GOV310 – In The News: A look at national politics through the eyes of Texas, August 13, 2019

[0:00:08 Speaker 2] live from the

[0:00:09 Speaker 1] University of Texas at Austin, the Liberal Arts Development Studio and the Department of Government. Present introduction to American government with your professors,

[0:00:18 Speaker 0] Darren Shaw and Eric McDaniel. Hey, it’s 105 degrees. And I’m Professor Shaw.

[0:00:30 Speaker 1] Remember, first McDaniel, welcome to introduction to American government or in the news for introduction to American Go.

[0:00:35 Speaker 0] Because in the news, are you sweltering? You all right,

[0:00:38 Speaker 1] man? Vegas was 116 so

[0:00:42 Speaker 0] this is a little bit cool. Yeah, I was in, uh, Gillespie. I went to Lynchburg. Liberty University was 92 it was 10 degrees cooler than it wasn’t awesome. All right, so you guys made it last in the news segment. You should be pretty familiar with the drill. By now, we’re gonna talk about a couple of topics and ask you guys Teoh right briefly about them, relate them to the broader concept. Of course, we’ll try to make some of those connections as we go along, but, you know, you may have to pick up some of these threads on your own again. The point is to encourage you all to use the kind of theoretical materials and broader materials that we bring to the table in the lecture modules to make sense of what’s going on in the news today. And they said, We’ll do a little bit of the heavy lifting for you, but we really want, encourage you guys toe, spread your wings a little bit and use this stuff to make sense of what’s going on. We got three things we want to talk about today, one at the state level, which will save for last. That’s the controversy surrounding the activities of Republican Speaker of the House Dennis Bond in. If that doesn’t make doesn’t ring a bell, it will. Soon we’ll explain that they want to talk about two national issues. You want to talk about some changes in the Environmental Protection Act, or at least interpretation, the Environmental Protection Act that were released Monday of this week by the Trump administration. Then the first issue we’re going to start with, though, plays to the broad topic we’ve discussed in a couple of modules media and in particular media bias, and they’re saying that caught my attention this weekend, so this was kind of my baby foisting upon Professor McDaniel, Although he’s quite happy. Talk about media coverage, I think. But there was an episode that occurred in the wake of the mass shootings of last week. So the El Paso on the date and shootings those issues there are only going to serve is kind of the background here. We want to focus on the media coverage of those shootings and in particular headlines in The New York Times and just want to talk briefly about the notion of media bias and how some aspects of it are really influenced by modern technology, or at least could be. So what happened? Well, there was a headline in The New York Times that came out after President Trump has speech concerning the shootings. Okay, and there was a controversy that erupted in the twitterverse about how The New York Times had portrayed President Trump’s speech and then, after the sort of uprising in the twitterverse, the New York Times reacted. We’ve got a brief video that we’re going to show that kind of sets the table so you will have a good sense of the backdrop here. Professor McDaniel and I are gonna kind of tag team on what we think of this and how it relates to the broader notion of media bias today. So if we could cue that up, bear with this for a sec. We can’t pull this this morning. Hopefully we could strip out all the advertisements, but cue that up. I think he’ll set the table nicely.

[0:03:32 Speaker 2] The New York Times receives backlash for headlining President Trump’s comments denouncing hate and white supremacy during his speech regarding the recent mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio. As Quote Trump urges Unity versus Racism A photograph of the papers First Edition tweeted out by journalists Nate Silver had Twitter users in an up board saying The quote ray lady and accurately represented Trump’s comments so much so author and CNN contributor Joan Walsh cancelled her subscription tweeting quote. I can’t keep rewarding such awful news judgments. And freshman congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez tweeted let this front page serve as a reminder of how white supremacy is aided by and often relies upon the cavernous of mainstream institutions. Presidential hopefuls, Senators Kirsten Gillibrand tweeted quote. That’s not what happens. And Cory Booker tweeted quote. Lives literally depend on you doing better. New York Times Please do and one word from beta award. Hours later, a second edition of the front page read a sailing Hate, but not guns, and the website reflected a similar headline. Trump condemns white supremacy but stopped short of major Gun Fox News is reporting that it is not clear if the headline change was in response to the backlash. The publication did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

