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

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

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

Kind of an exciting week.

We have the Dallas Mavericks suing the Dallas Stars and then the stars or counter suing.

We've got Trump with beef.

With cattle producers.

This will make sense to you in a few minutes, right?

The Cubs are bowl eligible for the first time, and I don't even know how long.

Right.

Yeah, couple of.

Years.

A couple of years, at least.

Yeah.

And the shutdown still happening.

So just, kind of whirlwind of things.

Yeah, but let's start internationally.

Okay?

The kind of premise for Donald Trump's last couple of months has been that he is now a foreign policy president.

And so the kind of crisis resolution in Gaza has been the kind of cornerstone of his second term.

Yeah.

But the problem is that that is a very fragile piece.

You know, this week, the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has ordered powerful strikes against the, some of the forces in southern Gaza.

The Israelis say that this is a result of attacks that are happening to basically bend or kind of challenge the cease fire.

And they also cite delays in returning hostages that were a part of the condition of the cease fire.

It's getting messy in a way that, of course, at worst in the Middle East.

But my question to you is about Donald Trump and what this means about kind of his legacy in foreign policy and the prospects for where people see him politically.

I think he's pulling all his sex in these.

Yeah.

One basket.

Yeah, yeah.

So if he's able to create, lasting peace.

Yeah.

More than a month, right?

Two months, six months.

It was like four days, right?

Then he's going to accomplish something that no other president has accomplished, even though that they have a 10 to 11,000 billion time.

Yes, yes.

So I think it's it's extremely important.

If he fails, obviously he will blame someone else.

But he has been at the center.

He has owned it.

Yeah.

And there is potentially no way that he could deflect these holes.

South.

That's a great point.

Like, he's so invested that you cannot be in a position to blame somebody else.

I mean, obviously, like, not his fault because, like, so much, you can do it as a kind of right.

Right, right.

Diplomatic handler on this.

But as a third party, you know, the U.S.

basically is in a position where if you break it, you buy it.

And this is really him investing in a foreign policy crisis that he, if he resolves it, could potentially get him a Nobel Prize.

Right.

But if he does, then makes it look like he cares more about what happens in other countries than he does about the U.S.. So there is this concern that his kind of globetrotting affair is just, you know, kind of neglecting what's going on at home.

One example is like, I've seen this on social media.

People say that MAGA now stands for Make Argentina Great Again, referencing the $50 billion bailout that the president is offering to Argentina.

But like, it's more than that, right?

There's the Venezuelan crisis.

You've got literally the Trump, President Trump in Asia at this point where the South Korean president gave him a gold crown.

So much for the no Kings thing.

But like, yeah, so there's a kind of sense that, you know, that he is promising his kind of legacy on foreign policy when he promised to deliver on domestic policy.

The other thing is that the problem for him is that it's not just obviously his reelection issue because he can't get reelected, but it's a Republican Party issue because the legacy of the kind of Trump phenomenon is about making America better, right?

Making kind of these things better off than they were financially, especially.

And people don't see that right now.

In fact, the polling suggests that he's underwater for both domestic and foreign policy issues, less for foreign policy issues, but still under water on that.

So there's, I think, this conundrum that he faces that his party is going to have to grapple with, that if they can't solve these domestic problems, then the, you know, then the international problems don't much matter.

It reminds me of George H.W.

Bush, who was in the exact same position.

Right.

You are off globetrotting, solving world's problems when America suffers.

Is that a problem?

For him.

It is a problem I need is a problem because we are one year away from, the midterm election.

Reminding me.

Well, I mean, it is my job to remind you and remind you.

Actually is.

Yeah, but it is extremely consequential.

Yeah, he's extremely consequential because first of all, we haven't seen the economic demise that everybody, including us, thought of the types.

We might see it.

It's creeping in, slowly but surely.

Right.

It wasn't that economic demise from, you know, one day or another because people anticipated what was going to happen.

Yeah.

So once these stocks start going down and then we start feeling those tariffs, then we're going to fill them one way or the other.

Yeah.

In his globetrotting he has been trying to secure these trade deals a little bit more advantageous to the US.

And I get the point I get the point that the US was taking advantage in, in so many cases.

So he's trying to reverse that in a way that has been extremely aggressive and we'll see if that's going to have, an impact on the US economy.

That's one thing.

The other thing has to do with prices.

It has to do with inflation.

And inflation is still growing little by little.

