I have signed the civil arrest warrants. We will work with DPS to locate members. So Texas Democrats ran into the fight by coming to Illinois to stand up for the people of our state. You're running away from the fight. You're running away from your jobs by not being in Austin today. [00:00:15] Yeah. No, abandoning your job is going to Cancun in the middle of a deadly freeze. We have an opportunity in Texas to pick up five seats. We have a really good governor, and we have good people in Texas. And I won Texas. I got the highest vote in the history of Texas, as you probably know. [00:00:32] - And, we are entitled to five more seats. - I don't know. Strap in. We're about to take a little trip down gerrymandering lane because, you know, gerrymandering is a super sexy topic. But in all seriousness, what's currently going down in the state [00:00:48] of Texas is not only drama filled, it's illiberal and an effort to essentially rig our political system in favor of one specific party. Now, the Texas House reconvened today for a second consecutive day, with dozens of Democrats absent as part of a strategy to prevent Republicans [00:01:09] in the state House from redrawing U.S. House district lines in a way that favors their party. Now, the current congressional map, drawn by a Republican dominated legislature in 2021, has netted 25 GOP seats in the last two elections. [00:01:26] But after pressure from President Donald Trump's team, Texas Governor Greg Abbott directed lawmakers to redraw the map during the special legislative session, which began on July 21st. So they call a special session to redraw the map. Typically, after the census is done every ten years, that's [00:01:45] when state lawmakers will redraw maps and gerrymandering does take place. I mean, if you look at how district maps are or how district maps are drawn in any state, it's insane and obviously done in a way to advantage one party or the other. [00:02:02] And I want to be clear, both parties do this. But the way that Texas is going about this is just so brazen because they're doing it like, not at all tied to the latest census report. They're doing it in the, you know, in a special session. And they're just being flat out clear and brazen about the fact [00:02:20] that they're trying to pick up five additional congressional seats. So as a result of that, more than 50 state Democrats traveled. They left the state. They traveled to Illinois, Massachusetts and New York to deny the Texas State House quorum. So with so many lawmakers absent, the state House doesn't have [00:02:38] the number of people necessary for the chamber to advance legislation. So that's how the Democrats in the state are trying to stall. So as a result, Texas Governor Greg Abbott has decided to carry out anti-democratic and authoritarian maneuvers. In response, he's threatening to have the Democrats expelled. [00:02:56] Remember, these are elected state lawmakers. And he had GOP lawmakers in the state vote to issue civil arrest warrants. He's even calling on Kash Patel and the FBI to essentially round up these Democrats from other states to bring them to justice in the state of Texas. [00:03:14] Abbott said he ordered state police to locate, arrest and return to the House chamber. Any member who has abandoned their duty to Texans. The same tactic, by the way, was used against Democrats to force them to come back to work back in 2021. At the time, the majority of them had left for Washington, DC in order [00:03:33] to protest the GOP's voting restrictions. Now, in addition to that, Abbott said in a statement that he was ordering the Texas Rangers to immediately investigate fleeing House Texas House Democrats for potential bribery and other potential legal violations connected [00:03:50] to their refusal to appear for a quorum. Nonetheless, the Democrats persist even as they face a second day in which they could be fined $500 for leaving their posts. The Democrats have sought to draw attention to Republicans effort to give their party five new safe seats. [00:04:08] Those seats could help the GOP maintain control of the U.S. House by offsetting potential electoral losses elsewhere around the nation. Now, Abbott claims that Democrats could be violating bribery laws if they specifically raised money to kind of [00:04:23] keep them afloat as they're traveling out of state to prevent quorum from being reached from the state House. It's also, by the way, important to understand that the civil arrest warrants cannot be enforced beyond the jurisdiction of Texas authorities. So if they're in a different state, that state doesn't have the right [00:04:40] or the jurisdiction to arrest them based on these warrants. Now, some lawmakers, like State Representative Vickie Goodwin, a Democrat, said that they packed enough clothing to be out of the state for two weeks, and that's when the special session will end. But even if Dems run out the clock, it's important to know that Republicans [00:04:59] can just call for another special session. And Democrats in other states are trying to fight back in some ways, although I believe the big loser, regardless of what Democrats do, will be the voters, because voters in these states will be disenfranchized. [00:05:15] So the governors of California, Illinois and New York have said that they are exploring their options. - Take a look at what they had to say. - All's fair in love and war. That's why I'm exploring with our leaders every option to redraw our state congressional lines as soon as possible. [00:05:31] All bets are off when the cult leader and would be dictator of the United States tells Texas to midstream change the game when they know that they're going to