TRANSCRIPT 🔗
00:00:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to A Meeting of the Minds, crafted from decades of talk show experience. An extension of the magic they've created together on radio in the phenomenon called M & M. Hot topics in the news and wisdom from life. It's Mark Davis and Mike Gallagher. This is M & M Extra. Music.
00:00:22
Speaker 2: The eyes of Texas are weeping. Oh, boy. Welcome in. Post-election, post-mortem, post-bloodbath. I'm Mike Gallagher. He's Mark Davis. Portions of our podcast sponsored by Preborn, a value that, well, Texas used to cherish. We'll see if that goes out the window with everything else. You can stand for life today by joining us and providing ultrasounds to girls and women. You'll double the likelihood she'll choose life. Call 833-850-BABY or just go to preborn.com slash mmextra. Look, this is a tale of two states, my friend, Florida and Texas. And I'm Florida, you're Texas. I'm not really smiling, but I'm a little bit relieved at what happened in Florida. But you've got to be devastated as to what happened and what direction your beloved state of Texas took. Mark, it's pretty dreadful.
00:01:27
Speaker 3: No one, no one saw this. It's kind of funny.
00:01:30
Speaker 4: I've had this little bit I've done for weeks, months, I guess, called Operation Prove Them Wrong. We're going to prove the polls wrong. We're going to prove the pundits wrong.
00:01:37
Speaker 3: Guess what?
00:01:38
Speaker 4: They were all wrong. They underestimated the level of Democrat passion. They underestimated the level to which Republicans were willing to, and not so much willing to stay home. I mean, yeah, I mean, this was a story of Democrat passion joined by independents. We didn't have any independents. Independents don't like $ 4 gas. Independents don't like an unpopular war. Independents don't like an Iranian quagmire. And there were some Republicans, and this is a group we need to talk about and address and lure back. I don't consider myself a neocon, whatever that even means, but I supported the Iran effort. I'm glad that we mutured Iran in a nuclear fashion. And I don't mind a little bit of expensive gas to pay for it, but I did not have enough company. There were a lot of people who just, as James Carville famously said in 1992, it's the.
00:02:27
Speaker 3: Economy, stupid.
00:02:28
Speaker 4: And every once in a while, a suffering economy can eat up all the oxygen for everything else you want to say.
00:02:34
Speaker 3: And that's what happened.
00:02:35
Speaker 2: I got people mad at me because I dared play some clips from Tallarico who went on Fox News this morning.
00:02:42
Speaker 3: I saw them.
00:02:43
Speaker 2: And let me tell you something. People are mad. I got a text from Lynn. Don't go squishy on me like this and fall for Tallarico. No, nobody's falling for Tallarico. What I'm saying is for a newly elected Democrat senator to go on Fox News. and say, I'm willing to work with Trump. He's a builder. I want to work with him on housing. I want to work with him on the border. He was better at the border than the previous president was. Said so.
00:03:12
Speaker 3: Exactly right.
00:03:13
Speaker 2: Tallarico said that. Now, people are immediately cynically and understandably doubting the veracity of his comments.
00:03:21
Speaker 3: I mean, he's just.
00:03:22
Speaker 2: However... He didn't have to do that. And can you imagine what headache he just gave himself in dealing with the Rashida Tlaibs of his caucus? You think they like him going on Fox News saying those kinds of things? I mean, it's going to be going to be a lot of internal turmoil, I would think, after Tallarico appears to be willing to say. And he did say, look, let's start with the dread that I have been feeling over the prosecutions, the inevitable prosecutions and the impeachments and all the crap they're going to pull. over Trump and his family and all of that. Tallarico said, I don't have a mandate to do that. I've got no desire to prosecute President Trump or the cabinet or this administration. I want to work to make Texans' lives better. Now, I loathe just about everything James Tallarico believes in, but what if he's telling the truth? Mark, what if he's telling the truth? What if he sincerely wants to reach across the aisle... and work to make Texas and America better. Now, we don't agree on the path to get there, because make no mistake, he talked about amnesty in the same interview this morning. Of course. But nonetheless. He's not going for the jugular and saying, I want to gouge Trump's eyes out as soon as I get into office. That's a start, isn't it? It is.
00:04:44
Speaker 4: And compared to Abdul, he may wind up looking positively mannerly. The word that's often used about Tallarico is a certain likability. He's just a nice, scrubbed young man, you know. And and maybe he is going to have an affability and a and a Venn diagram of overlap with the Trump administration so that it is funny because he's not in Michigan, which is which has two Democrats.
00:05:09
Speaker 2: Senators.
