State leaders on both sides of the island, Texas, are now condemning a vote by the Texas State Republican Executive Committee, that's the board that governs the Texas Republican Party, for their ridiculous own goal over condemning anti-Semitism, Nazis, and Holocaust deniers. [00:00:17] So what's basically going on is that this executive committee has been struggling and failed in dealing with language over a new resolution affirming the party's commitment to combating anti-Semitism. So the context for this nationally is that we're in this very brief window, [00:00:32] thanks to the conflict between Hamas and Israel, where the Republican Party needs to pretend that they have an issue with anti-Semitism. As soon as that's not in the news anymore, they'll go right back to hanging out with Nick Fuentes and loving Marjorie Greene and all that. But for right now, they want to pretend that they don't like anti-Semitism. [00:00:48] So they were going to do this. They have this anti-Nazi language in this measure, and that got watered down before it was ultimately rejected entirely. But it had stated, be it further resolved, that the Republican Party of Texas have [00:01:04] no association whatsoever with any individual or organization that is known to espouse anti-Semitism, pro-Nazi sympathies, or Holocaust denial. That resolution ultimately passed unanimously Saturday, but only after the language on associated with neo-Nazis, Holocaust deniers and anti-Semitism was removed. So, look, that's a little bit confusing, but basically, [00:01:22] they had a strong version that got weakened and then it passed, but only once the part that mattered was taken out. So they had this opportunity to tell the country, or at least their state, we don't like Holocaust deniers, we don't like Nazis, we don't like any of that stuff. And they decided no. [00:01:38] And in a separate move, by the way, which this is not getting as much reporting, and I find that to be crazy, roughly half of the board tried to prevent a record of their vote from being kept. So they voted to get rid of that stuff. And then they tried to hide the fact that that's what they did. [00:01:53] They didn't want to be on the record for having removed that stuff. So, look, they're going to present themselves as taking a principled stand on specific versus vague language, which we'll talk about. But then why do you need to remove the record of your vote if you were being [00:02:09] principled? So we're going to get into that and some of their arguments for why they had to do. But first of all, it would seem like this is a fairly easy thing to do, Viviana, but what do you think about. >> I mean, I think we're really getting into the rhetoric and know semantics of language. Obviously, we should all be against anyone who's denying the Holocaust, [00:02:27] anyone who's pro-Nazi, any anti-Semitic language or feelings or sort of legislation that promotes that. And so it's important to get the words right. So I understand they're trying to be particular, but it does seem a little suspicious. And I didn't know that, John, that they wanted it in secret ballot. [00:02:44] Let's all just put it on a paper and don't say who said know. And then it's interesting to me. I mean, it's also very indicative that these are the same people that will vote to increase the United States military contributions towards [00:03:01] Israel's fight against Hamas and the Palestinian people. So they're pro-Nazi, but also pro-Israel, which to me just underscores that it has nothing to do with religion. It's not anything to do with religion. [00:03:16] Nazis, they don't make any sense. They're just walking hypocrites and contradictions. So we can't really make any sense of what they're trying to do. I don't know why these legislators would want to protect that language so close to their heart. It's very concerning to me what they're trying to hold on, [00:03:33] what they're trying to allow people to do. If somebody comes in and they're actively denying that the Holocaust happened, we don't want any part of that. That's easy, why is that being contested? It's confusing to me. So we're in a weird place right now where people don't really know how to support [00:03:50] free speech, but yet we don't want to put it in paper, and we don't want to put our hand up and say that we do. So it's a lot of cowardly behavior, actually. >> 100% cowardice, and even if you accept their arguments, which I'm going to briefly read for you, it just requires a little bit more thought and attention. [00:04:07] So they say, you cannot really define, tolerate, and it could really cause a lot of people, especially our leaders, a lot of trouble down the road with it, which makes their leaders sound bad, but they say it's a slippery slope. Then they go on to say, who decides what antisemitism is? Who decides what association is? Who decides what is is? [00:04:23] I added that when it's a Clinton reference. But anyway, who decides when it crosses a line where we give up our association with these people? So, look, that is not 100% wrong in that. Yeah, associate, I guess, could mean different things. And look, there's a lot of behavior and language and stereotypes and attacks and [00:04:41] smears and memes and tropes that I think it's very easy to be like, that's anti- Semitic, but they're not wrong. That I guess some people try to lump other stuff in there that I think it's very arguable, I suppose. And what does associate mean? Okay, I guess, then just put out a statement strongly condemning these [00:05:00] things, you did nothing in the end rather than do a little bit more thought and a little bit more work and then send a strong signal against anti-Semitism. And that's why it makes me feel like this is not fundamentally about language. This is about not turning off people that they know support them. [00:05:15] I'm not saying that every one of these Republicans supports Nazis, but every one of these Republicans knows that Nazis support them. And look, we've covered. I'm not going to relitigate everything. Their statements, their associations, the people they go on podcasts with, [00:05:30] the conferences they go to, their militias that they provide cover for, the Jews will not replace us good people on both sides. Come on, do we really need to go back over a history of multiple years of this? The fact that they can barely even pretend to care when synagogues get fire bombed [00:05:47] and shot up? Like, no, they're against anti-Semitism right now when it comes to Hamas. And that's pretty much it. It ain't that difficult to be consistent about it anyway. >> Speaker 2: Yeah, you got it, John. >> Speaker 1: You're getting a lot of criticism. >> Speaker 2: It can't be said better than that. [00:06:02] >> Speaker 2: It's upsetting, it's upsetting because it should be that simple. >> Speaker 1: Like you just said, you would hope, especially considering mistakes. [MUSIC]