Ken Paxton: How Soros Protects Drug Cartels, Being Blacklisted by Fox News, and the Laken Riley Act

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Thank you for coming on, Mr. Attorney General.
Glad to be here. So the most pressing problem, I think it's fair to say, as an outsider in Texas is immigration.
It's totally changed your state in every way. Do you expect that the new administration and the executive orders in the first couple of days are going to have a material effect a noticeable effect i know they are just because i saw what happened four years ago or eight years ago when trump came into office i mean i went through i've been in politics since bush was in office and and i've seen how republicans and democrats have dealt with immigration they have dealt with it effectively because they have not enforced federal law.

Trump was the first president to use the force of our federal laws, which are good and designed to protect us,

whether it was remaining in Mexico or whether it was Title 42 or it was stopping catch and release,

basic common sense things like building a wall.

Those things work.

They just absolutely work.

And just what he's done in the first couple of days is significant and changing where Biden was taking us.

so one of the things you pointed out off camera was his executive order designating the drug cartels as terror organizations is significant.

Yes, we as states don't have much authority to stop illegal immigration, but the federal government has that authority.

And by designating these cartels as terrorist organization, now the military, our military force can be used against them rather than just using border patrol and leaving the states subject to the cartels' crimes. You do wonder about the power of the drug cartels.
A lot of the weapons we have sent to Ukraine have been sold by the Ukrainian military onto the black market. That's a fact.
A lot, up to half. And a lot of them have been purchased by the drug cartels you see in Mexico.
Pitched battles, military engagements between the cartels and the Mexican military. Where they're very, you know, they're well armed.
Are you worried about that happening in Texas? Absolutely. I think the Biden administration has indirectly funded the cartels.
They have encouraged, by saying no deportations on day one of his administration, they've encouraged illegal immigration and that's a profit center for the cartels. They make $8,000 to $12,000 a person.
If you just do the numbers on 14 million, that's a lot of money. They're making billions every month and then they can go and use that money to buy weapons from Ukraine, which we're funding.
We're sending that over free. So, indirectly, they're part of the whole process.
One, allowing the cartels to have access to our country and allowing them to make a profit. And then to use that money to arm themselves in a significant way.
That's our government. Well, it's horrifying.
I mean, because, you know, some of the weapons are surface-to-air weapons.

So you wonder, like, what's the threat to commercial air travel?

You can see things kind of starting to fall apart.

Is there, like, widespread acknowledgement of this in Texas, that we could have a serious problem with these cartels? I think even just common people are aware of that just because of the influx and the increased crime associated with just everyday crime that people see as it relates to the cartels moving into our state. And that network that they built is not just in Texas.
They are building that network all over the country. And they're not going to want to give it up.
They're making too much money on drugs, sex trafficking, other crimes, and the importation of people. Every big construction site in this country has prostitution run by the cartels, often of children.
I don't see anyone doing anything about it. And it makes you wonder.
Like, Mexico is completely, utterly corrupt because of cartel money. Politicians, judges, journalists, all on the payroll.
You see this in other Latin American countries. I mean, our politicians are not that expensive.
Like you could do that in a state like Texas, right? Or California. Well, here's one of the biggest problems we have.
We have it in Texas. We have it in other parts of the country.
George Soros has figured this out. He's gone in and elected DAs in Democratic counties, Austin, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio.
So 70% of our population controlled by Soros DAs. He went in and knocked off Democratic DAs because we can't get elected Republicans in those areas.
So he went in and knocked off DAs who were actually prosecuting and replaced them with Soros DAs. Now, our legislature could fix that.
They haven't. They could come in and say, AG, you have concurrent jurisdiction to go after these crimes.
But because they haven't done that, crime is proliferating in all of our cities. Financial crimes, other types of crimes, because they will not prosecute crimes.
And so the cartels have an open invitation. So do other cartels from other countries.
So if you go out to our financial crime unit in Tyler, they will tell you about all these crime groups coming in from other countries because they know they can get away with it. And our legislature so far has not fixed that.
Why? Okay. Then the question of motive arises, like, why wouldn't you want to stop crime in your state? That's a very good question.
I find that DAs, they have more power in Texas than any elected official I've ever seen because they're not accountable to anybody. If they commit a crime, no one can prosecute them.
If it's a state crime, they'd have to prosecute themselves. And they can allow any crimes in their area.
And they can go after, in Texas, it is so easy to get an indictment. You just walk in, you can tell the grand jury anything you want to, you can lie.
Once you have the indictment, you've got it. There's no getting out of it.
And so I think a lot of our politicians are afraid of their DAs, even if they're liberal Democrats. But if we don't get control of this in our state, in another state, and give somebody like the attorney general, I'm not going to be there forever, give that authority so that there's another way to prosecute when the Soros DAs, and Soros has figured it out, but the Republicans have not.
I mean, it's so obvious just in your 45-second explanation that it makes sense. So is it that they haven't figured it out, or do they have a higher loyalty? They're afraid of the DAs.
The DAs come in and lobby, and everybody's afraid of their own DA, that they'll get indicted if they do it. There's just that power.
To get an indictment in Texas, you don't have to have – there's no recording of it. It's only one side of the story.
And if they lie and they get the indictment, there's no remedy. There's no consequence to the DA and there's no remedy for the victim of that lie.
You are going to trial. You can even, if somehow you could find out what happened in that secret grand jury proceeding, which I have before, it doesn't matter.
You can go to judge and say they lied.

You still are indicted and you're still at risk of going to prison. You have to tell your kids you've been indicted.
And you might be in prison. You might be in front of a jury that doesn't know the truth and you go to jail or you're in a democratic county.
You might go to jail on something that they made up. So you really think, I mean, I'm sorry to be so naive, but I grew up in this country and we didn't have things like this that I was aware of in 1985.
But

do you think that members of the Texas legislature are afraid they'll be indicted if they push back against the DAs? I think there is a fear and there is this lobby of it. These DAs have so much power.
Otherwise, why would they allow Soros to control the major cities? It's obvious that they're not prosecuting crimes. They won't even prosecute shoplifting.
If you have a free ride, as long as you take $750 a day in Dallas County, whatever the number is, and you go to different stores, you can do that every day. The DA there said, we will not prosecute you.
But why would you want that unless you were trying to destroy a civilization soros it's exactly what he wants to do so there's no political goal here it's just destabilization right and it's so easy it is literally so easy to do that and he also i believe got control of our court of criminal appeals which is our highest court we have a bifurcated system in texas we have the tex supreme court that that's the final appeal on civil and the court of criminal appeals, which is our highest court. We have a bifurcated system in Texas.
We have the Texas Supreme Court, that's the final appeal on civil, and the court of criminal appeals. But no one knew who they were.
And suddenly they strike down a law that directed me to prosecute voter fraud. And they took it away just by saying, oh, it's unconstitutional because you're in the executive branch and separation of power says you can't be in court.
How insane is that? So I've had to go run three,

I'm trying to take that court back,

but we, right now,

I can't even prosecute voter fraud,

which opens us up to unfair elections in Texas,

which I was prosecuting plenty of voter fraud

before that happened.

So who's supposed to prosecute voter fraud?

The Soros DAs.