[0:05:01 Speaker 0] They did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Is the philosophy that Professor McDaniel and I embrace? Way did not immediately respond to requests for comments occasionally. So this plays into the discussion that we had earlier about? Well, first of all, let’s back up a sec. You know, it’s not just in this case. Fox and right wing media took what happened in this instance, which was apparently The New York Times. Changing a headline in response to pressure from the outside. They played this up is an example of media bias. That is to say that you know The New York Times, this is again according to people on the right, The New York Times basically caved in, uh, that members of the left, the left wing politically were upset that The New York Times wasn’t serving as a mouthpiece for the left wing interpretation of political events, and they were out raised and The New York Times buckled under this criticism. That’s sort of the right wing take on this. I don’t you know, this sort of thing is not unprecedented, but it is unusual, and I think it’s what’s really fascinating in an era of Trump. You know, a while back a couple years ago, Professor McDaniel I would teach this class and we talk about media bias, and we would emphasize we do this a little bit of the lecture modules here. We would emphasize that the media have all sorts of biases, but partisan and ideological biases air down the list a little bit right. The biases that are more evident are commercial biases, professional biases in the way they cover politics of sources they rely on. You guys have seen this in our lecture modules, but it’s getting kind of harder and harder for us to downplay the potential of possibilities for ideological biases. And, you know, it is certainly in an era of trump, there have been questions raised about, you know, Can you even have objective journalism anymore on their outlets that traditionally have been, you know, maybe little left of center, but but fairly mainstream that have said they can no longer pretend that there are two sides to some of these issues and they come out sort of forcefully against trump. And I guess, you know, kind of by definition, the right wing in their coverage of media. I think that’s, you know, I’m not going to comment on the extent to its that’s occurred or whether I think that’s good or bad, except to say, I think it’s going to be difficult to pull back. I mean, once you kind of crossed the Rubicon, as The Washington Post and CNN and The New York Times have done in their denunciations of Trump, it’ll be kind of hard to pull back. Lets say the 2024 we have a race between, you know, a mainstream Republican in the mainstream Democrat. Can you go back to being a neutral, credible news source under those circumstances? I don’t know now, by the way, it’s not just the right wing that’s criticizing coverage these days. Those of you who are supporters of Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders has been forcefully going after the Washington Post lately. Sanders argument is that because Sanders has been just crushing Amazon in his campaign rhetoric and Jeff Bezos things Bezos, right, we’ll say, Bezos. It’s Bezos eyes. The owner of Amazon also happens to own The Washington Post. Sanders Fields, and it supports feel like he’s been getting very, very bad coverage in the Democratic primary write ups in The Washington Post. And he’s drawing a causal connection point right that because I’m going after Amazon, the Post is killing me. The Post has responded by saying, This is ridiculous. Anybody knows who knows. Our Paul political coverage knows that we don’t do that. But so it’s not just Fox news and rightly criticising The New York Times. It’s also Sanders, and you’ll see this with other Democratic candidates who don’t get what they think is sort of fair coverage, will criticize the coverage they’re getting from the mainstream media. What a professor again and I have to say to help you kind of navigate through this. I wish we had better advice. I mean, I guess my statement would be to, you know, broaden your search and to expose yourself to as many credible. Don’t ask me to define that these days, but credible news sources as possible. You know, I think you guys will be able to have your probably pretty smart about this. You have a sense of, you know when you’re getting a little bit of bias and when you’re not. But the more you read, I think the better central have of these different situations. So what you think

[0:09:24 Speaker 1] I think it’s Ah, you said it was a slippery slope and one of the things you’ve seen the media try to do is little have kind of truth detector test like Okay, how truthful is this? And that’s kind of the way of the fact checking things like that. I think the problem with President Trump is because a lot of things that President Trump says are false. They have to, you know, they’ve been put pressure on them, say, look, do not put a statement out there as if it’s true. Say he falsely claims this And there’s I mean, there are a lot of mistakes of the media’s made. So the classic example is, during Hurricane Katrina, you had a picture of basic white couple walking and they were scavenging in a grocery store where yet then you had to black women, and they were saying looters went through a grocery store. And so

