this happens at every election. This is nothing new, but you know, if, if you can't, uh, beat a guy on, on your own merits, you have to attack him and try to bring, you know, tear the guy down. So that, that's his tactics is, you know, talk, talk ugly and nasty and try to convince people that I'm an evil guy. But people that know we know that we've, we've got the, uh, best agriculture department in, in the United States.
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We're, we're, uh, you know, leaders in, in many, many fields, agriculture exports, cattle, cotton, wool, mower, horses and sheep, goats, list goes on and on and on. And it's because of our aggressive marketing program at the at the department.
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I wanna ask one more thing he said too. He said there's been more than 130 people leave the Texas Department of Agriculture since March. He said that that either been fired or have left. Is that the case?
< spk_7 - 00:15:06.5490000 >
That that's not true. Uh, I don't know where he got those numbers, but I, I went back and looked at that. Uh, Texas Department of Agriculture, we, we have less turnover than just about any state agency. We really, our people love to the Department of Agriculture. They stay. Uh, the governor's office has over 20% turnover. Ours is less than 14%. I think state average is like 16 or 18%. So we're doing good in that department.
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I don't know where those numbers came from, but we have, we, we, I don't think I can think of maybe two people that have been fired. Most of them are, are retirements, of course is nowhere near 130, uh, but we, we have about, uh. You know, 5 to 8 people a month turnover something like that.
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You and I have talked about tariffs before, but the Trump administration now proposing what, $12 billion in in farm aid for farmers because of the tariffs that are out there. You and I have talked about this before. You've always said, listen, farm. Don't want handouts. They want stable markets. In hindsight now, Commissioner, are these tariffs a bad idea? Oh, this
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is the best thing ever happened to farmers, but it's, it's a mirror
< spk_0 - 00:16:08.4790000 >
so they have nobody to sell their products to.
< spk_7 - 00:16:10.3690000 >
Well, it's a mirror image of, of what happened in the first Trump administration. Uh, he put in high tariffs. Uh, we had trouble selling our soybeans. China cut us off. Uh, it brought China to the table. We've got China to the table again. All these other Asian countries, they've just agreed to, to buy our soybeans again. So we're gonna, we're seeing commodity prices go up. Uh, at the end of the first administration, our farmers made more money than they'd ever made. This is we're just at the breaking point, the turning point where we're gonna break over.
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And enjoy those good commodity prices again, so it's working exactly as planned,
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but at the end of the day it's costing taxpayers billions of dollars in, in, in handouts essentially to get this done though, isn't it?
< spk_7 - 00:16:51.7800000 >
No, not really. That, that, that money is coming from the tariffs, uh, it's coming from China. It's China's money that's, that's going to those farmers. He's using China's own tariff money to prop those farmers up, not the consumers' money.
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Commissioner, it's good to see you again. Thank you for the time.
< spk_7 - 00:17:04.5400000 >
Thank you, sir.
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The roundtable is ready when we come back here on Inside Texas Politics.
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This is Inside Texas Politics with Jason Whiteley.
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Alright, time now for reporters roundtable to put the headlines in perspective. Bud, Ashley, and Ian all back with us here for the roundtable. Ian, let's start with you. Courts have again struck down the new state law SB 10, requiring 10 commandments to be displayed in public school classrooms. It's going to likely head to the Supreme Court. What do you expect to happen?
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Well, look, this is also happening at a time where Louisiana has a similar case that is being debated as well and it's gone, gone and gotten a rejected ruling too, so this is, this is headed for the Supreme Court. It seems like that's where everyone is going with this. It seems like, you know, the arguments with uh. Within, you know, within Texas are going that way too, even though there's already been rulings against the 10 Commandments law, you know, even Ken Paxton, the Attorney General, of course, has also targeted some school districts here in Texas. So that, that seems to be where it's headed.
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And Ashley, that's exactly where Republican leaders wanted to go is the Supreme Court, I presume here. How do you think the political battle is going to play out?
