Welcome to politics, where we prepare you for your next political conversation.

I'm Jeronimo Cortina.

And I'm Brandon Rottinghaus.

We are professors of political science at the University of Houston, and we are, of course, co-host of season five of Party Politics.

Exciting to be back.

I missed doing the show and we missed a lot of stuff over the summer, which used to be kind of quiet, but now summers are just chock full of political chaos.

So I know, we're back.

Dig into it right away because there's a lot of things happening internationally a lot of things happening at the state level.

So let's talk first about President Trump and Iran.

He has unleashed what he calls economic D-Day against the Iranians.

Essentially, this is a series of sanctions and secondary sanctions that are designed essentially to try to bring this conflict to a close.

My question is, in general, is it going to work and will it work so that it is a brag point that the White House can take into the midterms, which, by the way, is like about eight weeks away?

Yes, of course.

And well, first of all, the conflict was going to supposed to be like a couple of weeks.

But no, that was the beginning of summer and not so much anymore.

The issue here is that these economic sanctions, as you say, they're going to be indirect.

They cannot put more direct sanctions to Iran because they don't exist anymore.

Right.

But these indirect sanctions are going to start, I guess, bothering a little bit like big countries.

China is going to be a little bit on the, let's say, uncomfortable size.

And then the other very important thing is that Iran says that they have prepared for this moments and that they can withstand these measures, you know, that they have a two year contingency plan, so on and so forth, and that not a single drop of oil is going to be export through the Persian Gulf.

So the question here is, is this going to help or is this going to backfire?

The White.

House yeah, I don't see how this is going to help, only just because it is not a hot conflict where there's bullets flying and soldier dying.

But the economic ramifications of this are as severe in some ways.

We're in a different world politically of warfare.

So it's like unclear exactly what it will look like.

But I think the economic pinch that's happening because of this is definitely in a serious concern for the White House and for Republicans.

But I like your point about this being now a global conflict.

It's not a bilateral conflict between us and Iran now.

It's involving China, who's the US is sort of major economic competitor because China buys 90% of the of their choice from Iran.

So they have incentives to keep doing that.

But these secondary sanctions are going to create serious complications for them to have to make some tough choices about who they're going to do business with and how.

So this becomes a real potential liability in the short term.

And in the long term.

It's a kind of intractable conflict.

Right.

As you said, the president promised us would be over soon.

It is not over soon.

So this liability will continue.

The White House needs a win from this.

And I don't see it here.

Right.

Republicans are worried that this basically is going to be something that people talk about.

And it is especially among Democratic candidates, the people running for president.

I hate to even jump this, my friend, but we're like only two years away from a presidential election.

My goodness.

But this is a kind of talking point that several of those Democrats are engaging, and they're saying that no more forever wars, right?

The faculty, that's what the president promised.

But that's not what he ended up delivering.

And so there's a lot of Democrats who are using this already as leverage against the White House.

So I just don't see how this operates effectively.

It's creating wedges inside the Republican Party.

It's hurting the people on the ground who are going to look at this and say, why?

And my pocketbook is yelping about this.

Exactly.

And I think that is the question, right.

Because when you look enter into these international geopolitics, right, China, Saudi Arabia, etcetera, etcetera, it becomes extremely complicated.

Right?

But one thing that it's very clear, it's every time that you go to the gas, to the gas station, then you see the consequences, right?

And there is no simple way to just open the gas.

To start floating more gas and diesel.

If you drive a diesel truck or a diesel vehicle, I mean, that's a pretty penny.

No, and that's Texas, right?

Like, oh yeah.

Move in day in College Station, Texas A&M University.

Everyone's got a big old truck and those are expensive to fill up.

And it's more and more so these days.

So this is just a kind of.

I mean Texas is cheaper if you go outside Texas prices are like $8 a gallon like numbers.

That is like wait, what?

It's shocking right?

It is I totally agree.

Traveling a little bit the song like you see people's gas prices.

And I frankly am happy that like we live in Texas, but even in Texas, it's high and it's starting to be a problem.

Right?

Because the price of gas is a problem across the board.

It makes agriculture more expensive.

It makes the production of oil and gas more expensive.

Yep everything.

So it's just something that is a real complicated arrangement and for no real upside at this point.

So it's going to take a long time for this to settle.