[0:10:11 Speaker 0] that’s actually module. Yeah, I think that’s actually

[0:10:14 Speaker 1] So this is an example of you know, of the way in which you pain or framed this story. I think you know, The New York Times was, I think The New York Times was in a weird situation where the This was a horrible, horrific event, and in many ways, it was trying to say, Look, you know, the president’s trying to do something to help us heal with this With this, with this event on, people just basically said No, the president people who thought the president contributed to this event like, No, this is not true. This is not what happened. This is not what’s going

[0:10:49 Speaker 0] on, you know, in substance. It gets to a professor again, and I talked about with episodic versus thematic frames that what the Times did in its headline was absolutely correct. In an episodic sense, Trump condemns, you know, white supremacy and racism, and not to put words their mouth. But I think what what Cory Booker and Beto O. Rourke and others were saying is, well, that may be true in episodic sense. But thematically, more broadly speaking, it’s inaccurate to say Trump condemns racism. And so there’s an interesting kind of divide there between the times attempt to cover something which is factually correct. There’s in this speech. Trump did explicitly condemn white supremacy, but thematically there. Objection. Waas is that yet? But look at what the environment he has helped create, right?

[0:11:37 Speaker 1] Yeah, because episodic is just like one. It makes it taking a frame. I think with a bit of a movie, you’re taking one frame and looking at that where the thematic like What’s the trend overall? So it’s episodic. Could be talking about There was a shooting were thematically like, Well, there’s a shooting And here are the trains we’ve been seeing in regards to shooting. And so again, the episodic episodic is much more common because it’s easier story to tell on. I think you know this was something with Okay, well, let’s just get this out quickly, and it’s easy to do it’s episode where thematic requires good do more research, and it required to tell a much larger, larger and more a little more complicated story. And so this is where you see this bias coming to play. Because sometimes you know, people pay attention to the episodic, more so than the thematic. And so you’re gonna see much more episodic frame being used because that’s what it direct tracks viewers. It’s also a little bit easier for reporters.

