Texas Take: Texas Republicans bring a religious war - and a circus - to Houston

[00:00:08]Welcome to the Texas Take. I'm your host, Jeremy Wallace, and I have issues today. Well, not so much issues as they are questions. And not little ones, either. I have deep constitutional questions about whether we are allowed to worship how we want to. Can a party that prides itself on freedom of religion also expel people from the state or the nation who worship others?

[00:00:30]And is it Christian to hope other Christians go to hell?

[00:00:35]It doesn't stop there, y'all. Can a political party be big, bad, and dominating and yet in such disarray at the same time that it changes leadership more frequently than Jerry Jones changes coaches at the Dallas Cowboys? And actually, how long does it take to get over heartache? No, no, no. I'm not talking about true love, y'all. We're not doing that. I'm talking about political candidates who lose a primary bitterly. How long do they have to mourn before they have to get with the program and start helping other candidates, including the enemy that just defeated them?

[00:01:10]We're going to get into all of that.

[00:01:11]It's not just Republicans, y'all.

[00:01:13]Democrats, too, have the same issue. And finally, can you really be morally against something like gambling and yet defend a gambler to the hilt because he throws a football really, really well?

[00:01:25]Oh, Texas Tech, why do you have to jump headlong into Texas politics like this?

[00:01:31]And y'all, to help address all of these questions, look what I'm bringing this week. You're going to hear the first interview with the new Republican Party of Texas chairwoman Dinda Randall after her win over the weekend. She defeated Abraham George to take the reigns of the party and she's already correcting the first mistake of her predecessors. She agreed to talk to y'all on the Texas take exclusively. Yeah, that's what the other Republican chairman weren't doing.

[00:01:58]They weren't coming on the show to talk to y'all. Plus, State Representative Allen Schoolcraft is going to join the program to help get into this issue about religion. Schoolcraft is one of the leaders of what they're calling the anti-Sharia caucus. their words, not mine. He is trying he's going to try to explain how they can go after Islamic Texans and yet that not be a violation of the First Amendment of the Constitution, which seemingly gives us all the freedom to worship how we want to. How are they walking that line?

[00:02:29]Schoolcraft is going to walk us through all that and try to explain it. And I'm not going to stop there, though. I'm going to have Hajra Galani on from the Houston Chronicle. She caught up with some Muslim Republicans who were nearly expelled from the Republican party during their convention this past weekend. Why were they being expelled?

[00:02:49]Because they exist.

[00:02:52]And if that's not enough, check this out. I got Dr. Leticia Plameumber coming on the program for her false first full interview on the Texas Tape. You better get to know that name. You know, even if you're not from Houston or Harris County, she's going to be super important. She's the favorite to be the next Harris County judge. Lena Hadago is not seeking reelection and Plameumber just won the Democratic primary, putting her in a spot to win in November. Look, she still's got to get a general election ahead of her. But if she does, she has a potential to be Governor Greg Abbott's next big arch rival. And look y'all, Harris County is big. you know, if she ends up winning that seat, remember, she's going to be representing over six million people. Harris County has more people than North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and Idaho combined.

[00:03:46]She's like four, you know, states worth of senators and representatives going to war potentially with Governor Greg Abbott.

[00:03:56]Now, you definitely want to stick around to hear that interview. But first, we've got to start with what was going on in Houston. John Moritz of the Awesome American Statesman and I were both at the Republican Party Convention at the George R. Brown Convention Center for three days. We need to catch up on everything that happened. John, thanks for joining the Texas Take. You know, look, we got to go straight into this.

[00:04:17]There were live elephants. Dan Patrick turned into the fawns on me and the party switched leaders once again.

[00:04:24]That's just a little bit of what happened. First, John, we got to address the elephant in the room. What was going on there?

[00:04:31]>> There was, in fact, an elephant in the room. Paige, 39 years old, a circus elephant, was brought in by the governor to kind of you demonstrate uh you know, put a little levity into the uh into the um otherwise uh you know, boring speeches that that sometime could happen. So the elephant appears with him on stage, then walks down the u the corridor between the delegates, gets to the press table and urinates right there in front of us. It's a lot of stuff when an elephant does that sort of thing. And everybody knows about it because the the aroma, the ambiance hangs in the air for some time.

[00:05:09]>> Well, and it's important to note what was on the side of this elephant was this message of unity, right? this elephant was meant to be one it you know it's cute it's whatever you know people oh look it's an elephant uh but he was you know using it as the unity of you know the party has to come together you know remember y'all the elephant represents the Republican party in case y'all want taking notes here uh and so they wanted to kind of bring it all together you know his whole speech was about trying to find a way to mend these differences coming out of the primary and kind of get everybody focused in the same direction right >> yeah um unity was definitely a theme of uh the governor's speech. It'll probably be a theme of his campaign for reelection. Uh hoping to use a lot of the campaign money that he has raised to the benefit of Republicans down ticket and and and that was sort of the visual message that the governor was bringing to this.

[00:06:02]>> Well, I like you had a story uh the other day on this and I posted on social media. So, see, you know, there our great minds think alike here on this stuff. What I found so interesting as I was walking around and like looking at stuff there is like Abbott was doing so much to lean into what we thought was an insult of him a year ago. Yeah. When Jasmine Crockett, you know, called him Governor Hot Wheels, everybody gasped.

[00:06:26]But and look what's happening now, though. Governor Abbott, he had a sign made that called himself Governor Hot Wheels and was like flashed all over the building when you were walking around the convention center. He had these little squishy toy uh stress doll type things uh but of his dog and it says let's roll on it again leaning into the fact that he's been in a wheelchair since his you know tree/runn accident back in the 80s. Uh and then like they've even changed their Twitter handle to Governor Hot Wheels for the campaign. So he's completely leaning into this. It clearly caught you by you.

[00:07:03]You saw it too. tell us what did you think when you're seeing all this messaging out there and how easily he's leaning into this?

[00:07:10]>> Well, well, basically it kind of takes the power of the insult and turns it back against whoever would have leveled that that thing. Now, uh you know, let's uh take Jasmine Crockett at her word.

[00:07:22]She said she meant no offense about uh uh the governor's physical limitations uh due to the accident. Uh but but you are correct. it was, "Oh my god, how could anybody talk that way about our governor?" And the governor says, "Yeah, bring it." And and not only did he have those other visuals, he had like a checkered flag w with the uh with the Hot Wheels symbol in there as if you know you know what they uh what they play at the Indianapolis 500 or or the Daytona 500 to to uh signify the winning uh the winning car crossing over the finish line. Um and and and you referenced the piece that I talked about, Terrio done the same thing with Talco. He's selling t-shirts, making money for his campaign. His supporters want those t-shirts as keepsakes. So um and you know, if you want to be an optimist uh about politics, um you know, the um the notion that you can just turn an insult into an advantage, I think, is probably good. Maybe it'll help uh may maybe it'll make some of these people think twice before they start just name calling and you know maybe get them back on a real message.

[00:08:33]>> Yeah. And it's one I always like to tell people like Governor Abbott isn't shy about you know the accident that led him into the chair. I've written about him a lot. You can Google my name and you know why is Greg Abbott in a wheelchair?

[00:08:45]You'll see some of the stories I've written about it. But it you know he he's always leaned into it. you know, in his campaign ads, he typically runs this one ad of him, you know, being in this wheelchair and doing these exercises up and down these ramps to kind of strengthen his body and to overcome, you know, the injury that, you know, he had to overcome after all these years. After my accident, I had to rebuild my strength. I would roll up an 8story parking garage, spending hours going up the ramps. With each floor, it got harder and harder. But I wouldn't quit.

[00:09:22]Just one more, I tell myself. Just one more. I see life that way. And it's how I'll govern Texas. To get to the top, we must push ourselves to do just one more.

