Beto O’Rourke Is Risking Arrest To Protect Texas’s Voters

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Speaker 24 This is Gavin Newsom.

Speaker 24 And this is Betto O'Rourke.

Speaker 24 Hey, how you doing, brother?

Speaker 25 I'm doing okay. I'm back in El Paso.

Speaker 25 This is home.

Speaker 24 You should not be in El Paso. You should be preparing.
Get a toothbrush. You're on your way to jail, my friend.
I just read Paxton's latest missive. It says, lock them up.
Lock them up.

Speaker 25 That's right. If Twitter can be believed,

Speaker 25 that's where I'm headed next. But for the time being, I get to hang with family, which is pretty nice.

Speaker 24 But, I mean, on a serious note, I mean, I mean, guys, the attorney general of the state of Texas said in a tweet, Middle O'Rourke needs to be locked up, not just hunted down, but now locked up.

Speaker 24 I mean, you got, on a serious note, you got to tell me you diving at a private attorney or someone. You're literally gaming this out.
You got to game it out, right?

Speaker 25 Yeah. I mean, here's the thing that everyone should know.

Speaker 25 One, they're trying to stop us from exercising our First Amendment constitutionally protected right to say what we want to say about the politics of this country, about the attempted theft of these five congressional seats, our encouragement to governors such as yourself to use their full power to maximize democratic congressional control of the districts within their states.

Speaker 25 I mean, this is the fight that is taking place right now. And they're trying to take us out of this fight by seeking to intimidate us in the courts.
And now, as

Speaker 25 you just referred to, Ken Paxson is is on Twitter saying, lock him up. And what they're, Gavin, this is what I think is going on.

Speaker 25 Over the last seven, eight months, we've watched the wealthiest, the most powerful people and institutions in this country bend the knee.

Speaker 25 The Ivy League universities, Harvard may settle for 500 million this week. The big law firms, Paramount, CBS,

Speaker 25 Zuckerberg, Bezos,

Speaker 25 all of them are bending the knee. And then they come to Texas in this effort to steal these five seats, assuming that we're going to do the same.

Speaker 25 And when our knees don't bend, they don't like that so much.

Speaker 25 And so they not only seek to vacate the seats of the 54 state house Dems who have broken quorum to stop this deal, they're threatening them with second-degree felonies.

Speaker 25 They're sending the FBI and state troopers after them. But now they're suing us successively many times over the last few days in state court here and now threatening to put me in jail.

Speaker 25 So this is where we are right now. And this is why at this moment we need people to stand and fight.

Speaker 25 Every single time someone bends the knee to these guys, they get more powerful. There's more momentum behind them.
And it's going to be just tougher for us to succeed.

Speaker 25 And if we don't, I think this is for all the marbles.

Speaker 25 This is the ball game in the summer of 2025, not just the election of 2026, but whether there's going to be the consolidation of authoritarian control in the hands of this president.

Speaker 25 So we cannot be found wanting right now. We've got to fight with all we've got.

Speaker 24 I love it. And so much to unpack in everything you just said.
But let me just go back a little bit, just create some situational awareness for folks.

Speaker 24 Quite literally, just a few hours ago, we were referencing that tweet where the attorney general of the state of Texas talked about locking you up.

Speaker 24 But you referenced powered by the people or powered by people, which is your PAC. There was a lawsuit by that same attorney general.

Speaker 24 There was a court order by an Abbott, Governor Abbott appointed judge that did a temporary injunction. And he's what? Asserting now that you have broken the tenets of the TRO as it relates to the PAC?

Speaker 24 Maybe illuminate us more of what at least he's asserting and then give us the facts.

Speaker 25 We had a big rally planned on Saturday in Fort Worth in Tarrant County in North Texas, just next to Dallas in the north part of our state.

Speaker 25 And so he went to state court in Fort Worth in front of this Abbott-appointed judge, as you pointed out, 4:30 on Friday, with almost, and I think actually no notice to our side,

Speaker 25 filing a temporary restraining order request to stop me from being able to hold the rally, from being able to raise resources for those who are in this fight, and for even being able to speak.

Speaker 25 But the TRO that they got was so incredibly narrow in scope.

Speaker 25 There are some very technical specific things that I can't say, and I have not said them, but I've continued to rally, to fight, to raise, and to speak my mind.

