Welcome to Party Politics where we prepa you for your next political conversation.

I'm Jeronimo Cortina a political science professor at the University of Houston.

And I'm Brandon Rottinghaus, also a political science professor here at the University of Houston.

Thanks for hanging out with us and talking a little politics.

We don't often talk about international politics, but when we do, it's about the Middle East.

So there obviously is, tremendous amount of churn happening in the Middle East right now.

The most kind of immediate issue that came this week was that that was the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria.

There are tremendous implications to the balance of power in the region, presidents for at least a decade.

But really for the past 50 years, have had to deal with a kind of autocracy happening there.

So this is in some sense a good news for the U.S. government.

They've been working for this for a long time, but obviously this happening also opens up a tremendous amount of uncertainty, especially at a time where we're seeing a transition from one president who will deal with it one way, and potentially a different president who will deal with it a different way.

So talk to me about what you think is sort of the implications to this big picture wise for the transition in the presidential term, but also just kind of what we think might happen for each.

Oh, wow.

Well, it's as you know, there is a conflict between, Hamas, between Hezbollah, Israel.

Now you have to.

Sprinkle ISIS in there just for good measure.

And now, boom, let's bring Syria to the full.

Right.

So it's a very changing situation in which you don't know what's going to happen.

Totally.

Right now, President Biden said right now, the now, I guess, ex rebels, because now they're going to take control of the government, are saying the right things, but we don't know.

Still, yeah.

And the one question is sort of why this happened.

And it's interesting to see how all the kind of dominoes place and how they fall, because really, in some sense, Israel's claiming credit for this because it really did occur in part because Israel is sort of in conflict with Iran.

And, so Syria is sort of sending more resources to Iran to help.

Iran doesn't have a military per se.

They really engage in proxy warfare.

So Syria really was helping prop them up.

But because of the way the resources were distributed and because Syria was also sending help to Russia, in Ukraine, the kind of basic kind of bubble opened up and gave the rebels in Syria a chance to come in.

So in a way, that kind of balance is really important.

But the concern really now is about chemical weapons and about the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

If that's something that is, you know, of concern.

There also, of course, concerns about terrorism right now, ISIS has been kind of relatively isolated to some of the kind of more outlying regions of Syria.

But no matter who is the president, right, Biden or Trump, they still have to think about this in a long term application.

Trump says basically, okay, you know, it's a mess.

Like literally quoting it's a mess, but it's not our mess.

So I think that you're going to see a very different kind of tact than you take.

For Biden, who spent a lot of time the first few days really trying to stabilize things.

But at the end of the day, they're both going to have to deal with the same kind of problem, the same conundrum, including possibly a refugee crisis.

So, but do you think that Trump is going to have a kind of difficulty with this in the early days?

Does it have a chance to define his presidency early, at a moment where he's going to have to fight for nominees and he's going to have lunch?

And talking of orders, right, like the first few days?

Well, I mean, if he does what he said in, in truth, social media, he basically said, let it play out, do not get involved.

Right.

So it's, perhaps, a different way to approach the situation.

And then it's like.

It's hard for them not to get involved, though, because he said this in 2018.

Right.

But then it was certainly the case that like you had to have some involvement and involvement.

I mean, the only thing that he missed is until you need to get involved, because that's implied perhaps.

Right.

It's going to be that case when that happens.

Why?

Because you have Israel, you know, during the weekend, Israel bombed, strategic positions.

Obviously, they're worry about what you are saying in terms of, proliferation of, you know, chemical weapons or nuclear weapons or whatnot.

And the problem with Syria is quite similar to that, when we leave Libya, is that you have 11,000 billion different factions, and those different factions are looking for the same thing.

They want to run the show.

So that it - Seems too familiar.

These various.

Tick years.

So that could have very important implications in terms of how volatile is going to be.

The the situation in Syria and how these groups are going to get into an agreement or where you see, you know, infighting.

Yeah, yeah.

And obviously, President Biden has got to stabilize situation before it gets worse.

It sounds like that's what's happening, though.

Like they were able to execute some strategic, bombings to be able to kind of get some of their positions moved.

They've been able to get a handle on basically what's happening on the ground, like things are returning to normal ish.

I guess it sounds like from reports that basically, you know, people are out on the streets, there's still, you know, garbage being picked up and people are going to schools like it's like a kind of normal ish day, right?

Whatever that looks like.

So in a way, it's not been the kind of, you know, tragedy or, you know, crisis that could have happened otherwise, which, you know, potentially could still happen.

But yeah.

So, you know, this is all about shifting sands, right?