And I think at this point we're just kind of prepared for the long haul.

But this is the president's preferred method of how to extract some kind of something from these countries.

This is true.

Same is true for what's happening in Canada, right?

There are these trade sanctions that are going into effect or these tariffs are going into effect.

The president is saying that he wants to rename Lake Ontario, Lake America, and it just feels like very kind of off point.

And the Republicans are in some ways abandoning the president on this.

I want to do one better on this.

And that's the president suggested that he's going to essentially allow for an expanded import of beef.

And producers of beef, especially in Texas, are saying, what now?

Right.

I thought we were going to kind of close the ranks on this.

I'm sure that this was something that we could sort of produce domestically and try to keep in house, but now it's not the case.

So I wonder if you think that this has got any real problematic elements for kind of core coalition, especially among kind of rural Texas, where a significant portion of Republican votes come from?

Oh, yes.

Conservative Republicans and rural Republicans have pushed back to this.

Right.

Because you have had very an industry that is dangling you have very this one of the seasons in which you have the least number of heads are being growing.

So now you're going to flood the market with 300,000 metric tons of ground beef, that the whole idea is to decrease the price of beef.

Right?

About beef sold at 25 below percent market prices today.

But the issue here is that it's 1,000%.

whack-a-mole.

Right.

You're trying to appease one.

But your solid voters, those that go out for you and go out and vote on Election Day, are the ones that are going to be hurting with these things.

And I think that these type of of, I would say, difference or fight between Trump and conservative Republicans or rural Republicans It's evident in what happened in these primaries of this week, right, in South Carolina, but also in Oklahoma.

Yes, President Trump's candidate won.

But if you look at the margins, the margins are super, super, super, super, super close.

I mean, a win is a win, right?

I mean, right.

100%.

But the margins is like almost 48 something.

40 whatever.

51-49 so these shows that, you know.

Yeah.

Well, and there's a real fear that like, there's no electricity and the Republican ticket that it's lackluster and that enthusiasm is really low.

That certainly drags down what could happen in Texas.

And it's funny because like the polling just came out this week that suggested Talarico was off by a little bit.

Not surprising.

Right.

You're seeing kind of mostly that kind of settle in.

But one thing that's funny is that the percentage of support among rural Texans ticked up 1% from Talarico, from where it was the similar, similar position two years ago, or, yeah, two years ago.

And it's like the Democrats are crowing about this, like 1% move in rural Texas.

But I think it does underscore something really important happening there.

And some of its data center stuff will talk about that in a second.

Some of it is this kind of conflict over tariffs and how that might play out.

And the president's coming to Texas to talk about it.

So we'll get into that in a second.

But before we get there, let's talk about what is become a conundrum for states in terms of voting.

And that's the Supreme Court's clearing the way for Donald Trump's to executive order to implement parts of a policy to restrict mail in ballots.

Here's the way this operates.

Basically, the president's order in March directed Homeland Security to create a state citizenship list where people who are eligible to vote are on this list.

Okay, so then that list goes to the states.

The states administer the roll, kick off people who are not eligible and keep people who are.

Then the Postal service is supposed to basically block ballot requests from anybody who's not on that list.

So it's pretty complicated involving multiple levels of government, right?

We have a complicated federal system.

In some ways it works to the advantage of slowing things down.

In some cases it is just a mess.

In this case, it's a mess.

Now, the court didn't rule on the merits of this, but said basically that it can go into effect, you know, until there's an issue.

And so they said the states jumped the gun in suing.

Now the states are going to sue again.

There's another injunction.

So it's not like going forward necessarily it'll certainly be thought about, but it creates just chaos like months before the election.

So what do you think is the kind of impetus behind this, and what are the conclusions and impacts of this?

I mean, on the one hand is this issue of trying or given the illusion, right, that elections are not free and are not transparent.

Right?

And this is a way to trying to get people not to go out and vote.

I don't know.

The suppression effect for sure.

And the more you sort of alter elections and talk about them as being unfair or unmanageable, there is a depression effect.

Yes.

And you.

Are basically chipping away the institutional nature of our democracy, around 29%.

Let's say 1 in 3 voters actually use Mail-In ballots.

Some states only have Mail-In ballots.

Right.

So the question here is I don't understand what we're doing this.