Speaker 25 And we did all that in Fort Worth on Saturday in front of thousands of fired-up people who want to make sure that this theft of these five congressional seats does not proceed in the state of Texas and that we stop, you know, finding ourselves on the back foot or on the defense, but we take the fight to them.

Speaker 25 We go on offense. We don't await the punch to be thrown by these would-be fascists.
We throw ours first and we throw it harder.

Speaker 25 That was the spirit in Fort Worth on Saturday, and they didn't like that. And so, at the crack of dawn today,

Speaker 25 they file this request for the judge to find me in criminal contempt, to lock me up, put me behind bars, and literally physically prevent me from continuing to travel the state, to hold rallies, to meet with people, to raise resources, and to fight.

Speaker 25 They just don't want us to fight. All the more reason for us to fight, and very telling about how panicked and scared they are.
If they cannot complete this steal in Texas, if they can stop us

Speaker 25 from winning control of, or if they cannot stop us from winning control of the House of Representatives, there's going to be a check on their lawlessness.

Speaker 25 There's going to be accountability for all the crimes and corruption that we see organized out of the White House right now.

Speaker 25 And there's a very real prospect that we'll have free and fair elections in 2028.

Speaker 25 If we fail in this, and this is what they're counting on, then that consolidation of authoritarian power proceeds at an even increased pace.

Speaker 25 And we've just seen a blitzkrieg over the last eight months that that is just the the prelude or the prologue to what is going to happen to america over the next three and a half years if we're unsuccessful more massed plainclothes federal agents without warrants or badges sweeping fellow americans up off the streets more of trump's political opponents targeted as i'm being targeted right now for vengeance or retribution or even political violence and and we know that a complicit republican controlled congress will roll out the red carpet for a third Trump term.

Speaker 25 So those are the stakes. The election of 2026 is being decided right now in the summer of 25.
And all of us have to fight with all that we've got to make sure that we win it and win it now.

Speaker 24 I want to go back.

Speaker 24 You use the words free and fair. And I do think it's important to pause.
And everything you said, I agree. And again, I want to talk much more about that.
But the notion that

Speaker 24 they are trying to stop you from expressing yourself, having a rally, asserting your fundamental constitution.

Speaker 24 I mean, I don't even want to go into the obvious point, but what the hell is their assertion? What do they say?

Speaker 24 How could a judge possibly do a TRO, a temporary restraining order, temporary injunction, alleging that you've done what?

Speaker 24 What was the assertion on the basis of what law and what constitutional principle? What were they claiming?

Speaker 25 They are claiming that our organization, powered by people, and that I personally am attempting to bribe the 54 state House Democrats who broke quorum and left the state.

Speaker 24 And you're bribing them by doing what? What's the assertion? You've bribed them by you're handing, are you doing cash envelopes? Are you putting money into their kids' bank accounts? No.

Speaker 24 Their spouses? What are you doing exactly? What is the assertion?

Speaker 25 Not only are we not doing any of those things that you just mentioned, I mean, we literally have not written a single check to any of these state legislators.

Speaker 25 We're raising resources to make sure that all of us can stay in this fight, that we can stop this theft. But yes, they're asserting bribery, which as you're pointing out is incredibly rich.

Speaker 25 Ken Paxton himself was not just accused of bribery. He was impeached by the Texas legislature, which, as you know, is a Republican-majority institution.

Speaker 25 Members of his own party found him or impeached him for

Speaker 25 the accusation of bribery. And then you've got the folks around him.

Speaker 25 You know, Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, took $6 million from an out-of-state billionaire, Jeff Yass, to unseat Republican members of the state legislature who were opposing his voucher scheme, which in plain terms just means draining resources from local schools and cutting checks to private schools, which is just going to decimate public education in the state of Texas.

Speaker 25 And then we've got, you know, the president, the bribery in chief, who just reduced Jelaine Maxwell's sentence, you know, remind her that she is a convicted sex trafficker of children. Children.

Speaker 25 She's now at Camp Fed outside of Bryan, Texas, because presumably she's playing ball to hide Trump's complicity to the degree he was with Jeffrey Epstein.

Speaker 25 You know, the bribe to Eric Adams, the quid pro quo will drop the charges against you for bribery, by the way, if you will allow our ICE agents to run wild on the streets of your city.

