Transcript of Ken Paxton: How Soros Protects Drug Cartels, Being Blacklisted by Fox News, and the Laken Riley Act

Thank you for coming on, Mr. Attorney General. Glad to be here. The most pressing problem, I think it's fair to say, as an outsider in Texas is immigration. It's totally changed your state in every way. Do you expect that the new administration and the executive orders in the first couple of days are going to have a material effect, a noticeable effect?

I know they are, just because I saw what happened four years ago or eight years ago when Trump came into office. I've been in politics since Bush was in office, and I've seen how Republicans and Democrats have dealt with immigration. They have not dealt with it effectively because they have not enforced federal law. Trump was the first President to use the force of our federal laws, which are good and designed to protect us, whether it was Romania, Mexico, or whether it was Title 42, or it was stopping or at least basic common sense things like building a wall, those things work. They just absolutely work. Just what he's done in the first couple of days is significant and changing where Biden was taking us.

So one of the things you pointed out off camera was his executive order designating the drug cartels as terror organizations is significant.

Yes. We, as states, don't have much authority to stop illegal immigration, but the federal government has that authority. By By designating these cartels as terrorist organization, now the military, our military force, can be used against them rather than just using border patrol and leaving the states subject to the cartels crimes.

You do wonder about the power of the drug cartels. A lot of the weapons we have sent to Ukraine have been sold by the Ukrainian military onto the Black market. That's a fact. A lot, up to half. A lot of them have been purchased by the drug cartels you see in Mexico, pitched battles, military engagements between the cartels and the Mexican military, where they're very well-armed. Are you worried about that happening in Texas? Absolutely.

I think the Biden administration has indirectly funded the cartels. They have encouraged, by saying no deportations on day one of his administration, they've encouraged illegal immigration, and that's a profit center for the cartels. They make $8,000 to $12,000 a person. If you just do the numbers on $14 million, a lot of money. They're making billions every month. Then they can go and use that money to buy weapons from Ukraine, which we're sending that over free. So indirectly, they're part of the whole process, one, allowing the cartels to have access to our country and allowing them to make a profit and then to use that money to arm themselves in a significant way. That's our government.

Well, it's horrifying because some of the weapons are surface to air weapons. So you wonder, what's the threat to commercial air travel? You could see things starting to all apart. Is there widespread acknowledgement of this in Texas that we could have a serious problem with these cartels?

I think even just common people are aware of that just because of the influx and they There's the increase crime associated with just everyday crime that people see as it relates to the cartels moving into our state. And that network that they built is not just in Texas. They are building that network all over the country, and they're not going to want to give it up. They're making too much money on drugs, sex trafficking, other crimes, and the importation of people.

Every big construction site in this country has prostitution run by the cartels, often of children. I don't see anyone doing anything about it. It makes you wonder, like Mexico is completely, utterly corrupt because of cartel money. Politicians, judges, journalists, all in the payroll. You see this in other Latin American countries. Our politicians are not that It's expensive. You could do that in a state like Texas or California.

Well, here's one of the biggest problems we have. We have it in Texas. We have it in other parts of the country. George Soros has figured this out. He's gone in and elected DAs in Democratic counties. Austin, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio. So 70% of our population controlled by Soros DAs. He went in and knocked off Democratic DAs because we can't get elected Republicans in those areas. So he went in and knocked off DAs who were actually prosecuting and replaced them with Soros DAs. Now, our legislature could fix that. They haven't. They could come in and say, AG, you have concurrent jurisdiction to go after these crimes. But because they haven't done that, crime is proliferating in all of our cities. Financial crimes, other types of crimes, because they will not prosecute crimes. And so the cartels have an open invitation, so do other cartels from other countries. So if you go out to our financial crime unit in Tyler, they will tell you about all these crime groups coming in from other countries because they know they can get away with it. Our legislature, so far has not fixed that.

Then the question of motive arises, why wouldn't you want to stop crime in your state?

That's a very good question. I find that DAs, they have more power in Texas than any elected official I've ever seen because they're not accountable to anybody. If they commit a crime, no one can prosecute them. If it's a state crime, they'd have to prosecute themselves, and they can allow any crimes in their area, and they can go after. In Texas, it is so easy to get an indictment. You just walk in, you can tell the grand jury, anything you want to, you can lie. Once you have the indictment, you've got it, There's no getting out of it. And so I think a lot of our politicians are afraid of their DAs, even if they're liberal Democrats. But if we don't get control of this in our state, in another state, and give somebody like the attorney general, I'm not going to be there forever, give that authority so there's another way to prosecute when the Souris DAs, and Souris has figured it out, but the Republicans have not.

It's so obvious just in your 45-second explanation, it makes sense. Is it that they haven't figured it out or do they have a higher loyalty?

They're afraid of the DAs. The DAs come in and lobby, and everybody's afraid of their own DA, that they'll get indicted if they do it. There's just that power, because to get an indictment in Texas, you don't have to have... There's no recording of it. It's only one side of the story. If they lie and they get the indictment, there's no remedy. There's no consequence to the DA, and there's no remedy for the victim of that lie. You are going to trial. If somehow you could find out what happened in that secret grand jury proceeding, which I have before, it doesn't matter. You can go to a judge and say, They lied. You still are indicted, and you're still at risk of going to prison.

You have to tell your kids you've been indicted.

And you might be in prison. You might be in front of a jury that doesn't know the truth, and you go to jail or you're in a Democratic county, you might go to jail on something that they made up.

I'm sorry to be so naive, but I grew up in this country, and we didn't have things like this that I was aware of in 1985. But you I think that members of the Texas legislature are afraid they'll be indicted if they push back against the DAs?

I think there is a fear, and there is this lobby of it. These DAs have so much power. Otherwise, why would they allow Soros to control the major cities. It's obvious that they're not prosecuting crimes. They won't even prosecute shoplifting. If you have a free ride, as long as you take $750 a day in Dallas County, whatever the number is, and you go to different stores, you can do that every day. The DA there said, We will not prosecute you.

