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- [00:00]
Host
Donald Trump is getting a rude awakening in Texas where his polling in Texas is significantly underwater at this point. And as you see poll after poll, it's been shifting downward. But now from this Texas Politics Project poll, Donald Trump's now polling at only 44% approval in Texas. And he fell significantly amongst independents who, who saw an increase in disapproval from 48% in February to 60% in June. Think people in Texas who are grappling with a struggling economy there. Trump's trade war against the world is causing a lot of suffering. Trump lied about all of his promises there. And people who have to live with the reality of complex immigration issues, I don't think they like the idea of masked ICE officers going into restaurants and factories and Home Depot parking lots or shopping centers or whatever and engaging in heinous conduct. I mean, you hear horrible stories out of Texas just like you do here in Los Angeles. I mean, think about this story where the ICE arrested a Texas preschool teacher, detained a 3 year old boy, and as Perez Nieto says, he, he now has to tell a three year old boy every single day who's in detention, what the hell just happened. And his son also requires specialized care for an eardrum condition. He's locked up in one room with six other families here. Just, just watch. Now you have a Senate seat in the next upcoming election that's up for grabs as well. Senator John Cornyn from Texas is up for reelection. Republican. He's trailing his primary race against Ken Paxton, maga, Republican extremist there in Texas. Here's what Cornyn had to say. Let's play it. I just talked to Kirsten Gillibrand. She thinks Texas is in play because of the primary. Do you think that the primary puts Texas in play?
- [02:47]
Political Analyst
Well, there's no doubt but that if the Attorney General is the Republican nominee, there will be hundreds of millions of dollars spent in a futile effort to try to keep that seat in Republican hands. So I think to that extent I, I would agree with her, her sentiment. The risk of, of the wrong person winning the primary would be catastrophic.
- [03:12]
Host
So let's bring in Congressman Colin Allred, who just announced today he will be seeking that Senate seat. Congressman, tell us about your announcement and tell us about what you're seeing in Texas.
- [03:25]
Colin Allred
Yeah, well, thank you for having me on. And listen, let me tell you why I'm running. You know, you showed a little bit of it there, but to me, everything's just backwards. You know, Washington is broken. The system is rigged. Folks are working harder and harder for less and they're seeing the folks who cut corners and who cut deals getting ahead. And so I think, I know the Texans are looking for somebody who's going to be fighting for us. We know that whether it's John Corn or Ken Paxton, they're too weak and too corrupt to represent us. And I'm going to be laser focused on lowering our costs, unrigging what I think is a rigged system for hardworking Texans. I'm a fourth generation Texan. I was raised by a single mother here. I know who we are. It helped me make it to the NFL, to Congress. Now I want to serve our entire state.
- [04:16]
Host
Have you seen changes since you and I last talked from the last election to now? You know, in Texas, you know, are people waking up or do I keep saying people are waking up and then they don't really. And then they don't really wake up?
- [04:32]
Colin Allred
No, they are. And I think, I think it's hard to overstate the level of concern that's been out there. I mean, we were dealing with the measles outbreak at the same time as we had an anti vaxxer as the Secretary of Health and Human Services, as you mentioned, the trade war with the number one trade state in the country. So that has a big impact on us. We've obviously seen many of the worst excesses of this administration playing out in Texas. And so there's been huge concern. But I think the biggest concern has been who's going to fight for us. There are some things that are not just partisan, but you need somebody who's going to be on your side as a Texan. And that's something I've always been. You know, I got to this point by being a fighter, by being raised by single mom as a public school teacher, relying on my community. That allowed me to end up playing in the NFL, becoming a civil rights attorney, serving in President Obama's administration in Congress. And now I want to fight for us in the Senate because we know we're not going to get that out of John Cornyn and we sure as heck know we're not going to get that out of Ken Paxton.
- [05:35]
Host
Let's talk about immigration. I know there were a lot of Hispanic people in the state and a lot of people from all races and ethnicities who thought, not me. He's not targeting me, he's going to target them. And now we see ice. If you're an American citizen and you look a certain way, you know they may detain you. They've revoked temporary protected status from Cubans and Venezuelans. And Haitians who thought they were protected, Mexicans who thought they would be protected because they've worked here for decades and not me. And so for a lot of different reasons, I guess, people thought that they were part of the Trump. I don't get it. But they thought they were part of his crew. And let me just show you this. This is what we see frequently in Texas. We see it here in Los Angeles. Ice boarding a Greyhound bus, asking anyone who looks Hispanic for, like, papers here, like, let me show you this. I see it here. My. My. My wife's family lives in a Hispanic neighborhood, Huntington Park. Wife's first generation. Her mom doesn't leave the house, doesn't go to church anymore, doesn't go to work out. And we're seeing that in Texas also. Can you speak to that?