00:05:10
Speaker 4: Ted Cruz still exists. We don't have any Republicans left in statewide office, it appears, anymore. But this might be, he may be crazy like a fox here and smart as a whip in casting a path just in these words. And the words are meaningless until he's sworn in and starts taking action. But he may wind up as, and I don't want to overanalyze it, out of the box because anything's possible. It's over analysis day. We're going to do some, I promise, here in the coming minutes. But he will be really smart if he, we talked about this, if the Democrats had some success, we said, if they find ways to work with Trump and make these last two years, if it means handing Trump some successes, they're willing to do it because he has them some successes too because it hands america some success those are going to be some very smart democrats who are willing to do that i don't know if abdul is i don't know if any andrews is i
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don't know if jackson and main is.
00:06:06
Speaker 3: So uh we'll we'll we'll we'll see we're gonna let the game come to us as we always.
00:06:11
Speaker 2: See the you see the abdul uh victory speech last night i did He said, my name is Abdul-Rahman Muhammad El-Sayed.
00:06:23
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
00:06:24
Speaker 2: He said, I always say Inshallah, but now, today, tonight, we can turn that Inshallah into an Allah-Allah-Dul-Aliya, whatever the hell that means. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And funny, he didn't call himself Abdul-Rahman Muhammad El-Sayed on the campaign trail. Maybe he couldn't fit that on a sign. Maybe that was too... And he.
00:06:47
Speaker 4: Said, President Trump has trouble pronouncing my name, but when J.D. Vance swears me in, I'll tell him that he can just call me Senator.
00:06:56
Speaker 3: Okay, all right.
00:06:58
Speaker 2: And they're going to do that. Look, they kicked our ass. There's no other way around it. And when you get your ass kicked, you've got to have a little bit of humility. You've got to be a little humble because, look, I don't want to rub your nose in it. I love you like my brother. You promised there's no way Tallarico could get elected.
00:07:19
Speaker 4: I didn't promise, did I? Yes, you did. Yes, you did. Words have meaning.
00:07:23
Speaker 2: They do have meaning. You said it can't happen in the Texas I know.
00:07:27
Speaker 3: Correct, which is not a promise. It's an assessment.
00:07:30
Speaker 2: You know Texas.
00:07:31
Speaker 3: And I still do.
00:07:32
Speaker 2: Oh, do you? Let me clean up on that. Why did you say Tallarico can't win?
00:07:36
Speaker 4: Because what I underestimated enormously— was the power of the negativity of the war and the negativity of affordability. Because I do not, for one minute, believe that my state has turned liberal. Not for one minute. But there were enough Democrats just jazzed to the max, enough sort of beaten into submission by the economy and affordability and a war that's unpopular. to just make this this lightning in a bottle moment you can't can't sneeze at it spin it or sugarcoat it in any way i do feel i i said that if if i know my state there's no way this guy can win well he won and so i was too obviously mistaken about his ability to win i was But I still feel like.
00:08:26
Speaker 3: I know my state.
00:08:28
Speaker 2: You don't.
00:08:29
Speaker 3: I've been turned into California.
00:08:30
Speaker 2: You are California. You're a blue state. You're a blue state, Mark, and it's hard for you to accept that. You're in your bubble, and I get it, and I'm so sad for you, and I'm sad for Texas. There wasn't a single statewide office that a Republican won last night. Bye-bye, Dan Patrick. Bye-bye Greg Abbott. They're all gone. Every one of them. You're going to try to say it's not a liberal state?
00:08:54
Speaker 3: No, it's not.
00:08:56
Speaker 4: What happened was in this moment in time, this horrible moment in time, for national issues that powered the Senate phenomenon of Tallarico, he brought squillions of people into the polls for him.
00:09:13
Speaker 3: And while they were there.
00:09:15
Speaker 4: You want those same people went ahead and said, whoa, you mean we can get rid of Abbott and Patrick and prevent Attorney General Mays Middleton and Comptroller Don Huffines? Sweet bonus plan. So that's what they did, all driven by the suffering of the moment. None of this would have happened if we were not at war with Iran, if we had 250 gas.
00:09:36
Speaker 2: You know, and we can argue about this all day long. I do disagree with you strongly. Texas has turned blue. There's no way around it. I mean, technically, yes. Yeah, I mean, it's a blue state.
00:09:46
Speaker 3: It's not become a state full of liberals.
00:09:49
Speaker 2: And there's a whole lot of great people in California who are stuck in a liberal state, too. You're in a liberal state now, and it happened in the blink of an eye. I hate it. I hate it for the good people of Texas. Bill Mellugian set out a real tough reality check on X this morning. Understand the implications of what your state just became. Gina Hinojosa. has called on Governor Abbott to end state and local cooperation with ICE. Well, she'll do that on day one. Yep. She voted against any kind of effort to ban the sanctuary city status. There'll be sanctuary cities now in Texas. She voted against making it a state crime to cross illegally into Texas. If there's another border crisis, there'll be no resistance from Texas at the border now. There'll be no Texas DPS, no Texas National Guard, no razor wire or water buoys, no Operation Lone Star. Hinojosa, your new governor, called that a dog and pony show and political theater. Remember when the 15,000 Haitians surged into Del Rio under that big international bridge? The only reason that got stopped was because Abbott ordered Texas DPS and they physically blocked further crossings. She won't do that. And then more good news, I say sarcastically, additionally because Republicans failed to pass any legislation codifying President Trump's border security measures, Bill Mellugian writes, if Dems take the White House in 2028, that Dem president could, if he or she wants to, reverse every single Trump border security policy immediately upon taking office because they were all done at the executive level. And they can order Border Patrol to go back to be a passive catch and release policy just like we saw under Joe Biden. I mean, Mark, it's a nightmare. This is a nightmare of epic proportions. I wish I could sugarcoat it.