That's where we're at in Texas. So that's why I i ran this is a nine-member court six-year terms they waited till two days after the filing deadline to announce their decision this is a 1951 statute that has thousands of cases of precedent and they came up with this insane idea that it was unconstitutional for the attorney general to be in court because i'm in the executive ranks if If that's true, every AG in the country is violating the Constitution.
So that was the rationale. I had to wait two years.
I recruited three people to take out the three people that were up. So we've replaced three.
We've got one good one on there, but we're still down five, four. So until we fix those things in Texas, we're at risk.
oh big time oh big time so do you think that these Soros DAs

have hesitant things in texas we're at risk oh big time oh big time so do you think that um these soros da's have hesitated to go after the drug cartels they don't they don't go after crime in general they don't work they're pull they do political crimes but they generally are not there they don't do their jobs they. They don't prosecute.
Even when people get killed.

Hit and miss.

Hit and miss.

But they're not.

The message from Soros is let as much crime go as possible.

It's amazing that a non-U.S. citizen who hates the United States, hates the West, could have that much power in our country.

It's just his money. It doesn't take very much.

To elect a DA in a Travis County, which is Austin, you're in a Democratic primary. It doesn't take that many votes.
I was working with a DA there who was a Democrat. I didn't agree with her on everything, but she was doing her job.
He spends a little bit of money, takes her out, and suddenly now I've got a DA who won't prosecute anything. Same in Bear County, which is San Antonio.
I worked with the DA a lot in Bear County, a guy named Nicola Hood.

His brother is now converted to Republican.

He's a state rep. He was awesome

to work with. And he was a Democrat.

He was a Democrat. He did his job.

Guess what? Soros replaced him

with money. So that's what, it

doesn't take him that much money and controls

our whole situation

with crime and controls our judicial

system, at least on the criminal side.

And we're sitting here letting it happen in Texas

and other states. What did you

Thank you. our whole situation with crime and controls our judicial system, at least on the criminal side.
And we're sitting here letting it happen in Texas and other states. What did you think when Joe Biden gave George Soros the Presidential Medal of Freedom? Disgusting.
I mean, the guy's done more to, I mean, as far as I know, there are not many people in the world that have done more harm to our country. And he's being applauded by Joe Biden.
It's not surprising because Joe Biden has the same motivations. I mean, what did Joe Biden do that was good?

Can you name it?

I can't think.

No, they worked from day one to destroy what past generations had built,

this amazing country.

And it had to be on purpose.

And the reason I say that is because you would think that randomly

he would have done something good if it weren't purposeful.

He would have had something.

Economically, internationally, the border, something would have been right, right?

Just randomly.

it's the something good if he weren't if it weren't purposeful he would have had something economically internationally the border something would have been right right just randomly there's no a victory once in a while the bell curve tells you he would have something good he didn't have anything good it was all on the other end of the curve the downside of the curve which was harm to americans that that cannot be accidental and and to individual americans i think that's absolutely right but what again, I'm so fixated on this. Why would you want to do that? I truly believe that this, and this started, I think, with President Obama, the first president I believe that didn't love America, that really thought we were a bad country, that thought we were racist and that we deserved to be taken down to another level.
And I think they operate under this idea that we're a bad country there were bad people and that we we don't deserve this and they fundamentally don't believe in what was created here i i truly believe that and they want to destroy it take it down dismantle because they think it's bad they think we're bad i i don't see another explanation there's hate behind it there's no doubt about it i mean how could you how could you wind up with it with the outcome with people dying of drug ods on the street and stores closing because of stealing and you know kids cutting their own genitals off like you would have to hate someone's you remember the contempt that biden that not biden obama said they cling to their religion and their their their guns and their their god there is contempt for that what the founders put in place a bunch of white racists who had slaves and so that that permeates his view of america and yet that's not there's no excuse for slavery we we messed up in that we had we fixed it we were moving in the right direction but his view is we're broken because of that and therefore we we deserve to be dismantled because we don't It's not about that. I mean, there are countries, well, slavery is still practiced in certain countries, but there were, like, critical U.S.
allies that had slavery until the 1970s and no one ever, 1970s, and no one ever mentions that or holds them responsible. Obama has no problem taking money for speeches in those countries.
That's why it doesn't make sense. It's slavery around in the world forever.
And it's not awful. It is awful.
And the U.S. and Great Britain were the reason that we don't have it anymore.
And globally, for the most part, and no civilized country would tolerate slavery. But if you're against slavery, by the way, why would you be for the drug cartels, which practice slavery, which sell people? All I know is it seems like the things they focus on do the greatest harm to America.
Oh, I totally agree.

But I think it's a mistake to take their explanations at face value.

I think there's something deeper.

Like, they just hate.

They want to hurt people.

They do not have an abiding love.

Look, I didn't like Jimmy Carter as president.

I think he did a good job.

But he didn't have a hatred for this country.

I don't think so.

I don't think he did.

I think we've had a lot of mediocre to bad presidents who still didn't want the country to be dismantled.

I agree.

But I think it started with Obama.

Biden didn't know what he was doing.

He was being told by others.

He wasn't competent.

And this was the third presidency of President Obama.

And he didn't have to worry about being popular anymore because he limited himself a little bit because he wanted to get reelected. He didn't care if Joe Biden got reelected.
You think it's over for Obama? His influence is permanently diminished? I think it's been impacted and affected. It could be if we continue the momentum and we don't mess this up.
If we get caught up in not focusing on the best things for America, he can come right back in. If we don't take care of the American people and make that our number one focus, what's best for the American people? If we stay on that track, we have a really good chance of being successful for a long time.
If we lose sight of that and we start worrying about our power and our… I agree. Once we start taking care of ourselves, then they have a chance back in because the American people see that.
I think that's really wise. I'm concerned about that.
Not because of any individual acting in bad faith, but because human nature is what it is. It's exactly right.
The Presbyterians actually had that right when they set this government up. It was based on the depravity of men.
The reason they wanted three branches of government that made it so frustrating to get things done is because they didn't trust people in power. Because every human...
I wouldn't trust myself in power at all. I don't want power because I don't trust myself.
I don't think any honest person can really say my motives are pure. Right? No, I agree with that.
We all have this pull towards pull towards yeah and anyone who doesn't admit that's a liar right so yeah i want oversight of me right you know and then you see chuck schumer you're like that guy needs a lot of oversight like armed oversight you know what i mean like all of us yeah i think you got it right in your speech at the bible museum during the inauguration about humility and realizing your need for God's work in your life. And without that, we all have a tendency to go down the path.
A hundred percent. And you lie to yourself, oh, I'm doing this for the greater good.
I have known people personally who've killed other human beings because they thought, or they convinced themselves, you know, this is actually for the, you know, know some the humanity will benefit from oh yeah that's what we all convince ourselves whatever we're doing that we're doing this and it really we we we tell ourselves well this is really good because we are off face many times it's so it's so true so the whole point of market capitalism is consumer choice you You have a choice between products and services, and the competition between companies makes the goods and services better. That's the core idea.
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So can I ask you, I was reading in the final weeks before the election that the Biden administration was selling off portions of the materials for the border wall. Is that actually true? I believe it is.
And here's what happened. We had sued the Biden administration a couple of years ago.
And, you know, these cases, these federal cases don't happen overnight. It took us a couple of years.
We sued them. We said, Congress appropriated money for the building of the wall.
You are not building that wall. You're actually selling off assets.
So we sued him. We won that lawsuit.
And in May, we got an injunction from a federal judge saying, you DOJ, you Biden administration cannot sell any more assets off. So then I get a call from president Trump, you know, a month ago and he said, they're selling assets off.
So would you sue him? And I said, well, I don't have to if I've done it. So I already got an order.
So we go back into court. We tell the judge, hey, they're selling off assets.
We've been told they're selling off assets. We went into accounting.
And before we got there, DOJ is calling us, begging us, hey, we're not selling, we swear we won't sell any more assets. They didn't say they hadn't.
They said we won't sell any more. So they signed an agreement, they wouldn't sell any more.
But the judge, which we asked for, there's going to be an accounting and there's potential sanctions if they lied and they followed, they did not follow that order. We don't know that yet, but we're going to know that soon now that DOJ is switching.
We're going to know that soon. I truly believe they were selling off assets in violation, not only of federal law, but in violation of a court order that we got in May saying you can't sell off assets because we were trying to protect those assets so that if trump won we would we would come because i knew biden would never build that wall even if he was instructed by congress to do so how hard is it why i never really understood why is it so hard to build a seems like a pretty straightforward infrastructure project it is a pretty straightforward infrastructure project but they hate it it's some kind of symbol of i don don't know, racism or whatever, but it's not.
It protects us from exactly what we've had. So why not pass a law that says anyone, any elected official who opposes the building of a border wall is prohibited from putting a lock on the front door of his house? Well, that would affect a lot of Republicans.
I mean, my own senator would have trouble with that, John Cornyn, because he's been against the border wall saying it wouldn't work. But we all know that walls do work.
They do work. And I've seen it.
I've seen how it works. Why would John Cornyn be opposed to a border wall protecting his own state? I don't understand it.
I've seen quotes from him. I've seen video clips from him over and over how it's not enough.
It doesn't work. It's a bad idea.
He is opposed to the border wall.

