Texas Democrats Leave the State

What this episode covers

Andrew Walworth, Tom Bevan and Carl Cannon discuss Texas Democratic legislators who left the state in order to avoid a vote on a Republican redistricting plan that could lead to the GOP picking up five House seats in the 2026 midterms. They also talk about Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) who says she’ll run for Governor in South Carolina, and former University of Tennessee football coach Derek Dooley who announced he'll run for Senate in Georgia. Then, they discuss President Trump’s decision to fire the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics after she released numbers on Friday that showed job creation slowing over the past few months, including a downward revision in past month’s figures. Plus, a report in The Wall Street Journal which reveals that China has been choking off the supply of rare earth minerals to Western defense companies as part of the trade war between Beijing and Washington. Next, Tom talks to Mark Cadin, CEO of Finseca, about Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s recent statement that the president’s new “Trump Accounts” for newborns will allow Americans to build long-term wealth and are “a backdoor for privatizing Social Security". And finally, Andrew joins former New York Times Pentagon correspondent Thom Shanker, former Undersecretary For Public Diplomacy James Glassman and Middle East Broadcast Networks president and CEO Jeffrey Gedmin for a panel discussion on public diplomacy and overseas broadcasting hosted by The Project for Media and National Security at George Washington University.