Speaker 25 The 400 million from the Qataris,

Speaker 25 the Trump meme coin, where anyone foreign or domestic can give any amount of money to purchase influence and access to the president and his administration.

Speaker 25 So, you know, Joseph Goebbels infamously said, you know, accuse your opponent of the thing that you yourself are guilty of.

Speaker 25 And they are reading that playbook and they are running those plays right now. So we have to make sure that we fight and not just fight back, but take the fight to them.

Speaker 25 And I've just got to say on behalf of the folks that I'm working with and listening to across the state of Texas, we are so damned proud of you and grateful to you for taking this fight to them.

Speaker 25 Not waiting, not reacting, not watching C, but taking the fight to them. We need more of that across the country right now.

Speaker 24 Look, I appreciate that. And look,

Speaker 24 I appreciate how reasonable you are under these extraordinary circumstances. Nothing about this is normal.
Nothing about this can be normalized.

Speaker 24 Nothing about, when people say it's not surprising, when people use that phrase, I recoil because it makes me think that

Speaker 24 they're somehow accepting of it. Well, it's not surprising.
It's not surprising. It sure as hell is surprising.
It's outrageous.

Speaker 24 I mean, the idea that you have an attorney general who himself was accused of bribery, again, impeached by Republicans, not just Democrats, saying, quote unquote, he's going to hunt people down, the Democrats that left the state, and now is locking, going to lock you up.

Speaker 24 That's serious. I mean, it's just, it is serious.
And so

Speaker 24 I appreciate how calm you are, but

Speaker 24 it should scare the hell out of everyone listening. So I want to go back just briefly.
You in 2021

Speaker 24 did similar work on behalf of Democrats that last time left the state, meaning this quorum break occurred in 2021 in Texas under different circumstances on a different issue.

Speaker 24 And my recollection is that you, Vedo, were out front doing similar advocacy or at least raising awareness around this, exercising your voice and doing rallies and calling people's attention to this.

Speaker 24 But you didn't, to my knowledge, experience anything like you're experiencing today, or is that inaccurate?

Speaker 25 No, you're exactly right. And just to give people some context, Powered by People is the largest

Speaker 25 voter registration organization in the state.

Speaker 25 Hundreds of thousands of Texans are on the rolls because of our volunteers who literally go out there and meet them wherever they are in the 254 counties of Texas.

Speaker 25 Unlike California, in our state, there's no online voter registration or automatic voter registration, same-day voter registration.

Speaker 25 So imagine the poor 18-year-old who's got to figure out how to print the form out, fill it out correctly, find an envelope and a stamp, mail that sucker in to the county registrar's office, and then follow up on it to get their voter registration card.

Speaker 25 They're obviously targeting these young people because they fear them. They don't want them to vote.
They don't want their voice heard.

Speaker 25 They don't want their ballot cast or counted because that threatens their purchase on power.

Speaker 25 And so here's powered by people getting out there, registering these young people, staying in touch with these young people to ensure that they actually get a chance to participate in our politics.

Speaker 25 It's that kind of work. It's the support of these Texas House Dems and the larger fight for democracy.

Speaker 25 Look, just the right to vote and to have free and fair elections and to make sure that you have one person, one vote in the state of Texas, which has been under constant attack since Shelby versus Holder was decided in 2013.

Speaker 25 Literally, Gavin, within minutes of that decision, the state of Texas imposed the toughest voter ID law in the country.

Speaker 25 You know, you can use your license to carry a firearm to preview who you are at the polling place, but you dare not use your ID at the University of Texas at El Paso to do the same.

Speaker 25 So they're going after these young people. They're going after communities of color.
They're going after Texans who live in lower income neighborhoods. They just fear their power.

Speaker 25 And there's a reason that millions of Texans don't vote. It's not that they're lazy.
It's not that they don't love this democracy. It's not that they don't care about the issues.

Speaker 25 It's that they've literally been drawn out. And so they see us, and I think rightfully so, as a threat to this system that is inherently anti-democratic.

Speaker 25 And they're not only trying to silence us from speaking out about this theft right now, they're trying to stop us from doing this important voter registration pro-democracy work here in the state of Texas.

Speaker 24 And, Beta, you started, what, 2019, powered by people?

Speaker 25 Absolutely. Yeah.

Speaker 25 And in the midst of the, you know, primarily organized around voter registration, but in the midst of the pandemic, you know, older Texans were leaving their volunteer shifts at the food banks because they were more susceptible to the virus.