00:11:49
Speaker 4: You can't and you shouldn't because all of those things are true. And I guess in a semantic thing. I do not consider my state to be a liberal state as in filled with a majority of liberal people.
00:12:00
Speaker 1: No, not at all.
00:12:01
Speaker 4: But it will be liberally run. It will be liberally governed to our sizable detriment.
00:12:06
Speaker 2: Let me talk about why
I'm actually weirdly positive today. I was driving into work, and I was praying. I mean, I was going over the Howard Franklin, always praying that I don't go flying off into the water.
00:12:17
Speaker 3: Plenty of reasons.
00:12:19
Speaker 2: But I was praying just to give me guidance, Lord, give me strength, I'm going to be with my pal, Mark. I'm going to be with this audience. And I realized how blessed I am to have this environment, this platform, this community. We're in a community here. This is a community of people. Look at that. We've got a couple hundred people now watching the live stream over at YouTube. We're building every day M & M Extra. We got Texas J.A. Singleton and Josh Williams commenting and Susan Scott and Ken from Columbia and all these great commenters on our chat room. And we thank you for being there. We want you to like, and subscribe, please like, and subscribe over at YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. We appreciate you being a part of this, but Mark, how lucky are we that we have one another to get through this? If I was, if I worked in an insurance agency, if I, if I sold cars, sold cars, Guess what? I'd be alone. And we have each other, and we've been through so much together. The pandemic, 9-11, the 2016 victory, all this ups and downs, and here we are again together trying to make sense of it all. How blessed are we, Mark Davis?
00:13:33
Speaker 4: And I also mentioned to you yesterday, and I thought about it overnight, and it's not about us, so pardon the following sentence if it sounds that way. But this little enterprise of ours in podcast form, radio talk show form, whatever we do, it just got more important. Because, listen, would I trade a better result and have us just kind of be continuing to row the boat in the direction in which it's going and, hey, let's get some more success in 2028?
00:13:59
Speaker 3: Sure, I'd love that. But as it is, we are now the loyal opposition, as you said.
00:14:02
Speaker 4: I'm going to be a voice in occupied Texas. trying to do the important and vital job of winning my state back for sanity, for red state status, for Republicans. We're going to be trying to move toward 2028 and make sure we get a successor for Trump, again, in this climate that doesn't take us further. And that's a vital and important and And heroic thing for us to be doing. And again, that sounds kind of narcissistic. I don't know because we'll be joined heroically by all kinds of people. We're just sitting here talking the talk. Others will walk the walk and we will, too, to make sure that this doesn't stick, that this is just kind of a hiccup, a moment in time and but one chapter of a better story.
00:14:46
Speaker 2: We all have now a very important role to play. And I don't mean just Mark and Mike. I'm talking about this audience. I'm talking about voters. I'm talking about citizens. And Mark, I'm just I feel overwhelmingly grateful that we have this, that we have this this place. this little family, this little community, because, look, I was down. I mean, I drove home last night, almost had to stop the car. I thought, I cannot believe that it was as bad as it got. And I'm just continually, you know, despondent. And here's the worst part. Get ready for the percentage of Republicans who stayed home yesterday. We said over and over, if you show up, we win. And if people showed up, this wouldn't have happened. And when all the finger pointing is done, and there's lots of fingers being pointed, John Thune, Greg Abbott, you're Mr. Texas. I got to share with you what's being said about Greg Abbott, even by President Trump. Trump, not good. Turned on Abbott last night and said he's been a rhino for the last six months. Now, there's a group called Lone Star Legionaries at Texas Loyal that had a post that I want to get your read on this for just a moment. It's pretty ugly. It's pretty nasty. But look, at the end of the day, we're going to get through all of this together. We're going to survive this. We're going to come out on the other side. And I think about just lifting each other up in tough times. And we're going to do that together with one another. And look, we get to brag on books that we like, like Carbon Zero, one of our partners here on the podcast. Craig W. Stanfill was on this podcast and on our talk shows, respectively. His insights are real. This book is a page-turner. You want to escape for a couple hours, a few hours? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Look, I want to escape.
00:16:49
Speaker 3: Go to something that's worse than what happened.
00:16:52
Speaker 2: In the election.
00:16:53
Speaker 3: You want something truly dystopian?