To the degree to which, you know, you want to partner with somebody who in the past has had terrorist ties.

Right?

These groups are not savory.

Right.

There are some problems.

And so, yeah, they're definitely some issues that they're going to have to work through.

But one one kind of connection I want to make to stuff we talk about a lot, and that's about the domestic politics of the US.

Is that, Tulsi Gabbard, right, is going to be the president's nominee, at least as of this moment for the for DNI.

And the issue here is, of course, her attachment to the Syrian regime.

She's said a lot of things about it.

There was a joke from Adam Kissinger, the former member of Congress, who said that maybe that she was going to offer Assad like a sort of sanctuary at her house.

It's a joke, but it underscores the fact that she has been, discussing this in a way that is controversial and problematic for a lot of people who see this as like, her being too close or too wistful about these regimes.

Is this going to be a problem for her?

Because she's literally making rounds like this week, talking to senators, trying to get sort of support for her nominee?

I think it's a big problem.

Yeah.

And it's a big problem because she went to see her in 2017, met with Assad two times.

She was doing a, mission to gather intelligence and to see what what's going on on the ground.

And obviously, as we know now, the Assad family has been hosted by Russia.

So the connection between Syria and Russia is very clear.

And I guess one of the things that the US Senate doesn't like is if you are going to have at least these indirect ties with Russia.

So I think it's going to be problematic because the the discussions and the conversations, she has not been, extremely open about what happened in those meetings.

Yeah.

Okay.

And senators are going to be maybe.

Some pretty tough questions.

You're going to be in charge of, national intelligence.

Yeah.

Yeah, I don't know.

We said this before though, and that's that like the one strategy from President Trump is to basically flood the zone.

Exactly.

And so this is one of those moments where, like, Pete Hegseth is the first person who's like looking at the headlines and like, well, like no one's talking about me for a while, but obviously they're going to talk about him again.

Oh yeah, point very soon.

But there's so much going on that you're likely to see this come up again.

So we'll monitor this.

Obviously as it goes.

It's an ongoing situation.

But for sure it has implications to oh yeah, Trump's kind of ability to get his nominees back into office.

But from one desert to another, let's shift gears and talk about Texas.

Okay.

Let's talk about, what's happening in Webb County all the way down in South Texas.

The Democratic county judge in Webb, Texas, judge, Tano to hearing, is switching parties.

He's switching to the Republican Party.

This is not uncommon because you see a lot of parties switching after elections.

Yeah.

Especially when you've got a tide turning towards a different party.

But this certainly has serious implications from a, like a symbolic point of view, from a PR point of view for Republicans who are crowing about the fact that they can have yet another convert in South Texas, what does it mean?

Well, I mean, it's, it's it has more caveats, I think, than, you know, what the normal, you're right.

What about you than what you.

But otherwise.

Right.

So I always give me caveats.

All right.

I want to get this straight.

This.

It is true that President Trump made, significant insights in this election, but you're also you're often.

Skeptical about.

This.

Absolutely.

It's President Trump like Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump is not the Republican Party per se, is not, whatever it is.

It was what President Trump was saying.

And the, message on the economy.

If you look down below, if you open the, the hood.

Yes.

Okay.

Then you're going to see that voters in Webb County and most of South Texas, chose Democrats in down ballot races.

Yeah.

So you're thinking he's overplaying his hand here, but because his argument was like, okay, the Democrats have gone too far, he literally talks about them as being radical.

Correct.

And they've moved to the left too much on these social issues.

He also talks about the kind of things that we've talked about a lot in terms of what that transition politically looks like, that they're concerned about oil and gas jobs, are concerned about immigration.

So moving to the right or staying to the right on that.

But that was my second caveat.

Yeah okay.

Number two it's almost Christmas.

I'm like, oh yeah second gap.

Yeah.

Wow.

So I think he's right.

Yeah.

In terms of how the Democrats have approached it.

And it's a matter of how state, party in this case, the Texas Democratic Party and the National Democratic Party, approached these issues.

Is it going to far?

Well, it depends where you are, right.

If you're in Texas, absolutely, 100%.

If you're in California, I'm maybe not too far to the left.

Right.

For Californians.

So the right balance has to be done by the state.

Democrat Party.

That did not happen.

Yeah.

And in the border ease.

We know that, that border Democrats tend to be more conservative.

We have seen it in many, many, many officeholders.

And they say basically like the party changed.

You know, I didn't change my values the same.

He literally says this in the press release.

I think that's right.

Except there's definitely a kind of radical.

Now, you have a caveat.

I it's a season of giving.

Okay.

Fair enough.

The caveat is that basically that when you switch parties, there's a kind of radicalization that happens.