But why would you want that unless you were trying to destroy a civilization?

Soros, that's exactly what he wants to do.

There's no political goal here.

It's just destabilization. It is so easy. It is literally so easy to do that. And he also, I believe, got control of our Court of Criminal Appeals, which is our highest court. We have a bifurcated system in Texas. We have the Texas Supreme Court. That's the final appeal in Civil and the Court of Criminal Appeals. But no one knew who were. And suddenly, they strike down a law that directed me to prosecute voter fraud, and they took it away just by saying, Oh, it's unconstitutional because you're in the executive branch, and separation of power says you can't be in court. How insane is that? So I've had to go run three... I'm trying to take that court back. But right now, I can't even prosecute voter fraud, which opens us up to unfair elections in Texas, which I was prosecuting plenty of voter fraud before that happened.

So who's supposed to prosecute voter fraud?

The Soros DAs. That's where we're at in Texas. So that's why I ran... This is a nine-member court, six-year terms. They waited till two days after the filing deadline to announce their decision. This is a 1951 statute that has thousands of cases of precedent. And they came up with this insane idea that it was unconstitutional for the attorney general to be in court because I'm in the executive branch. If that's true, every AG in the country is violating the Constitution. So that was a rationale. I had to wait two years. I recruited three people to take out the three people that were up. So we've replaced three. We've got one good one on there, but we're still down 5, 4. So until we fix those things in Texas, we're at risk.

Oh, big time. Oh, big time. So do you think that the Soros DAs have hesitated to go after the drug cartels?

They don't. They don't go after crime in general. They do political crimes, but they generally are not there. They don't do their jobs. They don't prosecute.

Even when people get killed?

Hit and miss. Hit and miss. But the message from Sauris is, let as much crime go as possible.

It's amazing that a non-US citizen who hates the United States, hates the West, could have that much power in our country.

It's just his money. It doesn't take very much. To elect a DA in a Travis County, which is Austin, you're in a Democratic primary. It doesn't take that many votes. I was working with a DA there who was a Democrat. I didn't agree with her on everything, but she was doing her job. He spends a little bit of money, takes her out, and suddenly now I've got a DA who won't prosecute anything. Same in Bear County, which is San Antonio. I worked with a DA a lot in Bear County. I got an of the hood. His brother is now converted to Republican. He's a state rep. He was awesome to work with.

And he was a Democrat.

He was a Democrat. He did his job. Guess what? Souris replaced him with money. So it doesn't take him that much money and he controls our whole situation with crime and controls our judicial system, at least on the criminal side. We're sitting here letting it happen in Texas and other states.

What did you think when Joe Biden gave George Soros the presidential Medal of Freedom?

Disgusting. I mean, the guy has done more to... As far as I know, there are not many people in the world that have done more harm to our country, and he's being applauded by Joe Biden. It's not surprising because Joe Biden has the same motivations. What did Joe Biden do that was good? Can you name it? I can't think.

No, they worked from day one to destroy what past generations had built this amazing country.

It had to be on purpose. The reason I say that is because you would think that randomly, he would have done something good. If it weren't purposeful, he would have had something economically internationally, the border, something would have been right, right? Just randomly. The law of average just suggests a victory once in a while. The Bell Curve tells you he would have had something good. He didn't have anything good. It was all on the other end of the curve, the downside of the curve, which was harm to Americans. That cannot be accidental.

And to individual Americans, I think that's absolutely right. But again, I'm so fixated in this. Why would you want to do that?

I truly believe that this, and this started, I think, with President Obama, first President, I believe, that didn't love America, that really thought we were a bad country, that thought we were racist, and that we deserve to be taken down to another level. I think they operate under this idea that we're a bad country. There were bad people, and that we don't deserve this, and they fundamentally don't believe in what was created here. I truly believe that.

They want to destroy it, take it down, dismantle it.

Because they think it's bad. They think we're bad.

I don't see another explanation. There's hate behind it. There's no doubt about it. How could you wind up with the outcome, with people dying of drug ODs on the street and stores closing because of stealing and kids cutting their own genitals off. You would have to hate someone.

Do you remember the contempt that Obama said, they cling to their religion, their guns and their God, there is contempt for that, what the founders put in place, a bunch of white racists who had slaves. That permeates his view of America. And yet there's no excuse for slavery. We messed up in that. We fixed it. We were moving in the right direction. But his view is we're broken because of that, and therefore we deserve to be dismantled because we don't- It's not about that.

I mean, there are countries, slavery is still practiced in certain countries, but there were critical US allies that had slavery until the 1970s. And no one ever... 1970s. And no one ever mentions that or holds them responsible. Obama has no problem taking money for speeches in those countries.

That's why it doesn't make sense. Slavery has been around in the world forever. And it's awful. It is awful.

The US and Great Britain were the reason that we don't have it anymore, and globally, for the most part, and no civilized country would tolerate slavery. But if you're against slavery, by the way, why would you be for the drug cartels which practice slavery, which sell people.

All I know is it seems like the things they focus on do the greatest harm to America.

Oh, I totally agree. But I think it's a mistake to take their explanations at face value. I think there's something deeper. They just hate and want to hurt people.

They do not have an abiding love. Look, I didn't like Jimmy Carter as a president. I think he did a good job, but he didn't have a hatred for this country. I don't think so. I don't think he did. I think we've had a lot of mediocre to bad presidents who still didn't want the country to be dismantled. I agree. But I think it started with Obama. Biden didn't know what he was doing. He was being told by others he wasn't competent. This was the third presidency of President Obama, and he didn't have to worry about being popular anymore because he limited himself a little bit because he wanted to get reelected. He didn't care if Joe Biden got reelected.

You think it's over for Obama? His influence is permanently diminished?