- [07:00]
Colin Allred
Yeah. You know, this is personal for me. You know, my family's from Brownsville, which is the very tip of Texas, where my grandfather was a customs officer. Spent a lot of my childhood in South Texas along the border. And so, you know, I've always felt like it is important that we have a secure border. That's been one of my top priorities. But as we do that and as we conduct our immigration system, we have to do it in a way that's consistent with our values. We've had a broken immigration system for so long that it's allowed something like this to come along now. And I put certainly a lot of the blame on what's going on with this administration, but also on the Congress, on the fact that for years, folks like Ken Paxton and John Cornyn, the same kind of people who prevented us from passing any kind of comprehensive immigration reform that would remove this kind of discretion that we're seeing that allows these abuses. And so we need to have leaders who will not just talk about the problems and listen, I'm heartbroken for so many folks who have been impacted, who've been made to live in fear in our state. I'll be an advocate to make sure that the law is enforced, but it's enforced consistent with who we are. But we also have to talk about the solutions. And I think as Democrats, we have to talk about that we had a broken immigration system that we needed to do more to secure the border, but that now let's put that forward. Let's talk about how we can fix this. What's our positive vision for how we can make sure that we're welcoming the best and the brightest from around the world, that we're making sure that the Statute of Liberty is still the symbol that folks see us as being the country that attracts all 8 billion people around the world want to come here and contribute their talents here. That's what we have to continue.
- [08:47]
Host
And then, you know, this trade war against the world, you talked about it a little bit ago. You know, there's this incongruity because sometimes you look at the market and the market's up, it's, it's fluctuates a ton, the market. But when I speak to business leaders, at least in California especially, you know, medium sized businesses, small businesses, they are suffering. They're on the verge of going out of business and they don't know what to do and they're holding on thanks to their own ingenuity. But I feel like there are all these traps now across, you know, across the economy where if one thing now just breaks, we're teetering here on, on a verge of a lot of very, you know, you know, problematic things. And it just seems that every day it kind of gets covered up with whether the corporate news is talking about the next fake deal or look what we did with. But nothing's happening. Things are still not good.
- [09:41]
Colin Allred
Yeah, I just think every business leader I talk to wants certainty, right? I mean, even if it's gonna be a system that they disagree with, they'd like to know what it is. And you can't just be changing it depending on how someone has tweeted at you or whether or not someone's coming. And with hat in hand to you, that's not a system that is predictable or that's gonna work for Texans or for the economy as a whole. As I mentioned, we're the number one trade state in the country. And so all this stuff impacts us directly. And I think it all comes back to that. I understand folks who felt like in the last election they wanted to find somebody who's going to be focused on lowering their costs, make it easier for them as a family to get by. Folks are working harder for less. That's the way. I grew up with a mom who's working one, two jobs, trying to, you know, trying to get by as a public school teacher, trying to add some extra income. But what we've seen is that they relied to and that there is no effort to lower their costs. In fact, it's just going up. And so, you know, when I see somebody saying, well, you might not have four, five, six dolls for Christmas this year, you might only have to have one, they just have no idea what working families like the one I came from are actually dealing with. The question is that we have five or six dolls. Question is, are you going to have any Right. And that's what I think most Texans and I think Americans too are just looking for is who's going to talk about what we're dealing with, who's going to help us with this affordability crisis that we have, that we can't buy a home, that we can't take care of the things we know we need to take care of. That's what I want to be focused on. That's what I think was in some cases promised but certainly has not been delivered in the last election.
- [11:21]
Host
Congressman, if people want to find out more about the campaign, where can they go?
- [11:25]
Colin Allred
Yeah, please, everybody get involved. Go to colinlrey.com we are going to win this election. We're going to make sure the 30 million Texans get a senator who's going to stand up for us, who's going to fight for us. And he's going to make sure that we do everything we can to put Texans concerns first.
- [11:41]
Host
Congressman Colin Allred running for that Senate seat. It's a big race. Thank you so much.
- [11:47]
Colin Allred
Thanks for having me. I appreciate you Everybody.
- [11:49]
Host
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