[00:09:36]And it was really interesting. Y'all might remember uh on the Texas Take a couple years ago at the Republican National Convention. Uh it was really a striking scene when Abbott was ready to speak the whole room went quiet at a Republican national convention which is rare. Uh but what happened like you know everybody hushed down because they lowered everything on the stage and everybody know hey what's going on something big's about to happen and it was just all lowered so Greg Abbott could you know roll out in the wheelchair and give his address and the crowd listened to every word for a lot of national people the first time they ever saw Greg Abbott in the wheelchair and I had all the Florida delegates my old buddies from you know Florida asking me hey why is he in a wheelchair because he didn't really address it in the speech and so a lot of people are interested in And I think Abbott is just now starting to lean into this in a way to as part of the story of who he is, how he campaigns, like there's no shame about it. It's like this isn't like the FDR days where, you know, don't take a picture of him in the wheelchair. You know, this is no, I'm fine with the wheelchair. I want you to see it. I'm Governor Hot Wheels. I'm owning this thing. So, it's a really interesting transition to how he's uh really kind of started to lean into this in a different kind of way. Now look, Dan Patrick didn't have an elephant to help him make this unity message, but he was still up on stage talking about it. And man, he came at it from a much harsher angle.

[00:10:58]There was one point during his speech to these delegates that he said he was talking about John Cornin and Sid Miller, both who lost their primaries, and he called them sore losers, demanding that they suck up their defeats and get behind the winners. It was some pretty harsh language, but he was clearly telling like, "Look, we're Republicans. We have to get together."

[00:11:19]And while some people go, "Oh, you know, you know, extend an olive branch, what he was just calling him sore losers. Get with the party or else." Uh, I'll admit though, I was a little distracted by all of his messaging during his whole speech. Um, Patrick usually gives a pretty good speech. Even if you don't like Republican politics, he there's always something interesting in there.

[00:11:38]But I was distracted the whole time, John, cuz he's wearing this leather jacket. Uh looked like he was like straight out of the fawns. I'm like, what is going on here? Like there's like an image shift that is happening with Dan Patrick. I remember him as the old country guy with the old pickup truck, you know, on a rocking chair on his front porch, you know, talking about Texas values. You know, you you've seen the ads. Uh but guess what? You know what I've discovered at the convention?

[00:12:06]his truck. He sold the truck. He doesn't have the truck anymore. I was at the convention and he's replaced the truck with a 1968 Mustang, a green Mustang that looks like the one that Steve McQueen had in the movie Bullet. And you know, this tough guy California thing going on with the leather jacket looking like the fawns from Happy Days. And he's up on stage talking about the Alamo. And I'm like, what am I watching right now?

[00:12:33]It feels like I'm watching a transformation. uh in my my my very eyes here, but like did you get the point of what he was trying to say about the leather jacket in his image?

[00:12:45]>> Well, there were a lot of mixed mediums uh there because he's he's used AI generated uh backgrounds for himself.

[00:12:53]So, as if he's walking around the Alamo, but he would be walking around the Alamo as if he were going to a 1950s malt shop or riding a motorcycle. He did point out that he does not ride a motorcycle. Uh even though he kind of looked bar, didn't have the uh the mirror sunglasses or anything like that, but but yeah, all black, all leather. Um you sort of uh you know, kind of changing his image right before our eyes. Uh you are correct. He gives a good speech.

[00:13:24]There were no notes in front of him. you know, some of the um the speakers that we could kind of see him sneaking a peek at their notes on the lectern. Not Patrick. He's a he's a radio performer uh you know, before ever before politics. So, he was comfortable in his element, but the um but the visuals were uh were unique. Uh >> yeah. Well, and y'all like, you know, get ready to see a lot of this cuz he kept telling people those little ads where he like I guess he was almost like Marty McFly from Back to the Future. He was time traveling back to the American Revolution and the signing of the Constitution. Then he was traveling back to the Alamo. He he said he was going to put a lot of money behind that as ads going into the fall. And I'm like, "Oh my gosh, are we going to see this on, you know, during football games and stuff on Monday Night Football? Are we going to see Dan Patrick in his Fonza outfit hanging out the Alamo with Davy Crockett? It's like this is all going to be kind of weird." But I look, you know, hopefully he doesn't do that. I hope you know somebody around him will say, "Let's not put a lot of money into these. This is not a million-dollar ad buy we really want to put out there." Uh but but more seriously, one of the things that really caught me in a speech, like he talked a lot about uh religious liberty, uh which makes sense, right? He's uh you know, he had a lot of religious messaging in his in his speech. He's always been a you know, a guy who leans pretty heavily into his faith. But it was interesting. He actually defended Christian nationalism at one point early in the speech and like you know you know and he clearly has a different definition of it than what I think a lot of people have. So he defended that but then he's also part of that you know Donald Trump's commission of religious liberty and he said in two weeks they're getting their final report. So maybe that had him all jinned up to be particularly, you know, religious and wearing his Christianity on the sleeve.

[00:15:18]And that's what caught me by surprise when he ended up going right after James Terico. It wasn't just he's a liberal, he's out of touch with Texas and all that kind of stuff. He actually at one point says his brand of Christianity was blasphemy. And he actually says he's going to hell for sure.

[00:15:37]It's James Taler Rico who decided to bring the Bible into this election. And let me tell you, that's not a Bible I've ever read. I've never seen so much blasphemy from anyone running for office. And let me tell you what, I'm going to pray for that guy because when he loses the Senate race, if he campaigns against God as he's been doing, he's gone to hell for sure.

[00:16:01]That's what we're up against.

[00:16:03]>> Wow, that caught my attention, John.

[00:16:05]That's a lot of that's a lot of uh I don't know let's say assessing the Christian religion and faith and principles against another Christian religion religious member that that caught me by sight. What what did you think when you heard it?

[00:16:20]>> Yeah, it it it definitely was a big leap from he's a vegan or vegan as the president likes to say to he is going to hell. Um, you know, you've uh speaking of wearing his religion on his sleeve, that's what Patrick has done. That's been his uh brand ever since he's been in politics. He did he actually called himself a Christian national nationalist under the definition that he provided.

[00:16:46]but also James Tarico um who it seems like we've been talking about him forever but we've been talking about him for less than a year and um way less than a year and uh but he has definitely gotten the attention his uh brand of Christian faith his seminarian um uh uh back background has definitely got the Republicans attention and they're trying to see what they can do to sort of blunt that now he's going to hell. That's that that that takes it to a different level. I'm I'm not a biblical scholar, but I do know I've heard something about judge not lest ye be judged. But uh you know, that's where we are from vegan to going to hell.

[00:17:30]>> Yeah. My catis catechism class, I I thought we weren't supposed to judge others, you know, like let's leave that to the big guy and like you know, we just kind of go about our lives and try not to hurt each other. But clearly there are a lot of people you know depending on your viewpoint think the other one is doing something that is very uncchristian. You know, even Telerico's response has been it's like, well, you know what really is offense to God is taking money away from you hungry kids and you know, health care from, you know, you know, people who need it, you know, those types of things, the things that Jesus would want, right? And so, so I get a hunch we're going to be talking biblical studies quite a bit. We already did earlier on the Texas Take, remember, it was this not too terribly long ago, you and I were talking about pastors saying that they hope James Telico, you know, dies. you know, you're just like what? And so I got a hunch we're going to be sticking around on this for a while. Uh but but I also want to, you know, shift over to, you know, beyond the speechifying that's at every convention, of course, there's also like, you know, one of the things the Republican party does at their thing and Democrats do it as well. They start trying to craft what does it mean to be part of the party? What's our platform?