[0:12:37 Speaker 0] Yeah, I think. What’s interesting? You know, I hadn’t thought much about this until he opened up this conversation. I think there’s there’s a push at The Times and the Post in other places to do more thematic coverage to, you know, that that’s they. I think they’re interpretation of Trump in the Trump administration is that it requires more thematic coverage of everything is of a piece. But you know, the more thematic you do, the more you do open yourselves up to questions about bias and interpretation, right? It’s one thing to say Hey, you know, on Man Shack This morning at 5 30 there was a shooting and you know, the shooter answers to this description. Very few people are gonna criticize your reporting along those lines But if you say is professional games suggested, Hey, that’s the You know, 25th shooting in South Austin this this year, and it correlates with, you know, a economic dislocation and a slowdown in hiring due to the tariffs. Okay, you know that’s thematic, but there are people who could say, Well, wait a sec, why did you choose that? And are there other factors? So one of the interesting things about that Times headline is that it said, e, I think the compromise headline said Trump condemns violence or racism, stopped short of advocating stronger gun control. And you could, I mean, certainly make a case if you’re, you know, pro Second Amendment rights. So we’ll wait a sec. I mean, what? They’re a lot of things he stopped short of here. Why would you pull that out? And that suggests, ah, bias in the interpretation of the times about what’s the root cause of these things? Etcetera, etcetera. I’m not commenting on him to sing, You know, the more thematic you do, I think the more you subject yourself to criticisms over your particular frame is Professor Graham Sand so great we love talking about media bias And as we said, it’s you know, it’s all over the place these days. You know people on the right criticizing the way the media reported on the president’s reaction to the shootings in uh, in Dayton and in El Paso and on the left, there’s criticisms that it wasn’t forceful enough. And then there’s all these Democratic candidates out there who were wondering why they’re not getting attention. And why is Biden and um, you know Elizabeth Warren getting all of the publicity that you know? Also, nobody’s ever happy with media coverage. It seems we’re trying to kind of sit there and figure out what’s legitimate. What’s less so Okay, so second issue again. We always a little public policy and here, and I guess that had some public policy aspects to it. But, you know, article caught my eye this morning about environmental protection laws in the United States, and in particular, the Trump administration announced that it was changing its interpretation, the criteria that they were going to use to judge endangered species classifications and actions pursuant to the Environmental Protection Act. Now the Environmental Protection Act, maybe ironically, was passed under the Richard Nixon administration Nixon. Nixon was a funny guy. Not funny. Ha ha, but funny odd. A lot of the environmental protections that you have today at the federal level were passed during the Nixon administration. Nixon was opened up. China negotiated strategic arms limitation treaties with the Soviet Union, actually had wage and price control during some economic hard times in the 19 sixties and seventies. For a guy who’s associate is being kind of Mr Republican in a lot of ways, Nixon has a lot of moderate to left leaning legislation to his credit, I think. But the E. P. A. Was passed into the next administration. It’s been bumping along now for you know what’s 25 plus 20 almost 45 years at this point and a couple of aspects to this to put as I mentioned, the administration announced that it was adjusting the criteria was using to review endangered species classifications and what they particularly they’re a bunch of things. They said One thing that caught my attention. I think it’s gotten the most attention with respect to popular coverage of the issue is that they were going to allow economic factors to be taken into consideration in the adjudication of whether AH species ought to be protected or what sorts of protections ought to be allotted. Now, what does that mean? Well, I think what it means potentially, is that if you’re talking about, let’s say, saying certain land could not be developed or could not be touched because there is, ah, frog or salamander, a bird or something like that in that territory. Theo economic impact on the local community might be a criteria that would be used to judge whether or not that was gonna happen or not that that’s my interpretation of what they’re talking about. Their there’s a specific. I mentioned two things. So there’s the broad rule. There’s a specific aspect of this that is also caught some attention. The Trump administration, prior to announcing his general changes, announced that they were going to reconsider a specific action in Alaska. There’s a bay in Alaska where actually there’s up up the mountainside next to the bay. There’s potential to do some mining. I think it’s copper mining and the copper mine application got dunked by the Environmental Protection Agency under the Environment Protection Administration under the Obama administration because the environmental impact analysis said that if you did this on this mountainside, it was gonna crush the bay’s fish population, and it’s an important salmon hatchery area. Basically, it’s a natural hatchery. But they said it was really gonna have a detrimental effect on the salmon population, so they knew that. They said, You can’t do that. Trump had a meeting with the Alaskan governor, who’s a Republican who’s Pro Development and then afterwards announced that they were going to reopen that case and there. A lot of people are asking Wosik. Did Trump strike a deal with the governor? Did the administration basically tell the E P A to reopen this on, and if so, is that appropriate? Right, So there’s a specific episode in Alaska. But then there’s the general announcement that also occurred, I think, on Monday of this week, where the administration said it was basically changing, the criteria was going to use for evaluation of endangered species More generally. OK, so all of that’s to say interesting. Republican President comes in, says that federal regulation is something we’re not maybe is hot on. The business is being kind of screwed here a little bit, so we’re gonna back off. How many people are surprised? Hold up your hands. I mean, isn’t this what Republican administrations too? But this one has gotten some attention. And Chris McDaniel?

[0:19:10 Speaker 2] He’s more of

[0:19:10 Speaker 0] a public health guy. But I’m sure he has some thoughts on, you know, our fish and fowl friends.