I think it's been impacted and affected. It could be if we continue the momentum, we don't mess this up. If we If we get caught up and not focusing on the best things for America, he can come right back in. If we don't take care of the American people and make that our number one focus, what's best for the American people? If we stay on that track, we have a really good chance of being successful for a long time. If we lose sight of that and we start worrying about our power and our... I agree. Once we start taking care of ourselves, then they have a chance back in because the American people will see that.

I think that's really wise. I'm concerned about that. Not because of any individual acting in bad faith, but because human nature is what it is. The depravity of men. It's exactly right.

The Presbyterians actually had that right when they set this government up, it was based on the depravity of men. The reason they wanted three branches of government that made it so frustrating to get things done is because they didn't trust people in power, because every human-I wouldn't trust myself in power at all.

I don't want power because I don't trust myself. I don't think any an honest person can really say, My motives are pure.

No, I agree with that. We all have this pull towards- Yeah, and anyone who doesn't admit that's a liar.

So yeah, I want oversight of me. Then you see Chuck Schumer, you're like, That guy needs a lot of oversight, like armed oversight. You know what I mean? Like all of us.

I think you got it right in your speech at the Bible Museum during the inauguration about humility and realizing your need for God's work in your life. Without that, we all have a tendency to go down the wrong path.

A hundred %. And you lie to yourself, Oh, I'm doing this for the greater good. I have known people personally who've killed other human beings because they thought or they convinced themselves, this is actually for the The humanity will benefit from this.

Oh, yeah. That's what we all convince ourselves. Whatever we're doing, that we're doing this, we tell ourselves, Well, this is really good because we are off face many times.

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Can I ask you, I was reading in the final weeks before the election that the Biden administration was selling off portions of the materials for the border wall. Is that actually true?

I believe it is. Here's what happened. We had sued the Biden administration a couple of years ago. These cases, these federal cases, don't happen overnight. It took us a couple of years. We We sued them and we said, Congress appropriated money for the building of the wall. You are not building that wall. You're actually selling off assets. So we sued them. We won that lawsuit. And in May, we got an injunction from a federal judge saying, You, DOJ, you, Biden administration, I'm not selling more assets off. So then I got a call from President Trump a month ago, and he said, They're selling assets off. So would you sue him? And I said, I don't have to. I've already done it. So I already got an order. So we go back into court. We tell the judge, Hey, they're selling off We've been told they're selling off assets. We went in accounting. And before we got there, DOJ is calling us, begging us, Hey, we're not selling. We swear we won't sell any more assets. They didn't say they hadn't. They said, We won't sell anymore. So they signed an agreement, said, We wouldn't sell anymore.

But the judge, which we asked or there's going to be an accounting and there's potential sanctions if they lied and they follow it, they did not follow that order. We don't know that yet, but we're going to know that soon now that DOJ is switching. We're going to know that soon. I truly believe they were selling off assets in violation not only of federal law, but in violation of a court order that we got in May saying, you can't sell off assets, because we were trying to protect those assets so that if Trump won, we would come... Because I knew Biden would never build that wall, even if he was instructed by Congress to do so.

How hard is it I never have really understood why is it so hard to build a... It seems like a pretty straightforward infrastructure project.

It is a pretty straightforward infrastructure project, but they hate it. It's some symbol of, I don't know, racism or whatever, but it's not. It protects us from exactly what we've had.

Why not pass a law that says any elected official who opposes the building of a border wall is prohibited from putting a lock on the front door of his house?

Well, that would affect a lot of our public. I mean, my own senator would have trouble with that. John Cornan, because he's been against the border wall saying it wouldn't work. But we all know that walls do work. They do work. I've seen it. I've seen how it works.

The border patrol- Why would John Cornan be opposed to a border wall protecting his own state?

I don't understand it. I've seen quotes from him. I've seen video clips from him over and of how it's not enough. It doesn't work. It's a bad idea. He is opposed to the border wall.

But he's helped appropriate billions and billions and billions of dollars for border security in other countries.

I know. It's really odd that he thinks it works other places, but it doesn't work in Texas. He mocked it and said it doesn't work.

I'd love to hear him mock Israel's border walls. Do you think he will? No. I'd love to hear him mock Ukraine's territorial integrity. Do you think he will?

No. Never heard him do that.

What is that about?

I don't understand it. I think the Bush has had the same idea that open borders were relatively good. I don't think that he or the Bush is- But only for us.

No one's calling on China to open its borders. No.

I don't know why they have this view, But even under the Bush presidency, I don't think they took immigration seriously. The first president I've ever seen take it seriously is Donald J. Trump.

How did John... I mean, this is a question I could ask, no offense. I say this as a Texas lover who's got a lot of relatives there, including a child. So I love Texas. However, I think you've got some of the worst politicians in the country. How did that happen? How does that happen?

I think about the Texas House and what's going on there, what's gone on there for 16 years, where a small group of Republicans for power, aligned themselves in the House with the Democrats so that the speaker is elected by mostly Democrats and a few Republicans. They just did it again. Dustin Burrows just got elected by a minority Republicans after he put the rules in place that caucus, the Republican caucus, would decide who the speaker was. And when he lost that vote in caucus, he walked out, cut a deal with the Democrats, and he just became speaker of the Texas House. That is for power. That is for his own personal power. The The Republicans that do that have traded getting good policy done, getting property tax done, school choice, protecting the board, not doing impeachments of guys that just got elected. They traded that to have power. That's all it is.

With all this If you have drug cartel money in your state, it's not going to get better because you could just buy a member of the Texas legislature. What would that cost? Not too much. Not too much.

I mean, these guys, they only make $600 a month, so anything is good after that, I guess.

We're pretty vulnerable that way.

I think we are. I think a lot of these people Because Texas House, you pay $600 a month. So most people that run have to have money. You can't. Of course. If you don't have money, you're getting paid somewhere for something because it's impossible to live on, obviously, $600 a month. Everybody has to either work, and it's hard to work when you got a job that may take a year out of every two years.