[00:18:37]What are our legislative priorities? You wrote a piece that included some some of the things that really caught my attention. uh their position in IVF seems out of step with a lot of elected Republicans uh in particularly US Senator Ted Cruz who it was defending IVF treatment as something that you know he wasn't trying to go after but the platform of the Republican party of Texas is different. What what did they end up adopting?

[00:19:05]>> Well, it it was part of their you know uh anti-abortion platform which that is nothing new. uh the party has been anti- abortion since the 80s perhaps even before. Um but uh the IVF uh thing and the rationale was is that those who conceive through IVF um that that there are a lot of potential embryos that are discarded that never uh get to make it just because they put a lot of them in there see which ones are going to be the most viable and that's kind of where they hang their hat. And you are correct about Ted Cruz. Even President Trump uh you know basically tried to soften that message during his last campaign. Um but but let's look at the platform.

[00:19:50]We'll stick with the the abortion issue for just a little bit of time.

[00:19:55]You know, five, six, eight cycles ago, they their abortion uh platform was considered extreme. Now it's the law.

[00:20:02]It's it's state law. So, uh, you don't discard it as just a a, you know, a bunch of, u far-right Republicans drawing up a wish list. Some of this stuff comes true, uh, especially on the abortion thing. So, we you'll wait and see if if, uh, anybody wants to run with that IVF, uh, plank legislatively in the coming sessions.

[00:20:23]>> Yeah, there's a tendency, and I'm I'm guilty of it, too, to think that some of the stuff it sounds so outlandish that it's not going to really, you know, matter. It's like these are just people, you know, chatting. But then like you said, they do end up, you know, all of a sudden on the Senate floor as a bill and you're like, "Oh, okay. This stuff has a little more weight." The party has had more ability to force the legislature to do things that the activist base wants.

[00:20:46]So, you're Republican in Brownwood, Texas, uh, is having a little bit more input on, you know, the speaker of the house and the Senate President who is, you know, of course, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick. They're having more influence on these folks and the legislators as they're writing bills.

[00:21:00]So, like you said, if we're in vitro, you know, pay attention. This whole thing is going to be part of this legislative session because this party wants it to be and they can't just brush them off and ignore them. It's like the rules are set up within the Republican party to get more aggressive. There's a lot of stuff in that platform and guidelines. We're going to get into a little bit more of that here shortly.

[00:21:21]Uh, but I wanted to like, you know, shift over to, you know, one of the other big things that was happening at this convention. you know, it started, you know, even before we got there is this fight over the leadership of the party. Uh, the Republican party, man, for as dominating as they have been, like I mentioned at the top of the show, it's like Jerry Jones and head coaches, you know, they just go through people all the time. In fact, you know, you know, Danda Randall, who uh ended up winning uh the party leadership over Abraham George, she's the fifth leader in six years of the Republican party.

[00:21:56]It's like that is a lot of changeover when you consider we've had one governor during that whole time period and like they keep putting somebody new up there.

[00:22:06]So there's this constant leadership. Uh it's like it just feels like I'm I don't know about you, John, but I'm starting to write their names in pencil uh just cuz they might not be there very long. I may not even have a chance to say hello to them at this point. Uh what what do you make of them always having these party changes at at the leadership structure? You've seen a bunch of people coming in and out of that door, right?

[00:22:28]>> Yeah. It it it is kind of curious. Uh the flip side of that would be is that the the party chair is the chairperson, but he or she is not the face of the Republican party in Texas. That goes to Governor Abbott. That goes to uh Senator Ted Cruz uh a decade or two ago that John Cornin was was in the mix. Dan Patrick is certainly in the in the mix. Um but but the delegates to the convention are just different kind of Republicans and and uh you know in in 10 or 12 days uh you know we'll be in Corvis Christie and and we'll watch how the Democrats do it and they just do it they do the same thing from the opposite point of view. They're going to have a party chair fight. Um their party chair tends to be the face because they've been out of power so long. Um, but yeah, you um the the uh don't buy green bananas if you're the next party chair of the uh of the Republican party because you you may not uh see them in the fruit basket all that long. Yeah, I ran into Steve Munisteri who is one of the exceptions to the rule. He was the Republican party chairman from 2010 to 2015 which is like a lifetime in Republican party of Texas, you know, history, right? So he was there for you know you know for 5 years essentially ended up leaving to go work on Ran Paul's presidential campaign back in 2016. he became a senior adviser. But I caught up to him and go, what gives?

[00:23:54]What is happening that makes this so hard? And his explanation was, you know, if you saw the Texas Take newsletter, I had a little piece on this earlier in the week. You know, he talked about how the party is so big at this point and so dominating that and you have all these, you know, factions who want some control and need to be tended to and it's hard to tend to it all. He called it a four-legged stool in this case. you know, he told me like you got, you know, obviously you have these elected officials who want to have some input on the party. You have the activists who are in the room who are like pushing some of these ideas, right? They want people to be responsive to it. And then you have the Republicans who aren't in the room like they're, you know, obviously it's a big state. There's like millions of people who consider themselves Republicans and so you have some duty and obligation to them as well. Uh, and then you have the donors as like, you know, you have to keep the donors happy or you run out of money.

[00:24:45]That was one of the big faults that, you know, people had for Abraham George.

[00:24:48]Abraham George wasn't able to get all four of those things rolling and he was clearly having financial trouble with the party, at least in comparison to some, you know, campaign. He said, "No, no, things were fine. You know, we're eventually going to break even on the convention, but there were some troubling numbers that showed that the convention was going to was actually in the red. Uh, and they were hoping to be able to pay everything off by the end of the convention." So, there were a lot of like fighting back and forth on it. And you know, and y'all, this is a perfect way to say like, you know, so I asked, you know, Randall about all of this. I actually ran into her at the convention.

[00:25:20]And you know what? She's already off to a better start than most of these other chairman. You know why? She stopped to talk to the Texas tape. She wanted to be on the program. She has a a healthy distrust of the media. She made that clear to me. But she was willing to sit down to talk to me about it on Saturday, her first full day as chair. uh and she talked about, you know, what she what her plans are, you know, what she's going to do different, how she's going to communicate, you know, down up and down the the party structure to county chairs and people on the ground a little bit better and how she's not taking Democrats lightly. So, here, take a listen to what she had to say uh in this interview with me and you know, you know, hear for yourself. The first time she's done any interview with, you know, I guess mainstream media, right? So, first time, first interview, you get to hear her first right here on the Texas Take.

[00:26:08]>> So, congratulations on your victory. Uh, I just want to ask you, so, so what's your plan for, you know, the Republican party going forward going into the midterm? What can the Republican party do to be better prepared uh for what lies ahead?

[00:26:23]>> So, one of the things that is responsible for me is getting our money right. And so, I've got to do that. But the other thing is for get out the vote efforts. I'm sorry. That's what you did ask me for getting out the vote uh efforts. What I'm going to do is a statewide block walking campaign. I'm going to do statewide voter registration drives. I'm going to make sure that we highlight all the amazing Republicans that we've got throughout the state.

[00:26:48]There are amazing Republicans that when people see the work they're doing all over the state, they're going to get motivated. They're going to be part of the party. They're going to get involved. And it's just going to light like a fire. And we're going to be ready for November. and we're gonna we're gonna do some great things.

[00:27:03]>> So, this idea that Democrats going to flip the state blue, >> you know, they did a great they did they did show up during the primary. So, we can't get arrogant about that. And so, I'm not going to let that happen. But, I am going to make sure that we also deploy our youth. Our youth in great numbers for the Republican party are energized and they're ready to take this state and make it redder than it's ever been. and I just want to make sure that I capitalize on their energy and I get them involved, get them in leadership and we focus on how to build our backbench for the Republican party.

