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

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

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

Welcome to summer.

Here we are.

Summer is a special time for academics since we have a little freedom to write and think, sometimes in that order, or sometimes the other order depends on what happens and what we're up to.

I mean, it's just to be 100% clear.

It's very busy.

The fact that we're not teaching, we're doing, either surveys or we are, doing a lot of research.

I got two books to write.

You're working on a book like this is the time.

It is the time.

And it's a time that a lot of political stuff happens.

Yep.

That we're not going to get to talk about since we'll be ending the series pretty quickly.

So we wanted to give, our listeners, our viewers, a preview of kind of what to watch for in the summer.

And there's a lot going on at state and national level.

So we came up with a kind of list of things to just think about.

Right.

As it comes up.

It'll be at least top of mind when, these things happen.

Let's first talk about the end of the legislative session.

We spent last week talking about what the implications were winners, losers, the end of this whole process, those, of course, Governor Abbott at his desk signing or not signing these bills.

So one question is like, what are going to be the bills potentially that the governor decides not to sign?

Are there any of them that percolate to the top of the list that you think he's agonizing over as we speak?

Well, I think there's going to be a couple of them.

Right?

And a couple of them has to do with the politics of the state and perhaps not the politics of the state.

THC banning or regulating may be something that, you know, has been saying this is a tough it is a very tough one.

It's very tricky.

The governor, in previously has not been, very clear in terms of where he stands.

Right.

One way or the other, he has kept the key cards very close to his chest.

But a.

Good poker player does, right?

Yeah.

Why reveal right when you can bluff.

If you know.

Exactly.

So that's, something that we don't know what's going to happen.

We don't know what's going to happen.

Also, to other higher education related bills in terms if he's going to support them or not.

Yeah.

We will have to, to, to, to to find out.

Yeah.

And obviously once again, you know, other type of, legislation that has to do with what he would like to see in terms of property taxes, so on.

And so for those things are going to be, yeah, you know.

That's an easy song.

That's like a public event.

Yep.

Facebook Live.

And you got like, you.

Know, I don't think all your.

Friends in.

Facebook Live anymore.

But but he does.

He does, he does.

Yeah.

On Instagram now.

Both I'm sure.

Yeah.

Wherever they can do to take credit for more tax credit than more tax cuts is exactly what I do.

So that's the probably the most natural way to get to like his constituency.

But yeah, that's an easy song.

Yeah.

Some harder ones.

Yeah I include the THC ban.

That's going to be a real conundrum now.

Yep.

Dan Patrick has been pushing for this for a while, and the speaker and the governor and lieutenant governor had a meeting.

They all came out and indicated they're all on the same page in terms of priorities.

But this is one of those priorities that I don't think people thought would get this far.

I think Abbott probably thought the House was going to kind of back this down, but they didn't.

And in fact, they really rallied in support for Patrick.

So I'd be surprised if Greg Abbott wants to be the face of the kind of ban on THC which has dissenters, from the bill, like in Republican Party and the Democratic Party.

So there are a lot of people in the public who were surprised by this.

You made this point last week about just the fact that so much of the industry that's based on sort of this, you know, selling these things is going to go under a billions of dollars industry, you know, tens of thousands of jobs like overnight gone.

Yeah, that's a lot.

You hate to think that, like, he would just sort of sign it because it came to his desk.

I think he's going to have to agonize about this.

But there are more of these two.

And here's one of my favorite ones.

This one is the ban on social media for.

Oh yeah, youngsters.

Right.

So if you're not 18 the, the you can't have social media.

You have to have, kind of parental permission.

The CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, called the governor and asked him to veto the bill.

This is a tough call, too, because it kind of is in the conundrum for Republicans, where they want to have some restrictions on what happens on social media for their kids because there's some dangerous stuff out there, but they also want to engage in a kind of social responsibility element.

So is Tim Cook's, you know, nudging going to be enough here, or is Abbott kind of already committed to veto?

I mean, he's going to have, multi-billion, investment here in Texas.

Yeah.

So I don't know, maybe he has a, significant saying on the matter and.

Persuasive, I mean, just.

Right.

He is right.

And, you know, I think this one is easier for Governor Abbott.

Yeah, in the sense of going through the parental responsibility line and saying that this should be something that parents should decide and not the government.

That's much more easier than, basically erasing a whole multibillion dollar industry.

Yeah.

With a pen stroke.

So I think that one is going to be easier.

And the implications for that is something that, could have important implications for the next session in terms of the rhetoric following what we saw with the, education saving that cats are.

Great point.