But he's, I mean, boy, he's helped appropriate

billions and billions and billions of dollars

for border security in other countries.

I know, it's really odd that he thinks it works other places,

but it doesn't work in Texas.

And he's sort of mocked it

and said it doesn't work.

I'd love to hear him mock Israel's border walls.

Do you think he will?

No.

I'd love to hear him mock Ukraine's territorial integrity. Do you think he will? Nope.
Never heard him do that. What is that about? I don't understand it.
I mean, I think the Bushes had the same idea that open borders were relatively good. I don't think that he or the Bushes did.
But only for us. No one's calling on China to open its borders.
its borders i don't know why they have this view but

they i mean even under the bush presidency i don't think they took immigration seriously i the first president i've ever seen take it seriously is donald j trump how did john i mean this is a question i could ask if so no offense i say this is a texas lover who's got a lot of relatives there including a child so i love texas and however i think you've got some of the worst politicians in the country. How did that happen? How does that happen? So I think about the Texas House and what's going on there, what's gone on there for 16 years, where a small group of Republicans for power align themselves in the House with the Democrats so that the Speaker is elected by mostly Democrats and a few Republicans.
They just did it again. Dustin Burroughs just got elected by a minority of Republicans after he put the rules in place that the caucus, the Republican caucus, would decide who the Speaker was.
And when he lost that vote in caucus, he walked out, cut a deal with the Democrats, and he just became Speaker of the Texas House. That is for power.
That is for his own personal power. And the Republicans that do that have traded getting good policy done, getting property tax done, school choice, protecting the border, not doing impeachments of guys that just got elected.
They traded that to have power. That's all it is.
With all this drug cartel money in your state, it's not going to get better. Because you could just buy a member of the Texas legislature.
What would that cost? Not too much. Not too much.
I mean, these guys, I mean, they only make $600 a month. So, you know, anything is good after that, I guess.
We're pretty vulnerable that way. I think we are.
And I think a lot of these people, because Texas House, you get paid $600 a month. So most people that run have to have money.
You can't. Of course.
And if you don't have money, you're getting paid somewhere for something because it's impossible to live on, obviously, $600 a month. So, everybody has to either work, and it's hard to work when you've got a job that may take a year out of every two years.
So, specifically on John Cornyn, how did he get to be a senator when statewide in Texas? So this goes back to George W. Bush appointed him to be a U.S.
Supreme Court judge, not U.S. but a Texas Supreme Court judge.
And when he did that, he authored an opinion that created this thing called Robin Hood, which takes from the wealthy school districts and gives to the poor, supposedly. And what that did to our system was it created a mediocre school system because it's just socialism.
Instead of just letting the wealthy school districts make their schools however they want to, we've got to take their money away. Why don't we just fund the poor school districts? It makes no sense.
But I think it's not about helping the bottom. It's about crushing the top.
It's about making it all equal. That's socialism.
It doesn't work. It's never worked anywhere.
We have no example that it actually works. And yet, John Cornyn did that for George W.
Bush because George wanted to be president. He didn't want to pass a major tax increase, so he let John do it judiciously.
It was a 5-4 decision. John Cornyn was on the 5-4.
Really? And I'm pretty sure he authored it. This was in the late 90s.
Yes. And for that, they pushed him, Rove and Bush, pushed him to be the Attorney General of Texas, first Republican, actually, and then they pushed him into the U.S.
Senate. So he has been pushed and funded by that group, and fortunately, Texans have caught on to that and realized that group, whatever they say they believe, isn't really what they believe, because they don't actually follow through on it.
Well, I we kind of know what bush believes i mean as families out there campaigning for planned parenthood voting for kamala harris i was with him two days ago and obama at the inaugurations right next to them across from i watched him you know pal around with you know he's friends with obama that's his world right that's his world that's all well known. But what's pretty distressing was running mate endorsed Kamala Harris and his sad little daughter campaigned for Kamala Harris.
So that whole world is now, they're all Democrats. But John Cornyn is still an elected, statewide elected official in Texas.
He's a puppet of the left, obviously. How does that continue to happen? So I think it's because people weren't as aware of what the Bushes did and what he's done, but they've become more aware because of people like you and others who have outed that.
So he's never had a real problem. He had four people running against him.
None of them had money. Nobody had ever run before.
No one even knew who they were. It was all fake.
And he claims, you know, he got 76% of our of course he had nobody running in so that uh that i could tell you who it was and i'm pretty involved in politics somebody needs to run against him this time because he has been there for what 16 years just in that position count as ag that's four years he was supreme court i mean texas supreme court justice and before that he's been doing this a long time and he's gotten away with this it's about time that he'd be held accountable because i can't think of a single thing that he's done for texas that's good he has no acclaim for doing things good for texas or no he's helped zelinski and that's pretty much it so um how okay so what's the process the guy i mean i've never anyone who likes John Cornyn, never met anyone who thought he's achieved anything,

never met anyone

who thinks he's smart,

he's pompous,

he's quite a self-righteous little guy.

So I think he's very unpopular

with every person

I've ever met in my life

and yet all things being equal,

he gets reelected.

So how do you stop something like that?

So I'll give you an example

of what you're just saying.