[00:27:35]>> And last question for you, this is a difficult job. Uh you have obviously the activists, you have the Republicans who are out there who aren't in the party, you have the donors out there, you have the elected officials, a lot of people to keep happy. We've seen a lot of change over with, you know, party chair people in the past. Yes. So, as you go into this, I feel like your experience keeps you eyes wide open. Oh, it does.

[00:28:00]Yeah, >> it does. And the thing is is what we haven't had in a while. We haven't had a plan. And so, I have a plan and a vision to bring us to greater numbers and to unify the party. When you don't have a plan, when you don't have a vision, that's when the division starts because people are able to get frustrated and confused about what's happening. My plan is going to bring confidence and it's going to bring direction. And that's what you have to have in any business, in any organization. If you don't have that, the company's going to fail. The organization's going to fail. We are going to build such a machine that we will need for now and for decades to come.

[00:28:39]>> Well, and you're from Wahhatchee, but you're familiar with Harris County.

[00:28:42]You've been in Houston, right? Yeah.

[00:28:44]You've lived here for a while, right?

[00:28:45]>> Yeah, I lived in Houston for about 7 years. Absolutely love this place. Yes.

[00:28:50]The humidity is yucky and the traffic is always fantastic. But um but I love this this county and one of the thing and I I learned so much about the heartbeat of Harris County. There's a lot of fantastic people here. And the one thing that I learned out here too is I did a voter registration drive with 17 churches and it was, you know, with voter registration drives, they are nonpartisan, but the amount of people that you can get engaged with voter registration drives and the block walking here is where I learned the true science of if you do it right, you can get more people involved and get out to vote.

[00:29:28]>> Bill, thank you so much for your comment. I appreciate it.

[00:29:30]Now look, John, it's like that that's not the only thing I wanted to get you in on. One other thing I saw on, you know, during this convention was, you know, we talked about it earlier. This was all over the platform, all in in the legislative priorities, all over the convention hall. Lots of anti-Islamic messaging. You saw a lot of this. It was everywhere I went when I was at the convention, right?

[00:29:54]>> Yeah. And um that's always been sort of like there but not in your face there um at at Republican gatherings. Uh you know uh a lot of them will go out of their way to say that we are a Christian nation. Sometimes they'll say a Judeo-Christian if they want to be a little bit larger in their tent. But uh but the Muslim the Sharia law uh that sort of thing is now uh way more front and center um at at least at this particular gathering than at ones in the past. Um you know it's uh you don't want to read their minds as to what why it is that they're they're going after uh that particular segment of our population. uh you know, you know, a cynic might say, "Well, you know, the LGBTQ community is not the um uh you know, the big boogeyman it used to be and some of the other uh um uh you know, subsets of society. So maybe it's just their turn.

[00:30:57]But it did strike me the same way it struck you."

[00:31:00]>> Yeah. I think what happened to me when I was at this convention like and I'll admit y'all I kind of ignored this stuff in past conventions, you know, where they were going anti-Islamic. I'm like, "Okay, this is like we said earlier, this is just a few people in a room, you know, at a convention center talking about, you know, maybe their individual biases or whatever. Like, who cares, right? It's not a big deal. It won't come." But it was so prevalent in everywhere that I was like, it it wasn't just so, you know, it was signage everywhere. There was a luncheon I went to where they spent like two hours talking about, you know, Islamic activity in the state of Texas and like in the harshest ways you could possibly talk about it. Chip Roy made an appearance to kind of add fuel to the discussion. You know, you uh you saw it in the exhibit hall, they had a booth set up uh where they just, you know, all this literature including one, you know, I actually have some of the literature here. I was like I picked it up. I was like, "Oh, wait a minute. This stuff is like pretty intense kind of wording."

[00:31:58]And there was like hundreds of these, you know, on their desk. And I'm like, what is going on there? It's like the enemy's plan for all of us to see. Like, who's the enemy? Uh, Sharia law a threat to all Americans. I like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay. So, I wanted to, you know, I was like, okay, I may not be able to ignore this anymore. And then I heard it in Greg Abbott's speech. I heard it in Ted Cruz's speech. I'm like, oh, it's on the main platform now. It's like, it's going to be in the legislative port.

[00:32:23]Like, where is all this going? And and it made me very confused because again like we talked about with the Dan Patrick stuff, there's a lot of, you know, Christian messaging already happening, but he's framing it as, you know, religious liberty and religious freedom and things like that. I'm like, oh wait, maybe religious liberty and religious freedom isn't quite for everybody. And so, of course, that so luckily I ran into Allan Schoolcraft.

[00:32:48]He's a state representative who is part of the Sharia the anti-Sharia caucus.

[00:32:54]their words, not mine, y'all. I like I'm not even sure if we all understand what Sharia is at this point. It sounds like everybody has a different definition of it. So, I wanted to sit, you know, grab, you know, school craft and I wanted to ask him that very question like, how can you be in a party that professes to be for religious liberty and yet you're saying this religion is not part of the equation? We want these folks gone. Do are is this all Muslims have to go or is it just some? And so anyhow, take a listen to what he had to tell me here and see what you think about, you know, what's going on there.

[00:33:31]>> All right. So, so tell me how big is this right now? It's like this seems to have a lot more uh interest and bringing a lot more people to this table uh over the last couple days than I expected to see. What is it that's driving this? I >> I think it's fear. Um people are are looking at what has happened in Europe, Scandinavia, England, they have massive problems um from lack of assimilation and um cultural conflict um we think we're maybe 5 or 10 years behind what's happening there and we're trying to address it now uh while we can.

[00:34:12]>> Well, and obviously this is a big melting pot, right? People talk about America being all kinds of things, but the question, you know, it's not that you're against anybody who might be of that faith, right? This is about those people maybe not coming here and not assimilating.

[00:34:26]>> Yes. It it is has nothing to do with faith with religion. I don't know of anybody who cares how anyone prays, who they pray to. That that's religion. And and it fundamentally we appreciate that.

[00:34:41]uh this is more about cultural differences refusing to assimilate and trying to establish a parallel culture.

[00:34:50]Uh that's what has happened in in England. You know, for 250 years we've we've welcomed immigrants and they've come here because they wanted to become Americans, but there's a very large segment of this particular group that doesn't appear to want to assimilate.

[00:35:08]>> Yeah. And that's a big difference. I I remember Ronald Reagan saying that that's the what makes this country different. People will come to this country to become Americans. It's so not so easy for us to go to like Japan or to China or to any of these places and be part of those cultures. Right. Correct.

[00:35:22]But here we are that beacon, but that does have that question of are these people, you know, becoming Americans? Do they really want to be Americans?

[00:35:32]>> Correct. And I personally love the differences in culture that we have in this country. I enjoy visiting other cultures. I'll be in Egypt this November.

[00:35:41]>> I've been to Turkey and toured Turkey. I find the culture fascinating.

[00:35:45]>> Yeah.

[00:35:46]>> But I also don't want to live in that culture. I appreciate being an American.

[00:35:50]I appreciate American culture. Uh you know, we have I live in a German area.

[00:35:55]We have lots of German in. But they're Americans, >> right?

[00:35:58]>> Um we want people to come here to be Americans, and that's just what we're trying to trying to accomplish.

[00:36:05]>> And so in this convention, you know, this is going to be one of the top priorities. it feels like coming out of this what what can the legislature do from this standpoint on what are you guys hoping that they can do >> it's a very very difficult issue I mean there is total respect for the constitution freedom of religion and so we have to figure out how to craft legislation that avoids the cultural conflict the cultural problems the Sharia issues that are coming here that not all Muslims but some group of leaders within the Islam community. So, it's not against Muslims, it's against Islamist uh activists who are trying to import and impose upon us their culture and their beliefs. So, trying to attack that while not appearing to attack or not attacking religion, it's it's a difficult thread and I mean it's a very difficult thing to do, but that that's what we're working on.