Right?

I remember when Ryan Gillen switched parties.

Right.

Same story.

Right.

He's a conservative Democrat, switches parties to become Republican like two cycles ago, immediately upon this happening, he gets a tweet from Donald Trump, none other than Donald Trump, the leader, titular leader of the Republican Party, saying, welcome to the party.

You know, finally you're switching like that is instant, like polarization.

That is really interesting to see.

The same is true for, for Jam Lozano, right, who now has become like a real warrior for the right in.

We'll talk about the speaker's race in a second.

But he literally like has like filed like a complaint with the attorney General's office saying that another Republican doesn't Barros is raising money illegally.

Yeah, because he says he's.

Speaker one he's not.

So that's really, kind of radicalization of the so my kind of way to sort of track this, to say you switched parties, which is one thing.

Right.

But it's another thing to say that like, now you're fully in like you're hooked and you're going to do everything Republicans do, which is in some cases very radically different from what Democrats are doing.

And that's my third caveat.

Wow.

It's like the knight of the three caveats, I think.

And now and that can have very important implications.

Yeah.

Because a minor shift in terms of how this election, is going to translate into years can have devastating consequences in terms of how you're going to lose or win an election.

It's a great point.

I want to make this case when we talk about the speaker's race and sort of how these Republicans are seeing the lay of the land, but like two years is a long time.

But we've seen this movie before, right?

We know what 2026 is going to look like, because it's going to be a midterm, because you're going to have a reaction to the party in office.

So I do think perhaps it's the case that this could play badly in that way.

So we'll see how this goes.

But it is interesting to see this kind of play out.

And of course, everyone has their own opinions about what this right there was concern the Democrats basically weren't concerned enough about this.

They were saying like, well, okay, yeah, you're going to switch parties.

Like that's fine.

This happens.

But Republicans, of course, are happy about it.

So are the Democrats not worried enough about these kinds of transitions?

I mean, it doesn't it's like one person, one official in a county that's not very big, right?

But it still has implications in terms of like, like how you talk about what's happening in that region.

Republicans saying, now we control this, right?

We're in the driver's seat, which sort of true, at least from a top down point of view.

But is this another instance of Democrats saying like, okay, well, so what?

Like we're going to fight it out in other ways, which could work.

But, you know, means you have to put more resources in places like Houston, like San Antonio, like Dallas, right, to get the numbers from there instead of in South Texas?

Well, absolutely.

The problem is that we haven't seen that strategy.

Yeah.

So far.

Yeah.

The how those resources are deployed, are very telling where you think that, in this case, the Texas Democratic Party is going.

Right.

And so far, those resources are not being put in the right place at the right time in the amount that they need to be in.

And that's all that your job is like, that's politics.

Like, where did their money and when.

Yeah.

For whom?

Like, yeah that's it.

That's why they're seeking for a new leader.

Okay.

Understood.

Yeah.

I guess maybe they can look under the tree.

They'll get something for.

Yeah, for the.

Cold.

But they've already got that.

Cold.

Oh, yeah.

That got a lot of that.

Yeah, yeah.

But let's talk about a different part of the other part.

This talk about the Republican Party.

One issue that came up this week was that Dan Patrick said that one of his party items is going to be to ban THC.

THC is legal for two different reasons.

One is that there's a compassionate use program for people who have certain kind of medical, ailments.

They're allowed to have access to medical marijuana.

And then by the farm bill, like federally, there is, sort of some forms of THC that are legal.

There are lots of caveats and lots of science behind this that I don't understand.

So I'm not going to get into it.

But it is certainly the case that it's at least partially legal.

And you don't have to go very far to look around your town to see like, yeah, this happening.

Right?

Vape shops are everywhere, right?

There are gas stations.

Like the concern is that it's too prolific.

There needs to be some kind of way to track this, to stop it, slow it, regulate it.

Something Dan Patrick says, I got it.

I'm banning all of it.

Yeah, but he is maybe jumping the gun a bit because then you have people like Sid Miller, the AD Commissioner, come out and say, wait a minute.

Republicans don't just ban stuff.

We want small government and, you know, to boot, about 60% Texans kind of want this to be legal.

Yeah.

So, somebody who spent the weekend in Austin, it's more or less legal, right?

Not to say that Austin is somehow unique in this use regard, but for sure, there's a lot going on.

But this is not common.

This is not a common across the whole state.

So I guess the question is like, is this a smart, smart strategy from Dan Patrick?

Yeah.

Period.

Question mark.

Caveat number four.

Oh no, I.

Think I was a good boy.

I think that there's two things.