So right after I beat George P. Bush, he he came out and endorsed of course and then he he made disparaging comments about me being an embarrassment to texas and he made some comment about me being part of russia propaganda you're a russian propaganda i don't know how that happened i'm in texas i became part of the russian propaganda because i criticized him on.
He said that you were Russian propagandists? Yes, yes. That's what he said.
Crazy stuff. You know, people didn't used to say things like that.
Right. Well, guess what? Who's the more loyal American, you or John Cornyn? Who's more focused on the fortunes of his own country and his own people, you or John Cornyn, who obviously doesn't care at all, didn't say anything as his own state was invaded and lectures us endlessly.
It's a tool of the intel agencies lecturing us about Ukraine. But you're the disloyal American.
It's actually, like, you shouldn't say things like that. People should not talk like that.
It's crazy. It is.
And so justice. The crazy thing, we have a Texas Republican convention shortly after the election where I win by 38 points against George P.
Bush, which is a pretty significant margin in a primary. So we have the convention.
There's 12,000 Republicans there. He and his wife walk up on stage and for 10 straight minutes, he doesn't say a word, he gets booed.
For the 20 minutes that he's speaking, he never adjusts his speech. He gets booed the entire 20 minutes.
He gets booed 30 minutes straight. I'm standing waiting to go on stage.
I walk away because I'm afraid of what I might say after he's said these things public to me. I go up

and get a standing ovation. So there is

the people of Texas know

John Cornyn, and I don't think he'll survive

another primary. So how do you stop this cycle?

So I think in Texas

it's very doable because people

realize now who John Cornyn is. We have a

primary next, not this March, but the next

March. So somebody

needs to run against him in that primary. So in a year, basically in a year and two months you have a primary yep so that primary oh it's imminent it's coming yeah absolutely so he's he's i don't think he's he's long for this senate world so well i'm sure he's got such an enormous reservoir of skills and talent um that he'll he'll thrive in the private sector doing what i don't know he's ever been there.
He couldn't start my truck on a cold day. He has no idea.
He has no skills. But anyway, sorry, I'm being too mean, but it's all true.
How do you beat him in a primary? So, I mean, I don't know. I'm running for sure.
I'm looking at it probably in the next few months. I'll be talking to people around the state.
But, I mean, I've run two primaries against George P. Bush, another guy, Dan Branch, who was one of George W.'s close friends.
I knew Dan Branch, yeah. Yeah, one of his close friends, but very moderate.
You're a nice guy. I beat him nicer to you than he was me.
Yeah. I served in the household.
One always so nice to me. 65-35, him.
He had a lot more money. Same with Bush.
I beat him 68-32. So primary voters, if they're educated, will make good choices based on what you've actually done.
And that was always me. With Dan Branch, we were in the House together for 10 years, and I moved over to the Senate for two while he was in the House.
And I said, don't listen to the rhetoric. Look at the record.
We both have a record. Go look at the record.
Compare them. See if they're the same.
They're not. He can say what he wants.
He is not what he's, he's running on my record. Look at his record.
And that works in primaries. And the same thing with John Cornyn.
I bring out what he said about Trump and how disparaging he was at Trump in 2016 and 2000, just in those last elections saying he shouldn't run. He's not the right guy.
I mean, John's wrong about most everything. There's very few things.
He tends to side with the swamp in Washington and he does what Karl Rove tells him to do. So that doesn't work in Republican primaries, not in Texas.
What does Karl Rove have? I mean, Karl Rove is, I mean, he's got to be 70 anyway at this point, I would think. He's been around, I mean, I've known him him for pushing 30 years i don't think his track record is something anyone could brag about at all he's been wrong about he's sub-genius i would say for sure i'm a genius no you're not and um his record suggests he's not and so like why does he still have influence does he is he still effective let's be honest he's propped up by fox news he has the platform they take care of him he he can keep people like for instance i can't get on fox he's still on fox news he's still on fox news and he's he's kept me off for a couple years because i when i ran against bush they got bush on and took me off and all the shows i used to be on almost all of them are you serious i know that for i know for a tv this is a disadvantage carl rove have a TV, this is a disadvantage.
Karl Rove is still on Fox. He's still on Fox.
I just saw him during the inauguration. He's there a lot.
I used to go in studio at the same place in Austin. I used to trade out with him.
Yeah, I've been to that studio. Yeah, and he got me cut out for sure.
And I know that from hosts of shows who have said, No way! Sorry, weak. They will even like, I will have a case.
They will, we will get, we will, Jesse will talk to my communication they'll book me then they'll cancel me then they'll go try to find another AG they'll call the Republican can we find another AG or they'll ask for somebody else in my office other than me that was Karl Rove blacklist Carl Rove is booking shows at Fox News he just goes around and he he controls so crazy, I've been told by people you know that have shows. I know everyone there.
I just don't want to out them. Yeah, no, I get it.
That have told me, we can't have you. And for the last two years, I've been on Fox like maybe a couple times.
I used to be on every day. Sometimes multiple times.
Imagine if I can just say, since I know these systems, I lived it. Imagine you're the host of a show and you get a call saying the sitting Republican attorney general of the second biggest state is not allowed on your air because of reasons we won't explain.
Because like Karl Rove, it's like a totally discredited buffoon, doesn't like the guy. Be like, buzz off.
Well, I think he went to like Paul Ryan, the the board and just got it's like i am why would you cave to that like no job is worth taking orders you didn't cave to that well i got fired exactly but that's i wouldn't even consider that like what i would always say on the three or four times they ever said anything like that to me i'd be like that's totally great just put it in writing just send me an email explaining why we can't have this guest the rationale for it it, and I'll assess and I'll respond in writing. The second you say put it in writing, they're like, ugh.
They never call you again. I'm just telling you.
Just put it in writing. It's totally fine.
You know what? I've got some hearing issues. So if you could just write it down.
Explain what exactly about Ken Paxton is like verboten. I was supposed to go on a show.
There was still one host that would sort of have me. And I was supposed to go on this show.
And I had two different settings to go on. And both got canceled.
I was told you got canceled from the party. We're moving in another direction.
Yes. Even if it's my case.
I mean, I follow the case. And they want another attorney general to come on and talk about it.
So I would just never put up with that. That's what they do.
call and say like what you know what is this well the decisions been made by whom and why but that's why carl rove still has his platform because it's all the most disgusting kind of power which is like stealthy feline power behind the scenes power rather than just say you know here are my views and this is what i think and i'm happy to debate it or whatever i think you're wrong i don't like you know Ken Paxton's evil here's why they'll never do that because they're not honorable people and I'm not talking about at that company I mean more broadly in our society like the people who win every bureaucratic battle are exactly the same they're all they operate in darkness you know they're never straightforward about anything you talked about my impeachment I came in you were the person I talked to about the impeachment. That was how my whole impeachment went.
It was done in three days, no due process. I didn't get any information.
I wasn't allowed to participate or respond all behind closed doors. And then they leak stuff to the media that's not even true.
And I've got a gag order on me and I can't talk. It's so dishonorable.
How do you survive that? It's really hard. How do you live with yourself? Like, how do you live with yourself if you operate that way? They convince themselves.
If I don't like someone, I'm always delighted to call them on the phone and say, I don't like you and here's why. They convince themselves that, like, I deserve it because I'm a bad person because all of this stuff is true.
But none of it was true. You know why? Because it wasn't true.
But why do it behind the scenes? Because I can tell you why. So I had friends that were called into the Speaker's office, Republican House members, and they were saying, look, we need you to vote for this impeachment.
They said, well, can you just show us some evidence? Well, you have this three-hour hearing. Well, there's no evidence there.
Can we see some evidence? No, you're not getting any more. Well, can we have a little more time to kind of figure this out? We've only had like three days.
We're going to vote on this in three days're not giving you more time what about like can we talk to the witnesses we don't even know who they are none of them were sworn in we don't even know who the witnesses against him are and they said no we're not gonna let you do that and they said well why is it that we can't see the evidence why is it that we can't see the witnesses why is it that has to be in three days over memorial weekend and they said because if we give ken more than three days he'll win that's what they told them that is you know if you find yourself living your life like that you have to make a change because that's really uh deceptive that was the republican supposedly the republican house controlled by the democrats oh they're all like that i got called in one time by executives um executives of a company and they're trying to tell me that Roger Ailes was a rapist who I knew well and really loved. He's a flawed guy like we all are, but I didn't feel like a rapist to me.
Pretty sure he wasn't a rapist. And I remember saying, like, okay, who did he rape? Well, we know this.
We just know this. We know, we had ropes and gray do this investigation.
He raped people. And well, okay.
Who were they? I was like, no, I work there. I know everybody.
No, I can't. Just trust me.
If you saw what we saw, you. And I was like, okay, but can you just tell me like, what were the circumstances of the rape? This is like an elderly man.
It's got hemophophilia. Don't think he's raping anybody.
And they were very annoyed that I asked the basic questions. And look, I don't know so many things I don't know.
But I did come out of that meeting thinking he didn't rape anybody. You know what I mean? Oh, absolutely.
I see it all the time where people get accused of things. Then they get overwhelmed by media.
And then they're. They get overwhelmed.
And people always say the same thing. We know this.
We know. Look, I've talked to people.
We know this. Like, look, let's just start there.
We know this. Carl Rove did that to me.
He went to people and said, we know this. We know this.
We know this. And they're like, where's the proof? I've got it somewhere.
That's what he does. But I do think all you need is self-respect.
I'm not going to be lied to. If I can help it, I'm lied to all the time and I don't know it.
But I'm not going to allow myself to be lied to if I can help it. But people are just like, they're willing to be lied to.
It's the vaccine safe and effective. Okay.
Then it turns out it's not safe and effective. And they don't have enough self-respect to demand an accounting of those lies.
Like you told me this turned out not to be true. Why'd you do that? No one ever does that.
Or that Karl Rove shows up and is like, we know Ken Paxton's a criminal. where's everyone's self-respect like I'm an adult man you can't lie to me okay it just seems like I've kind of baseline it is a baseline and that's why when I was in the middle of that impeachment and I had no voice I could not respond I'm getting beaten up every day told my lawyers I know you I know you think I'm gonna resign but I haven't told no one I'm gonna resign because I'm not even allowed to talk to the media.
So how could I even tell it? Because there were printing think I'm going to resign, but I haven't told no one I'm going to resign because I'm not even allowed to talk to the media. So how could I have even told it? Because there were printing stories I'm going to resign.
I said, I want you to know, I don't care how bad it gets. I don't care what they say.
These senators are going to, I'm going to make them vote. They're going to, I got elected four and a half months ago by the people.
Let them vote me out. If they do, they will be accountable to the voters, but I will not give in, no matter what.