And the other one is that it's clearly, I would say, perhaps a overreach of the White House of the executive branch, because constitutional elections are run by states.

So we don't have a national voter system or whatnot like many other countries have.

Right?

We don't have a voter ID like many other countries have because we have 50.

Yeah, and that is a huge question problem.

But the institutional nature allows the state to say, like, what are you doing?

Because the federal government does not necessarily have a sane on fair lectures.

And what is also very surprising is that the Supreme Court sometimes tends not to get into these things.

Right?

Yeah.

They're like, we don't want to dirty your hands.

But now it's 100% entering and it's.

Like, wait, you are basically saying let it run because you haven't been affected.

But the consequences of being affected are huge.

Are inermis consequences.

The Purcell principle, which is sort of this idea that suggests a court should involve themselves and make changes to elections too close to the election is part of the reason.

I think they're trying to kind of push this off, but I don't see the White House stopping their efforts to try to make this happen.

We'll see in terms of the specifics of implementation, but you're certainly going to see a lot of variation because, yes, states are in charge of running elections.

This is sort of the way the system works.

And you're not going to get buy in from a lot of states, whereas other states are totally bought in, like Texas has done this already.

So there are these kind of caveats that just make it really challenging to make this work.

So we'll follow this and see how it goes, because this is going to be a major issue for the election, not just in terms of who's voting for who, but like the procedure of voting, which is obviously tied to that.

But let's talk about Texas and let's talk about Trump because the president is coming to Harris County.

Why?

Well, they won money, money.

Money money, money breakfast tacos superior to both Austin and San Antonio.

Oh, absolutely.

Just go to Villa Arcos and you can have the best breakfast.

If I was president, I would come here.

Just the champion.

Oh, yeah.

Absolutely.

Like the bacon bits.

Oh, yeah.

I'll go after this.

Let's go right now.

Oh, yeah.

All right.

Done.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, I mean, it's just trying to focus on Texas and high stakes midterm election which is talked about a little bit about Talarico and Paxton what polls are saying Talarico has inundated media markets.

We don't see as much presence as that for Paxton fundraising I mean a lot of things going on.

He's I think I believe the president is going to put his pack behind Paxton and trying to beef up those numbers because it's high stakes.

I mean, we haven't seen a progressive series of polls for this long that has a Democrat in front.

And polling is wonky these days.

So, you know, you put to it what you get into it.

But it's obviously the case that this is a pretty close election.

The Cook Political Report shifted this to a toss up.

And that may not mean much to people, because it's just a kind of representation of what they think this race is.

But it's certainly the case that this is going to be a close election.

And the reason is because Republicans are bleeding support among Republicans, that leakage is critical and problematic for them.

So they need to have the president come, make that change, make that difference.

I like your point earlier about South Carolina.

You can look at the numbers and see that the Republicans did better in the places where Trump was.

So he was in Myrtle Beach.

The numbers were better there in that county for Darlene Graham, right.

That is what that pen Ken Paxton hopes that that Donald Trump can provide for him.

So him actually being here means something.

Whereas like endorsing somebody doesn't always have the same poll we saw this weeks ago in the past couple of primaries.

In fact, it may actually not be helping.

But in the presence of Donald Trump, there is a rally moment.

And so I think that is something they're hoping for.

The money is important too, right?

I mean, we've got big wallets here in Texas, and so there's no doubt that he's going to walk away with a bag of cash.

And Paxton needs it.

He's been out, raised about $60 million from Talarico.

And as you said, the ads have been pretty intense.

And, you know, for the long haul, there's a real concern that basically Paxton's not going to raise the money, number one.

And if he can't raise the money and spend it here to soften the ground for Republicans, then that means that Republicans have to come to his aid later on.

That's going to mean shifting money from Iowa, where it's competitive, in Georgia, where it's competitive, maybe North Carolina, maybe Maine.

So the Republicans don't want to have that battle later.

They'd rather kind of have it now.

And so I think that's why we're seeing the president show up here.

But I want to ask you this.

Donald Trump's popularity among even Republicans is not as good as it was in Texas.

In addition, he's very polarizing.

So him coming here essentially rallies Democrats as much as it rallies Republicans.

Could this backfire for Paxton?

I think it could backfire in a way especially we already know what's going to happen, right.