[00:37:02]>> Okay. Well, I appreciate your help.

[00:37:04]>> Thank you.

[00:37:04]>> Pleasure. Now look, you know, this was all over the convention. Like I mentioned, everywhere you go, you couldn't escape some sort of anti-Islam or anti-Sharia law or whatever they were calling it. It was in every corner. They had a lunchon dedicated this where for like over an hour they were just talking about all the threats they saw happening in America, in Texas. Uh they had a booth set up in the exhibit hall uh where it was just f it had filled with literature brochures like this kind of stuff where they were talking about the enemy's plan for all to see and is you know Islamic Sharia law threat to all Americans. It was everywhere. It was in the speeches. Governor Greg Abbott, Ted Cruz were both talking about this issue.

[00:37:47]It made me understand that this goes a lot further. And what was amazing about this now there are there are still people of the Muslim faith who are in the Republican party who were at this convention and they became part of the target of it. I have Hashra Galani on to talk to me. She's with the Houston Chronicle and she's been covering this you know for us. you know, tell us what happened at this. You know, these these members were considered to be too close to care and then all of a sudden they found themselves almost being expelled, right?

[00:38:23]>> Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me.

[00:38:24]So, there was one member um of the two delegates who were considered to have their credentials revoked. One of them, Tar Hussein, actually did found Care Texas chapter, the Care Texas chapter um and he served as president, though he's no longer in that position. Um but he did that for a while. And then the other member who uh they were considering revoking his credentials um his name was Amjad Mut Mut Mutas and he also was um someone who said he hadn't served in a position with care but that he had um spoken at a press conference for them before and anyway um his name was kind of associated with care. Um both of those people I thought that this was interesting had served as delegates before for this same convention. It's not their first time. It's not their second time. Um, and they said that they've been Republican for a while and have been voting in elections and are still loyal to the Republican party.

[00:39:17]>> Yeah, it's amazing how quickly this has shifted. There was a lot of people, you know, of Islamic faith that I was talking to in Fort Pen County and Harris County over the years who align more with Republicans because they had conservative ideologies and, you know, they agreed with a lot of the planks that they saw in the Republican party.

[00:39:34]But even in this environment, they are not now starting to feel that they're not welcome in there. And and we heard earlier in the show about how uh you know, there are some Republicans who are trying to insist that this isn't an anti-Muslim thing in terms of religion.

[00:39:51]And they're trying to walk this line, say, "Oh, no, no, no. This isn't about religion. Everybody has the right to free, you know, freedom of religion."

[00:39:58]Remember, that's in our United States Constitution, y'all. It's like it's the first amendment. You can't get B very far into the Constitution without knowing that everybody has a right and freedom to worship. It seems like they're trying to walk some line here where they're trying to say, "Oh, wait, wait, but this doesn't count somehow."

[00:40:15]Uh, this is this has seemingly grown pretty quickly, you know? Can you tell us a little bit about like what you've been seeing? You've been covering religion for us for quite some time now.

[00:40:25]Uh, how does this turned into such a massive issue and it doesn't feel like this is going away anytime soon? It really depends on who in the Republican party you ask because of course you'd have some figures um who say that again this isn't about Islam. This is about a specific group of people trying to enforce Sharia. Um but then you do have figures like you know US reb Chip Roy and he will say Islam has no place in Western civilization. Um at the same time you know one of the speakers at the convention um you know the rare foundation its founder Amy Meckleberg she is an anti-Islam activist. So there really are kind of different sides to even within the GOP um you know how pro you know how how how much this matters to you and kind of where you fall on the Islam um Islam's role in America. Um but yeah, we've been seeing this for a while. Um you know, it's something that really started, I think you could say last year when Governor Greg Abbott um spoke out and said Sharia law isn't a thing in Texas. um after everything that was happening with the in development East Plano East Plano Islamic Center um housing project and community project um and that really spiraled and kind of got us to here in this moment where we are um when we had more and more leaders from the Republican party coming out and essentially condemning Sharia law. Um if you ask Muslims, the interesting thing is um they'll all have some kind of different definition on what Sharia law is. Same with scholars. Um it's something I've written about. Um they'll say most likely though that it's more of like a spiritual framework and that it's fluid and something that changes over time. Um just depending on the culture and kind of you know the the environment of the time um and that it's not really like a set legal framework. Um so it's it's something that's constantly being interpreted and it isn't really something that most people even within the Muslim faith can just kind of define um off the top of their heads.

[00:42:15]>> Yeah. It's like with any faith. There are some people who are, you know, more deeply rooted in the faith than others, right? There's more casual, you know, folks out there when they see, you know, when they're talking about Sharia, they're talking about like a divine set of moral principles that they're they're trying to use as a basic guideline, you know, like, you know, not smoking, not drinking, you know, not, you know, being violent, you know, things like that are part of that for some people. And clearly these Republicans at this Republican convention were seeing it as something entirely different, something very dark, something very like, you know, I I couldn't even keep track of all the things they were doing and trying to figure out like, you know, where the line is here of, you know, again, where is that line where, you know, freedom of religion is pretty paramount in the United States, but is it now supposed to be a caveat where it's like, yeah, you have the, you know, the first amendment protects religion except for people of the Muslim faith.

[00:43:11]He's like, I I don't know how they square this. It feels constitutionally they're going to have a really thin line to walk here to try to get, you know, any sort of legislation through like even what kind of legislation they want.

[00:43:24]It's like I'm not sure what they want.

[00:43:26]It's like I'm not a fully understanding when I'm listening at this convention.

[00:43:31]Uh do they just want people to leave?

[00:43:34]which I don't know how you make that happen, but it just seems like a push.

[00:43:38]Have you heard what folks want to do here? What their ultimate goal is? It just to stop the epic city type, you know, developments, or is there something bigger that they just want to stop all immigration uh and people of, you know, the Muslim faith from coming here?

[00:43:54]>> Yeah. Yeah, I mean if you do look at the, you know, the legislative priorities um from the the state party, um you know, something that is number two is the stopping the Islamification as they call it um in Texas. And one of the things listed on there is deporting people who believe in Sharia or subscribe to Sharia. Um that's not the first time we've kind of heard that idea. Again, that's something that um you know, Trip Roy also mentioned um you know, tried to put forward in Congress.

[00:44:22]Um, and so it's something that, you know, is being discussed. It's also not the first iteration. I mean, if you want to talk about religion, obviously we've seen with Trump's travel ban in his first term. Um, you know, there has been an attempt to slow Muslim immigration specifically or immigration from predominantly Muslim countries in the past. So, it maybe isn't something to totally rule out. Um but at the same time it is something that's a little tricky to figure out who is advocating for Sharia law or how you are subscribing to it or even what the agreed upon definition of Sharia law is.

[00:44:53]Um again I think that's something that a lot of Muslims would find confusing. Um the other thing that I think is interesting about this is a lot of Muslims and their advocates um even some Democrats like Jin Wu for example have said that this rhetoric from Republicans they believe is causing violence. And I've spoken to some experts who kind of believe that there is some merit to those claims um in terms of kind of um what they would describe as maybe fear-mongering or um disinformation about Muslims and what they believe in.