00:16:54
Speaker 2: Yes, do it. You want to go dystopian? Yeah, you want to go crazy. What happens if somebody told AI to go do something and AI does it and it's got chilling consequences? It's a great novel. If you're fascinated by where AI is taking our world, and incidentally, AI had been greatly impacted by yesterday's election because guess what? Also comes to a screeching massive halt. A lot of the data centers A lot of the data centers, there were legislation all over America where people voted down the evolution and the continuation of data centers.
00:17:29
Speaker 4: It's one of the things that makes AI so fascinating is there's a dark side, a bright side, and the wonderful Carbon Zero book, which everybody can get right now.
00:17:37
Speaker 3: Craig W.
00:17:37
Speaker 4: Stanfield's Carbon Zero. Get it at all kinds of places where fine books are sold. It is a dystopian subject matter by its roots. And it's just something that'll take you down the road and have you thinking about it. And we're all going to need to be thinking about it. No better way to do it than with this great model.
00:17:53
Speaker 2: We're appreciative of how hard it is to do a good podcast. We put a lot of work into M & M Extra, and we appreciate our audience and all the team. And I just can't thank Eric and Yasmin and
Tracy enough. especially Eric and Yasmin's efforts. They work so hard on this thing. And gosh, they do it without ever griping or complaining. They just do the work. And it looks great and it sounds great. And that's all, Eric and Yasmin. We thank you guys so very much. And we appreciate good podcasting like Our American Stories. And I've known Lee Habib for years. You've been telling the story of Our American Stories. And, Mark, you can do it better than I can because you've been talking about it on 660 AM The Answer for a long time.
00:18:37
Speaker 4: We've had the relationship with him to plug this podcast for a few months and going through this 250th birthday year. And a lot of American history was out there in the ether. And some of it was being told by people who just don't seem to like the country very much. I said, well, again, by my fill of that. So Our American Stories, with the storytelling tradition of the great Paul Harvey, is Lee bringing up people in politics and academics and sports and the arts and sciences, people who have made this country great because it is so truly great. Go to OurAmericanStories.com. Click the Join button. You'll get the weekly newsletter. You can find out how to be a part of this great and growing storytelling brand. But most importantly, just go to OurAmericanStories.com. Find every episode of Our American Stories.
00:19:18
Speaker 2: Okay, there's an organization called Lone Star Legionaries. It's described on their X account as a nonprofit org that works on the preservation of Texas history, protecting Texas values, Texas traditions. And here's what they wrote today. I want to read this to you, Mark, because I want to get your response, because nobody can tackle this like you can. You know Texas way better than most people. Many Texans are waking up today asking, how could this happen? There's plenty of blame to go around for the results of last night's midterm election in Texas. This post might anger some, but guess what? We are angry too. And someone has to state the facts in hope that some learn from this. Greg Abbott invited H-1B visa workers to Texas. took money from and welcomed Islamists into Texas, took money from and welcomed Indians into Texas, failure to push property tax elimination, failure to deliver monument protection, COVID mandates, business closures, failure to secure the border, entertaining the red flag gun laws after the Santa Fe school shooting. There's a lot of people laying a lot of blame at his desk. What do you think?
00:20:32
Speaker 4: There are a few of those where they're not wrong in the gripes that they have. But in anybody suggesting that this was why he got wiped off the map.
00:20:41
Speaker 3: It's just. factually false.
00:20:44
Speaker 4: It was the larger things that we've talked about the same because they hold those against Dan Patrick. They hold that against Don Huffines for comptroller. They hold it against Mays Middleton. No, it was just a complete steamrolling job, but it doesn't mean these people are wrong because they're not. If there are some things, do we have too many H1Bs?
00:21:02
Speaker 3: Yes, we do.
00:21:04
Speaker 4: Are there some other things where even a good, successful conservative governor like Greg Abbott could have been better on?
00:21:09
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:21:09
Speaker 1: Yes.
00:21:10
Speaker 4: And now that he's been sort of wiped from the landscape, the one alpha governor left remaining is Ron DeSantis. I floated to this audience, the radio audience. Some of our conversation about where you just said Ron DeSantis just got a much better job, but much better chance to be in president United States. You've punched Rubio to the curb.
00:21:31
Speaker 3: And I said, what happened to Rubio?
00:21:33
Speaker 4: You said he's part of the Trump administration as if that's the kiss of death. I don't think it will be in two years.
00:21:40
Speaker 2: Do you? Well, one year, because all this process starts in a matter of 10, 11, 12 months. Look, I love a Ron DeSantis, Marco Rubio ticket. Now, here we go again with there's two Floridians, right? So does this get into the electoral— Oh.
00:21:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, which, no, can't do it.
00:21:55
Speaker 4: I mean, you can do it, but the electors can't vote for both of them. From Florida, can't vote for both of them. And there's a lot of misconceptions about that, though, too. Uh, but I don't see Rubio unless Rubio could change his official residence.