For Democrats, they're going to be super excited about it.

And he's going to rally a little bit more.

The question is is it going to rally?

Those Republicans that are not very enthusiastic about Paxton.

Which is like the core group of people that like both sides, need to win.

Exactly.

Yeah, right.

Because the base Paxton base is there, you know, through and through.

It doesn't really matter.

Right.

But the question is those are on the fence and say, well, I don't know, maybe this and that etc.

etc.

are there going to be like push and say, okay, president Trump asked me to go out and vote.

I'm going to do it.

Yeah, I don't know.

That is the real question.

And then what's going to be the, I would say the the degree or the effect, right, that is going to have on Democrats and these Republicans, these Republicans, as you said before, are not very like, you know, very happy about the situation.

So are they going to say, well, I don't know.

I'm just going to say it in and we'll see.

Yeah, I mean, all political roads these days are leading to Texas.

We see, you know, a lot of rallying behind Ken Paxton.

Ted Cruz has promised about $2 million from his PAC to run ads.

Mike Johnson, speaker of the House, is coming to the valley to stump for for Tano Tijerina against Henry Cuellar It definitely shows you how important the valley is and how important the Latino vote is.

So there's definitely sort of, I think, some alarm bells going off in D.C.

that Texas needs to be shored up, because if Texas flips, it's not like one race matters, but like, tell that to John Tower in 1961 when you know he wins election after, you know, a full 100 years of losses for Republicans, but it kind of cracks the armor.

And that's something that Democrats are hoping to get, like even one race would be a significant psychological blow.

So I think we're seeing Republicans kind of rally behind that with the hope that they can hold the line here.

The question is how to do it.

And Republicans for a long time have kind of rallied the base as an effort to try to make this happen.

We're seeing this continue in a way that I think makes them, you know, kind of side with their own instead of trying to be persuasive.

So here's a question that I have for you.

Dan Patrick this week has announced a policy that essentially escalates the conservatives years long fight to remove books from schools they deem appropriate.

There's legislation that essentially does this already and limits the ability for these books to be there.

But what the lieutenant governor said in the press conference was he's going to basically knock down a school district rating.

If it's the case that they find these books and the ratings matter, because those dictate like.

Money.

Money, money, and also like the potential for your district to be taken over, which is a different political problem.

So what do you make of this as a political tool, as a message from lieutenant governor, who is in a race that's not as competitive, but you're talking about a single digit race here in Texas.

Well, again, right, is you need to throw all the meat to the lions, right?

Like everything you.

Have, that's your theory of the case is like we can rally the base.

That'll be enough.

Exactly.

It might be.

I mean, it might be.

But on the other hand, is these issues have become so polarizing.

Yeah.

Then indirectly, you are also motivating and rolling up the other folks.

Right.

And this issue about books, et cetera, etc., it's a little bit more complicated because it's not clear cut.

Right?

It's not clear cut in terms of what is going to be the real objective.

And for some people, well, maybe it's just an infringement on First Amendment issues, right?

Yeah.

So it's complicated.

So I don't know if it's going to have a significant effect rather than, for example, the bathroom bill, so on and so forth.

Right.

It's a little bit more complex.

And people in the Republican Party may disagree.

Right.

So I think it's going to have an effect on once again, the big question is who are you going to motivate more to go out and vote?

Well, that's exactly it.

I mean, Dan Patrick is certainly putting these cultural issues on the ballot again, but this has been an issue they've already legislated.

So the fact that he still exists is probably like either a mistake or a fluke or something that wasn't described, but it is a way politically to kind of prime that.

Absolutely.

Doing that really well.

But I also think that there's real potential for backlash here, that the kind of pressure on public schools has created this belief among many, that there's this battle and war against public schools in Texas.

Administrators feel stretched.

You've got teachers who are worried they're being targeted.

This leads to people thinking that we're just not doing well in terms of public ED.

And that's become a real problem, like financially for a lot of these school districts who are really strapped, even kind of competitive ones.

So that suburban backlash could be really troublesome.

And I think is a real pressure point in a way that they're not seeing here.

And so the question is, I guess, again, it's like, what's your theory of this election is the Republicans theory is we're just going to keep priming that base and that'll work.

That'll be enough.

It might be enough.

In fact, you know, that passes sort of has been right.