[00:45:20]So um you know even as even if this is kind of just talk um there are people who believe that this is still harmful to a certain group of people. You know, I didn't really intend to have an episode where we were going to be talking about this issue because I always thought this was on the fringe of the Republican party, but going to this convention and seeing how predominant it was, I was I was left with this question of like like you mentioned, there's a lot of question about what this is even is, you know, when you say, you know, I don't want Sharia law in Texas, it's like what that means to people seems to vary from person to person, whether you're Muslim or not. It's like people just have different definitions and what you want to do about that seems to be open-ended. And so as I was going around this, you know, convention and, you know, meeting with people, talking to people, it became abundantly clear that what we saw in those TV ads during the campaign cycle, that's not the end of it. Like you mentioned, they they put this into their priority list going into this next legislative session. And y'all, it's important when something gets in that legislative priority list, then they push it in the legislature every single day. So if you vote anything that goes against this concept, the Republican party of Texas can actually censure these people and go after them and maybe even run them off the ballot in future races. That's how serious they got. They tried to censure uh House Speaker Dustin Burroughs this last time. And so you can see there's a lot more weight in having this legislative priority if this is one of the things they can use different tools to go after this. So I just felt it was important that we actually start trying to address this as you know whether you think this is you know crazy or not it's going to be part of the next legislative discussion. So we start all have to start getting a little bit you know better understand get a better understanding of what it is people are trying to get what they intend to do in the legislature and what impact it's going to have on people and what are we even talking about like you mentioned it just it just feels like there's a lot of open-endedness to this and I have a hunch this will not be the last time we're talking about this issue in the state of Texas we still have another whole campaign you know in the general election to get through a thank you so much for joining the Texas sake. Nice having you on here finally. Uh and everybody check out her work. She's going to have some really great stories, you know, digging into what happened at this convention and what's happening to some of these delegates. And you know, definitely tune in to the Houston Chronicle Chronicle to follow more of that. Thanks a lot for joining the show.

[00:47:56]>> Thank you.

[00:47:58]>> You know who would be great to talk to on this episode now? Somebody who really knows Harris County. I want to talk to Dr. Leticia Plameumber. Dr. Tisha Palmer just pulled off a major upset in Texas politics, in Harris County politics. You know, she is now the nominee to be the next county judge uh for the Democrats at least going into this midterm cycle.

[00:48:21]She still has a general election to run.

[00:48:23]But I want to bring you on, Dr. plumber to ask you, you know, well, first you before we get into like how you pulled off this victory. Let me ask you about all this anti-Islamic messaging we're hearing from the government, including the, you know, Governor Greg Abbott now and the Texas legislature. This is clearly going to be a topic that they want to keep pursuing going into this next legislative session. if you're in office and you're representing, you know, Harris County, which is, you know, I think we all agree is is kind of a nice melting pot of all kinds of different people, uh, when you're hearing all this messaging, you know, what's your feeling? Is this is this something that like, you know, these communities are in trouble for, or is this just going to be a passing fat and these Republicans maybe move on?

[00:49:10]hopefully, >> you know, honestly, first of all, it's so unfortunate that we're focusing on religion when our constitutional rights is free speech and free and free religion, right? Um it's another distraction I think the Republicans are doing to continue to divide us uh to create opportunities where we're not focusing on the real issues which are making taking care of people. And so, yes, I think that it's something that they're going to do. You know, I want to remind everybody that, you know, we all share the same fundamental covenant, right? In Islam, we we, you know, we absorb all books. The Bible, the Torah, you know, Muslims and Jews and Christians are all children of of Abraham. And so, we have so many similarities. And I just think this is another opportunity uh for the for the Republicans to just divide us because they are afraid. they are afraid of all of our cultural um all the cultures specifically in Harris County actually come together in one voice in one motion and really want to make sure that we take care of people. They know they are going to vote Democratic and they know that the we could potentially win the state and and inflict, you know, flip the state of Texas and they are terrified. And so I am listening.

[00:50:20]Obviously, I'm aware I will be the first Muslim to ever, you know, be in this seat. So obviously, it's something that's near and dear to me. But my faith literally teaches me to heal and that's what we are going to continue to do for our communities.

[00:50:32]>> Yeah. And like you said, you know, during this kind of campaign cycle where Republicans know that, you know, look, they got the win in their face right now. And so, you don't want to talk about the economy, you don't want to talk about affordability, so you talk about other issues. You that's when we have our culture wars, you know, and so we'll get into the affordability question in a little bit. I'm sure this was part of your campaign. Uh, I know it was part of your campaign. I know you were asked about this, you know, time and time again when you were running.

[00:50:58]So, let's take a step back and go tell the folks how did you win this race?

[00:51:02]What was it do you think as you look back on it like how did you pull this off?

[00:51:07]>> I honestly believe that we heard people.

[00:51:09]We met them where they were. We found solutions that would actually transform their individual lives. They heard our message. They saw our plan and they were ready to get engaged. They are tired of the old politics. They're tired of the folks that continue to be in the political space and um are recycled in many ways. They want a new voice. They want someone that is aligned with how they're thinking and that can really personally experience um what they're experiencing now which creating some real challenges in how they're living within Harris County.

[00:51:41]>> Yeah, absolutely. the idea of newer, fresher faces in all of politics, not just in Harris County and Texas, but it seems like voters on both sides of the aisle have been saying, "Let's try something different. Let's get some new faces in there, some new people who can kind of make these cases and not, you know, not all the same people, you know, that we've seen for years." No offense to them, but it's like there's also, you know, what about, you know, are there new ideas? Are there fresh ideas? And so it feels like you were able to really kind of hit that nerve and reach out to a lot of different communities that you know the the turnout wasn't as bad as I expected it to be. I thought turnout was pretty good.

[00:52:18]>> Yeah. I mean honestly this is a runoff election. You don't have any really top big names on the ticket. I mean obviously we had the congressional 18 you know um seat in in the runoff as well. But, you know, honestly, what we did really good, you know, the part that kind of makes everything so crazy is people think that all black people live in CD-18, you know, people, right? People that want affordability and fairness and public safety in a real way and good schools to go to and don't want to flood, they live all over the county, >> you know, and this was our message, right? And we did s we did really well in our tombballs and our Cyprus and, you know, in our Katy. We also did well within the loop, but we were smart enough to understand that the work that I'd done as city council member was so transformational in that CD18 space that when they went into the polls, they were going to vote for us. So, we spent our time introducing myself to people outside of the 610 loop and really got into spaces where people typically don't talk to. And I think that's was that was another um piece that really made us energized. We created this amazing ground swell and everybody went to work.

[00:53:25]>> Yeah. And and and and you what a key point like people want to paint, you know, Houston and Harris County with a broad brush sometimes. It's like, oh, this is where the Hispanics live. This is where the black folks live. This is where and no, we're all together in the same community, y'all. It's like it's like we all are working with each other and trying to, you know, figure out our differences and see what we can do and saying there's not any one specific neighborhood. Uh given that, let's look ahead a little bit. So if you are uh the the winner in November, what do you want to do as you know county judge? What do you think you can get accomplished?

[00:54:02]>> Yes. I I mean we did transformational work as a city council member and I plan on getting things accomplished as well.

[00:54:08]You I'm not a lifetime politician. I'm a dentist by trade. uh you know my job every single day you know talks about listening to my patients understanding what the problem is diagnosing it and solving the problem I cannot get away with kicking the can down the road and so my expectation are our multiple spaces public safety is going to be one of our initial we're going to look heavily at the Harris County jail system 80% of the inmates have mental health challenges we spend upwards of $50 million you know shipping these inmates out to Mississippi and Louisiana that's huge bud budgetary piece that we have to look at, but we need to and we need to find out why that's happening and why we're overpop populated. I would love to create some type of justice to workforce development program for our non-violent offenders. We have to make sure that our the officers that work within the jail are supported but are also trained. We have to look at why the mental health numbers are so high and give them the support that they need. In many ways, working with the Harris Center could be a preventive arm to making to ensuring that folks don't even go to jail. We've got to look at our social determinants in terms of infrastructure. I know that flooding happens everywhere, but it happens in areas that are the most vulnerable. What does that look like?