Specifically on John Cornan, how did he get to be a senator when statewide in Texas?

So So this goes back to George W. Bush appointed him to be a US Supreme Court judge, not a US Supreme Court, but a Texas Supreme Court judge. When he did that, he authored an opinion that created this thing called Robin hood. Which takes from the wealthy school districts and gives to the poor, supposedly. And what that did to our system was it created a mediocre school system because it's just socialism. Instead of just letting the wealthy school districts make their schools however they want to, we've got to take their money away. Why don't we just fund the poor school districts? It makes no sense. But I think- Because it's not about helping the bottom, it's about crushing the top. It's about making it all equal. That's socialism. It doesn't work. It's never worked anywhere. We have no example that it actually works. And yet, John Corn did that for George W. Bush because George wanted to be President. He didn't want to pass a major tax increase, so he let John do it judicious. It was a five-four decision. John Corne was on the five-four. Really? I'm pretty sure he authored it. He was in the late '90s.

Yes. For that, they pushed him, Rove and Bush, pushed him to be the attorney general of Texas, first Republican, actually, and then they pushed him into the US Senate. He has been pushed and funded by that group. Fortunately, Texans have caught onto that and realized that group, whatever they say they believe, isn't really what they believe because they don't actually follow through on it.

We know what Bush believes. I mean, as families out there campaigning for Planned Parenthood, voting for Kamala Harris, I was with him two days ago, and Obama at the inaugurations right next to them, across from them. I watched him, Pal, he's friends with Obama.

That's his world. Right. That's his world.

That's all well known. But what's and pretty distressing was running me, endorse Kamala Harris and his sad little daughter campaign for Kamala Harris. That whole world is now, they're all Democrats. But John Cornean is still an elected, statewide elected official in Texas. He's a puppet of the left, obviously. How does that continue to happen?

I think it's because people weren't as aware of what the Bushes did and what he's done, but they've become more aware because of people like you and others who have outed that. He's never had a real problem. He had four people running against him. None of them had money. Nobody had ever run before. No one even knew who they were. It was all fake. And he claims you got 76% of it. Of course, he had nobody running against him. I could tell you who it was, and I'm pretty involved in politics. Somebody needs to run against him this time because he has been there for what? Sixteen years, Just in that position, count as AG, that's four years. He was Texas Supreme Court Justice. Before that, he's been doing this a long time, and he's gotten away with this. It's about time that he be held accountable because I can't think of a single thing that he's done for Texas that's good. He has no acclaim for doing things good for Texas or a country.

No, he's helped Zelensky, and that's pretty much it. Okay, so what's the process? The guy, I mean, I've never met anyone who likes John Cornan, never met anyone who thought he's achieved anything, never met anyone who thinks he's smart, he's pompous, he's quite a self-righteous little guy. I think he's very unpopular with every person I've ever met in my life. And yet, all things being equal, he gets reelected. How do you stop something like that?

I'll give you an example of what you're just saying. Right after I beat George P. Bush, who he came out and endorsed, of course, and then he made disparaging comments about me being an embarrassment to Texas, and he made some comment about me being part of Russia propaganda.

You're a Russian propaganda?

I don't know how that happened. I'm in Texas. I became part of the Russian propaganda because I criticized him on Ukraine.

He said that you were a Russian propagandist?

Yes, that's what he said.

Crazy stuff. People He didn't used to say things like that. Right.

Well, guess what?

Who's the more loyal American you or John Cornan? Who's more focused on the fortunes of his own country and his own people, you or John Cornyn, who obviously doesn't care at all, didn't say anything as his own state was invaded and lectures us endless Obviously, it's a tool the intel agency is lecturing us about Ukraine, but you're the disloyal American. It's actually like, you shouldn't say things like that. It's crazy.

It's crazy. And so justice. The crazy thing, we have a Texas Republican Convention shortly after the election, where I win by 38 points against George Bush, which is a pretty significant margin in a primary. We have the convention. There's 12,000 Republicans there. He and his wife walk up on stage, and for 10 straight minutes, he doesn't say a word, he gets booed. For the 20 minutes that he's speaking, he Court of Justice speech. He gets booed the entire 20 minutes. He gets booed 30 minutes straight. I'm standing waiting to go on stage. I walk away because I'm afraid of what I might say after he said these things public to me. I go up and get a standing ovation. There is the people of Texas know John Cornyn, and I don't think he'll survive another primary.

So how do you stop this cycle?

So I think in Texas, it's very doable because people realize now who John Cornyn is. We have a primary, not this March, but the next March. So somebody needs to run against him in that primary.

So in a year, basically in a year, in two months, you have a primary? Yeah.

So that primary-Oh, it's imminent. It's coming. Yeah, absolutely. I don't think he's long for this Senate world.

Well, I'm sure he's got such an enormous reservoir skills and talent that he'll thrive in the private sector. Doing what?

I don't know if he's ever been there.

He couldn't start my truck on a cold day. He has no idea. He has no skills. But anyway, sorry, I'm being too mean, but it's all true. How do you beat him in a primary?

I don't know. I'm running for sure. I'm looking at it probably in the next few months. I'll be talking to people around the state. But I've run two primaries against George Bush, another guy, Dan Branch, who was one of George W.

I knew Dan Branch. Yeah.

One of his close friends, but very moderate. You're a nice guy. I beat him nicer to you than he was me. I served in the house, wasn't always so nice to me. 65, 35, him. He had a lot more money. Same with Bush. I beat him 68-32. So primary voters, if they're educated, will make good choices based on what you've actually done. Yes. And that was always me. With Dan Branch, we were in the house together for 10 years, and I moved over to the Senate for two while he in the house. And I said, Don't listen to the rhetoric. Look at the record. We both have a record. Go look at the record, compare them, see if they're the same. They're not. He can say what he wants. He's running on my record. Look at his record. And that works in primaries. And the same thing with John Cornean. I bring out what he said about Trump and how disparaging he was with Trump in 2016 and just in this last election, saying he shouldn't run, he's not the right guy. I mean, John's wrong about most everything. There's very few things. He tends to side with the swamp and Washington, and he does what Karl Rove tells him to do.