00:22:09
Speaker 2: Correct. I don't, you know, or, or maybe DeSantis. Well, you can't, I don't know. No, but, but look, let's just, let's just dream for a minute in my, in my fever dream. That's a happy fever dream. It's DeSantis Rubio, but I'm going to tell you what DeSantis is going to be the nominee in 2028. And we talk about distancing themselves from the Trump administration. A little bit of an under-the-radar podcast this week, or earlier last week, I guess. Governor DeSantis was a guest with Stephen A. Smith on a podcast called Straight Shooter.
00:22:45
Speaker 3: You bet.
00:22:46
Speaker 2: And Ron DeSantis made no bones about it. Trump promised no Mideast wars, and we went to a Mideast war. And guess what? That came back to bite him and the Republican Party. Here's Ron DeSantis with Stephen A. Smith.
00:23:02
Speaker 5: So here's the thing with Iran and why I think it's been a big, big drag. You know, it was launched. He obviously ran saying he wasn't going to do a Middle East war.
00:23:11
Speaker 2: They did.
00:23:11
Speaker 5: So we had some of our voters who've checked out because they're like, I didn't want any more Middle East wars. And now we're doing it. Had that been wrapped up in like a week, like Venezuela was very quick. People probably wouldn't have been an issue right now.
00:23:22
Speaker 2: Right.
00:23:23
Speaker 5: But what's happened is. It's kind of an open-ended conflict, and it's having a direct impact on people's finances.
00:23:29
Speaker 2: Gas
is higher.
00:23:31
Speaker 5: It hurts people, working-class people, and it's higher because of this conflict.
00:23:35
Speaker 3: That's just a fact.
00:23:36
Speaker 5: If you can't admit that to voters, then you're gaslighting them.
00:23:41
Speaker 2: Now, Mark, I'm not a guy who really even likes DeSantis, okay, personally. He's got no personality. He's not warm and fuzzy. He's not very personable. He's kind of prickly. He's stiff. But you know what he is? He's a serious guy with great policies.
00:24:02
Speaker 3: And big balls.
00:24:04
Speaker 4: And as a Trumpian, I don't care what you think. I'm just going to stand what I stand for.
00:24:09
Speaker 2: Does not care what anybody thinks. There are now, of the 10 populated states in America, there's only one with Republican leadership now. And that's the state of Florida. And it's Ron DeSantis. And I think Americans are ready to say, you know what? I want a guy who's not so flowery. I want a guy who's not so dramatic.
00:24:36
Speaker 3: Dramatic.
00:24:37
Speaker 2: Demonstrative. Showy. And I'm not taking anything away from Trump. No, because I'll take all of that. Thank God he won. Absolutely. But it's time for a successor. But I want you to hear what he said about your state of Texas. And this is going to hurt your heart. Because he's right. When was this? This was this morning. Here's Governor Ron DeSantis, who will be the Republican nominee for president in 2028. I'm as sure about this. Nostradamus rarely misses.
00:25:06
Speaker 3: Do not mess with Mike. Trust me on this.
00:25:09
Speaker 2: Mike Nostradamus knows his stuff here, and I'm telling you, Ron DeSantis is going to be the nominee. And he's a young guy, too, 48 years old. I mean, if people are saying, I'm tired of 70- and 80-year-old, you know, here he is. And here's a guy who's not flashy. He's not warm, fuzzy. He doesn't ooze personality. But more on that, too, in just a moment, because Roger P. Shulman and I, our newsman, addressed that on my show this morning. And he and I– because Roger and I both had a terrible experience with Ron DeSantis.
00:25:43
Speaker 4: Well, I know you did, and it oozes from everything you say about him. Which is– because people may be listening to that and going– I don't find DeSantis that unlikable.
00:25:54
Speaker 3: I don't think they finally did. But it's because he has shown well.
00:25:58
Speaker 2: But he shows a side in private. Now, listen, people who know him say what I say, that he's not a warm, fuzzy guy. Well, you don't run for president in private. Well, but in private, he's a prickly guy. I'm just telling you.
00:26:12
Speaker 3: Emphasis on the prick.
00:26:14
Speaker 4: At least there was one day he was going to be on with Mike and couldn't do it.
00:26:18
Speaker 2: And when did he win?
00:26:19
Speaker 3: No, no, no.
00:26:20
Speaker 2: It wasn't that he couldn't do it. There was a protester that rattled him. Let me tell the story in a minute, but first let me play this
clip, because you're going to want to hear this, and this is going to hurt your soul. It's going to bruise your heart. It's going to hurt your heart. It's going to hurt your soul. Here he is laying out, because it's an incredible story, the story of two ostensibly conservative states, Texas and Florida. Here's the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, this morning in Tallahassee.
00:26:50
Speaker 5: All statewide races.
00:26:53
Speaker 1: U.S.
