JB Pritzker (2:19)

You talk about preserving democracy. How do you preserve democracy if you're using the same tactics that you've criticized Texas Republicans for.

Political Commentator (2:29)

But as I say, what they're talking about is a distraction. The reality is that the violation of people's voting rights is what Texas is attempting to do.

Host 1 (2:39)

You'll notice there JB Pritzker, who has talked fairly openly about wanting to run for president, having a very difficult time defending his own state's actions on gerrymandering as he tries to pretend the voting rights of people in Texas are being violated by this action when his state has gone so much worse. What we call J.B. pritzker's explanations are not word salads in the form of Kamala Harris. We call them word sausages because you don't know what's in them. You don't know where they're going, you don't know how they're gonna make you feel after they're from Chicago. And also, I think that J.B. pritzker has probably not been associated with the word salad. But also at the same time, Kathy Hochul had a very difficult time explaining how what New York just did with an out of cycle redistricting was different than what Texas is attempting to do.

James Carville (3:23)

So your state's highest court at the time, all the judges appointed by Democratic governors, they threw the maps out. So fair to say Democrats have done what they're now accusing Republicans of doing?

JB Pritzker (3:34)

No, we followed the rules. We do it every 10 years. We basically said you didn't follow the rules. Well, we did follow the rules. So the court was wrong. Well, we followed the rules.

Host 1 (3:44)

So for one thing, this fight is exposing the Democrats are not necessarily sending their best into this fight. But also one of the best arguments Democrats have thought they had was the fact that Texas is going out of cycle with this redistricting. Normally they're done once a decade. However, New York just did that one year ago in an attempt to get more seats for themselves. So Hochul coming out to defend this is opening up again another front that Democrats are having a very, very difficult time explaining away. So first, Texas Democrats going to Illinois turn this entire conversation into a referendum on Illinois's insane congressional map, which here's a look at it. Just kidding. That is a picture of my son coloring in church yesterday. Here's the real map. So it's a referendum on Illinois's insane gerrymandering, but it's also now a referendum on New York and other blue states attempting to go so far out of line to gerrymander themselves and then trying to argue that it's an attack on democracy when red states attempt to do the same thing at the same time. Fights like this tend to bring out some of our favorites in these red versus Blue fights. Here's Beto o'. Rourke.

Beto O'Rourke (4:49)

Next time we win power, we're going to drive that car like we stole it. We're going to legalize every dreamer, every dreamer's parents, every hard working American doing backbreaking work that makes this country so God great in the first place. Even greater as US Citizens.

Host 1 (5:05)

If you're wondering where Beto has been for the last few years, he's likely been shoved in a locker since the last time he was out in public talking about his policy ideas.

Beto O'Rourke (5:13)

Hell yes, we're Gonna take your AR15, your AK47.

Host 1 (5:17)

For Beto to come out and use this moment to remind everyone that Democrats hold incredibly unpopular positions on things like immigration is an incredible gift to Republicans. But not to be outdone, here's the Ragin Cajun, James Carville also bringing in a number of other issues into this discussion.

Host 2 (5:33)

They are just gonna have to unilaterally add Puerto Rican and District of Columbia states. They're going to have to. The Congress does give the Constitution gives Congress power over federal elections. I don't think they can redistrict, but the things they go do, they're going.

Host 1 (5:48)

To have to do it.

Host 2 (5:49)

They're just going to have to do it. And they may have to expand the court to 13 members.

Host 1 (5:56)