So that doesn't work in a Republican primary, not in Texas.

What does Karl Rove... I mean, Karl Rove is... I mean, he's got to be 70 anyway at this point, I would think. He's been around... I mean, I've known him for pushing 30 years. I don't think his track record is something anyone could brag about at all. He's been wrong about... He's a subgenius, I would say, for sure. I'm a genius. No, you're not. His record suggests he's not. Why does he still have influence? Is he still effective?

He's propped up by Fox News. He has the platform. They take care of him. He can keep people, for instance, I can't get on Fox. He's still on Fox News? He's still on Fox News, and he's kept me off for a couple of years because when I ran against Bush, they got Bush on and took me off. And all the shows I used to be on, almost all of them- Are you serious? I know that for a- I don't have a TV.

This is a disadvantage. Karl Rove is still on Fox.

He's still on Fox. I just saw him during the inauguration. He's there a lot. I used to in studio at the same place in Austin. I used to trade out with him. Yeah, I've been to that studio. Yeah, and he got me cut out for sure. I know that from hosts of shows who have said, Sorry, week. No way. They will even like, I will have a case. We will get... Jesse will talk to me. I communicate to him. They'll book me, then they'll cancel me. Then they'll go try to find another AG. They'll call the Republican's Regional. Can we find another AG? Or they'll ask for somebody else in my office other than me. That was Karl Rob, blacklisting me on Fox.

Karl Rob is booking He's not even talking shows at Fox News.

He just goes around and he controls. He's so crazy. No, I've been told by people you know that have shows. I know everyone there. I just don't want to out them.

Yeah, no, I get it.

That have told me, We can't have you. For the last two years, I've been on Fox maybe a couple of times. I used to be on every day, sometimes multiple times.

Imagine, if I can just say, since I know these systems, I lived it, imagine you're the host of a show and you get a call saying, The sitting Republican attorney, general, of the second big estate is not allowed on your air because of reasons we won't explain, because Karl Rove, it's a totally discredited buffoon, doesn't like the guy.

It'd be like, buzz off. Well, I think he went to Paul Ryan, the board, and just got…

Why would you cave to that? No job is worth taking orders like that.

You didn't cave to that.

Well, I got fired. Exactly. But that's- I wouldn't even consider that? Like, what? I would always say on the three or four times they ever said anything like that to me, I'd be like, No, it's totally great. Just put it in writing. Just send me an email explaining why we can't have this guest, the rationale for it, and I'll assess and I'll respond in writing.

The second you say put it in writing, they're like, They never call you again. I'm just telling you.

Just put it in writing. It's totally fine. You know what? I've got some hearing issues. If you could just write it down, explain what exactly about Ken Paxton is like, verbotin.

I was supposed to go on a show. There was still one host that would have me, and I was supposed to go on this show, and I had two I have two different settings to go on, and both got canceled. I was told, You got canceled from the bottom.

We're moving in another direction. Yeah.

Even if it's my case. I mean, I follow the case, and they want another attorney general to come on and talk about it.

I would just never put up with that. That's what they do. I would always call and say, What is this? Will the decision has been made? By whom and why?

But that's why Karl Rove still has his platform because of Fox.

But it's all the most disgusting power, which is stealthy feline power, behind the scenes power. Rather than just say, Here are my views, and this is what I think, and I'm happy to debate it or whatever. I think you're wrong. I don't like Ken Paxton's evil. Here's why. They'll never do that because they're not honorable people. I'm not talking about it at that company. I mean, more broadly in our society, the people who win every bureaucratic battle are exactly the same. They operate in darkness. They're never straightforward about anything.

You talked about my... I came in, you were the first person I talked to about the impeachment. That was how my whole impeachment went. It was done in three days, no due process. I didn't get any information. I wasn't allowed to participate or respond all behind closed doors. And then they leak stuff to the media that's not even true. I've got a gag order on me and I can't talk.

It's so dishonorable.

How do you survive that?

It's really hard. Also, how do you live with yourself? How do you live with yourself if you operate that way?

They convince themselves.

If I don't like someone, I'm always delighted to call them on the phone and say, I don't like you and here's why.

They convince themselves that I deserve it because I'm a bad person because all of this stuff is true, but none of it was proof. You know why? Because it wasn't true.

But why do it behind the scenes?

Because I can tell you why. I had friends that were called in the speaker's office, Republican House members, and they were saying, Look, we need you to vote for this impeachment. They said, Well, can you just show us some evidence? Well, you have this three-day hearing. Our hearing. Well, there's no evidence there. Can we see the evidence? No, you're not getting any more. Well, can we have a little more time to figure this out? We've only had three days. We're going to vote on this in three days. No, we're not giving you more time. What about? Can we talk to the witnesses? We don't even know who they are. None of them were sworn in. We don't even know who the witnesses against him are. They said, No, we're not going to let you do that. They said, Well, why is it that we can't see the evidence? Why is it that we can't see the witnesses? Why is it that has to be in three days over a Memorial weekend? They said, Because if we give Ken more than three days, he'll win. That's what they told them.

If you find yourself living your life like that, you have to make a change because that's really deceptive.

That was the Republican, supposedly the Republican House, controlled the Democrats.

They're all like that. I got called in one time by executives of a company, and they're trying to tell me that Roger Ailes was a rapist who I knew well and really loved. He was a flawed guy like we all are, but I didn't feel like a rapist to me. Pretty sure he wasn't a rapist. I remember saying, Okay, who did he rape?

We know this.