Speaker 25 Understandable.

Speaker 25 Our volunteers filled tens of thousands of man hours at food banks all across the state of Texas when the geniuses in charge in the next year, 2021, could not keep the power flowing in the energy capital of the world.

Speaker 25 And the heat stopped running and the lights went off and the water pipes froze. Our volunteers made more than a million phone calls to seniors across the state of Texas.

Speaker 25 We could have cared less if they were Republicans or Democrats or Independents, but we connected them to warming centers, to resources, to food. to drinking water.

Speaker 25 We raised nearly a million dollars to distribute for local infrastructure and communities where their water systems had broken, where they needed help immediately and could not wait on Ted Cruz to come back from Cancun or Greg Abbott to actually focus on the needs that we had at the time.

Speaker 25 So, this group does a lot of great work. And, Gavin, they're all volunteers, okay?

Speaker 25 So, these are everyday Texans who go through the trouble of getting certified and trained as volunteer deputy registrars, deployed out to the places where people need to get registered to vote, and then do all this other great work for the people of Texas.

Speaker 25 That is what is being attacked right now. That's the threat that Ken Paxton, Greg Abbott, and Donald Trump see in us.

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Speaker 24 A few years later, after you started the organization, obviously with a quorum break in 2021 around electoral issues, there was no $500, my understanding, there wasn't $500 fines at the time for breaking quorum.

Speaker 24 Now that's established. So these guys are all, I mean, all your, you know, these are your friends, a lot of them.

Speaker 24 There's 54 that are out of the state. uh they're subject to these fines that have accrued what over the last how many days

Speaker 25 yeah i mean i think we're we're uh approaching two weeks here it's 500 bucks a day per person and these guys make what 600

Speaker 25 they're there this is a full-time job that pays an extraordinary amount of money the legislature in texas or not is it not a full-time job and it doesn't pay an exorbitant amount of money they they make 7 200 a year for being state state legislators in a state of 31 million people, you know, just behind California as one of the largest economies on the planet today.

Speaker 25 Extraordinary challenges, right? You know, Texas leads the nation in school shootings more than three years after Yavaldi, those 19 kids, those two teachers who were slaughtered in that classroom.

Speaker 25 Nothing has changed.

Speaker 25 And these Democratic state legislators are doing their best within a very challenging situation to change that, the minimum wage, expanding Medicaid, ensuring women can make their own decisions about their own body and their own future and their own health care.

Speaker 25 And

Speaker 25 for trying to do that, they are, as you pointed out, being hunted down.

Speaker 25 In the words of the governor and the attorney general, John Cornyn, crowing that he's met with Cash Patel and they're going to send the long arm of the FBI after them as well.

Speaker 25 So this is what they're up against. And I just want everyone to just understand

Speaker 25 those 54 are one of the very last lines of defense, not just between us and the theft of these five congressional districts in Texas, but between us and a different form of government altogether.

Speaker 25 My theory of the case, Gavin, and I want to hear yours in response, is that if we fail to stop this and if we fail to win power in 2026, this consolidation of authoritarian power in the hands of the president is going to become almost unstoppable.

Speaker 25 I'll never say never and I'll never stop fighting. I know you won't either.

Speaker 25 And there are tens, I hope hundreds of millions of Americans who are with us on this, but they have the Supreme Court, if they have the House and the Senate, again, the White House, you know, the tech billionaires, all of these institutions that are bending the knee right now, this fight becomes so much harder.

Speaker 25 So that's why I'm so keyed up right now. That's why we're fighting so hard against Paxton and these threats of arrest and imprisonment and all this bullshit that they're trying to lay on us right now.

Speaker 25 Because if we don't succeed, if we're found wanting right now, it is nearly impossible in the next turn after 2026. But I'd love to hear how you see things from your perspective in California.

Speaker 25 And you've met with these Texas legislators. You're meeting with people across the country.
We've been watching what you're doing. How do you see the terms of this fight right now?

Speaker 24 Well, let me just, in very pointed and sober terms, distill the essence of why I couldn't agree with you more. I received from.
one of Trump's team, one of his biggest supporters, a 2028 Trump app.

Speaker 24 They're not screwing around. When you talk about a red carpet or third term, you're not exaggerating.
Everybody listening, pay attention to this. They're not making this thing up.