I watched it up close, and you won.

It was amazing.

And it was hard to—so how many times did you win at the Supreme Court with the Biden administration?

How many times?

Yeah.

Gosh, I mean, we had 106 cases.

We won over 75% of our cases.

But several of the ones that we—I can't even keep talking about.

Okay, but 106.

A lot.

We'll be a lot. You sued him 106 times.
So I'm kind of thinking, since this is politics, that that may have had a role in your impeachment. I have no doubt.
You know how I know they were there? I'm convinced that the Biden administration went to the house, Texas House, with the Democrats that we won him impe's and then biden sent two lawyers from the department of justice to help the general investigating committee which is five member committee three republicans two democrats they had four lawyers two of them came from the justice department just randomly showed up to help was the biden administration involved i don't have proof i'm not i'm not stupid that's unbelievable. So is there any, so do you expect that Karl Rove will be involved? I don't have proof.
You can't prove it. I'm not stupid.
That's unbelievable. So do you expect that Karl Rove will be involved in this primary? Oh, absolutely.
He will do whatever he can to stop. He does whatever he can to stop conservatives in Texas in general.
But not just in Texas, nationally. Yeah, his fundraising, everything he's out to help Republicans, he goes into primaries to get Republicans, to take out conservatives.
He is not there raising money to go after Democrats. He's there to go after Republicans.
What do you think he's doing? I mean, it's amazing the number of Republicans who are mobilizing against Trump's nominees, particularly Bobby Kennedy and Tulsi Gabbard. I don't know this, but do you think Carl has a hand in any of that i would not surprise me at all wouldn't surprise me not at all and the reason they want to go after those two is because they're gonna they're effective they're courageous of course and they're going to change america if they're given the opportunity exactly right in there you know so sad to see um some republicans who i know well mobilizing against bobby kennedy and they're saying we're doing it because he's pro-choice.
Well, I'm vehemently, passionately pro-life. I have always been.
I will always be. But these are all people who are themselves pro-choice, who supported plenty of pro-choice nominees.
And it's not about that. It's about the fear that Bobby Kennedy means it, that he's sincere, and that he'll get something done something done and by getting done it's like fighting the corruption that controls washington the thing that's most missing in in political leadership is is not knowledge of what to do or how to do it's courage and the thing that bobby kennedy has he would he will take on the democrats his own family and the food the big food that's exactly And they know that, and that's what they're afraid of, and so they have to stop him.
Yeah. It's the testosterone level that scares them.
It's totally, absolutely right. Unafraid.
He's unafraid. So in September, we went across the country, coast to coast, 17 different cities on a nationwide live tour, and it was amazing.
We brought the entire staff with us like we always do because we all work together for so long and enjoy traveling together. And one of our producers is a documentary filmmaker.
And so he decided to make a documentary film about our trip, a full month across America with some of the most interesting people around. Different people join us every single night.
Bon Gino and Russell Brand and Bobby Kennedy and J.D. Vance and Donald Trump, et cetera, et cetera.

We had the best time.

And the fruit of that is a documentary called On the Road, the Tucker Carlson Live Tour,

which is available right now on TCN.

On the Road, Tucker Carlson Live Tour.

It is hilarious.