Another bill that's at the governor's desk that has implications is a bill from Brian Birdwell in the Senate that allows the leg to come back and to challenge a governor's veto.

So this is a bill that the governor, potentially, could, could try to limit.

This is also has the sort of implications to the balance of power.

So there are a bunch of these that are kind of lingering around.

The governor's gonna have a pretty busy schedule for the next couple of weeks.

But he's not the only one who's going to be busy in DC.

We need a budget.

If we don't, we can't pay for all the things that we like.

All the things you use all the time, roads, and the like.

So this is a question that the, the, the federal government is going to have to figure out.

Mike Johnson, the speaker of the House, has been working to rally votes.

We've talked about this.

He's got the House basically in order.

But the Senate's another matter.

Oh, yeah.

They say they want to get this bill to the governor or sorry, to the president, switching switching levels of government.

They want to get this bill to the president by July 4th.

Is it going to happen and what form will it happen?

I guess it's.

I don't know.

I mean, in a different form.

Yeah.

You know, I think it's going to be a completely different form because essentially what this bill does, by extending, for example, the, first Trump administration tax cuts is increasing the, federal deficit.

So the deficit is increasing.

Yeah.

For some Republicans in the Senate, there is no appetite for that.

And remember that some of these Republicans are going to be out leaving the Trump presidency without necessarily worrying about, potential, primary challenges.

Yeah, yeah, some of them are going to be put on the spot and are going to be in hot water in terms of that.

They support these big beautiful bill.

Yeah.

President Trump or they can just take a different aspect.

Yeah.

So for me that's going to be the tricky question.

Yeah.

Also we will see what maneuvers are going to be made in the Senate in terms of procedural ways so they can get away with a filibuster or so on and so forth.

It's trickier than what it happens.

I think Speaker Johnson was extremely, extremely intelligent in saying hot potato, hot potato.

When I say pitch.

It across.

The yeah, yeah, but I like the game start in say hot potato boom.

Just pass it in two seconds.

I don't have it anymore.

But to your point like yeah, that they did a great job in the house of kind of making sure they got all the dissent wrapped up.

They had President Trump kind of make sure to pressure the people who were not on board, and now they're all on board, like, let's kick it over and see what they do.

The Senate is going to be a different matter, right?

What's a big, beautiful bill in the House is going to be a big, beautiful headache in the Senate side.

Yeah.

Because you've got members there who are not going to be willing to play by Trump's rules, like they're going to definitely buck the system here.

People like Rand Paul who said, I don't want to have all this money, you know, spent on the deficit.

That's something we have to get under control.

The House, like we said a couple of weeks ago, is not concerned about that.

But that's something the Senate definitely is much concerned about.

So that'll be one of those big issues.

Another big issue is just, the how much Medicaid can be cut.

The one proposal basically is to put a lot of that onus on states so that they're going to have to pay for some of the extra pieces of aid.

That's something some states can afford, but most states cannot.

So that's going to have to be something that they negotiate through.

And those senators are going to be expected to stand up for their states and say, look, you know, we just can't absorb this whole burden because it's just too expensive for us.

So lots of dissent happening there.

In those cuts, I think in general are just going to be hard to swallow.

Right.

And I think ultimately what's going on here is that this is sort of a microcosm of the Republican Party, right?

There are too many different competing factions.

The one thing they have in common is Donald Trump.

That's what they need to make work.

And he was able to successfully do this in the House.

And so can he do it in the Senate?

That's the real question.

I don't know.

And the answer to that is because the electoral, futures of senators and members of Congress, especially of the House, are 1,000% different senators are elected six years.

Right.

And these other folks are elected every two years.

So it's very difficult, right, to have it.

Half of the senators go for reelection.

The other half doesn't.

Yeah.

So the calendar does not necessarily do.

And something that we discussed a couple of weeks ago.

Right.

What's going to happen with, Trumpism and MAGA movement after Trump?

Yeah.

Yeah.

We don't know.

This is a huge problem.

And this is something that, Senators is maybe taking into account because these are serious, very, very serious implications in terms of the federal deficit and you would have to raise, for example, eventually, the federal debt ceiling that will have to come up with another implication or I mean, another bill in Congress that I don't know if there's going to be appetite.

And when you're thinking about Medicaid and Medicare, it's extremely important, right, because this is something that you cannot take away from people.

This is very dicey electorally.

Right.

It is extremely dicey.

Yeah.

I mean, immediately after this bill gets passed, but it probably will in some form.

And they have to have a budget.

So it'll be different than what it looks like right now with the House passed.