But people feel it's and there has been some reports, as you say, by some media organizations that for example, Latino support, for Trump has basically, cut in half from 40 something percent to the low 20s.

So that has implications for the midterm election.

That has implications for how people are saying, wait, you told me about make sure you got Make America Great Again.

Yeah.

Yes.

Thumbs up bud.

Yeah.

I don't see on.

The hat like yeah, it's a reminder all that.

That's the other thing too is that the president of course in negotiating with the Argentinians is imported more beef.

Right.

Which the cattle growers, cattle providers are saying like this is a problem.

So it's a kind of real violation of that.

You have people like John Thune saying it's a problem.

You have people like Sid Miller here in Texas saying instead of bringing in beef, let's bring in actual cattle and then we'll raise the cattle.

But that has its own set of problems, so that interaction is definitely kind of complicated too.

So yeah, I think that you look at the economy and although the fed is likely to cut rates, you see inflation increasing, you see consumer confidence kind of flat.

You see job growth slowing.

So there are some real negative signs series.

And as the market kind of continues.

Well yeah.

Especially when you're looking at medium or or lower, the, the middle class at the end of the distribution.

Yeah.

These are the folks are being basically squeezed out.

So true.

And that is extremely important because, you know, sure.

Millionaires and billionaires may not feel it very much.

But the middle class is actually feeling it.

I mean, the price of vehicles have gone skyrocket.

Rent, electricity, so on and so forth.

And these are things that you're paying insurance that you're paying every single day.

I totally and you know, is a chance at I will replace all of us, including you and me, so we can have a avatars here doing this instead of us.

Yeah, but, you know, some weeks I'm like, okay, good.

Like, you're in charge of this now, avatar.

Because we are yet to continue to talk about the shutdown.

Right.

Which still continues this week.

And it's amazing to see how long it's gone on.

But there are some signs maybe it won't be much longer because you do see a lot of these, kind of policy crises percolating, like the Snap benefits are ending and military is not being paid, but, it's still that both sides are dug in pretty hard on this.

Both think that they have negotiating leverage.

Republican leaders have an internal conversations about, you know, trying to get an extended funding situation for trading, you know, come some additional funding for the government in the short term.

Donald Trump has accepted $130 million from Timothy Mellon, who apparently could just write checks like that, just like you.

That money is supposed to go.

Hey, use monopoly money.

But yeah.

It still works.

Okay, well, it almost might be because it's such a small amount of money for the troops.

Right.

But has serious consequences in terms of how the government gets funded, making Congress irrelevant, making effectively this illegal sort of possibility that you're, you're you're kind of allocating money that you don't have.

And so there are all kinds of problems with how things are happening right now.

So I think that they're really kind of fumbling over themselves to try to get this done.

But there are serious policy consequences to this because the Snap benefits are ending.

Texas has about 1.5 million people on Snap, and 1.7 of those are children.

So there's a lot of potential problems here as the economy falls out because of this, there's a chance that about $600 million in spending doesn't happen in Texas because Snap benefits go away.

What is your take on the kind of place that the shutdown is right now, and is there a prospect for this to be done by the time the show comes out?

We're here midweek.

Will it be done by the time the show comes out?

Well, I mean, I don't know, that the real consequences are going to be felt starting November 1st.

Yeah.

First of all, that's when potentially you're going to get or that's when the affordable Care Act, renewal portal opens.

So that's one point in favor of, Democrats, to put it that way.

But then you have these issue of Snap that could affect 42 million people.

Not at the same time, not in the on November 1st, when anything like that is going to be, you know, one way or the other escalated through day one, two, three and four, but still.

Yeah.

And the irony of this thing is, for example, that the House is not in session.

Yeah.

They haven't been inside.

For a couple of weeks.

It's like, wait, what?

There's no negotiation happening at that.

Nothing.

And maybe they don't need to be, but for sure, it's the case that you'd like to see movement from the kind of leaders on this.

But still you have, you know, committee meeting, subcommittee.

You could do.

Something.

You could.

Work.

They're still being paid.

They're still like, they ought to do something for it.

Right?

So so those things are going to heat, eventually constituents and they're going to be asking these questions and like, wait, what?

You're not in session.

Why not go showing up to work?

One thing.

The other thing is the internal battles.

Now, perhaps more clear within the Republican Party than the Democrats.

Democrats seem to be for once, pretty well organized and unified in their stance.