You will like it. Sound of Corona.
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At participating locations, visit circlek.com for details. That's interesting.
Do you think it's fair to keep a list? I mean, I'm probably too fixated on this because I've lived in a Republican world in Washington for so long, but I think it's fair to keep a list of like the Republicans who are working against reform, who are working against Trump's best decisions, which are reform-minded decisions like nominating Bobby and Tulsi. Like, we should keep a list of them.
Absolutely, and it should be open. We should be transparent.
We should tell the world like who's working against us because they've done all this and they try to do this in secret. And then they go back and tell their constituents, well, yeah, I did my best.
No, they did not do their best. They were behind the scenes.
This is John Corner's career. This is what these people do.
Transparency, just like my impeachment, the transparency of a trial actually helped me because the truth comes out. Trans comes out transparency is what we need in government and we don't get it with people like no that people you're talking that's i think that's really deep and true the thing they hate most is exposure so i've always thought that's why they hated trump they were worried he was going to declassify stuff or say secrets out loud that you know that implicate the people the people running things.
They hate him for that. And they hate him because he also is courageous and he doesn't.
His agenda is the American people. Yeah.
No, I think that's interesting. So you, do you think you may run against Cornyn? I'm strongly considering it.
I haven't made a decision. I have the spring to kind of work it out and, you know, I'm still doing my job.
I had a lot to under biden before he left uh it's a lot easier with trump because we're working cooperatively instead of having to be adversarial and everything so you know i'll be looking at this spring and seeing what people see i'm going to travel the state and get a get a feel for it but i my sense already is that john cornyn is not loved in my state by republicans he may be loved by the democrats but He is not loved by the Republicans. How long do you think Texas has before it becomes a democratic state? It's totally up to us.
We can preserve it. We can, just like with this thing I told you about America, if we do the right things and we take care of the people in our state and we give them opportunity, we give them a good education, which the state is responsible for, if we provide opportunities for their children, if we provide just freedom to go be the best you can be and not get in their way with regulations and taxes, we give them, we will be a Republican state because it doesn't matter what your skin color is, if you get a chance to be successful, you're going to vote with the people that gave think that's right i think that's right and i and i'm embarrassed to say um that i kind of bought i guess intuitively i didn't really think about it but the idea that demographics is destiny and i do think that's there's a lot of truth in that however you know texas went from a majority white state to a really a majority hispanic state and but that doesn't mean that it has to be like a dystopian left-wing state at all.
Hispanics are conservative socially. They are hardworking.
They are family people. I totally agree.
And they want to be successful too. Well, but it's interesting.
So that – I first heard that line from Karl Rove, actually. How surprising.
He was my next-door neighbor. And he would always say, you know, Hispanics are natural conservatives.
And I would say, well, I'm from California. And that became majority Hispanic state.
And it just went right off the cliff. It became, you know, really, really dark socialist dystopian place.
And I would say, so what do you make of that? What I didn't realize was it was actually the liberal whites who are the problem i mean that state's run by gavin newsom he's not from oaxaca you know what i mean he's from county and and a lot of the decisions are made by people like that and actually hispanics are conservative i mean that's real look at el salvador El Salvador. And so what's happened, though, is that the party is controlled by neoliberals like Gavin Newsom, like Karl Rove, and they use the power of the Hispanic vote to affect outcomes that I think a lot of Hispanic voters reject, right? Yeah, and look, Trump is winning counties in Texas that have never been won before.
And we are having more and more Democrat, Hispanic politicians move to our party. And their positions are not changing.
They're just realizing that the Democratic Party, allowing all this illegal immigration and hurting their areas and all those types of things, they don't want that. They're leaving the machine.
I guess the only thing I would say, just as an outside observer, is if the drug cartels are allowed to control the machinery of democracy in Texas, like it could become Mexico. That's why the whole DA thing that I was telling you about is so important.
I remember when I was coming into the attorney general's office, Abbott had served as long as serving AG in Texas history, 12 years, becoming governor. I'm now about to tie that, but it was, he was the one that told me the most powerful elected officials in the country are the Texas district attorneys because they can do whatever they want.
They can allow any crime they want. They can let their friends commit crimes and there's nothing that can be done to them.
They are free to do what they want. So we had problems like this in the 50s and 60s after Brown v.
Board where certain states just didn't want to comply with federal law. And, you know, Eisenhower sent the 101st Airborne to Little Rock and said, I'm sorry, you can't violate federal law.
You can't. You're not your own country actually and um and you wonder like how serious could the trump doj be in reigning in this crap no you're not allowed to have chaos in your state this is an american state no i agree with that i and i i think you're already seeing it on the board he's already sent federal troops down there and i think he as long as it's it's following federal law i know that Trump is going to be aggressive at protecting this country.
I hope so. I believe it.
So here's a question I've been obsessed with recently, and I don't know the answer, but you're an attorney general. How are states allowed to have sanctuary cities in open violation of federal law, and that's not insurrection? Because we've allowed it.
To me, that should, I mean, in our state, we banned them. You cannot have a sanctuary city.
And we can remove people from office that put that in place. But can states just say we're going to ignore federal law? I think we had a civil war over that, didn't we? No, as long as the federal law is constitutional and it is not infringing upon states' rights.
Right. Not every federal law is correct, right? But the ones that are, that are correct, then yes, it has to be followed.
Well, these are the borders of the nation. Yes.
Right. So what states do with immigration affects the other 49, any individual state.
Exactly right. Because it does seem like there was a standard in place under Biden where illegal aliens who are by their presence committing a crime were held to a lower standard than American citizens.
We had to sue the Biden administration. We sued them specifically over letting criminals into this country, known criminals, and they fought us on it.
They fought us on a very, yes, we are in litigation over whether the Biden administration can purposely bring criminals. And of course, all these countries were emptying their prisons to get rid of their bad people from all over the world.
And Biden say, come on in. That's what I say, evil.
Like, I don't believe they were trying to do good for America. You cannot do that.
And tell me you are trying to help America. How hopeful are you that we can deport millions of people? Look've seen donald trump do things that i never thought could be done he he said he's going to do it i think it's you're not going to get every one of them but i think tom holman i love that guy he i think there's going to be a real serious effort to get as many out as possible and that's really all you can do but i think it's i think it will be a success in they are going to, one, stop the, you got to stop the bleeding, right? We've been bleeding like profusely.
And then second, start moving. Don't accept the fact that these people came in here illegally and just let them stay.
There will be a lot of forces arrayed to stop that obviously the i already know the democratic ags i already i mean i know the game plan and and how's the game plan the game plan is to sue trump and stop them at every turn legally go to liberal judge try to get an injunction and then you know slow just slow it down so i know i think california ag already they've already allocated 25 million to this fight. So I- To stop Trump from deporting criminals.
And to stop his agenda in every possible way. So the Democratic attorney generals are going to be suing and trying to stop all of this.
The good thing is, you know, I've got one of my guys that was my offensive coordinator to sue the Biden administration. If he gets confirmed, he'll be in a strategic position and he knows exactly the game plan and how to deal with it.
If you go and beat Cornyn in the Senate, which I certainly hope you will, is there someone coming up behind you who can get elected who will be as aggressive and focused on the needs of Texans? So one of the reasons I didn't want to leave last time, one is I don't want to be forced out. Like I didn't want them to, I didn't want to step away under their terms because I just thought it was wrong.
That's the spirit. So second was I didn't, I mean, I ran against three people that I just thought would be horrible for that job.
They didn't know what they were doing. There are certainly people that will run that, I mean, there are lawyers who've never practiced law that want that job because they're in politics.
That's not the right way. I want somebody who knows how to practice law, that understands the law.
And yes, there are a couple of people that I know that could run, and I think might run. Otherwise, I'd have a hard time walking away from it because I don't want to give, this is such a crucial position really for the entire country.
The Texas Attorney General has the largest Republican office with the most resources and has the most ability to go fight. We can attract talent.
And so we have a lot of ability to take DOJ straight up. That's why we've run up one over three-fourths of our cases, because we can fight them toe-to-toe.
I just think it's, you see this weird dynamic in Texas where, I mean, there's so many great people in Texas, but all the money, not all the money, but a lot of the money in, you know, Highland Park and River Oaks, you know, your richest zip codes, pretty liberal. What is that? And by the way, I know a lot of those people and I really like them.
I'm not attacking anybody personally because I know, you know, I know a lot of them, but boy, they, they seem to be funding people who will not continue Texas as currently organized.

It's exactly right.

What is that?

It's very strange.

So this group, Texas for Lawsuit Reform, used to take a lot of that.

They would funnel their money through them, so it wasn't them directly.