[00:55:20]Getting shovels in the ground, building capacity to ensure that we don't flood every single time it rains. My background is is public health. I'm a dentist by choice. So, ensuring that our Harris health system is funded, but also spending the money the right way uh is going to be important. But my main job is going to be disaster recovery, resilience, and preparedness and recovery, right? And so preventing us from flooding, but when a storm comes, I'm going to be front and center working with the federal government, with the state to ensure that we are prepared to do what we need to do uh to take care of our folks within the you within the county. I've got one concept that I'm really focused on, our lily pad resiliency hubs. You know, when I was a council member, there were four things that were always missing. it was food, opportunity of resource, some level electricity, some level of generation and then healthcare. And I want to, you know, create a resiliency hub to where these will be able to be deployed in communities because we never know, you know, where these storms are going to hit and who are going to be in the line of fire. And so those are kind of my top priorities that I want to look at. Lots of work to do. It's not going to happen in one day. It's going to happen over time, but I'm looking forward to working with my commissioners on the court uh to really make these transformational initiatives happen.

[00:56:35]>> Well, you said a key word there, working with the commissioners on the court. All right. So, this is a really good, you know, segue. Like, so you're you're you're new in a degree, but you also have experience on the city council.

[00:56:46]Obviously, for folks who, you know, don't know your biography, you've been on the city council now for a couple years and get to see, you know, the the legislative processing, right? And so I think one of the things like even as we looked at Lena Hago's tenure as county judge, there were times where she, you know, struggled to find those consensus points to work with other members of the commission commissioner's court because it turns out you're one of a commissioner in a lot of ways and you have to start negotiating changes and when especially when you're thinking about big bold ideas, you got to be working with other folks. Do you have that experience? Are you going to be able to take some of these ideas and turn them into reality, you know, and be able to work within that structure of, hey, look, I got some people who just don't agree with me here, uh, both Democrat and Republican. Can I work with them?

[00:57:38]>> Absolutely. And that's actually one piece that makes me the most prepared for this job. Uh, because I was at large council member with the city of Houston, I did not get a budget and I had to get to nine to get my votes across, right?

[00:57:52]And so I had to work behind the scenes, stakeholders on both sides, looking at data to make my decisions to allow me to make my decisions, talking to the folks that just really didn't agree and finding the similarities of that and meeting them in the middle. That's how I got my apartment inspection reform ordinance passed. That's how the ICE ordinance got passed. That's how my generator got placed in Kashmir Gardens.

[00:58:13]That's how my cancer cluster project was funded upwards of a million dollars and were, you know, taking care of of 200 families. And so these my department of spectrum reform as well. And so these initiatives could not been done if I was not able to work with folks. Everyone had their different opinions. And so so you know getting to three a lot is a lot easier than getting to nine. And and I'm I'm excited about being able to do that.

[00:58:38]>> Well and one other factor of the job that I think a lot of people underestimate particularly for Harris County. Look, there's, you know, a lot of you have 254 counties with leaders out there, but Harris County specifically has become somewhat of a uh a pin cushion for, you know, the state government. You know, when they have issues, they, you know, they look to suse you Harris County, you know, Christian Meny, our now congressman, you know, you know, former county attorney, spent a lot of time having to fight the Ken Paxton administration and the, you know, Governor Abbott, uh, and his team, you know, as county judge. That's one of the unspoken, you know, jobs, I guess, is like you end up being this person who can potentially be at odds with the governor and, you know, the Republican legislature quite frequently.

[00:59:24]Tell us a little bit how do you handle that? You know, that's going to be like a real challenge as we've seen it with Lena Hago, the the the governor and his people want to go after them, want to go after Houston specifically and talk about look at all the crime problems, look at all the issues there. It's because of liberal policies that are out of state step with the rest of Texas.

[00:59:45]What's going to be your response when they turn the the heat on you on that?

[00:59:49]>> Yeah. No, absolutely. I think it first starts with the relationship between the county and the city. That has to be that has to be healed and I plan on doing that. I've got a great working relationship with Mayor Whitmer. But we have to also remember the 34 cities within the county and so there are other government officials that I need to be able to work with as well and I'm looking forward to that. You know, my job minus the distractions is making sure that we draw dollars down from the federal government, from the state directly, direct allocations to the to the county. That is what we have to do when a storm happens. And I'm ready to do all of those things and put aside the differences that we experience. There's a huge overreach that's happening from our governor. And I really do believe the fracture relationship with our with our mayor, with Mayor Whitmer Meyer, the fracture relationship with Judge Adalgo, uh, you know, creates some additional challenges. I will be a different type of leader. You know, I I've got some lived experiences. I'm a small business owner. I I understand how to negotiate.

[01:00:49]I know we can't get everything all the time, but I can find our similarities and focus on those and work through our differences later. And so, I'm looking forward to it. You know, when I was working on the cancer cluster, the EPA was a challenge for us. You know, when I was when I was looking working with TCQ with air quality and the the cement batch plants, TCQ was working against us, right? Because those are all governmental affairs uh in in a in a very conservative state. We were able to still get things done. And so, so I'm I'm very comfortable and confident that we'll be able to uh to reach across the aisle. You know, I'll give you another example. you know, when GLOW when GL the GLLO was coming in, there was a huge disconnect between Mayor Turner post Harvey and GLLO and I was able to work with GLLO and get homes rebuilt for our neighbors in in communities that were that were destroyed in those spaces. And so, you know, I'm looking forward to this. You know, our goal and my goal is going to always remain people. I'm people driven. I'm people focused. and we're going to work through all of the differences as necessary and avoid all the distractions.

[01:01:56]>> Yeah. One of the pieces of legislation I saw that you had been working on the city council was, you know, this relationship between, you know, the police and ICE. Uh this is an issue obviously that, you know, concerns a lot of people in the state of Texas at this point. Uh that that can be controversial for a Republican state, right? There's going to be people who want to push back against that idea. tell us a little bit about what you think the responsibilities are of the of Houston and the Harris County Sheriff's Department to be working with ICE going forward.

[01:02:29]>> So, it's very very different, you know, and I explained this when I was on the campaign trail. The relationship with with HPD and ICE, we actually have a bit of control over. It's something that we can negotiate because they're under we over that they're our oversight, right?

[01:02:43]Um with the sheriff's and the constable is completely different. They are statemandated. They work on their own.

[01:02:49]They're completely autonomous. And so what I was hoping to do was if we could allow an opportunity where HPD could make their own decisions, right? And um when they're interacting with someone that has a ice hit on them, we would take care of almost half of the population of the county because we don't have those same powers. And what we don't want to do is we don't want to push so hard at a county level and then the sheriffs and the constables go to the the Texas legislature and then make some, you know, create some bill that gives them even more oversight and more autonomy. We got to be a little bit careful with that. So, what I was wanting to do on my exit of city council was really just try to give um HPD, you know, a little bit more um make it their choice, mirror their decision in terms of what it was and not be forced um to have to uh to interact with ICE in the same way that that's happening in a lot of cities.

[01:03:46]Well, and and let's circle back to just what this means for Harris County to have you campaigning uh down the stretch here. I know a lot of people in the community seem pretty excited. It's like, you know, it's like we haven't had like, you know, a strong black woman as the nominee uh for the Democratic party uh like this. you know, this seems like this has a potential of getting people excited about this race uh and you maybe getting out to vote. Uh what what's been the reaction? What are you feeling out there as you're on the campaign trail?