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I mean, you know, this is the same thing that is really a larger fight over separation of church and state, I think, right? And so there are so many, uh, legal minds who say it can who make legitimate arguments, I think for both sides, and it's gonna be really interesting to see how the court plays it out and I obviously think as with all things politics is gonna have a very big role and we do have a majority conservative court, so it's gonna be interesting. See how they how they rule on this,
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but Jason, I think it was very interesting in the opening to the show. You showed two different scenes of the 10 Commandments, and there are two different versions of the 10 Commandments, and one was from Exodus. So this is what it's about. Texas wrote a law, you know, the courts have upheld the historical value of the 10 Commandments, but not prescribing something so narrow is only the King James Version that isn't even followed. By a majority of Christians and so that's what has gotten Texas in hot water over this.
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But let's talk about Governor Abbott really on the attack against Muslims right now, declaring care of the Council on American Islamic Relations as a terrorist organization. What's the, what's the reasoning for going after Muslims right now?
< spk_3 - 00:19:15.5420000 >
Well, and of course some of it's politics. It's, but notice he's being very selective in his in his What he's griping about, he sent a letter to Collin County saying don't let the Islamic tribunal operate like a Sharia court. Well, I've always found that that didn't operate like a Sharia court, that the laws of Texas still apply. That's important because women aren't represented.
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Women aren't elected as judges, so he can say he's standing up for women in Texas by going after the Sharia, but it's big political hay to be made.
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And Ian, the, the other thing that's fascinating a lot of people right now is FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, President Trump saying, listen, we don't need FEMA anymore. Southern states, Florida, Texas, whoa, wait a minute, we actually use FEMA. Now there's talk from Politico that they might actually move FEMA to Texas. Nim Kid might take it over. How big of a deal is this?
< spk_5 - 00:20:08.3690000 >
This could be a pretty big deal, you know, especially with, with what FEMA has done in terms of like the, the, the, the dependency on the funding. That FEMA provides, you know, you know, obviously with Texas being where it is, the Panhandle wildfires and the flooding have shown that the needs are great here too. It's actually interesting because I think, you know, the reports have shown that that this is also because of how Texas has kind of had led some of the response in some of these disasters too. So that's kind of what's
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drawn it. And Ashley, you know, right after the floods in July 4th down in the Hill Country there too, you know, the president had some good things to say about FEMA.
< spk_4 - 00:20:42.1300000 >
Yeah, and it's really interesting. I talked to the, uh, Politico reporter who broke this story and said, look, as much as all that talk about FEMA going away in DC, it's not happening there anymore. Everyone knows that you have to keep FEMA. What's interesting to me is the just admiration that the administration has for Chief Nim Kidd. They want him. The reason that they're even talking about bringing this to Texas is because he said, I'm not gonna leave Texas. Like that's not happening. And so this idea that we'll just take the agency to him is just.
< spk_4 - 00:21:10.9300000 >
It's a feather in his cap for sure.
< spk_0 - 00:21:12.9300000 >
Yeah, of course Nim Kitta didn't recognize a moment ago. He's the lead of the Texas Department of Emergency Management Bud,
< spk_3 - 00:21:18.4100000 >
and they would move FEMA to a red county in Texas, not a blue county,
< spk_0 - 00:21:21.9300000 >
not a blue county at all. Where, where would it go though? I mean, Williamson County right outside, uh, what's the
< spk_3 - 00:21:26.9490000 >
largest red county in Texas? Well, Tarrant
< spk_0 - 00:21:29 >
County, I guess,
< spk_3 - 00:21:30.2900000 >
I don't know.
< spk_0 - 00:21:30.9300000 >
Tarrant County,
< spk_3 - 00:21:32.0100000 >
maybe so.
< spk_0 - 00:21:32.6890000 >
Who knows? All right guys, thanks so much. We appreciate that. Thank you for watching as well. We're back next Sunday to take you inside Texas politics. We hope to see you then. Have a good week.