We just know this. We had ropes in grade to this investigation. He raped people. Well, okay, who were they? Because I know everybody. I work there. I know everybody. No, I can't tell. Just trust me. If you saw what we saw, you... And I was like, Okay, but can you just tell me what were the circumstances of the rape? This is like an elderly man who's got hemophilia. Don't think he's raping anybody. They were very annoyed that I asked the basic questions. Look, so many things I don't know, but I did come out of that meeting thinking, he didn't rape anybody.

You know what I mean? Oh, absolutely. I see it all the time where people get accused of things, then they get overwhelmed by media, and then they're- They get overwhelmed.

People always say the same thing, We know this. We know that. Look, I've talked to people, We know this. Look, let's just start there. We know this.

Karl Rove did that to me. He went to people and said, We know this, we know this, we know this. They're like, Where's the proof? I've got it somewhere. It's what he does.

But I do think All you need is self-respect. I'm not going to be lied to. If I can help it, I'm lied to all the time, and I don't know it. But I'm not going to allow myself to be lied to if I can help it. But people are just like, they're willing to be lied to. It's the vaccine is safe and effective. Okay. Then it turns out it's not safe and effective, and they don't have enough self-respect to demand an accounting of those lies. You told me this turned out not to be true. Why did you do that? No one ever does that. Or Karl Rove shows up and is like, We know Ken Paxton is a criminal. Okay. Where's everyone's self-respect? I'm an adult man. You can't lie to me. Okay? That just seems like a baseline.

It is a baseline. That's why when I was in the middle of that impeachment and I had no voice, I could not respond. I'm getting beaten up every day. I told my lawyers, I know you think I'm going to resign, but I haven't told no one I'm going to resign because I'm not even allowed to talk to the media. So how could I even tell? Because there were printing stories, I'm going to resign. I said, I want you to know, I don't care how bad it gets. I don't care what they say. These senators are going to... I'm going to make them vote. I got elected four and a half months ago by the people. Let them vote me out. If they do, they will be accountable to the voters, but I will not give in, no matter what.

I watched it up close, and you It was amazing. It was hard to... How many times did you win at the Supreme Court with the Biden administration?

How many times? Yeah. Gosh, I mean, we had 106 cases. We won over 75% of our cases, but several of them, I can't even keep track of them.

Okay, but 106. A lot. We went there a lot. You shoot them 106 times. I'm thinking, since this is politics, that that may have had a role in your impeachment.

I have no doubt. You know how I know they were there? I'm He was convinced that the Biden administration went to the House, Texas House, with the Democrats, said, We want him to impeach. Then Biden sent two lawyers from the Department of Justice to help the General Investigating Committee, which was five member committee, three Republicans, two Democrats. They had four lawyers. Two of them came from the Justice Department. Just randomly showed up to help. Was the Biden administration involved? I don't have proof. I'm not stupid.

That's unbelievable. Do you expect that Karl Rove will be involved in this primary?

Oh, absolutely. He will do whatever he can to stop. He does whatever he can to stop Conservatives in Texas in general. Most of his funds-Not just in Texas, nationally. Yeah. His fundraising, everything he's out to help Republicans, he goes into primaries to get Republicans to take out Conservatives. He is not there raising money to go after Democrats. He's there to go after Republicans.

What do you think he's doing? I mean, it's amazing the number of Republicans who are mobilizing against Trump's nominees, particularly Bobby Kennedy and Tulsi Dabard. He must be having... I don't know this, but do you think Karl has a hand in any of that?

It would not surprise me at all.

It wouldn't surprise me at all.

And the reason they want to go after those two is because they're effective. They're courageous. Of course. And they're going to change America if they're given the opportunity.

That's exactly right. And they're so sad to see some Republicans who I know well mobilizing against Bobby Kennedy, and they're saying, We're doing because he's pro-choice. Well, I'm vehemently passionately pro-life. I have always been, I will always be. But these are all people who are themselves pro-choice, who have supported plenty of pro-choice nominees. It's not about that. It's about the fear that Bobby Kennedy means it, that he's sincere. And that he'll get something done. By getting done, it's like fighting the corruption that controls Washington.

The thing that's most missing in political leadership is not knowledge of what to do or how to do it. It's courage. The thing that Bobby Kennedy has, he will take on the Democrats, his own family, and the big food world.

That's exactly right.

They know that, and that's what they're afraid of, so they have to stop them.

Yeah. It's the testosterone level that scares them. That's totally, you're absolutely right.

Unafraid. He's Right.

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There are a lot of those. Breakdown on supply chains, overwhelmed hospitals, natural disasters, wars. Whatever happens next, you can't see it coming, but you can be prepared for most of it. That's why a Jace case works. A Jace case is a personal supply of prescribed emergency medications. So if things fall apart, you're okay. There's an unexpected global disruption. You can protect yourself and your loved ones. So this February, show them you care. Get the Jace case today. You'll have the right meds on hand when you need You only need them once. You ought to have them. It's interesting. Do you think it's fair to keep a list? I mean, I'm probably too fixated on this because I lived in a Republican world in Washington for so long. But I think it's fair to keep a list of the Republicans who are working against reform, who are working against Trump's best decisions, which are reform-minded decisions, like nominating Bobby and Tulsi. We should keep a list of them.

Absolutely. It should be open. We should be transparent. We should tell the world who who's working against us because they've done all this, and they try to do this in secret, and then they go back and tell their constituents, Well, yeah, I did my best. No, they did not do their best. They were behind the scenes. This is John Cornan's career. This is what these people do. Transparency, just like my impeach of a transparency of a trial actually help me, because the truth comes out. Transparency is what we need in government, and we don't get it with people like the people you're talking.

I think that's really deep and true. The thing they hate most is exposure. I I've always thought that's why they hated Trump there, where he was going to declassify stuff or say secrets out loud that implicate the people running things.

They hate him for that, and they hate him because he also is courageous, and he doesn't. His agenda is the American people.

Yeah. No, I think that's interesting. Do you think you may run against Cornyn?