lose in 2026. All bets are off. Everything's got to be on the table. [00:05:48] This is existential. This is real life. Everything is on the line here. It's not a gross exaggeration. I feel it in my bones. We're looking at 3 or 4 different pathways as it relates to the when and the how. [00:06:04] So these democratic, you know, leaders, governors are essentially saying, well, if you're going to redraw your map, then we're going to redraw ours. Which I'm really looking forward to because the Democrats stranglehold on the state of California, you know, just wasn't strong enough. [00:06:22] But go ahead. Yeah. No, I am looking forward to it. And so I don't know if you remember this, and I suggested this a couple of years ago, and I think that there's a silver lining in this story. When I suggested it, it was considered outrageous. I said, the minute the Republicans do a gerrymandering, an outrageous gerrymandering of a red state, we should do likewise in a blue state. [00:06:41] And at the time, people were like, oh, no, you can't, you can't, you can't. Now all of a sudden, it turns out we can. I was right all along. And why do you do that? To make California a cheat in favor of Democrats? No. To get Texas to back down. Okay, so, look, if you're a voter and not a politician, [00:07:00] it doesn't matter which party you're in. - You should despise gerrymandering. - I do. - I definitely do. - Okay. Now why? Because that's basically instead of the voters picking their politicians, it's the politicians picking their voters. So they could draw those lines, knowing the demographic information in a way where [00:07:17] almost none of the seats are competitive. Then the democracy, our democracy, becomes a joke. Exactly. That's exactly right. - Yeah. - And so what they do is they stuff. If you're in a red state, they stuff all the Democratic voters into a couple of districts and they make the districts look like this. [00:07:33] And some crazy. There's a dragon district. And. ET cetera. ET cetera. Right. And so now blue states can do likewise and stuff all their Republican voters into a couple of districts and get a lot more votes. Now, is that really representative of Texas or California? No, no. The whole point of gerrymandering is to make it unrepresentative [00:07:51] and to steal your vote away from you so that your vote is irrelevant. And so the politicians gerrymandering is is a crime against democracy. It is. It is. Can I can I jump in on this because I want people to understand where I'm coming from on this, because I find what Texas is doing Wing illiberal meaning [00:08:09] against liberal democracy. Okay. But also, I find it abhorrent when it happens in a blue state, because I actually think that when one party or the other has a stranglehold on the state and there's no competition from a competing party, [00:08:27] well, corruption, man, I mean, it becomes an even bigger problem. And that's what we've been experiencing in California. I think it's important for Democrats in the state of California to feel competition from the opposing party. It keeps them in check. [00:08:43] It keeps corruption at bay to some extent. Right? Not completely. And so I'm not happy about this potentially happening in California, just as I'm unhappy about it happening in Texas. And I think your prediction is incorrect. I don't think that Texas is going to back down based on what these [00:08:58] blue states are going to do. No, no, no. So, look, let's break it down one thing at a time. First, my agreement with you is power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Bingo. Yes. Okay, so when you have. Even if it's your side that has absolute power, [00:09:13] they're not going to serve you anyway. What? It's what they're going to do is set up fake nonprofits that siphon money away from you. They're going to give money to real estate interests that have given them money, unions that have given them money, etc. It does. It just there's no healthy competition for votes. [00:09:32] So it breeds corruption no matter which side is in absolute power. So I hate it. Okay. So now, Anna, in terms of the specifics of my strategy, look, if you let Texas redistrict and look this, this whole thing [00:09:49] gambit of like, leaving Texas and then, the idiot governor and lieutenant governor and all those morons going, oh, we're gonna arrest you, and we're going to take away your job. Blah, blah blah. And they would, because they're dictatorial and authoritarian and unfortunately, like, there's a lot of right wing or right wing voters that agree with us on a bunch [00:10:06] of stuff, but they don't agree on that, when usually, if you're right wing, keep it real. When your guys do authoritarian crap, you kind of love it, right? You're like, yes, let's take five more seats. And now, if California was the first to propose it, right wingers would have lost their minds as dictatorial. [00:10:23] California. Right. Okay. - Texas does it. - They're like yay! And by the way, it happens on both sides. It does, it does. How many Democrats have looked into how blue states have gerrymandered their states? Right. Can we be honest? Okay. - So much. - So. But, Anna. [00:10:39] The point is, if Texas does it and we do unilateral surrender and go, oh, okay. We're suckers. Why don't all the red states gerrymander the living crap out of it? - And then. - We won't. No, no, I hear you, I hear you, and I guess it's kind of a lose lose because I [00:10:58] do want the Democrats to fight back. And the Democrats fighting back in this instance, obviously draws more attention to what the intentions of the Republicans are in the state of Texas. Right? They're just brazen about how they