But for Republicans, you see Marjorie Taylor Greene raising the alarm.

A couple of senators also saying like, well, maybe we should be like sitting down right now and start negotiating with Democrats because this is going to hit our people, our constituents, as well.

Yeah.

So true.

So we'll watch this and see how it goes.

But it doesn't look like we're going to see a serious resolution anytime soon.

But there are hints that maybe we will.

It's a lot of financial pinch that's going to take I think for this to happen.

Let's shift gears and talk Texas and the power Greg Abbott has over the judiciary.

He is appointing a former solicitor general.

Also a former counsel for the governor, Kyle Hawkins, to the Texas Supreme Court.

This makes 107 appointments that he's made.

He is closing in on Rick Perry's record, which is 125.

So there's a lot of judicial, kind of power that he has essentially over the politics of the courts.

He is quietly leaving his mark on the Texas judiciary, which I think is fascinating.

But he's doing so in a way that is like his allies, his staff, his former advisers are in these positions.

So there's a lot of kind of Abbott fingerprints all over this.

The other is that you're seeing, I think, potentially more power for the governor on proposition 12 if it passes.

Now, we have an election this week.

You may remember.

So, one of the things that prop 12 does is to give more power to the governor, potentially on disciplining judges.

It allows the governor to appoint people to the board that oversees that.

So there's a lot more, I think, here that is built into this one appointment, which, you know, on the face of it maybe doesn't mean much, but when you cut into it really does, I think gives you a sense that the Republicans are leaving a lasting mark on this.

Greg Abbott, especially, is leaving his mark on that.

And this is the kind of last great moment where you've got sort of Republicans able to have a Partizan stamp on the state.

Right?

The kind of last frontier in a way.

So what is your take on how this what this all means to the judicial system and to the politics of taxes?

Well, I think, there's still things on on the political side is, you know, Ireland has been a very well and very good and effective political operated, in terms of fundraising, but also in terms of making disappointments bad.

And, and that's extremely important because eventually, the supreme Court, justice is Texas Supreme Court justice are going to run, but they have a leg up.

Yeah.

And they have the power of incumbency.

And that kind of works.

They could pull like a John Cornyn or a Greg Abbott.

You know, they're going to filter that way.

Exactly to.

The political side of things, the extra strictly political side of things.

Right.

But in terms here becomes the tricky question.

And that is judicial independence.

Yeah.

We have, judicial elections right in this state.

Yes.

In order to be able to have the sanctity of the division of powers between the executive, the legislative and the judicial branch.

That is why we have elections.

Yes.

And it's kind of wait, what?

What, like I'm sorry, what are we doing?

Because.

Yeah.

I don't understand.

We duck people out of states and they're like, confused about why we elect.

Oh, yeah.

And we're not the only state that does that.

Right.

A handful of states do.

Yeah, yeah.

But for sure, it does create this kind of conundrum.

And the more politically tied these judges are to the party in power, the more likely you are to see the outcomes reflect what they want.

So there is this kind of problem, as you're saying, about this lack of independence.

They have it technically, but there are these concerns.

And so that definitely creates a problem, potentially enough of a problem that sometimes you're going to want to take a Tylenol just to cure the headache.

But it is certainly something that Ken Paxton would like you not to do, because he is suing the Tylenol and the makers of Tylenol, that is Johnson and Johnson because the argues that they hid autism risks.

Now remember we talked about this weeks ago.

There's this, head of, you know, public, discussion about the role of Tylenol in creating autism or ADHD.

And obviously, the attorney general has picked up on this and has made this the kind of centerpiece of the week.

So what do you make of this lawsuit?

Is there going to be successful?

Is it just politics?

What's going on?

It's, as I said, I mean.

You know Finn.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

That's good.

How many times did you.

Practice law in the Me?

I can say it in Spanish with no problem, but in English, it's a little bit.

Too a challenge.

I, you know, I got it.

Well, I mean, I think it's 11,000, 2,000,000,000%, politic political.

Yes.

I mean, first of all, there is no science behind, you know, Tylenol creating an autism is, is a claim that has not been backed by.

Yeah.

Science.

I'm not saying that it will or will not.

It's just that the evidence is not there yet.

And for it to be a successful lawsuit, you have to have that link.

Yes.

And if it's not, then.

There is no link.

But we are in the midst of a three way, primary election.

Interesting.