So again, as you have some Democrats attempting to say Republicans are attacking norms and are hurting traditions, James Carville comes out and says actually let's keep with what we've been doing about destroying norms and traditions, again making it much more difficult for Democrats to have a sort of aligned front in their messaging. We've talked quite a bit in 10 minute drill about the litigation that left wing climate groups have brought in an attempt to destroy oil and gas companies. We talked about Hawaii and the fact that the city of Honolulu has tried to force oil and gas companies to pay for all sorts of infrastructure updates in their city. Blaming them, attempting to blame them for things like rising sea levels because they say oil and gas causes climate change. Climate change is driving up sea levels. Sea levels are causing them damage. Oil and gas companies should pay for it. It is absurd banana republic nonsense, but it has not stopped from going forward. In Colorado, the city of Boulder has their own absurd lawsuit. Boulder sued in 2018 alleging the companies violated various state laws and created a public and private nuisance by misleading the public about the role their fossil fuel products played in exacerbating climate change, Boulder argues they should be forced to pay the cost it will incur to prot its community from climate change. Again, this is an absurd argument that courts at the state level that are largely populated by activist appointees have allowed to go forward with the Honolulu case. We've talked about the fact that the members of the Hawaii Supreme Court are absolute lunatics who write things into their opinions like we must protect the spirit of Aloha. Those are the people that are making these decisions that would have billion dollar impacts on oil and gas and their own the people in their state's ability to get oil and gas. And so Boulder similarly is being advanced by lunatics on the Colorado Supreme Court. And now oil and gas companies are petitioning the US Supreme Court to step in and prevent this massive, absurd miscarriage of justice from taking place. Politico is reporting that Democrats want to use higher utility bills against Republicans in the upcoming midterms and the media looks ready to help them out. First, from the Washington Free Beacon, mainstream media reports cite nonpartisan research firm to trash Trump's appeal of green energy subsidies. Its leader helped Biden write those subsidies into law. The organization Energy Innovation is led by a former Biden advisor who helped write the energy subsidies into the Inflation Reduction Act. Energy Innovation CEO Sonia Agrawal, a Biden climate advisor who argues that phasing out climate subsidies and ending EV tax credits will drive up the cost of utility bills. You'll recall that the climate movement, as well as congressional Democrats approach to getting more people to adopt wind and solar in order to fight climate change has focused on getting rid of coal, natural gas and basically all the reliable alternatives they've always used to power their electric grids. Now that they've actually gotten rid of those in so many states and utility bills are rising, they're trying to use this to say President Trump is actually driving up those energy bills because he's not giving the further subsidies and tax benefits relied on to make those sources work. Now we pivot to New Jersey. Our friend Bethany Mandel has an incredibly important piece in the New York Post about New Jersey's electric bills. While Democrats are attempting to pretend getting rid of absurd subsidies for things like wind and solar is driving up energy costs, Bethany gets to the real root of it. States like New Jersey have been shutting down electricity generating plants with no plan to back them up or backfill their energy. They took generation off before they brought generation on, one energy expert told me, pointing to the state's aggressive shutdown of coal powered plants under Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy and the closure of the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in 2018. The result, a shrinking energy supply at a time when demand is exploding. So, in summary, Democrats have said, let's get rid of reliable energy sources that power our grids. People in those states, like New Jersey, said, whoa, our utility bills just tripled. How did that happen? And Democrats are pointing fingers trying to say, we're all trying to find the guy who did this. I think we all know exactly who did this. We're talking about new polling today conducted by the Committee to Unleash Prosperity. They wanted to look at who actually is driving some of these crazy governing decisions we saw from the last four years under Joe Biden. So they conducted a poll that allowed people to separate out the elites. Now, here's how they define elite. The elites are defined as those having a postgraduate degree, a household income of more than $150,000 annually, and living in a zip code with more than 10,000 people per square mile. They also tested with people holding Ivy League degrees to see how people from those different experiences, those different subsets of the American population differ on how they view political issues. So first, does the United States provide too much individual freedom, too much government control, or is the balance about right? When you talk to normal voters, they 57% believe the government has too much control, whereas the elites, 47%, believe that we have too much freedom and only 21% believe that government has too much control. And when you look at Ivy League graduates, 55% believe that we have too much freedom, 15% believe that the government's exerting too much control to fight climate change. Would you favor or oppose the strict rationing of gas, meat and electricity? Normal voters, 63% say no. When you talk to the elites, 77% favor rationing gas, meat and electricity. Ivy Leaguers 89% favor rationing gas, meat and electricity. When President Biden started talking about banning gas stoves and banning gas powered cars, everyone's like, who's actually for that? We have found to fight climate change. Would you favor banning each of the following? Normal voters, only 25% are okay with the idea of banning gas stoves, 69% of the elite and 80% of Ivy League graduates. When it comes to banning gas powered cars, only 24% would support banning it, 72% of Elite would ban it, and 81% of Ivy League graduates would support banning it. Banning non essential air travel, 22% of regular voters support banning it, 55% of the elites support banning it, and 70% of Ivy League graduates support banning it. Private air conditioning. Now, this is one of the biggest differences between the U.S. europe and everybody else's. We have access to air conditioning, which makes us more comfortable. But the left argues we need to be more like Europe and get rid of air conditioning. Here's what the polling says. Only 13% of people would support banning private air conditioning, whereas 53% of the elite and 68% of Ivy League graduates would support banning private air conditioning. What this poll shows us is that the biggest divides in America right now are not necessarily between red versus blue or on racial lines or gender lines or anything like that. It is the elite versus everybody else and the people that believe others should have to suffer or lose the choice of their goods, their cars, their appliances for the good of fighting climate change. We'll continue to track this, but I think this poll is incredibly illustrative for who is driving the Democrat Party right now. And as you see them push for ideas and proposals that feel so out of line with normal people. This polling tells us we are right. You can't make it up. Segment today. We've got this clip from Bravo star, whatever that means.

Jennifer Welch (13:24)

Jennifer welch, I've had it with white people that triple trumped. Yeah. That have the nerve and the audacity to walk into a Mexican restaurant, a Chinese restaurant, an Indian restaurant, go to perhaps their gay hairdresser. I don't think you should be able to enjoy anything but Cracker Barrel.

Host 1 (13:50)

First off, dear sweet Jennifer, Cracker Barrel doesn't need to be catching any strays there. But also let me remind you that we have years of polling showing that some of the strongest supporters of President Trump's deportation agenda are the legal immigrants, many of which might run restaurants in cities around the country because they have friends and family trying to go through the legal immigration system that gets backed up and delayed by illegal immigrants that have been promoted and supported by people like Gavin Newsom who have incentivized it by giving free health care to illegal immigrants, by giving free SNAP benefits to illegal immigrants, it made it more difficult for people to wait in line and come through the normal process. But this is what every Democrat's been doing for the last year and a half, which is saying, who's going to pick my food? Or as Hunter Biden said, clean up after me in my hotel rooms. It's an ugly thing. And it's not helping Democrats sell their opposition to President Trump's immigration agenda any more effectively. That is all the time we have for today. Thanks so much for joining us on 10 Minute Drill. Please subscribe. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, anywhere else. Thanks so much for joining us.