And that's the group that spent $10 million recruiting the Supreme Court Justice who was a DEI person, as it turns out that's how we we exposed that and she blew up that's who they supported i don't totally understand it but they don't like you too they're like oh no paxton's so embarrassing i know it's because but if you asked them to run a piece of paper like where what are your political priorities they would they would be not so different from yours it's that whole but they don't like it when you actually try to implement what you say you believe. Here's part of what I think happened.
I think that when I ran into Dan Branch, he was one of his best friends. Of course.
I knew Dan Branch. He was not, his deal was always this.
I've spent 10 years with him. I would say, hey, we need to do this.
This is the right thing to do. He goes, man, what are the optics here? I'm like, who cares what the optics are? This is the right thing to do.
It was always the optics. How does it look? And his voting record, and you can look at it, is not consistently what most voters, most Republican voters would want, but it was for Highland Park.
I don't know what is- Which is an affluent part of Dallas. Yes, and same with, you were talking about River Oaks in Houston.
Those, that Bush world that supported Bush and- I have family in both those places and I think they're wonderful. They're not, no, i like all the people and as i said i like dan branch i mean i think i'm probably susceptible to charm in a way i shouldn't be because like i like all those they're all good guys but like they in the end it's considered somehow gauche or bad to actually try and do what you say you're gonna do that's why they don't like i've just i No offense, hope it doesn't hurt your feelings, but I've been at dinner and people are like, oh, Ken Paxton.
Ken Paxton. It's like, why? Because he's doing what you say you believe? The same thing happened.
What the hell? It's the same thing with Trump. People had, I mean, I don't know.
I know you're right, it is. I was at his announcement at Mar-a-Lago.
You know when your elected officials were there to support him that first? There were were lots of regular people there me and Troy Nels at the very first announcement everybody then was like thinking it might be somebody else and no one wanted to touch you weren't sure because you got you had these indictments and it's the same thing with Trump if you actually go out and do the hard things then you're controversial and then they attack you for being the media they don't like it and then and then people go well you know we know, we need to see. And I'm like, okay, you're, you're, you know what?

You don't want Trump because he's controversial.

That means you don't want somebody to actually get something done.

The people that aren't controversial are the people that don't get anything done.

The media doesn't attack them.

And so then all these people are like, oh, I just don't like his tweets, you know, blah, blah, blah.

And I'm like, what?

I care about what he gets done.

I think it may be that rich people are so insulated from the effects of everything that they don't really feel like these arguments are existential, that they really, really matter. Whereas, you know, if you make $120,000 a year and you live in Houston and you see the city, like you can't use the hospitals and crime's out of control and like everything is changing too fast to metabolize.
And you can't really, you make $120,000 a year, you can't really do anything about it. You're powerless.
And that's, by the way, twice what the average person makes. You're like, you realize this is not a joke.
They're wrecking my city for real. It can't be fixed.
I think you've hit it because those people, even those people are affected by inflation, right? Everything is more expensive. Gas is more expensive.
No, it's totally right. The average American and even above average American feels all of those negative effects every day.
If you're a billionaire, it's not going to be good. You don't care what it costs to fill up your gas.
You don't even think about it. It's just weird in Texas.
So if you go to California, if you go to Marin or downtown San Francisco or the town that I grew up in, affluent town, you know,

everyone's kind of openly liberal. You know what I mean? Like they're smoking weed with their kids and they're whatever, they're liberal.
You go to Texas and you meet the affluent class in Texas, and boy, they're just great people. They're just great people who share your values.
And I think they really do, by the way, at least the ones I know, they sincerely do, but they don't feel that sense of eminence, of like, holy shit, we got it. This is like a crisis.
They do not feel that. Well, those are the people that elect me.
If you look at my campaign finance reports, I usually have a massive number of people giving, but a lot lower level than some of the other statewide officials. The numbers are just staggering.
I raise less money but my contributions from the number of people i get i think i had the last report maybe i'm off on this maybe it's one for 8 000 contributors in six months well i don't think anybody comes close to that but it's a it's it's not the million dollar checks i don't get million dollar checks i have a much lower contribution but i love it because i like the fact that the people as a group are helping me yes that's who i'm beholden to those people i think that's right and there's a um by the way i just want to be clear especially in texas like the rich people i know in texas are good people with nice you know love their families their children turn out well like they're good people for real i love them actually but i and they would agree with everything you say but in practice it freaks them out and you see this with bobby kennedy too like anyone who's kind of tuned in realize yeah bobby kennedy is like a turbo liberal he's a kennedy yeah you know he said all this crazy gun grabby pro-abortion nonsense but then you watch him and you're like, oh no, that guy's on the same wavelength as me, and he might actually get stuff done. Honestly, it's the rich Republicans who he freaks out.
He scares them for the same reason you scare them, because you mean it. And they're like, ah, this is embarrassing, and maybe I can't fully control it.
I'm not sure I'm for this. Part of the problem is they all talk to each other and they all get their ideas from each other.
It's just almost too inbred. They don't get down to talk to the people that you and I are talking about.
They don't know them. They are not around them.
They don't live with them. So they don't feel it.
It's part of what your original point was. They just don't know these people.
If they knew those people, I think, like you said, they're not bad people. I think if they can connect with people that are not billionaires instead of just with each other, it would help them.
I think it's totally right. I grew up in a rich person world.
The greatest gift I ever got was, you know, spending time in a non-rich area for a portion of every year. And it really changed my worldview, like so dramatically, just having contact with people who aren't you know in that world like just getting out of it a little bit it's called perspective a look i don't have a ton of perspective but i have like a little bit of perspective right you know what i mean so like that's super helpful it's super helpful it is it's super helpful and um wow that's so interesting can you win if you don't have the support of the big money in Texas? Well, all I can tell you is I've been statewide for 12 years and I've won my closest primary runoffs when there weren't four people in the race was 65-35.
The last one was better, 68-32. So I just go to the people and I usually get outspent.
As long as I can be within like two to one spending, I have a really good chance of winning a primary. And I think anybody whole is consistent on views that are, that take care of their constituents.
That's the key to winning is take care of your people, care about them. Yeah.
Well, I've always thought that, but then I up and down the ballot in state after state, you see people elected who are basically promising to destroy their own constituents. And all the black leaders in Chicago who are like, you know, lecturing about black political power and how important it is.
And then they make this the city Hispanic. Now they have no political power.
It's like, well, I mean, whatever you think of identity politics, I'm opposed to it. I don't think you should be running on your race anyway.
But it's just a fact that they did exactly the opposite of what they promised their constituents.

And really, now nobody cares what those people think.

It's the same problem.

People like that were taking care of themselves.

They were not actually looking out for the people they said they were looking out for.

And then they leave them in a terrible situation.

They're not better off.