want to add five congressional seats. But it's a lose lose for us because if the Democrats don't fight back, yes, [00:11:16] the Republicans in Texas go unchecked. But if the Democrats fight back, I don't think Texas is going to back down. I think this creates a new precedent for essentially redrawing district maps whenever the hell you want. Like not tied to the census at all. And then on top of that, by the way, I don't want my state [00:11:34] to be even further gerrymandered. - Right. - But but so, Anna. So hold on, hold on, hold on. Yeah, you are almost certainly right. Okay. With a giant two caveats. Okay. - Give them to. - Me. Okay. So she's right in the sense that is Abbott going to go oh my [00:11:51] god California is considering doing it I'm going to back down. There's no way he's going to. - There's. - No way okay. All right. So by the way prediction number one is California Illinois and New York actually going to gerrymander it to counter. No I think they're just huffing and puffing. [00:12:07] No. They'll dare I have no doubt that Newsom will pursue gerrymandering. Really I think all of every Democratic establishment Democrat I know is so weak. But he is setting himself up to run in 2028, and he is also setting himself up to [00:12:22] be the leader of the opposition to Donald. That's the only reason why they might do it. So that relates to gets to a second possibility. Okay. First possibility is Hufflepuff. Did everybody stop paying attention? Let's surrender as usual. Right. But Anna's right. [00:12:37] There's a different dynamic because Pritzker and Newsom are thinking of running for. - Pritzker, too. - You're right. And there's another dynamic before mainstream media would be like, oh, you're a coward. Democrat who did not counter. Bravo. How civil of you. Right. But now, when they're going on online shows, the online hosts [00:12:54] are putting pressure on them. So I give credit to Brian Tyler Cohen, who's been doing that when governors come on, etc.. So I love giving credit to other people on the left when they're doing the right things. Right. So now all of a sudden, those governors feel the pressure and they're going to run for president. Anna's right. Right. [00:13:10] So they might actually do it. And then every state will be gerrymandered in a despicable way, and there will be no competition for anything. And then the politicians will think, I hope they don't notice, because this turned out to be great for us, because now none of us have to compete for any of the seats. [00:13:26] It's terrible. It really is. And regardless of how you identify, I mean, I at this point do not like either party. But regardless of how you identify, you have to acknowledge the illiberal nature of this, how much it erodes our democratic process. [00:13:42] It's just wrong. It's wrong to disenfranchize voters like this in states where, you know, if you're a, you know, if you happen to be a conservative Republican living in the state of California, which, by the way, there are many. Well, your vote doesn't matter. You've been disenfranchized because of the way that these congressional maps are [00:13:59] or these district maps are drawn. And so, yeah. And then people wonder like, oh, why is it that some people are considering, you know, upending our democratic system of government and instead opting for something like a monarchy. [00:14:15] - Like it's terrifying, right? - Yeah. And so and that gets to the final part of it. Right. So if it turns out that they both do it and now none of the seats are competitive, well, at what point are we all going to rebel. Right. So and what I mean by rebel is not some weirdo thing where we're going to go [00:14:32] fight them in the woods with weapons. No. Okay. That would be enormously ineffective. It would be immoral. It would be wrong. That doesn't make any sense. Okay, but how do we fight back? You need to capture one of the parties. If you capture, just like Trump did with the Republican Party, [00:14:48] it's like, oh, that's ridiculous. The mainstream will tell you, oh, that's impossible. Don't you try, don't try, don't try. Right. What do you mean, it's impossible? Trump just did it right in front of our eyes in 2016. Right. And he has a death lock on the party. So imagine if you had an honest, smart, strong progressive [00:15:04] or populist or whatever, right. That captures the Democratic Party and then goes, nah, I'm going to bring it back to the voters, and we're going to fix every goddamn thing, and I'm going to end gerrymandering. You have to build up pressure in that direction and you say, [00:15:19] well, it won't work. I don't. If you had said that to me ten years ago, I'd say, no, you're not going to be able to rally enough voters to give that person enough power. And the reason you wouldn't have been able to do that is because mainstream media would have lied and smeared and just totally prevented [00:15:34] your message from getting out. Right. But now mainstream media is weakened and we can get message out in 100 different ways. Right. So that's why the more they press down on all of us right wing, left wing, Republican, Democrat, the pressure builds and builds and builds. [00:15:50] And those morons in Washington have no idea how much the pressure is building. They think, oh, well, stock market is at 44 45,000. Stock market is great. - Everything's great. - Right? No, everything's not great. And we're getting more pissed by the day. One day this pressure is going to find an outlet. [00:16:08] Then the establishment is in a world of trouble. Every time you ring the bell below, an angel gets his wings. Totally not true. But it does keep you updated on our live shows.