But for sure they're going to have to go into damage control mode immediately.

Because they're going to start facing, you know, angry voters in the fall, and then they're going to transition to election mode.

And that's going to be tough for some of these members who have to swallow these votes.

But like you say, some senators are like, well, I'm good.

I got a couple more years before I've got to go back in front of voters and face their wrath.

But House members know they're going to have to take it.

Right.

But yeah, but, but but once you take it away, how much damage control can you do.

Yeah.

That's I mean yeah, you take it away.

You get, you check, you compare it.

Oh yeah.

It's lower to $100.

Felt like more or less.

Right.

And you know, while things are not being controlled in terms of the government that we're going to talk about, other things to pay attention and not pay attention because they are.

Oh, no.

That would be a better show.

It's like stuff not to pay attention to, right?

That doesn't matter.

Yeah, but but I mean, in terms of tariffs, sometimes you pay attention and then two weeks later you don't because they don't.

It's yeah it's until they become once again.

Yeah.

You make a great point.

And that's another thing to watch this summer is that a lot of these deadlines are coming up.

Right.

These kind of exploding deadlines are happening for a bunch of different products, a bunch of different, countries.

So basically a lot of these new tariff rates are going to kick in.

And July 9th, these are the sort of so-called reciprocal tariffs that are happening.

Basically that's the biggest thing might cease fire exists in August.

The reciprocal trade war with China is going to expire.

So we're looking at a summer of kind of on again off again tariffs.

We've talked about the chaos at this bruise among businesses, among voters, among the stock market.

There's a lot of ground here.

And I guess the question is, do you think on average President Trump was winning these battles or not?

I don't know.

Because when you look, for example, at, the implications that just saying, yeah, we're going to have tariffs of 50% to Europe.

Yeah.

Those are to the markets is huge and people are losing a lot of money that represents retirement.

I just think about it.

Yeah.

You were going to retire at 2026.

Yeah.

After 2025 you cannot retire because maybe you portfolios suffered 30 or 40% loss or whatever it is.

Yeah, I don't know.

I don't look at my I don't look at it.

No I don't I'm like, whatever.

I just hope that, but anyway, so you.

Hope it's there, but that's it.

Like, most of stocks are invested heavily in things like Apple which is reliable, things like energy which is also reliable.

But sometimes this tariff issue could be a problem.

Walmart, Amazon like the kind of core spine of what it means to kind of have industry in this country is taking a hit.

When the president mentioned he was going to have this tariff on China, that it was going to affect Apple directly, it became a real liability for him that day, that couple days, and they backed off of it.

But that kind of chaos is what we can expect at least a little bit more of the summer.

But some of these deadlines are really coming up to be more firm.

And at some point the trading partners are going to say, wait a minute, like, you keep pushing it off, pushing it off like we're just not going to negotiate anymore, right?

Negotiations are going on with Israel, Japan, Cambodia, Thailand, a bunch of companies, a bunch of countries where, you know, they're kind of doing business in some way, shape or form, and they're all saying potentially, once these deadlines come and go, like, well, if it's no sanction on this, we're just going to kind of let you figure out what you want to do and then wait for it to happen.

So that could be an issue for.

Yeah, for the economy.

Well, absolutely.

Right.

Because, you know, once again, is you can buy a $10 t shirt.

Right.

And here is has to be produced by, you know it's going to be 20 bucks.

Yeah.

So consumers are also going to be, you know, paying attention to that.

Yeah.

In the sense of we have been a costume to buy cheap stuff.

Not because, you know, China invaded it, freed.

It just works like a market supply and demand.

We want cheap stuff.

Cheap stuff comes from China.

End of story.

Totally.

We don't want cheap stuff.

Then we have to pay that premium now, the real question is if that is going to be translated in November of 2026, and this summer, it is going to be extremely, extremely crucial.

Yeah.

In terms of what's going to happen to the economy, to tariffs.

And as you say, if the international community or other countries say, you know what?

I'd like, I'm done.

We're like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You keep saying like there's tariffs.

Oh wait no there's no time.

There's there's no there's a ceasefire.

And then we're going to hold off and.

And then you know people as you say yeah call me.

Yeah.

You got my number.

Yeah.

Yeah.

When do you decide.

What do you want I'll be here.

But.

Right.

I may be with someone else.

Yeah.

Or on vacation.

Right.

Right.

Yeah.

I'm on vacation or with another.

But leave a message.

We'll get back to you as soon as.

Because we can.

And that's it.

The summer, too, is going to have, like, a new jobs report.