Yeah, I've heard of this.

Yeah.

And I think that, Paxton Movies is politically very savvy.

Yeah.

Because he's basically backing up President Trump in terms of his claims about Tylenol, autism, women's health, etc., etc.. Yeah.

And perhaps, get an edge in terms of that wink, wink that one of the three is really, really trying to get from President Trump.

That's a great point.

We'll talk about this in a second.

But I think the closer to Trump you are in this primary, the more better off you are.

Oh yeah.

This will help him in that.

It made national news.

And so even if it's not a Trump thing, even if Trump ends up endorsing somebody else, we're not endorsing at all.

It's still the case that Paxton is going to be able to raise money off of this.

Oh, yes.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

I think we're seeing certainly, as we've talked about, a change in how attorneys general function.

So it's much more political.

That's not surprising to us because we've seen Attorney General Paxton do this a lot, but there's a chance that this backfires and that like, it's a case that may actually not go anywhere.

Right.

As we said, there are the contested claims about whether there's scientific proof for this.

So that's by itself an issue.

The other is that there's, kind of what they call it, like a, like a safe harbor issue for companies who sell over-the-counter drugs.

As long as they're labeling it properly, then they're kind of immune for some of this.

And so there just is a complicated legal question.

It may not actually happen that way.

There's also a kind of timing issue, right?

In terms of the statute of limitations.

When does it start and kind of who's affected.

Lots of different conundrums about this.

So this is a big case that I'm not sure the attorney General's office has the capacity to prosecute.

Reminds me of the smoking case, right.

The cigarets got kind of conflict, in the legal system in the 80s.

And 90s.

And that was a tremendously long battle.

And so this is a battle that they need to be prepared to fight for the long term.

And I'm not sure they are.

So in part because Ken Paxton could be a senator.

Right?

Literally, you know, in two years.

And so, it may just be that it goes away, but that's an important kind of distinction.

I think that's worth making here.

Another kind of legal conundrum.

The state faces is about the Texas Education Agency taking over the Fort Worth Independent School District.

This happened last week.

The North Texas district is the 11th since 20, 22,000 to be taken over by the state and the second largest after ISD.

In practice, what this means is that they're going to get rid of the democratically elected board.

Yeah, appoint a new superintendent of operations.

It's really all connected to one school that the district already closed.

That didn't meet expectations.

But it's been kind of a long time coming.

And definitely speculated about for a long while.

So I guess my question to you is what this means in the context of the politics of things, but also how it affects educational outcomes for the students in those districts.

So I think it's the politics of the education, right?

I mean, I'll just say this one, campus that has triggered the takeover of around 135, schools in the district that most of them have a passing grade.

Yeah.

So it's it's a gray line.

Absolutely.

Right.

But one of the things here that is important to take into account is to think about students.

So if the takeover is going to improve students outcomes one way or the other, perfect.

Right.

Does that happen.

Right.

Yes and no.

Sometimes if it's.

A mixed like yes.

And although you know Mike Marafa to head says, you know in every case it's been led to improvements including in Houston.

There's still a lot of I think contested storylines.

Yes.

The other thing is that I think that the kind of role of the state in public education has become really complicated and politically fraught.

So you've got teachers.

I feel like they can't teach.

You've got librarians if you like the can't choose books, you've got administrators who feel squeezed financially.

You've got parents who feel like they don't have a voice.

And the it makes it worse when you've got this kind of takeover situation.

So there are real implications to this politically.

And the irony is that we're talking about, is these independent schools just.

Drop.

So, yeah, I mean, if it's going to be controlled by the state.

Okay, fine.

Controlled by the state.

Yeah.

But let's not pretend that this is something independent.

I understand that the guardrails that TDA has, I understand and support them 100%.

But getting rid of a democratically elected board is kind of of, of like, why are we doing to these, substantially or substantively in terms of are representative?

Democratic process?

Yeah, that's a good point.

And that is extremely important because we live in a republic, that the basis of our democracy is based on representation.

Yeah.

And we're just coming in and say, you know what?

No, no.

When we talk to our students about the kind of levels of government, there are so many in Texas, we have so many different governments.

And that means that, you know, people have closer representation.

But in this case, of course, they don't.

And that limitation, I think, does have definite political implications.

And so, like we talked about weeks ago, you know, Abbott obviously is up for reelection.

I don't think he's like extremely vulnerable.