Speaker 24 Once a mind is stretched, it never goes back to its original form. Trump throws things out, sees what the reaction is, and that Overton window opens further and further, wider and wider.

Speaker 24 This is serious stuff. Every single thing you have said.
We need to reinforce. And I want to reflect more on what you've said and unpack it for people listening.
But I do not, this is code red.

Speaker 24 You've described it as a pre-Civil War crisis. I don't think it's a gross exaggeration.
I don't think it's an exaggeration at all. I mean,

Speaker 24 the fact that they're talking about hunting people down, using that language, the fact that a U.S.

Speaker 24 senator is running for re-election against the same Paxton that was impeached by his own Republican colleagues. and desperate for attention to get in on this, calls the FBI director.

Speaker 24 And he somehow concurs that the FBI should be unleashed on people that are advancing their own constitutional rights of free speech. A quorum, that's as old as

Speaker 24 mom and apple pie in America's system. The minority exercising their rights against the tyranny of the majority.
So, this is real, this is in every way a Petri dish for what's happening.

Speaker 24 But look, Bido, I think the challenge is for all of us is with all the damn distractions 24-7,

Speaker 24 how the hell do we just

Speaker 24 avoid being distracted by these distractions? To me, this is the whole damn game. This is about rigging the system.
This is the architecture that makes everything else possible.

Speaker 24 You opened up about what it's really all about as it relates to health care and tax cuts and power, not just parties. But how the hell do we keep people focused on the essential?

Speaker 24 What's happening in your state?

Speaker 24 And I'll get to what's happening in my state in a moment, but my state of mind, your state of mind, that I think recognizes this moment that we're in and how perilous it is.

Speaker 25 Yeah, I think we show up for people and we get out there and we fight in every and any way we can. We don't know what's going to work, but we know what won't work.

Speaker 25 If we sit back, if we watch this, if we hope, if we pray, if we expect someone to come in and ride to our rescue, we're cooked. I mean, this thing is absolutely over.
You're a dad. I'm a dad.

Speaker 25 My conscience is my kids. My greatest fear is having to answer to them.
They're like, hey, dad, when all this shit was going down, what the fuck did you do? What were you guys thinking?

Speaker 25 This guy promised you he was going to be a dictator on day one. He told you this was going to be the last election you would ever have to vote in.

Speaker 25 And then when he was in office, he defied the federal courts. He dismantled congressionally chartered programs.
He covered up for child sex traffickers. He colluded with corrupt public officials.

Speaker 25 He dispensed with every constitutional safeguard, including due process. What did you guys do? And I had better say, you know, and you had better say, and everyone watching had better say.

Speaker 25 Not only did we do our best, but we overcame this challenge, just as America has overcome every serious threat before. It wasn't easy.
It wasn't tough. Some folks got locked up in the process.

Speaker 25 Some people got hurt.

Speaker 25 And it was the most trying time of our life. But we came through because we knew.
that there would be a reckoning and an accounting from the generations that follow.

Speaker 25 I mean, I can only imagine the history books written 100 years from now looking at the people of of 2025.

Speaker 25 It's the way, you know, you and I, when we were in school, were looking at the people in Germany in 1933. That guy's named chancellor in January of that year in 53 days.

Speaker 25 He has destroyed German democracy.

Speaker 25 The parliament or the Congress, their legislature passed these enabling laws, just like the Republicans are doing in Congress today that said, anything you want, you go out and do it.

Speaker 25 And he goes from being this buffoonish, clownish thug who can barely hold power to the undisputed master and dictator of the German people.

Speaker 25 And I know this shit doesn't repeat, but it sure as hell rhymes. And we've got to be listening to that right now and acting with the urgency that the moment demands from us.

Speaker 25 And again, I got to tell you, I see you doing that right now. I wish there were more who were doing that.
I love what J.B. Pritzker is doing in Illinois.

Speaker 25 You know, Kathy Hochl has made some noise in New York that they're going to use that power they have there to redistrict.

Speaker 24 But Beto, they need to use it. I mean, right now, we're just, forget the talking.
It's not about press. I love those.
It's time to move. You got to move.
I mean,

Speaker 24 enough. It's not, I mean, we're all saying the right thing.
Now we got to do the right thing, which means we got to fight fire with fire.