It's going to have a new economic indicator report in terms of like consumer confidence.

So we're going to have a summer where the narrative will be set about what is to be expected kind of going forward.

And that's going to be something that certainly the white House is watching.

Also, the white House is going to be watching for significant cases coming out of the U.S. Supreme Court.

There are a bunch of things that they're dealing with, including whether or not the president can override the 14th amendment, birthright citizenship in particular, some challenges to presidential power, Doge in particular, and a lot of things.

So what are some Supreme Court cases that you're watching for?

Well, obviously, the you know, 14th amendment is very important, birthright citizenship and the strategy that, the Trump administration is using in order to argue these guys has argued before, it's very important, is very interesting.

Immigration policy also, extremely important in terms of what the president can and cannot do in terms of, enforcing the law.

So using laws from 1857 or whatnot.

So that he's going to be, extremely important, what we have seen so far from the Supreme Court is a mix set of results.

One yes, you can continue until lower federal courts decide.

So we don't know.

It's all up in the air.

They've been very procedurally cautious about how to proceed.

And so I think that probably is going to have to end.

And it certainly will end on some of these big cases where they're going to have to make a decision, and it's going to have implications for executive power, which of course, then to determine sort of how much policy can be implemented unilaterally.

Now that we talked about the budget, that'd be the frankly, first and biggest thing that the president has done in terms of policy.

But everything else has been through executive order.

That's all well and good, but that's going to potentially come to an end because there are only some things you can do with respect to that.

So that could be something that the president faces.

I'm also watching a couple of other ones.

There's a case coming out of Tennessee where a Tennessee law prohibits healthcare providers from providing or administering medical treatments to a minor that would enable them to identify with or to live as, somebody who's, different from your biological sex.

That's going to have implications nationwide.

And here in Texas for whether or not people who are transgender can have rights and exactly how far that medically can go.

Another is a Texas case that actually is from Ken Paxton.

And it's basically whether or not the kind of state can limit who can use what types of websites.

So the law basically says that, you know, you have to be 18 to go to visit certain kinds of sites.

Yeah.

Pornographic sites.

Right.

We're on the internet, we can say it.

But basically that's the kind of core of the case.

And so this has implications for things like Texas's ban on minors having social media.

Right.

Because it's all kind of the same logic, which is that there's harmful stuff out there.

We need to make sure people are protected from it.

So those two cases, I think, are going to be really important for how the kind of nation shapes some of these controversial policies going forward, and of course, implications to Texas.

Well, yeah.

And It's not only that, it is the re definition of the balance of powers.

And the redefinition of separation of powers.

Yeah.

Right.

Because so far the Trump administration has I don't know if the right worries ignored.

Yeah.

But perhaps not pay significant attention.

Okay.

Significant, orders from judges.

Like you, red lights.

You just, it's like it's no suggestion.

I mean, that's a yellow, right?

It's a suggestion.

Anything.

It's not great.

Right?

Okay.

Red is 100% like stop, stop.

Right.

Though some drivers do not do that.

But that's that's another issue.

But for example, in terms of national injunctions, right.

Yes.

I mean, there is a point there from a policy perspective, there is indeed a point over there in terms of if a federal, circuit court has the power to enact the federal injunction that is not from the Supreme Court and Republican presidents and Democratic presidents don't like fairly injunction.

So that's something interesting to watch.

But the rest is how the Trump administration may or may not redefine the our, the power of the executive branch.

And remember, this if it's redefined.

Right.

Yeah.

These will also apply to the next Democratic president.

This is forever.

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

I mean, yeah, I mean, for all intents and purposes, this could be the law for a long, long while.

And then the interpretations of that decision have implications for yet all the other kind of things that a president might do unilaterally.

So it would open the floodgates in a very dramatic way.

And so this is why this is a big summer.

Yeah.

The thing is going to swing, right, because in two more years.

Yeah.

We may have very well, yeah, a complete redefinition restructure of executive power and boom.

Yeah, I knew Democratic precedent that will change.

Yeah.

I will erase perhaps everything that the Trump administration did or not I don't know.

Yeah.

But and then some.

Right.

Because it'll be kind of oh yeah.

And you're kind of.

Returning the favor.

And it'll be litigated still.

But once that precedent sets, they're going to keep it in place.

Let's talk about an area where presidents do have a lot of flexibility.

And that's foreign policy.

This summer a couple of big summits are coming up the G7 summit, the G-20 summit.

That's going to be an opportunity for there to be negotiations on all range of things, from tariffs all the way to war.