The first one is for medical reasons, and I think that, the Texas Legislature approved it a couple of sessions ago, and I think they should not mess with it.

I'm.

Saying it with 100% full knowledge for certain, medical reasons.

THC and those compound medicines are a miracle, right?

It's a great.

Don't mess.

With it.

I should have noted that.

Yeah.

The Texas also basically, like, okayed it as well.

So it's like federally legal, but the state as well by Charles Perry, who is the person who's going to be carrying the bill to now ban it.

So ironies abound.

But so I think that that is very serious because that can have important implications for the health of many, many people, like epilepsy.

And it does wonders, to treat epilepsy.

The other Dan Patrick says that's not going to be a fact, right?

That let the kind of compassionate use program is not going to be right.

This is like your corner vape store is not going to be able to carry.

Yes.

So I think.

That it's going to be complicated.

Yeah.

Because even at the federal level, you're trying to, for example, cut down agricultural subsidies, hemp.

And so on and so forth.

It's very, very profitable.

And if you're not going to help farmers, then you're going to have and you're going to make a hole in your base constituents.

It's a great point.

That's one.

The other point is just what you just said is I don't want or the government should not be in the business of regulating, I guess, right.

Businesses or prohibiting or anything like that.

If I think Dan Patrick started a strategy, is that okay?

I'm just going to go 1,000% right now just.

With all.

In like the nuclear option, right?

Probably he's thinking, well, that's not my real option.

Yeah.

But then I see scaling down to something that is amicable.

Should I say some kind of regulation.

Exactly.

Kind of like I think financial action to the state.

They can.

Right, right.

And tax.

It.

And I think that yes these things need to be regulated.

Yeah.

If you're going to make and you have to follow the same blueprint as Colorado, and the blueprint is very clear, the state has a, a stake.

Yeah.

In terms of quality.

Yeah.

In terms of where the, I don't know, hemp or plants or whatever are coming from.

What are you using?

It's like any other crop that is going to be regulated and that, you know, that why are you buying is not going to cost something else.

So I would say don't ban it.

Yeah.

Regulate them and make them pay a significant tax especially.

Finally, my last word on this point on looking into the future in terms of oil is going to go out one of these days.

Yeah, okay.

Because it's, you know.

No more what Kinky Friedman call it dinosaur wine.

No more, no more from the ground, no.

More from the ground.

So you have to start looking for other revenue sources that can also help us when oil.

Yeah.

Goes down.

You have another revenue?

Well, yeah.

And like it may just not be that it's like gone.

It may just be that it's the prices are lower and that has vacations to less than it did in the 80s.

But certainly you never know.

You never know.

The other thing to note, I think, is that the pushback that he's gotten, at least on social media, which is not like real life, but the pushback he's gotten is basically said, okay, well, you know, Republicans are becoming like a kind of nanny.

It's like they're just sort of creating this nanny state talking.

We're going to ban, you know, you from using this.

We're going to not embrace gambling, which has also revenue implications to the state.

We'll talk about that for sure at the beginning of next year.

But there's also the case that they're banning social media for minors.

We talked about this earlier, but they're banning TikTok, banning access to pornography or requiring them to be, you know, age verification.

There's a lot of kind of oversight here that a lot of Republicans look at and say, well, you know, we don't have to do that.

Like it's going too far.

So I think there's a sense from some Republicans that basically this is a step too far.

But I think you're right.

As a bargaining chip, it makes a lot of sense for him to say, okay, my plan is to ban it and then everything else below that seems like a win for people who are against that.

So exactly.

And that's very interesting because on the one hand, you have, the attitude of the state of Texas is like, we don't want the federal government to tell me what to do.

Okay, fair enough.

But we're totally going to tell.

You what exactly.

But we know better and we can tell you exactly.

And that's kind I mean, that creates cognitive dissonance, especially on those that think that those, let's say pure, Reagan, followers, that President Reagan was very clear.

The problem is the government.

Yeah.

So or the libertarian streak is really attacking a lot of the party.

So they don't want to see kind of any unnecessary regulations.

And like more of that just creates more problems.

Let's talk about the legislative process.

Two big things this week.

The first is that the Democrats have elected a new caucus chair, and the second is that the Republicans have, let's say, elected in quotes I'm quoting.

If you're listening and not watching a speaker of the House, the first is the Democrats have picked Jean Wu here from Houston as the caucus chair.

Trey Martinez Fisher.

Who was a.

Known legislative knife fighter.

Very good at this, the Prince of Poo.

I call him in my textbook.

He's the kind of legislative guru.

And they pick Jean Wu, who is very outspoken on Twitter, very aggressive on Twitter.