Speaker 24 And back to your earlier question, that's exactly what we're doing. We're going to, later this week, we're going to announce the campaign.

Speaker 24 Next week, the legislature is going to move this forward with two-thirds. We're going to get it in a special election on November 4th.
And we're going to fight fire with fire.

Speaker 24 We're going to neutralize whatever Abbott does next week or whenever they move forward, the next special session.

Speaker 24 We'll talk about that in a second, the likelihood that they ultimately will be successful in Texas and California will move forward. But we'll also hopefully inspire some other states.

Speaker 24 There are many other democratically led states that can move forward. And we just cannot sit back passively.
And again, it's not just Texas. And forgive me, I don't mean, again, let's introduce that.

Speaker 24 You've got the vice president of the United States that was just sent out not to console the families of the 130, 140 plus, and maybe many, many more that lost their lives in the flood. J.D.

Speaker 24 Vance was sent out instead to Indiana to begin the process of redistricting there. You've seen what is happening in Florida, what's already on autopilot in Ohio.
They're hardly done here.

Speaker 24 They're going to move. They're going to run the table on us.
They're rigging this election in plain sight. So this back to just code red.
We've got to move from the rhetoric.

Speaker 24 We have got to take action. And we got to have your back.
We got to have our kids back. And I appreciate you reminding us you're 100% right.

Speaker 24 No greater shame than those kids looking at us say, where the hell were you, dad? No, no, no bullshit. Don't tell me you didn't.
No, where the hell were you? And I think that for everybody,

Speaker 24 that's the mark. of, you know, that's the conscience that we have to have.
And we have to have the character now to stand tall and have the conviction.

Speaker 24 So, man, I appreciate what I love about what you're doing is

Speaker 24 you're fighting and you're on your damn toes, not on your heel. And Beto, this has been my issue with my party for the last many years.

Speaker 24 They're shapeshifting everything.

Speaker 24 We're constantly responding to CRT, DEI, ESG. I mean, anything with three damn letters, IRS, FBI, when they want to weaponize it, EPA.

Speaker 24 You know, it's, I love it. You're saying, you know, we're going to punch first.

Speaker 24 And so forgive me, I'm meandering here, but the spirit that you're bringing to this fight is the spirit we need to bring to every damn fight.

Speaker 24 Because that Atlantic article in January that someone sent me about the 53 days, it scared the hell out of me.

Speaker 24 But I was honestly timid to send it around because anytime you associate anything with what happened in Germany, the 30s and Hitler, everyone then panics.

Speaker 24 But that is a must-read article for anyone that needs a little brush up in their history lesson. Everything you just said

Speaker 24 is real. It happened from within and it happened in 53 damn days.
We're just six months in, Veto.

Speaker 24 This guy's just getting started.

Speaker 25 Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 25 And just for those who haven't read the article or don't know this history, over the course of those 53 days in 1933, it wasn't as though the german public and the german politicians were powerless the the strength of that article is that there were so many opportunities to stop this guy that people passed on they they they they thought the moment to fight was was down the road or that the fight wasn't important or or that this was just going to be a passing phase.

Speaker 25 You kind of talked earlier about normalizing this. And once the mind stretches, it's hard to snap back to our previous expectations of how power is used.

Speaker 25 But you said something else that I really want to pick up on about our own party, which I fear for too long has been overly concerned with being right instead of being in power.

Speaker 25 And what we've watched is the rise of a competing party that is only concerned about power. It could care less about being right or being legal or moral or ethical.
It is power.

Speaker 25 And you pointed out in 2021, I was doing the exact same things then during a quorum break where Democrats left the state of Texas as I am doing now. There was no threat to arrest me.

Speaker 25 There were no charges filed in the parent county court. There was no effort to vacate their seats or to hunt them down.
The reason is because it's not about the principle, it is about the power.

Speaker 25 And this is a word of encouragement to everybody. I know we've been, you know, there's been some darkness in this conversation, which is just an accurate reflection of the conditions.

Speaker 25 But I want to encourage folks with this.

Speaker 25 They are, you know, Trump, Paxton, Abbott, the Republicans, in full panic mode right now. These are signs of of desperation.

Speaker 25 The reason they're doing all this is they fully understand: should they not be able to succeed in this steal, should they not be able to hold on to power in the House, there will be a reckoning for them.