I'm strongly considering it. I haven't made a decision. I have the spring to work it out, and I'm still doing my job. I had a lot to do under Biden before he left. It's a lot easier with Trump because we're working cooperatively instead of having to be adversarial and everything. I'll be looking at this spring and seeing what people see. I'm going to travel the state and get a feel for it. But my sense already is that John Cornyn is not loved in my state by Republicans. He may be loved by the Democrats, but he is not loved by the Republicans.

How long do you think Texas has before it becomes a Democratic state?

It's totally up to us. We can preserve it. Just like with this thing I told you about America, if we do the right things and we take care of the people in our state and we give them opportunity, we give them a good education, which the state is responsible for. If we provide opportunities for their children, if we provide just freedom to go be the best you can be and not get in their way with regulations and taxes, we will be a Republican state because it doesn't matter what your skin color is. If you get a chance to be successful, you're going to vote with the people that gave it to you.

I think that's right. I think that's right. And I'm embarrassed to say that I bought, I guess, intuitively, I don't really think about it, but the idea that demographics is destiny. I do think there's a lot of truth in that. However, Texas went from a majority white state to a majority Hispanic state, but that doesn't mean that it has to be a dystopian left wing state at all.

The Hispanics are conservative, socially, they are hardworking, they are family people, and they want to be successful, too.

Well, but it's interesting. I first heard that line from Karl Rove, actually. How surprising. My next door neighbor. He would always say, Hispanics are natural Conservatives. I would say, Well, I'm from California. That became majority Hispanic state, and it just went right off the cliff. It became really dark, socialist dystopian place. I would say, so what do you make of that? What I didn't realize was it was actually the liberal Whites who are the problem. I mean, that state's run by Gavin Newsom. He's not from Oaxaca. You know what I mean? He's from Brunton County. A lot of the decisions are made by people like that. Actually, Hispanics are conservative. I mean, that's real. Look at El Salvador. What's happened, though, is that the party is controlled by neoliberals like Gavin Newsom, like Karl Rove, and they use the power of the Hispanic vote to affect outcomes that I think a lot of Hispanic voters reject, right?

Yeah. Look, Trump is winning counties in Texas that have never been won before. We are having more and more Democrat, Hispanic politicians move to our party. When their positions are not changing, they're just realizing that the Democratic Party, allowing all this illegal immigration and hurting their areas and all those types of things, they don't want that.

They're leaving the machine. I guess the only thing I would say, just as an outside observer is if the drug cartels are allowed to control the machinery of democracy in Texas, it could become Mexico.

That's why the whole DA thing that I was telling you about is so important. I remember when I was coming into the attorney general's office, avid to serve as long as serving AG in Texas history, 12 years, becoming governor. I'm now about to tie that. But he was the one that told me the most powerful elected officials in the country are the Texas district attorneys, because they do whatever they want. They can allow any crime they want. They can let their friends commit crimes, and there's nothing that can be done to them. They are free to do what they want.

We had problems like this in the '50s and '60s after Brown versus Board, where certain states just didn't want to comply with federal law. Eisenhower sent the 101st Airborne to Little Rock and said, I'm sorry, you can't violate federal law. You're not your own country, actually. You wonder, how serious could the Trump DOJ be in reigning in this crap? No, you're not allowed to have chaos in your state. This is an American state. No.

I agree with that. I think you're already seeing it on the board. He's already sent federal troops down there. I think as long as it's following federal law, I know that Trump is going to be aggressive at protecting this country.

I hope so. I believe it. Here's a question I've been obsessed with recently, and I don't know the answer, but you're an attorney general. How are states allowed to have sanctuary cities and open violation of federal law, and that's not insurrection?

Because we've allowed it. To me, that should... In our state, we banned them. You cannot have a sanctuary city, and we can remove people from office that put that in place.

But can states just say we're going to ignore federal law? I think we had a civil war over that, didn't we?

No. As long as the federal law is constitutional and it is not infringing upon states rights, every federal law is correct, right? But the ones that are correct, then yes, it has to be followed.

These are the borders of the nation. Yes. Right. So what states do with immigration affects the other 49, any individual state.

Exactly right.

Because it does seem like there was a standard in place under Biden where illegal aliens who are by their presence committing a crime were held to a lower standard than American citizens.

We had to sue the Biden administration. We sued them specifically over letting criminals into this country, known criminals, and they fought us on it. They fought us on Yes, we are in litigation over whether the Biden administration can purposely bring criminals. And of course, all these countries were emptying their prisons to get rid of their bad people from all over the world. And Biden said, Come on in. That's when I say evil I don't believe they were trying to do good for America. You cannot do that. And tell me you were trying to help America.

How hopeful are you that we can deport millions of people?

Look, I've seen Donald do things that I never thought could be done. He said he's going to do it. I think you're not going to get every one of them. But I think Tom Holman, I love that guy. I think there's going to be a real serious effort to get as many out as possible, and that's really all you can do. But I think it will be a success in the end because they are going to, one, stop the... You got to stop the bleeding, right? We've been bleeding profusely. And then second, start moving. Don't accept the fact that these people came in here illegally and just let them stay.

There will be a lot of forces arrayed to stop that, obviously.

I already know the Democratic AGs. I know the game plan. What's the game plan? The game plan is to sue Trump and stop them at every turn, legally. Go to a liberal judge, try to get an injunction, and then just slow it down. I know I think California AG, they've already allocated 25 million to this fight.

To stop Trump from deporting criminals.

And to stop his agenda in every possible way. So the Democratic attorneys are going to be suing and trying to stop all of this. The good thing is, I've got one of my guys that was my offensive coordinator to sue the Biden administration. If he gets confirmed, he'll be in a strategic position, and he knows exactly the game plan and how to deal with it.

If you go and beat Cornyn in the Senate, which I certainly hope you will, is there someone coming up behind you who can get elected, who will be as aggressive and focused on the needs of Texas?