So we're definitely going to see a much more bare knuckle approach to politics on this.

If the Democrats were looking to convey a kind of moderate sense right after the election, there was a concern.

Maybe they went too far and are pushing their kind of initiatives too much.

Well, Jean, who was not the right choice for that because he is definitely not subtle.

For all the things you can say about him, he is not a subtle person.

Certainly on Twitter.

And that may just be a kind of bluff or like you want to go kind of hard on one side and sort of, you know, kind of pull it back on another.

But for sure, it's the case.

The Democrats want to shake it up a little, and they don't mind bringing the fight to the Republicans.

So what do you make about this?

I think it's Texas politics.

I think it's it's regional Texas politics.

So when you're thinking about the border, you have to think about the border in and the context that involves the border in terms of politics, ideology, so on and so forth.

When you're thinking about, the big Texas triangle, Austin, San Antonio, Houston, that's a different story, right?

Different.

Different.

Audience.

Different audience.

Yes.

In terms of what is going to happen at I think the, Texas, ledge, I think that bringing that approach might be something new, because right now, in my view, and we have what we have been seen in terms of Texas politics, is that Democrats are keeping, the high ground and this and that, etc., etc., while on the other side, especially during elections, you see, the Republican Party taking down to street level politics.

So what happens is if Democrats say, okay, fair enough.

Yeah, okay.

We're going to go down and fight it over there.

We're going to war over it.

Interest.

Yeah, I think you're right.

Because you see the transition from caucus chair from Chris Turner, who is a negotiator, he was willing to work with the parties.

He'd say what he meant.

He obviously had his own kind of point of correct.

But, then you transferred to Trey Martinez Fischer, who's obviously a pugilist in the legislative arena.

Maybe not so much publicly, but.

And then to Gene, who's very outspoken, very passive.

So that transition, I think, has become very clear.

And so you're seeing how the Democrats have responded to the way Republicans operated politically.

Let's talk about the Republican Civil War.

Just as a big, broad note, this is like the most dramatic, most intriguing telenovela you've ever seen.

I know you're a fan.

I know you watch the.

Person every.

Day.

This is stunning, right?

Like more twists and turns than a marvel movie.

The plot on this is pretty simple.

Basically, they got to pick a speaker.

They had two candidates sort of coming into this, David Cook from Mansfield, who said ultimately he has the votes.

The caucus met.

Dustin Burrows also was running.

The caucus ends up kind of disbanding.

They break the caucus splits the people staying vote for the people who, left or supporting Burrows.

Burrows says that he's got the votes because he has partners with the Democrats.

Republicans on cook side say, you can't do that.

There are implications to this.

Basically, the rules say you have to support the candidate we picked, and this is the candidate we picked.

The people on Burrow's team say, well, there wasn't a quorum.

So that's not official.

And in any case, we're not going to adhere to that.

So the implications of this are tremendous.

Obviously who gets to be speaker has tremendous implications for the flow of legislation.

What do you think about the politics of this, and how it affects kind of what's going to happen in January?

Well, it's going to come down to Democrats and some Republicans that have not shown their cards.

Yeah.

Eve Boras claims that he can secure 76 votes of 150.

Then he got it.

Okay.

Yeah.

The problem is if, Democrats can trust Boras who has brought some type of legislation that hurt, places where Democrats are making inroads, that is big cities.

So it's very, very complicated.

But certainly what he does is that we're seeing Republican infighting because, representing Cooper did not get a hold of I mean the whole bill.

Yeah.

And he pitched to Democrats to say like, well, come join me.

And Democrats were like, no thanks.

Yeah.

They'd rather go with Boros.

Who's the devil that they know?

Yeah.

But Burroughs also says that he'll pass universal vouchers.

Maybe it's inevitable and say, okay, doesn't matter.

But the Republicans who were in the mix on this are really the most concerned, right?

Because they're the ones who are going to back borrows the rules, basically say they could be censored.

And if they're censored, they can't run on a primary ballot, which means they're no longer Republicans and no longer in office.

So that's a serious problem.

It's a national fight.

Donald Trump Jr tweeted on this.

I think these members are willing to say like, okay, like we'll fight it out.

We'll take the risk.

We're going to back Boros right now.

But come election 2026, things that'll be totally different.

Maybe there's a risk we get to keep our seats, but primaries are vicious, so it's going to be an ugly, ugly fight.

It's going to be an ugly, ugly f and we're going to find out that, next year for this week.

That's it for today.

I'm Jeronimo Cortina.

And I'm Brandon Rottinghaus.

The party keeps up next year.

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