What Donald Trump, supposedly the guy that doesn't like those people, when he's finished, all categories of people, black, white, Hispanic, not better off what donald trump supposedly the guy that doesn't like those people when he's finished these all categories of people black white hispanic are better off no that seems like a good thing right i know but yet he's a bad guy it's amazing so here's a complicated issue that i think i know that you've addressed it in court data privacy um the idea that you ought to be allowed to have like conversations without other listening to them. The idea that people shouldn't be able to steal information about you and profit from it.
Where are we on that? So, you know, my first term was about stopping Obama. Yeah.
And so, I think in two years that he was there, I've seen him 27 times. Now, I stepped it up a little bit with Biden.
But we had four years with Trump. And the reason I ran the second term was to deal with exactly that issue.
I saw big tech and I saw big corporations and people felt powerless because all their information is being taken. They have no control over it.
They're being censored. And I'm like, how do I solve this? So I went out to Palo Alto.
I spent like a year of my life going out there talking to professors, talking to who were tech experts and we ended up putting together many lawsuits several against google several against facebook we just had like we sued facebook because they there's a texas law that says you cannot steal somebody's face take somebody's face or their voice without their permission and then once you've taken it you have a certain amount of time a reasonable period of time to keep it and then you have to destroy it and can't sell it without their permission. Well, guess what? Meta, now Meta, they were doing it.
They just did it anyway. So we sued them.
And we got the largest settlement between a state and a business ever, $1.4 billion. We have sued Google I think five times.
We've won two of those cases. We got two settlements, but the three biggest are coming.
One of them is about the same thing that Meta did. They stole our faces.
Another was about incognito, where they told people, by the way, you go into this incognito, you sign up for this, we will not track you. Lie, they tracked us anyway.
That's a deceptive trade practice in Texas, where they tell you one thing and do another. They lied, and they're so big, and they make so much money, they just think they can win everything.
Well, the final one was, this is one that everybody thought was was crazy but we did it and now then doj filed a copycat case under biden actually where they where google controls 97 of the ad market and they destroy the competition if you're competing and we believe they cut a deal with facebook to keep them out of it pay them off and they destroy you if you're small enough they buy you if you're big enough and they cut a deal if you super big, and all of that's illegal under antitrust law. So we, in April, we are going to trial in Texas.
They delayed me for two years by forcing me into what's called multi-district litigation, and I got put in New York, but we got a piece of legislation stuck on a bill that got us back out of that, so we're back in Texas. So we are going to take on the big tech companies.
We're taking on General Motors because General Motors would sell you a car and they wouldn't tell you that their OnStar system when you signed up for it was tracking all of your driving. And then they're selling that to insurance companies and then you get canceled and your insurance goes up because they're tracking every turn of your car, what time you're driving, how many months.
They don't tell you. That's a deceptive freight practice.
And of course we sued Pfizer for lying to us about the vaccine. It was a little weird after all of that to see Larry Ellison stand up and be like, everyone's getting an mRNA vaccine for cancer.
What? I mean, it's crazy. I don't even know.
I'm trying to digest all that. Maybe just living in lanai is, you know.
Yeah, exactly. But do you have a hope? It does seem, look, I'm not against, well, that's all I am against technology, but I don't think I should be against technology.
I should be a little more open-minded. But, you know, there's a place for technological progress.
Of course there is. But it does seem like it's unrestrained.
It does, you know, I believe in force, counterforce. I believe marriage which is that you know what i mean two forces having to accommodate one another and in that you find a peace i don't see that dynamic with tech right now it's just it just seems unrestrained the charge of the elephants like nothing can get in the way so that is a reason i saw i saw that if we didn't step in soon and i i didn't see anybody else doing it when doj wasn't doing it i didn't see other states doing it so it was my that's why i ran the second time my mission was we don't stop this now they make so much money they just buy their way out of everything so they get sued by the you know european union they just pay two billion they just jack up their price when you're making 130 billion dollars a year that's just a minor little tax, right, for Google.
So that is why I didn't just, I'm not just doing this for money. I'm asking for restructuring of Google.
I don't want them to be able to do this to us anymore. They need to divest things so that there is competition in the marketplace.
I'm not, I am totally free market, but one company that controls 97% of the market and then destroys competition, that is not good for consumers. And that's why we have antitrust laws.
So if we don't stop them now, they'll control all our speech. Wait, we still have antitrust laws? We do.
You'd never know it, did you? We brought them back. And by the way, DOJ copied our Google case.
Exactly. Biden did.
Is there any hope? There is hope. And I think the fact that you see, after we settled with Mark Zuckerberg, he's shown up at Trump, so he spent, what, 400 million trying to beat Trump last time? Yeah.
You're seeing these CEOs come in. Now, they're trying to keep their profit motive going, and it's hard to get anything done in Congress because they give so much money.
But I think the state AGs and hopefully DOJ with Pam Bondi are key to making sure that they play fair. Look, go make billions.
I don't care. I want you to go make a lot of billions.
I want American companies to do well all over the world, but play fair and allow consumers choices. Don't destroy choice.
Yeah. And just acknowledge that what you do has an effect on a lot of other people.
And, you know, it's okay for other people to weigh in and have an opinion. You get this.
I mean, I know all these people. You get this.
They're so annoyed. If there's any impediment to what they want.
Like so annoyed. Like they can't even believe it.
Like what? You're getting in the way of progress. It's like, well, first of all, I'm not totally convinced this is progress like that's a subjective term we can debate what that is but second like i don't know i there are all kinds of things i want to do but i have to negotiate with the people who are affected by those things to reach some accommodation that's just what life is but the and you see this with some countries too like oh you know our neighbors don't like a tough shit it's like i don't know that's not what life is like everything is give and take is a give and take compromise well so and where do we get these attitudes like i just get to do exactly what i want it's going to totally overturn your life and if you don't like it like shut up these are super companies right companies are bigger than most countries they have more money and i think that arrogance that we talked about in politics oh my gosh it happens in business and so not only do they want to control every market and control every you know transaction on the internet but they also want to tell you what to say and what you can what you can say on their on their platforms and then they tell you they're not censoring but they are and so even with the pfizer case where we we went and sued him we sued him not just for lying about the effectiveness of the vaccine which they did do but secondly for trying to censor people once they found out that their vaccine didn't work i want to do that with this podcast so i what i want is congress to pass a law preventing anyone from suing me no matter what i do and then anyone who criticizes me is pulled off the internet and called a racist that's a pretty good deal don't? Absolutely.
And then if you happen to like not participate in their little scheme with the vaccine, then you lose your job and you're social. Listen to my podcast or you're fired.
Right. Yeah.
That does seem like an unfair business advantage. It's pretty unfair.
And I actually, it's crazy because then there's no incentive for them to test it. They didn't test the vaccine.
They don't have to. Why would they? They test it for like six days.
Well, they're fully indemnified. There's nothing you can do to them.
So we got, actually, we sued Pfizer over the vaccine. We got dismissed by a federal judge who said we didn't have, because of that federal law, our state laws don't apply.
I don't think that's right. So we've appealed to the Fifth Circuit saying, wait a minute.
They have their federal laws, but our state law, if you deceive someone, you lie to them, that is a violation of state law.

Who cares what the federal immunity thing is?

It has nothing to do with our state laws, and that's our argument.

Man, you guys, you know, there's so many arms available in the black market.

I think Texas should buy some just for a little more influence.

You know what I mean?

That's not my department.

I always tell people, they want me to go, why don't you do something

to the board? I said, well, I am, but they didn't

give me any guns. They just gave me lawyers.

All I have is lawyers. Be like the drug cartels.

Just buy them on the dark web.

Hilarious. Ken Paxton, thank you so much

for taking all this time. I enjoyed it.
Thanks for having me.

And I hope you crush that John Cornyn.

I really do. I'm rooting for you.

Well, thank you. No one else agrees, but I'm

in Highland Park, but I'm on your side. Well, thank you.
No one else agrees, but I'm in Highland Park, but I'm on your side.

Hey, thank you.