But on this I do think he's going to get some serious backlash.

And so there is, I think, a real kind of political consequence to this.

But speaking of political consequences, let's talk about the Senate race, which is dominated discussion on both the Republican and Democratic side of things this week.

Jasmine Crockett, who is, represented from North Texas, has said that she is strongly considering getting into the race.

If it's the case that the courts uphold the redistricting, just as a note, Dallas would be left with three Democratic House seats.

Or, sorry, two House seats instead of three.

She would still probably have her seat, but definitely the number shrinking and she is unhappy about it.

It would be ironic if the redistricting caused her to run and then she ends up winning.

Oh yeah.

Bring the drama out of this.

Or maybe karma.

Yeah, exactly.

Which is what she talked about.

Yeah.

There's a chance that this would work.

I mean, polling suggests that she's ahead or just slightly behind most of her other competitors in the Democratic primary.

She leads women by 5%.

She leads blacks by 30%.

She leads boomers like you by 15%, Gen-xers like me by 12%.

So, there's definitely like a kind of sort of moment for her here right now if she chooses to run or not.

We don't know yet.

But that's the speculation.

The matchups with the potential Republicans, Cornyn or Paxton have her winning, but sometimes tied.

So there's lots of kind of unknowns here.

But yeah, this would definitely shake up the Democratic race for sure 100%.

And the way that she debates ignites the Democratic base.

That's going to put it.

Yeah.

I understand represented outward represented.

Talarico have very particular, ways of doing it.

Talarico maybe it's a little bit more, intellectual in terms of the argument.

It's like a. Slow burn, a slow, faith based burn.

Exactly.

And you have Jasmine Crockett just entering the room and saying, boom, boom, boom.

And it's, you know, when you compare it, it's very, akin to what, for example, President Donald Trump would do in a debate.

It's a good.

Point.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that ignites the debate.

So I think it would redefine the Democratic primary in such a way that it would be very interesting.

And if she enters and if she wins, the general election is going to be very interesting.

Just imagine having.

Yeah, just think about it.

Having Jasmine Crockett against, Senator Cornyn or Paxton.

Paxton.

Yeah.

Or, was the horror hunt.

Yeah.

I mean.

The the matchups are really intriguing on this.

So let's talk about the Republican side because we don't know who's going to win that.

John Cornyn has been, I think, pretty effective in unleashing ads, and digital attacks.

So yeah, he released of like a Texas fair themed video game online that lets people hurl, dunk tank balls at the Democratic rivals already, Talarico and O'Rourke.

Just because our work's always the kind of you know, poster child for the Democrats, he's unleashed attack ads against Wesley Hunt saying that Wesley Hunt missed a bunch of votes.

Wesley Hunt said, well, I had a kid and special needs issues.

And so he obviously was, absent for a lot of that.

But I think the cornyn's approach is pretty clever here.

And so there is a kind of moment of, kind of him being able to combat his rivals who are both against him.

But Hunt's internal polling he released this week says that that Cornyn's numbers are still pretty bad.

Just 20% in Hunt's poll says that they would vote for Cornyn, and 62% say that votes somebody else.

So that reelect number is pretty bad.

It definitely doesn't look great for John Cornyn.

And the polling that's changed is really kind of just brought Cornyn rut, Paxton down and hasn't really brought Cornyn up.

So he hasn't changed much and we haven't had any negative ads against him.

So there's still a lot of kind of time in this race to unfold.

A lot of time and a lot of money that needs to be spent.

I hope you like ads because they're coming to your mailbox.

They're going to be all over, you know, the the digital, yeah.

It's going to be pretty much wall to wall.

I think between now and, in the primary.

Absolutely.

And then it's going to be extremely interesting to see how he starts to shape up towards, next year because eventually one of these three are going to win.

Yeah, totally.

The last point is on fundraising and the third quarter for the district here in Houston, Congressional District 18, Isaiah Martin, who was kind of a dark horse, but who at least presents a kind of real sort of progressive side of things, right in that wing against establishment Democrats like Kristen Menefee and Amanda Edwards raised almost $1 million.

He's got 1.4 on hand.

He's made it a three person race.

That's pretty impressive in a short, but it is very impressive.

And we're going to see how that translates into how competitive these race is going to be.

But obviously that's something that we're going to keep tabs for our next week.

I'm here on Catena.

And I'm running Ronnie House.

The party keeps up next week.