Speaker 25 There will be accountability. There will be a check on their lawlessness.
And there will be free and fair elections or as close as we can get to it in America in the 21st century in 2028.

Speaker 25 And so, you know, what's been chilling for me, Gavin, is the near or full impunity with which they've been acting, accepting these bribes the president has, making these corrupt deals.

Speaker 25 It's as though he knows or thinks he knows that there will never be a moment where he's accountable or has to answer for his crimes or his corruption. He's absolutely betting on that.

Speaker 25 And so that explains him saying, look, folks, I need five seats in Texas. Go get them for me.
No pretense that the current seats are unconstitutional or unrepresentative.

Speaker 25 He's just being really clear, which is a gift to all of us, that this is about power. And to your point, our side better get fucking serious about power, about winning it and using it.

Speaker 25 Mandela Barnes, whom I just did a town hall with in Milwaukee last week, said, when we win power, we have to drive the car like we stole it.

Speaker 25 We have to do everything for everyone that we've been promising these massive changes in American society, whether it is the minimum wage, whether it's rewriting our immigration laws, whether it is dealing with this democracy so that you can't spend $300 million on your preferred presidential candidate, or that corporations aren't people and money is not speech.

Speaker 25 So much work to do, but we got to be about winning that power. And then when we have it, absolutely wielding it ruthlessly, aggressively, ambitiously to serve and deliver for the American people.

Speaker 25 We do that.

Speaker 25 That is the best ticket to growing that power, staying in power, and getting this country back on the right track.

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Speaker 24 Beto, is this the Beto Rourke of 2018 running for Senate with no consultants? I mean, are you, do you feel like the times have changed you in a dramatic way?

Speaker 24 Or do you feel you always had a little bit of this in your belly, but now you're coming full-throated in terms of recognition, the lines that are drawn.

Speaker 24 I mean, is this, do you feel like that you've become a different person with this next, with the last six months with Trump 2.0? Or was January 6th years ago?

Speaker 24 Did you sort of mark that moment as a new moment?

Speaker 25 I think this moment is calling me, like it's calling you, like it's calling so many millions of our fellow Americans to do everything I can with what I have wherever I am.

Speaker 25 And one of the things I can do that I'm pretty good at is bringing people together. I mentioned Milwaukee.
We were in Indianapolis, Kansas City, Omaha.

Speaker 25 1,500 people came out in Oklahoma City 15 months from a fucking election. You know, not because they want to support a candidate, not one, or because they're Democrats.

Speaker 25 We didn't check their party affiliation at the door, because like you and me, they really care about what's happening to this country right now and they want to fight back.

Speaker 25 And so in Oklahoma City, we connected them with the Oklahoma City County Democratic Party, with organizations that are registering people to vote, with candidates who are vying to win that congressional seat held by a Republican right now, but very winnable for a Democrat, especially if we organize now in 2025.

Speaker 25 So, you know, I do think there's a freedom of, you know, not thinking about the title or an office or being a candidate or a campaign and just doing the work. And the work

Speaker 25 is the most important thing right now. If it leads to something else, if it becomes obvious that I can have more of an impact as a candidate, absolutely, unafraid of doing that.

Speaker 25 But for now, focusing on voter registration, being in this fight in Texas, bringing others across the country into this fight because Texas is the front line, the absolute epicenter of this fight for America,

Speaker 25 that's the highest and best use of what I can give. And I'm just going to keep doing it.

Speaker 24 I love it. You're reminding me just a quote that I love of Justice Brandeis.
In a democracy. In a democracy, the most important office is office of citizen.

Speaker 24 And this notion of active, non-inert citizenship,

Speaker 24 the fact that people show up in Oklahoma City. You've been doing rallies, I think, eight plus different states.

Speaker 24 You're out there in red states. You're primarily in rural parts of even your own state.

Speaker 24 In fact, people are coming out in these record numbers means they haven't given into the cynicism. They haven't given into the fear.
They're not giving up and they're not rolling over. And I think

Speaker 24 that fills me with a tremendous amount of optimism. I know it does you as well.

Speaker 24 It puts a lot of, you know, just, it gives us just some confidence confidence that we're all not alone and we're all in this together.

Speaker 24 That said, this Friday, Betto, my understanding is this Friday, just in a couple of days, this first special session will end.

Speaker 24 There'll be a question for the 54 Democrats. Do they come back into the state?