00:26:53
Speaker 5: Senate Governor, Attorney General, Chief Financial Officer, and Agriculture Commissioner were held and won by our Republican candidates. And I don't think there's any other state that can say that, given all the carnage that was inflicted last night. We also saw the passage of Amendment 3, which is the beginning of our property tax elimination efforts in the state of Florida. I got a resounding yes vote. I'm very proud of everyone that had been a part of that. And I know that that's something that's very meaningful for a lot of Floridians. The truth is, and this is something that I pushed for over many months and even over the last year, had Amendment 3 not been on the ballot, I don't know that we'd turn out the voters that we ended up turning out. People wanted to vote yes on that, and then many of them ended up voting Republican later on down the ballot. But let's just be clear about what happened last night. This is close to an extinction-level event for Republicans. in many parts of the country, as we have seen probably in the last hundred years. In January, when everyone in office leaves who are either term limited or got voted out, of the 10 largest states in this union, only one state will have Republican control of their state, the state of Florida. If you look at our chief rival in a healthy sense, the state of Texas, and I would say over my lifetime, Texas has been the crown jewel of Republican politics. I think we've been the leader for Republicans and conservatives since I've been governor. But if you go over the whole generation, no one holds a candle on the Republican side to the Lone Star State. And yet, not only did they lose a very highly publicized U.S. Senate race, they lost everything. the governor, attorney general, all the other statewide. They lost four Republican Supreme Court justices on the Texas Supreme Court. They may even lose. the Texas legislature or one house or even both. Let's just be clear that that is going to hurt not just for the next two years. That's something that can reverberate for the next decade or more. And if the Republican Party doesn't have Texas as an anchor, then we are not going to be viable nationally going forward. The federal results.
00:29:21
Speaker 2: That just hurts. It just it just stings. Because he is right and his assessment is correct.
00:29:26
Speaker 3: He's totally right.
00:29:27
Speaker 2: And it's just– but look, keep your eye on him. And look, my take and your take, I think you kind of agree with me today on DeSantis. That's not really unique. I mean it's everywhere. Ben Shapiro, people all over the place are now clamoring to see DeSantis declare that he's going to run in 2028.
00:29:46
Speaker 4: Is it because, because I love your answer, because you had been so gung-ho on Rubio. Caveat, because Rubio had said, I won't run if my buddy J.D.
00:29:56
Speaker 3: Vance does.
00:29:57
Speaker 4: It's like, Marco, get over it. We want that choice, that Vance-Rubio choice. And that looked like it left DeSantis again, poor son of a gun, out in the cold as the MAGA train rolls forward. Has the MAGA train been so derailed? And I know that it really hasn't on everything, but has it been sufficiently wounded or derailed that Vance is damaged goods, that even Rubio, a rock star by every measure, is damaged goods? And DeSantis to step forward and say, hey, I haven't been a part of any of this.
00:30:30
Speaker 3: How about me?
00:30:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think it's going to be real easy to shake this off. I don't know how easy you can remove the stench of last night's shellacking when you are attached to the guy who said quite— and I'm a Trump guy. I'm not saying this to turn on Trump in any way, shape, or form. But when President Trump says, pretend I'm on the ballot, okay. Well, people did, I guess. Turned in. And that was the problem.
00:30:57
Speaker 4: And that was and that was so I had somebody call me who said that that's that made it worse. It didn't make it worse, but it didn't make it any better. No, because because every midterm is a referendum on who's in power. And so of Republicans, yay borders, yay, better crime, yay, gender sanity.
00:31:14
Speaker 1: Good, good, good, good.
00:31:15
Speaker 4: None of it on that side of the scale outweighed gas prices and an unpopular war.
00:31:22
Speaker 2: Well, we've got a role to play and we've got a place to be. And we're going to you and I are going to continue to do this over and over again. And we are so grateful again for everybody supporting us. We hope that you're going to go to make sure you like and subscribe. That's real important. Please hit that. I think the kids say smash that like button. But don't smash it too hard because we don't want you to hurt your finger. But if you do hurt your finger, there's always relief factor.
00:31:47
Speaker 3: That is, look what he did.
00:31:49
Speaker 2: Listen to what I did there. Best part of the holidays, the traditions we share. And incidentally, can I talk about Christmas for a minute?
00:31:56
Speaker 3: Please.
00:31:56
Speaker 2: You know what I'm doing after we're done?
00:31:59
Speaker 3: Put up the tree.
00:32:00
Speaker 2: I'm putting up the tree. I'm putting up Christmas decorations.
00:32:02
Speaker 3: That's the best.
00:32:03
Speaker 2: Today, I'm going to put on Christmas carols. I'm going to block out this whole damn miserable, awful world. I'm going to put up, I'm going to be singing along with Bing Crosby. I'm going to be putting up Rudolph.