But that is potential potentially problematic if it doesn't work.

Here's another thing too Greg Abbott this week has asked Texas the comptroller to examine up to four different school districts to root out what he calls administrative bloat.

This actually comes on the heels of an announcement that audit of TEA finds that they are themselves bloated, right?

That they are basically management heavy and violating state laws.

I view this in the same path, because here is a situation where I think that Republicans are vulnerable on public ed issues, that they are, you know, promising takeovers of these districts and all the parents and all these areas are really nervous.

You've got essentially a squeeze financially in these districts.

So that's a worry.

The governor has purged all of the supporters of public ad in rural areas, which also potentially leads to some concerns in rural Texas, where the school district, like, is the center of civic life.

So there are a lot of these issues, I think, that come up.

Gina Hinojosa, whose the governor's opponent Democratic opponent in this race is running ads saying, basically, Greg Abbott is giving money to these or taking money from these donors who want private editor.

And now Greg Abbott says, well, yeah, okay, let's fix public editor.

And I think that's like possibly resonant with families who look at this and say, yeah, what about us?

Right.

What about our district who now has to cut back because, like, there's no money, right?

Where's the money going?

And you see the vouchers are happening and that's where the money's going in part.

So it's not a perfect 1 to 1 scenario like we're giving dollars for dollars.

But I think there's worry among a lot of people who are public ed related that this is a problem for for them.

And then I think it's a problem for Republicans.

So I think that creates this issue.

I totally agree.

And the issue is when you're focusing on public education, if you want to send again your kids to private school, it's extremely expensive.

Number one.

Yeah, vouchers They don't do not cover, as we said before in this program, they do not cover 100% of of that private school tuition.

So as a parent, then you are with your hands in the air and say like, I'm sorry.

Wait, what?

Like, where do I send my kids?

Totally.

Yeah.

So.

Yeah.

And just to keep on that same theme, like the kind of pressure on that social conservative elements in those issues.

Ken Paxton this week was at a WNBA game where there is this controversy about whether, whether.

You know, kind of, you know, people who are transgender can play.

And it just kind of presses that issue again, the kind of Texas values issue, which is not for Paxton.

I think the overriding issue, because they're talking about things like data centers and they're certainly taking Talarico to to kind of task on his vote against legislation that would allow for people who are foreign nationals to buy land in Texas.

So it's not just about social issues for Paxton, but that's where his base really is.

And I think you're seeing that prime a little bit too.

Well, finally, I'm sad to say, but summer is over.

My friend and Greg Abbott has come up with a, I guess you'd say, end of summer playlist.

But there are a couple of mistakes on this that people noticed.

And so he's getting dragged for this kind of botched playlist, which I am not convinced that he's actually listening to.

A couple of examples.

Houston based Khruangbin is spelled incorrectly on the list.

You also have, frankly, Moe Bandy, who is a kind of Texas icon spelled incorrectly on this list.

He includes on this list to the song Texas by BigXthaPlug.

Who's a Dallas rapper?

Yes.

A great song, but BigXthaPlug was picked up on several charges in DFW for driving while intoxicated and possession of marijuana, which has become also a flashpoint.

I want to talk about that in future episodes.

What do you make of the governor's efforts here to try to enhance our music life?

I think every effort is a good effort, but I mean, I don't know if he has heard ever Texas the on edited version.

By BigXthaPlug that I mean he's not PG whatsoever.

It's not.

I mean not even.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's not not even PG 13.

I mean, Barack Obama kind of started this trend of politicians doing playlists.

So we saw this happen in the 2020 election.

So there's been sort of efforts from politicians, but a lot of it strikes me as pandering.

I show my students the lists that the candidates had produced in the 2020 election, and they laugh out loud because it feels fake.

So I think there are other ways to appear authentic, but I want to emphasize the fact that we're in a moment where voters are demanding authenticity, right?

They want to know you're a real person.

And I think the concern here is that, that they think that that's not happening and they're trying to make it happen, and you can't make it happen, right.

So we'll see more of this going forward, I think because people want to be like, you know, relevant and they want to be connected to people, but this might not be the way to do it.

Well, on that part, teacher, we'll continue this conversation next week.

I'm Jeronimo Cortina.

And I'm Brandon Rottinghaus.

We'll talk more next week.