[0:19:15 Speaker 1] Yeah. Um, get anybody knows I’m a huge animal lover. Uh, but one of things that’s important to notice. This has been a constant tug of war between protecting the environment and protecting the economy. And so there are a lot of people believe that is, you increase environmental protections, you harm the economy on As you expand economy, you harm the environment. But there are a lot of people say like no, actually, environmental protections actually help the economy in the long term that while you may not make a lot of money now, you spend less money later on due to environmental health concerns. Things of that nature. But also important to note is that by loosening environmental policies to help one industry, you may actually be harming another industry. So Professor shall gave the example of the salmon hatchery. Well, guess what? This hurts Fishermen especially the older trying to catch wild caught salmon. We also this problem right now in the Gulf of Mexico, where Texas and Louisiana shrimp shrimp farmers are having a problem with the loose environmental regulations that are further upstream on the Mississippi S O. Because of the pesticides over the fertilizer used in states like Illinois, Iowa and others that leach into the Mississippi River, they come down and basically come down into the Gulf of Mexico and have created these zones where us you have oxygen depletion in the water because of growing algae and the allergies sucking up all the oxygen to the point where Fisher literally jumping out of the water in order to get some some type of oxygen. And so it’s created these dead zones. And so while you were writing economic, are loosening the protections to improve the economy. A tease upper states. The the consequence of this is your heart in the economy. I mean in these for many states further down. So it’s one of those things where where loosen these protections can help one certain business but hasn’t found a hurt. Another business and it’s important to kind of way this out. But then also, there’s this concern up. Whether or not strong environment protected really do hurt the economy. That’s a store that’s commonly used. But the problem is there’s no consistent evidence that strong environmental protections undermined the economy. People use that rhetoric a lot, but they don’t have very strong evidence of that. Acts that actually

[0:21:42 Speaker 0] exist. Yeah, it’s look, you know, this is sort of a classic tradeoff issue and has been for years. And there are people who is professor again. Suggested question. Whether you know the extent to its senses is a direct trade off, right? There are people who argue that stronger environmental regulation will create economic opportunity for small. It’s sort of a question of sustainability, but also, you know, as is, you put environmental regulations in place,