Speaker 24 Do they subject themselves to arrest, which in and of itself is chilling if they are indeed arrested?

Speaker 24 And the likelihood, and this is a question, not a statement, the likelihood, it seems to to me, I'm curious what your expectation is, is that the governor will immediately call another special session

Speaker 24 and

Speaker 24 at peril that they leave the state again,

Speaker 24 it likely will pass, meaning we will likely in the next month or so, or even sooner, see these five seats, this mid-decade redrawing of the map. Is that an accurate assessment? What do I know?

Speaker 24 What don't I know in respect to this?

Speaker 25 Yeah, I mean, I think you're on top of this.

Speaker 25 Just as we were going into this interview, someone told me that Abbott is going to dissolve this current special session so we can begin the next one right away, maybe as soon as Friday or Saturday or Monday.

Speaker 25 For those who want to fight this, I encourage you to join us at the Texas Capitol in Austin this coming Saturday.

Speaker 25 Governor, we'd love to have you join us as well. I mean, anyone who wants to be in this fight, because this fight, as you have articulated so perfectly, is not about Texas.
It's not about Texans.

Speaker 25 It's about all 330 million of us, regardless of where we live.

Speaker 25 This is the fight.

Speaker 25 for the future of our country, and it's being decided right now as it happens in the state of Texas, but also in California, in Illinois, everywhere that people of good conscience are willing to stand and be counted at this moment of truth.

Speaker 25 So join us at the Texas Capitol. It's this Saturday on the steps.

Speaker 25 You know, the more who show up, the clearer the picture to Abbott and Paxson and Trump that we will not bend the knee, that we're going to stand and fight.

Speaker 25 They will not be able to run roughshod over the people of Texas and steal our democracy. They steal it here.
It is gone for the country.

Speaker 25 So all in, all together, as Franklin warned us, we're either going to hang together or hang alone. And I want to make sure that all of us hang together right now.

Speaker 25 Thank you for hanging with those Texas Democrats, for having them in California, for amplifying their voices, for encouraging people who see Tim Cook genuflect before Donald Trump, like one of the most powerful executives on the fucking planet, and give him a gold-plated.

Speaker 25 iPhone.

Speaker 25 Others in these positions that are prominent and powerful and wealthy and have privilege, who actually have the resources to fight this fucker and instead are giving in, it can tempt you to despair.

Speaker 25 But when folks see you out there fighting, these 54 Democrats in Texas fighting, others fighting, the folks who show up this Saturday at the Texas Capitol, that is encouraging. It gives us hope.

Speaker 25 It's like, you know what? We can do this shit. We are the people who overcame the British Empire, the most powerful force on the planet.

Speaker 25 We defeated the armies of the Confederacy, the divisions of the Third Reich, the armed elected thugs of Jim Crow South. We've overcome every single one of those challenges over the last 249 years.

Speaker 25 Now it's our turn. We are so fucking

Speaker 25 lucky to be alive at this moment.

Speaker 25 So few American generations have this chance to save our country at its moment of truth. You and I are lucky enough to be here right now with everyone else who is alive.

Speaker 25 And so what we do with this inheritance, everyone who's fought every one of those battles before, it has come through to us. It's going to define us in the eyes of history.

Speaker 25 It's going to determine what is possible for this country. And it is ours to lose right now.

Speaker 25 So everyone into this fight, with all that you've got, wherever you are, if we hang together, if we come together right now, if we fight together, we are going to win this together.

Speaker 24 I mean, I'm going to end right there, brother. I love your passion.
Most importantly, I love your action. And I want to remind everybody, you have agency.
We're not bystanders in this world.

Speaker 24 And it is about sharing your passion with action.

Speaker 24 And I think that's the most important thing we need to communicate with folks. It's not good enough to identify a problem.

Speaker 24 It's not good enough to, as you began, I thought so eloquently, sort of sit back and hope the guy or gal on the white horse is going to come save the day.

Speaker 24 It's the person sitting there in the morning in the mirror, and that's the person we need right now.

Speaker 24 People need to show up, people need to exercise their voice, people need to share that in authentic ways.

Speaker 24 Beto Rourke, thanks for all you're doing. Powered by people.

Speaker 24 Keep up the great work, my friend.

Speaker 25 Thank you so much, man. Adios.

Speaker 24 Thank you, brother.

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