The Iranian nuclear deal kind of negotiations are probably going to percolate this summer.

The president has hinted they're close to a deal where that deal exactly looks like we don't know.

Obviously the war in Iraq or in Ukraine is still going on.

The president is pleading with Vladimir Putin to sort of slow things down.

He's bombing things which the U.S. thinks he shouldn't do.

How are we going to see foreign policy kind of open up, in the, this summer?

I think there's two possibilities I need from a realist perspective.

It's either Trump gets what he wants or he's just simply going to walk away.

Yeah, like end of story.

Like, okay, Putin, you need to stop.

Putin's going to say no.

All right.

That's your problem.

That's your deal okay I don't care.

Yeah.

And he's just want to walk away.

And Secretary Rubio also has that kind of, persona in terms of this is how we're going to do it.

Yeah.

Well, no.

Then.

Okay.

We're not going to do it.

By.

We're out.

What is the US presence mean in these cases?

I mean, obviously negotiating with like the Ukrainian situation is one thing.

The president, yeah, as you say, has been very clear.

Like this is not our problem.

This is your problem even though it's they're intertwined in many ways.

But something like the Iranian situation is another thing, right.

The deal has been on again off again.

And there needs to be some kind of a resolution to it so the US can afford to kind of walk away from these talks, which have implications for regional security, and then, of course, national.

So I mean, I hear when there is a vacuum in international politics one way or the other, another country feels out back.

Yeah, yeah.

So it can be very well Europe enter into the fore and also, you know, China can also enter into the fore.

And we have seen in the past weeks on and so forth, you know European countries, Spain, France, you know, talking directly to China in many aspects.

Right?

China has the money.

China has invested a lot of money in Africa and Latin America.

And it's opening the door little by little in terms of investing in the middle East.

So this could be a great opportunity for China.

Even the US says, you know what?

Yeah I'm out.

Well, and then we've talked about the implications to this too, is the U.S. retreats from the world stage.

Other countries will in India move in.

And that has security implications as well as financial implications.

So those are going to be some serious negotiations that happen at these big summits.

And if the US is seen to be kind of just a like a bully or some kind of entity that doesn't much care, then it's definitely going to be the case that, oh yeah, we'll see that effect happening sooner than later.

Obviously, the last thing we need to talk about is the elections upcoming in the summer.

You plant your seeds for what's to grow in the fall.

There's still a little bit of time between now and the election, but wow, it's going to be here before you know it.

John Cornyn and Ken Paxton are going to battle for a Senate seat.

That's one thing.

Yeah.

How is this going to shape up?

What in summer should we expect to see?

Well, I mean, things are going to clearly, clearly, ramp up in terms of the rhetoric.

In this case, it's going to be, so far, who is more MAGA than the other candidate?

At least in the Republican primary.

Yeah.

We don't know who's going to be on the Democratic side.

So we don't know what's going to happen there.

But clearly it's going to be very important.

And also we're going to see if President Trump eventually, decides to support one or the other candidate.

Yeah, that's the big question.

Yeah.

I don't think that'll happen in summer, but it might Ken Paxton's rollout, a bunch of, endorsements.

And so he's been able to kind of say I'm the grassroots candidate, right?

John Cornyn, like we said, it's got problems with the base because they don't trust him.

Not much in power for a long time.

That's one thing.

And, you know, spearheading some of the reforms when it came to the bipartisan gun reforms is another.

So he's seen as a little bit like, too wishy washy.

Yeah.

So that definitely matters.

But John Cornyn has been coming hard out of.

Oh, yeah.

Box ready to like, 80s basketball style.

Like, oh yeah.

Take it to the hole because he has said like, you know, Ken Paxton a crook.

He said that like, you know, also some of the related stuff for Ken Paxton is that like he is been delivering money to these entities is liberal groups that that that you know for in the form of grants.

That's a problem.

So like John Cornyn is going like a hard in.

So.

Oh yeah, he is ready for this to be.

And with a lot of.

Money and a lot of money.

Yeah.

And with a lot of money.

So yeah, we're going to see that also other important races.

I mean, we have to see who the Democrats here in Texas decide to be running against, for US Senate, but also in terms of, the state level elections, something to watch.

Some targets, like Henry Cuellar, if they goes unless both targeted by the RNC.

South Texas is kind of in that meaty period where maybe things could change.

But Democrats are hoping to hold those.

Seats, so it's going to be a hot summer, to be paying attention to.

But we'll see you next time.

I'm Jeronimo Cortina and I'm Brandon Rottinghaus.

The party keeps up next week.