[0:22:07 Speaker 2] you

[0:22:07 Speaker 0] know, whether it’s respect to fossil fuels, or it could creating opportunity to foster alternative energy industries and things like that. Now, you know, on the other hand, you look at places like I read an article I would recommend teal, if you get a chance with wonderful article in the economists, I think it’s a month or so back about California versus Texas talking about two models for the future. The California model in the Texas model. And one of things they talk about is, you know, the business environment that exists in those states and the regulatory environment it was It was interesting. There was a guy who says he does business in San Francisco in Havana. It’s It’s actually easier for him to do business in Havana that it is in San Francisco. You know, Texas does have a reputation for being a very business friendly environment. And lax environmental standards are one of those things that businesses like about Texas. You know, it’s it’s interesting. In the article, it talks about how Texas could probably do with some additional environmental standards. But California, on the other hand, is really hemmed itself in with some of these regulations, in particular with respect to a land use and development. It’s just so hard, you know, you talk about land issues in California, anybody’s been to San Francisco. You know it all familiar with San Francisco knows how you have a homeless problem in San Francisco, but their ability to do anything about is really curtailed because you can’t build anything out there. And it’s not just because there’s limited land. It’s because doing anything requires all sorts of permissions and you regulatory sign offs and things of that nature. So it’s It’s a fascinating issue. There’s an interesting balance. I mean, the headline I saw it had kind of a little focal point on the bald eagle and how some of these regulations could actually impinge upon the recovery of the bald eagle and I won’t get into it. But, um, you know, this is interesting. I I saw some other news commentary about this, uh, talking about this guy in Mississippi who has some land he wanted to develop, and he was denied a permit to develop the land because there is an endangered frog and endangered frog is like 15 miles away, and it’s in this swamp. And they decided that the habitat for the frog that there are only a few places within, like 100 miles, that is sort of comparable habitats. And this guy who’s 15 miles away has a similar habitat. And so they said, we can’t develop that land on the off chance that the frog might migrate over, and this guy was just apoplectic. You know I can develop my land because of this, you know? So you hear these stories all the time on both both sides, You know, people who have the stories about the animals and, for instance, the salmon situation in Alaska, which seems pretty damning to the regulatory to the opposition to regulation, right? I mean, you’re stopping a copper mine that everybody agrees is gonna have run off. It’s gonna crush this salmon habitat. That seems to be one. That’s kind of ridiculous. On the other hand, you have the Mississippi frog thing where the guy who’s miles and miles away from the sort of, you know ordinary looking frog is told that he can’t develop his land. So we have some interesting stories kind of on both sides of the spectrum there. We don’t plan to have pretend to have solutions on all of this, but something you all need to be attentive to because these debates are going to continue to develop this question of regulation versus personal liberty or personal freedom. It’s driven American history, and it will continue to drive American history, and you are gonna be responsible for making good judgements on these sorts of things. So with that, let’s pivot to our third story, which is, Ah, Texas centered story. We, like, talk a lot about Texas here. This one’s almost purely political, So we kind of like it, teased it up front by saying, Now there is a So you all know at this point, hopefully Texas has a ah State House of Representatives, and a state Senate House of Representatives is the lower house, 150 members. That speaker of the House is a guy named Dennis Bond. In that bond is a Republican. He had his first term as speaker. He replaced a gentleman named Joe Strauss. He had his first term as speaker in the 2019 session that was just completed a couple of months ago. By almost everyone’s account. It was a pretty productive session. Professor McDaniel. I’ve talked to people, is to make sure we’re on firm ground asserting this, you know, they managed to get a budget that people are fairly happy with increased funding to education, both at the K through 12 and at the higher ed level. They seem to address some issues and not get bogged down into fights over bathrooms and, um, you know, late term abortions and the kind of stuff that has dominated the sessions previously. Now Bonnet is considered a moderate Republican, though. And so the conservative wing of the Republican Party isn’t really thrilled with him, even though they went along for the most part with him. His ascension to the speaker position now. So why are we talking about this after the session’s over? Well, uh, Mr Bonnin, you know Professor McDaniel? I like Teoh is afraid. A word we want you all to be aware of. Its are worthy is called hubris. Hubris, cruel hubris. As Homer Simpson once said, Bonnet on the heels of this very good session apparently went to a new individual who is named Michael Quinn Sullivan. Michael Quinn Sullivan runs an organization called Empower Texas in Power. Texas is a very conservative association, you know they have a newsletter. They basically campaign heavily for conservative issue positions within Texas State politics. They endorse candidates they kind of, you know, will take pot shots and candids to think aren’t sufficiently conservative. And it is ostensibly a news and information organization now at the state Senate level, their reporters within power Texas have been given access to the floor so they could do reporting during the session in the House, they were denied credentials, All right, so in power, Texas couldn’t get any of its of its reporters on the House floor and bought in called in Michael Quinn Sullivan, leader of Empower Texas. Instead, I tell you what, we’ll this is allegedly although allegedly, meaning there’s tape of this. But he said, We will give you reporters access to the floor during the next session if you helped me go after these 10 Republicans who were kind of a pain in the neck in the last session. Now this is a weird bargain to seek to strike. First of all, you know, Bond is mentioned sort of a moderate. He’s never been a darling of the conservatives. Michael Quinn Sullivan is sort of a kingmaker amongst the conservatives to reach out like this with the deal that if if anybody got wind of it would be really problematic for the speaker seems very odd. It’s also odd because the 10 legislators the 10 Republican representatives that bond was talking about were amongst the most conservative these Air people, you would think Quinn Sullivan would like now what apparently bought and thought was that these 10 Republicans had worked with the Democrats to undermine legislation in the last session. The Democrats didn’t like it because they’re Democrats and didn’t like the Republican legislation. The Republicans didn’t like it because it wasn’t sufficiently conservative. That’s why there was this weird alliance between the Democrats and the Republicans so bon and apparently feeling his oats thought, Well, I’m gonna go after these guys. I’m gonna work with Quinn Sullivan, who won’t like him because they work with the Democrats, I guess. Well, Quinn Sullivan, upon leaving the meeting, announced that, Hey, I just had a meeting with Speaker and he’s got. He’s got a list of 10 Republicans he’s targeting in the next election cycle. Michael Quinn sell uh Baden’s office said. Didn’t deny the meeting, didn’t deny they were going after People said there is no list. Well, that’s, you know, we’re we’re all adults here. We’ve all probably engaged in a statement of this sort. It’s not exactly alive, but it’s like, Well, you’re not denying much of anything except the explicit existence of list. So Michael Quinn Sullivan, who had, of course, taped the meeting on his phone, allowed some Republicans in the House to listen to the tape. And they basically came out saying, Yeah, he had the meeting It went down basically exactly as Michael Quinn Sullivan said, And there is, in fact, a list. So now Speaker Bonnin, triumphant off of his legislative session, is in a lot of trouble. Last I read, I think it was this morning in the Texas Tribune. They’ve turned the matter over to the Texas Rangers. I’ve been in Texas now for 25 years, not exactly sure when and where the Texas Rangers have jurisdiction. I’m always kind of pleased when they do, but they’ve turned this case over the Texas Rangers. It sounds like Bonnin might have serious trouble retaining his speakership next time around. So I right, that’s the set up. Professor Daniel thoughts comments on this