Clark Griswold, you're a piker compared to me today. I'm going to get out all the boxes. I'm in a tiny little apartment now. I'm going to be bursting at the seams with Christmas decorations. And you know the best part of all? I'll lug that stuff around and I won't miss a beat because I got my relief factor in my system designed to support your body's natural response to inflammation. It doesn't mask your back or your shoulder, your leg or your hip pain. It deals with it at the source. It's the inflammation dummy. Getting out of pain is just the beginning. And this holiday season, as Gallagher's up there, you know, putting up the twinkly lights and the lights on twinkling clock, visit relieffactor.com to get your three-week quick start. It's only $ 17. 76. Or you could pick up the phone and call 800-4-RELIEF. And Mark, hey, holidays, pain-free living, sounds like a good plan to me, huh?
00:33:08
Speaker 4: It is a fantastic plan. I got a shoulder of situation that's been resolved. So everybody hop on over there. 1-800-4-RELIEF. Get that 1776 quick start. 1-800-4-RELIEF and have a more pain free holiday and do something. If we're all looking for something, just feel better about life, feel better about ourselves, better about our society. How about let's save some babies? Let's save some babies right now. Our good friends at Preborn, you know them. They're our title sponsor. I'll tell you the phone number and the website and how to get in touch with them. These are the people who provide free ultrasounds to women who are pregnant and thinking about not being pregnant anymore. You know what that is? That's the abortion issue. And we want to make it the life issue to choose life. You know how much more likely a woman is to choose life when she sees the baby growing inside her? About twice as likely. Twice as likely. That's why all of these ultrasounds that people are providing are of such immeasurable value.
00:34:00
Speaker 2: You bet.
00:34:01
Speaker 4: Amen.
00:34:01
Speaker 2: Amen to all of that. Can I leave you on a note that's going to make you crazy? Can I make you crazy?
00:34:06
Speaker 3: Let me throw people to pre-born data if I can real quick.
00:34:09
Speaker 2: Oh, my bad. My bad.
00:34:10
Speaker 3: I thought you did that.
00:34:10
Speaker 2: I'm sorry. I was reading and I was listening and I'm off. Hand it off the ball.
00:34:13
Speaker 3: Let me do it.
00:34:13
Speaker 2: You did it first. Look, I'm off my game.
00:34:17
Speaker 4: Oh, boy.
00:34:18
Speaker 2: I'm off my game today. Can you blame me? I was here until about 2 in the damn morning. I can't believe we're even here. Look, don't think I didn't think about it. I called Joey Hudson last night and said, Joey, I got a little scratchy throat. I'm a little under the weather. He said, you get your ass in that studio and you face the music, Gallagher. And I had to, but let's also lift up pre-born. Call 833-850-BABY to make a donation. You can just phone it in, 833-850-2229, or click on the pre-born banner. Just take care of these great, great families and these great folks. A wonderful, wonderful way for you to lift them up. You could go to preborn.com slash mmextra, preborn.com slash mmextra. All right, North Carolina, pretty blue, right? North Carolina, just as bad as South Carolina. Roy Cooper, right? The voters, it just got through because they had to do a lot of last-minute counting. Voters in North Carolina have approved a state constitutional amendment requiring all voters, including those casting absentee ballots by mail, to have to present photo identification.
00:35:36
Speaker 3: Okay.
00:35:37
Speaker 2: Guess what? Photo ID gets passed in North Carolina. A unifying issue, which is going to just piss me off all over again about John Thune.
00:35:47
Speaker 4: You're right, because it means that people in North Carolina, many of whom voted for Roy Cooper, thought photo ID was a good idea, too.
00:35:53
Speaker 3: There are some things that are just such good ideas. They're the 80-20 ones. They're the 80-20 ones. Oh, there's this. I have to ask you about this. It seems like a decade ago. And I had Abbott on the last day. I had him on. I had Abbott on yesterday. Oh, my gosh.
00:36:09
Speaker 4: So but I asked Paxton. So let's say you win and you've been freshly installed.
00:36:13
Speaker 3: You've been swimming.
00:36:15
Speaker 4: Are you going to be OK with Jonathan as a majority leader?
00:36:18
Speaker 3: Are you going to want?
00:36:20
Speaker 2: Oh, no.
00:36:20
Speaker 4: And Paxton said, you know, just get me there. I'm just trying to win here.
00:36:25
Speaker 2: He would not.
00:36:26
Speaker 3: And I should he should he have said no. we got to get rid of Jonathan.
00:36:31
Speaker 4: I don't just try to play mistake free ball at that point, but I, I, you know, it's a moot, it's a moot point.
00:36:37
Speaker 3: And guess what? Jonathan ain't majority leader anymore.
00:36:39
Speaker 2: So, you know, I'm, I'm trying really, really hard to monitor my blood pressure.
00:36:45
Speaker 3: It's 900 over 500. Oh, I'm going to, I'm going to read and I'm not, can I curse on this podcast?
00:36:47
Speaker 2: Do you have already? I know, but I mean really curse, because this is not my words. But I pinned at my ex-account, at Mike Gallagher, you're going to want to read a long essay by Flopping Aces. I don't know who the heck Flopping Aces is. Do you? I've never heard of Flopping Aces.