[01:04:21]>> Yeah, it's been so good. I'll tell you, I was on a radio show yesterday during June well Saturday on Junth parade and they acknowledged my grandfather who was one of the first African-American judges in the state of Texas and they kind of talked about his history and him being a Tuskegee airman instructor and you know the um the the crim the um the um the attorney for Muhammad Ali and just all desegregating the Harris County cafeteria like all these things and I was listening and I just got chills cuz that's the shoes I have to fill you you know, my grandfather is, you know, is is is is my, you know, the person I have to make sure I do the same good work that he did. And so, to be honest with you, I don't take this lightly. I am taking this incredibly seriously because I do believe that, you know, we are when people are having culture wars, we're bringing hope. And where people are driving from fear, we are driving with with with hope and ambition and and all the things. And so, I'm excited. You know, it's a weird nervousness, but it's it's hearing people stopping me in the parade and like, "Thank you. Thank you, plumber. Thank you so much. You are you are the reason I got out to vote this time. We know you're going to do the right by us." And and hearing that, it's a lot of pressure, but but at the same time, I I think it's um a responsibility that I'm ready for. I think my life has prepared me for this moment and I'm I'm I'm dealing with it head on and I'm really excited about good people surrounding me and um community folks that want to get engaged and let us win this race. So, >> and the last thought would be look anytime there's a primary and a difficult primary there can be hurt feelings in there. Uh it's like and you know how do you come together? I just we just heard the Republicans struggling with this idea coming out of their convention trying to figure out how do you put these pieces together and get unified again. On your side, it's like obviously it was a it was a tough primary. It's like do you feel like you know Democrats will come back together ultimately in the end and what do you need to do to kind of you know extend that olive branch to make folks know that you're there for them too?

[01:06:23]>> Yeah, you know we're we're a big tent party, right? I mean, we got some tons of differences, but one thing I'll tell you though, we have gotten calls from everybody. Everyone that stood on the sideline, they are ready to go. They know the charge. They know what we need to do. They know we've got one chance at really flipping the state and they're excited about it. So, that race was yesterday. We are now on today. And we are all going to work together with one voice, one, you know, one vision, one fight and and make this thing happen.

[01:06:53]And so, we're excited. We know what's at what's at risk here. Uh you know and um and we are all going to work together to make it happen. It's already happening.

[01:07:01]The consolidation of resources, the consolidation of support, um endorsements, collaboration, it's already happening and and that's what's making this so incredibly special.

[01:07:12]>> Well, this has been amazing to have Dr. Leicia Plumber on with us. Uh her first time on the Texas Take, y'all. So there you go. You're hearing it straight from her. We don't have to take it from any other media or like, you know, wonder what she's thinking. She's telling you right now what her plan is, what she's going to do. So, there you go, y'all.

[01:07:30]Thanks, Dr. Plamer, for joining the program and best of luck down the campaign trail. I have a hunch I'm going to be seeing you on the campaign trail as we're covering the election here.

[01:07:39]It's clear into November.

[01:07:41]>> I can't wait. Thank you so much for having me. This has been so much fun and we're looking forward to making Harris County the best it's ever been.

[01:07:48]>> Right, y'all. One more thing before we hit the exit here. I want to briefly touch on what happened at Texas Tech University in their quarterback. No, no, we're not shifting into the Texas Tech sports edition here. Uh there's a political reason why this is important.

[01:08:02]I'll get to that in a second here, but first understand Brendan Sorsby was the quarterback at Texas Tech University, but he was banned from ever playing the sport again because he had bet on college sports, including on his own team when he was back at Indiana University. Here's the Texas end to this thing. he was still betting on college sports even when he was in Texas, which as you know isn't legal. So, he was already skirting Texas law by, you know, gambling on the sport. Uh, but look, Texas Tech went to war to kind of get him back on the team. uh Sorsby ended up suing uh and actually a judge, you know, in Lebec ended up giving him the rights to play football again much to the chagrin of the NCAA and a lot of other college sports teams who were saying, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, that's not fair."

[01:08:50]That's where Ken Paxton jumped into the whole fray as if anybody asked him to, right? Ken Paxton then started threatening other conferences in the NCAA in the, you know, Big 12. You can't do anything to stop Sorsby from playing.

[01:09:03]you can't be, you know, taking action against Texas Tech because they're allowing him to play. You can't do all that stuff. So, all of a sudden, you had Ken Paxton fighting for this thing.

[01:09:12]Well, here's the thing. It's actually in the Republican party's platform of in the at least the Republican party of Texas. They have, you know, a part of that long platform that we were talking about with the IVF stuff earlier in the program with John Morris. In that platform, they say, "We don't want the expansion of gambling." and they have long fought against sports betting even though it's illegal in like what it's legal in 30 or 40 other states at this point, but Texas refuses to do it. The Texas Senate led by Dan Patrick has opposed that at all stops. They won't let it get through uh the Texas Senate.

[01:09:50]But here we are. We have Ken Paxton defending a guy who went around those rules to bet on the sport and then defending Texas Tech from getting him back in onto the football field. It's like, is there not a moral line there where the party platform says this is wrong, but no, no, no, this kid deserves another chance. Well, Sorsby sorted it all out for us. Even all the fight and, you know, making a political issue, all of it was for not. It turned out Sorsby just decided he's going to go to the NFL anyhow. So, it's all for not. He's never going to play for Texas Tech after all.

[01:10:24]So, this fight was about what again?

[01:10:26]It's just all kind of weird. But anyhow, I just wanted to address that. I think Texas Tech is going to feel this for a while even though Sorsby uh is going to be long gone. Uh Kirk BS over at the Houston Chronicle, you know, he covers the uh Texas Longhorns and college sports. You one of the great icons of covering the sport. Check out his story on this. He had a nice column on how Texas Tech really did the wrong thing here. The right thing actually ended up happening where Sorsby who gambled on his will never play again. But it's not like Texas Tech took that line in the sand and said that's what we're doing.

[01:11:00]No, no, no. They said we want this guy to play. They went to war to try to get him back on the team so he could throw a football despite being morally what the party, the Republican party is trying to stop here in Texas. You figure that out.

[01:11:15]Well, thanks again for listening to this episode. You know, what a show, right?

[01:11:18]We had the first interview yet of the new chair of the Republican Party of Texas. Uh, big thanks to Durand Dinda Randall for, you know, being on the program. A big thanks for Leticia Plameumber for making time to talk to us, too. You know, she is going to be so interesting because if she does win in November, she's going to be kind of the perfect foil for Governor Greg Abbott and Republicans in the Texas legislature. Oh, and you know they're going to go after Harris County and Houston. They always do, right? It's just part of the agenda at this point.

[01:11:48]It may as well be the first day of the session. You get sworn in now you attack Houston and Harris County. Just what happens here. So, you know, thanks a lot for her for joining the program. Thank you to Hajra, you know, Galani for joining the program as well and giving us some a little bit of insight. She'd been covering these issues uh around anti-Islam, you know, for the Houston Chronicle for a while. So, it was nice to have her boys on here to help explain a little bit about what we're talking about. And of course, thanks to John Moritz. You've heard him a lot on this program. Uh he's really good at bringing this stuff together. Uh he followed me on my elephant joke, right? You know, it's like we got to address the elephant in the room. It literally was Paige. So, there you have it. Thanks a lot for listening to this episode of the Texas Tech. Be sure to check out the Texas Tech newsletter, too. There's a lot of good stuff in there, including my up in the down feature every day. That's where I track who's up and down in Texas politics. Uh it's like a stock market report to see who's doing well and who's not. So yeah, it's free and easy to sign up for. Just, you know, Google my name or check out my pin post on X. I have a link right there where you can just click on it. It'll take you right to the signup page. Again, free doesn't cost you a nickel. So, thanks a lot for watching this episode and listening to this episode of the Texas Tech and we will talk to you all soon.