[0:31:02 Speaker 1] one term as speaker. And, uh, yeah, it was a gift. We go talk about media bias. This is clearly an attempt to, uh provides some type of incentive for media outlet to go after a certain number of individuals. He over the speaker overplayed his hand It was really stupid decision. You know, I don’t really know what else to say on it. Just it’s It’s pretty much over for him. And now people have started. Oh, well, this is using opening for Democrats. I don’t think so. I think if anything, Republicans take control. And what will happen is the new speaker will probably be more in line with the Conservatives. More hardline conservatives. They’re because they’re gonna be an upward Seneca. The moderates are out to get us in order to appease them, but probably put someone is close to the limit speaker. So this was really looks like a work out to be more of a win for the Conservatives. Andi. Yeah, you had one term, chief. You did well, uh, flew too close to

[0:32:09 Speaker 0] the sun. That’s right. That’s right. You know what’s what’s the what? I remember the line from quoting Homer, I think, was a line for The Simpsons, where you know he’s playing in a He’s actually playing with the Halloween up, So he’s playing a board game and he’s in candy land. He’s climbing the letter chutes and ladders is going riding high and then sinking low. It’s ago. Cruel hubris. You know, there is a quite why would you do this? I mean, what exactly made you think that someone who basically thinks that you’re too moderate and would much prefer another speaker, I would assume, is going to work with you on this? It’s It’s very odd we don’t have any broad kind of macro lessons here. It’s more of kind of factual thing about what’s going on in Texas politics. I do think All right, so if we’re talking more mechanically about what happens if the 150 person House, if the returns come in after the 2020 election and let’s say the Democrats are within 5 to 10 seats of a majority, so the Republicans are still the majority, but it’s a small majority. Is it possible that someone like bonding? A moderate Republican could have the support of the Democrats and half a dozen or 10 Republicans? They were all vote for this person to make him or her speaker. So you have kind of a moderate Republican as the speaker. I suppose that’s possible. I suppose possible bombing could do that, but someone like that is not gonna have the support of the conservative Republicans. And what’s more likely is, Professor Began said, is that the conservatives figure out a consensus candidate and the moderate Republicans vote for that person so that the coalition would be moderate and conservative Republicans as opposed to moderate Republican and the Democrats. Because what you need, of course, is a majority. In order to become speaker, you don’t have to have. The speaker of the House does not have to be a member of the majority party. The speaker of the House simply has to have a majority of votes within the House of Representatives. Right? So I just I guess that’s our technical point of the day. Beyond that, it’s just a lesson to all of us. You know, you gotta be a little careful, right? Uh, what’s the Catfish Hunter line? You know, the sun don’t shine on the same dogs, but every day, Uh, so you know, if you have a couple of good days, you know, keeping in your hip pocket and be happy, but always have your head on a swivel is we used to say, all right with that. That’s our last in the new segment. Got anything else I know that. That’s alright. That’s good. All right. We’ll see you all soon. Come to office hours If you want. Teoh, get some additional information and stay cool