00:37:11
Speaker 4: It's a good Twitter account name. It's somebody who goes by that. It's a Twitter account.
00:37:15
Speaker 3: I've heard it.
00:37:16
Speaker 2: You've heard it? Okay, Flopping Aces wrote a brilliant, lengthy essay with a lot of expletives.
00:37:24
Speaker 1: Yes.
00:37:24
Speaker 2: So you've got to be careful. A lot of F-bombs in there. But every word of it is like injected into my veins.
00:37:33
Speaker 3: It's passionate.
00:37:34
Speaker 2: It's angry. It's pissed off. But let me read just a little bit
of the essay that I posted on my ex-account. And you'll want to check it out. At Mike Gallagher. Go to at Mike Gallagher. I'll follow you back if you follow me on my ex-account. He said, we had the majority. We had the presidency. We had the opportunity to deliver. And these incompetent, spineless, self-serving Republican bastards managed to turn political power into a participation trophy. Let's start with John Thune, you spectacularly useless son of a bitch. You had the Senate majority. You had an election integrity bill conservatives desperately wanted passed. You had millions of voters begging Republicans to demonstrate that winning elections actually meant something. And what did you deliver? A master class in legislative impotence. The SAVE Act became another monument to Republican paralysis while the people who elected you watched Washington's favorite collection of overpaid assholes explain why accomplishing anything was just too easy. complicated. You had power, John, had. And now Democrats get to enjoy the congressional authority your leadership helped squander. What a magnificent effing achievement. You couldn't have served Democrat interests more effectively if you'd shown up to work wearing a DNC name tag. Every word, Mark, every word, every word is true. And that Thune, I said it, people reminded me this morning, I was hoping people forgot. I said six months ago, we don't pass the Save America Act, we're going to lose the midterms.
00:39:11
Speaker 4: It sucked some of the energy right out of us. Do you believe it? Let's play the time machine game. A couple of versions of the time machine game to take us out. Hop into the time machine, pass the Save Act.
00:39:24
Speaker 5: It passed.
00:39:25
Speaker 4: Does that give us energy to forestall? what happened last night evening. with the floor at a high price?
00:39:31
Speaker 2: To a large degree. I think we would have lost the House but kept the Senate.
00:39:35
Speaker 3: I don't.
00:39:35
Speaker 2: I think. I think that's what would have happened.
00:39:38
Speaker 3: Time machine. Go ahead. Time machine number two. Go ahead. Finish your point.
00:39:41
Speaker 2: No, no. I just think that's, I think that's, it would have been still rough, but not as bad as it was for sure.
00:39:46
Speaker 3: Time machine number two. We go back. Ralph Norman wins South Carolina. Does he win last night?
00:39:53
Speaker 2: In a landslide. Not a problem.
00:39:54
Speaker 3: Not on a landslide.
00:39:56
Speaker 4: Darlene lost by four.
00:39:58
Speaker 3: He would have won by two or something.
00:39:59
Speaker 2: He would have won by three or four or five. He would have won easily.
00:40:02
Speaker 3: He would have won.
00:40:03
Speaker 2: People were, people, you cannot understate how pissed off people were in South Carolina. That should never have been Darlene. She was, look, she's a nice lady. She was a horrible candidate. Sorry her brother's dead. It's really sorry her brother's dead. I'm sad for her. I interviewed her day before yesterday. She was sick as a dog. I thought, man, what more can this poor woman go through? Did you know something? That was a nightmare and that shouldn't happen. So look, let's shake ourselves off. Let's dust ourselves. There we go. Here we go. I'm off to Los Angeles tomorrow. So get ready for that. We're going to be in LA on Friday. You're here. Okay.
00:40:40
Speaker 3: Okay. You are here tomorrow though for this, right?
00:40:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're doing, let me remind you, I'll be here tomorrow for the podcast.
00:40:46
Speaker 4: But then I have a speaking engagement on Thursday. So it's solo mic on Thursday.
00:40:51
Speaker 2: Cool.
00:40:51
Speaker 1: Cool.
00:40:52
Speaker 2: Gotcha. And where am I? When am I going to L.A.? I'm sorry. I'm going to L.A. on Thursday. I'm wrong.
00:40:56
Speaker 1: Right.
00:40:56
Speaker 2: I'm going to Los Angeles Thursday.
00:40:58
Speaker 4: So you're a solo Mike here on Thursday. And since you're in Los Angeles, it'll be solo Mark on Friday.
00:41:06
Speaker 2: On Friday. And then we're back together. Captain and Tennille back together again forever. A week from this coming Monday.
00:41:15
Speaker 3: Love will keep us together.
00:41:16
Speaker 2: Yeah. And by the way, they got a divorce.
00:41:19
Speaker 1: All right.
00:41:19
Speaker 2: I love you. Happy, happy day after election day. And thanks. We'll hang in there. Hang in there, America. Don't, don't do it. Don't panic. It's all right.
00:41:31
Speaker 5: Bye.