One of the reasons I didn't want to leave last time, one is I don't want to be forced out. I didn't want to step away under their terms because I just thought it was wrong. That's the spirit. Second was, I ran against three people that I just thought would be horrible for that job. They didn't know what they were doing. There are certainly people that will run that. There are lawyers who've never practiced law that want that job because they're in politics. That's not the right way. I want somebody that knows how to practice law, that understands the law. And yes, there are a couple of people that I know that could run and I think might run. Otherwise, I'd have a hard time walking away from it because I don't want to give... This is such a crucial position, really, for the entire country. The Texas Attorney General has the largest Republican office with the most resources and has the most ability to go fight We can attract talent. And so we have a lot of ability to take DOJ straight up. That's why we've run up one over three-fourths of our cases, because we can fight them toe to toe.

I just think it's... You see this weird dynamic in Texas I mean, there's so many great people in Texas, but all the money, not all the money, but a lot of the money in Highland Park and River Oaks, your riches zip codes, pretty liberal. What is that? And by the way, I know a lot of those people, and I really like them. I'm not attacking anybody personally because I know a lot of them. But boy, they seem to be funding people who will not continue Texas as currently organized.

It's exactly right. So a lot of-What is that? It's very strange. This group, Texas for Lawsuit Reform, used to take a lot of that. They would funnel their money through them, so it wasn't them directly. And that's the group that spent 10 million recruiting the Supreme Court to see who was a DEI person. As it turns out, that's how we exposed that, and she blew up. That's who they supported. I don't totally understand it, but it's-They don't like you, too.

They're like, Oh, Paxton, so embarrassing.

I know.

It's because- But if you asked them to write on a paper, what are your political priorities? They would be not so different from yours. But they don't like it when you actually try to implement what you say you believe.

Here's part of what I think happened. I think that when I rang in Stan Branch, he was W. One of his best friends. Of course. I knew Dan Branch. He was not... His deal was always this. I spent 10 years with him. I would say, Hey, we need to do this. This is the right thing to do. He goes, Man, what are the optics here? I'm like, Who cares what the optics are? This is the right thing to do. It was always the optics. How does it look? His voting record, you can look at, is not That was not consistently what most voters, most Republican voters would want, but it was for Highland Park. I don't know what is- Which is an affluent part of Dallas. Yes. And same with you were talking about River Oaks in Houston. That Bush world that supported Bush and- I have family in both those places, and I think they're wonderful.

They're not- No, they're not. And I like all the people. As I said, I like Dan Branch. I think I'm probably susceptible to charm in a way I shouldn't be because I like all those. They're all good guys. But in the end, it's considered somehow gauche or bad to actually try and do what you say you're going to do? That's why they don't like you. No offense, hope it doesn't hurt your feelings, but I've been at dinner and people are like, Oh, Ken Baxter. Ken Baxter. It's like, Why? Because he's doing what you say you believe?

The same thing happened. What the hell? It's the same thing with Trump. People had... I mean, I don't know. You know you're right. It is. I was at his announcement at Marla. You know when you elected officials were there to support him that first? There were lots of regular people there. Me and Troy Nels, at the very first announcement. Really? Everybody then was thinking it might be somebody else, and no one wanted to tell you they weren't sure because you had these in diamonds. It's the same thing with Trump. If you actually go out and do the hard things, then you're controversial. And then they attack you for being... The media attack you. They don't like it. Then people So, well, we need to see... And I'm like, okay, you don't want Trump because he's controversial. That means you don't want somebody to actually get something done. The people that aren't controversial or the people that don't get anything done, the media doesn't attack them. And so then all these people are like, oh, I just don't like his tweets, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, I care about what he gets done.

I think it may be that rich people are so insulated from the effects of everything that they don't really feel like these arguments are existential, that they really, really matter. Whereas if you make 120 grand a year and you live in Houston and you see the city, you can't use the hospitals and crime's out of control and everything is changing too fast to metabolize. You make 120 grand a year, you can't really do anything about it. You're powerless. And that's, by the way, twice what the average person makes. Listen. You're like, you realize this is not a joke. They're wrecking my city for real. It can't be fixed.

I think you've hit it because even those people are affected by inflation, right? Everything is more expensive. Gas is more expensive.

No, it's totally right.

The average American and even above average American feels all of those negative facts every day. If you're a billionaire, it's- No, I know. You don't care what it costs to fill up your gas. You don't even think about it.

It's just weird in Texas. If you go to California, if you go to Moran or downtown San Francisco or the town that I grew up in, affluent town, everyone's openly liberal. You know what I mean? They're smoking weed with their kids and they're whatever, they're liberal. You go to Texas and you meet the Affluent class in Texas, and boy, they're just great people. They're just great people who share your values. I think they really do, by the way, at least the ones I know, they sincerely do. But they don't feel that sense of eminence of like, holy shit, we got it. This is like a crisis. They do not feel that.

Well, those are the people that elect me. If you look at my campaign finance reports, I usually have a massive number of people giving, but a lot lower level than some of the other statewide officials. The numbers are just staggering. I raise less money, but my contributions from the number of people I get, I think I had the last report, maybe I'm off on this, maybe it was more important, 8,000 contributors in 6 months. Well, I don't think anybody comes close to that, but it's not the million dollar checks. I don't get million dollar checks. I have a much lower contribution, but I love it because I like the fact that the people as a group are helping me. Yes. That's who I'm beholden to, those people.

I think that's right. And there's a... By the way, I just want to be clear, especially in Texas, the rich people I know in Texas are good people with nice... Love their families. Their children turn out well. They're good people for real. I love them, actually. But I They would agree with everything you say, but in practice, it freaks them out. You see this with Bobby Kennedy, too. Anyone who's tuned in, realize Bobby Kennedy was a turbo liberal. He's a Kennedy. He said all this crazy, gun-grabby, pro-abortion nonsense. But then you watch him and you're like, Oh, no, that guy's on the same wavelength as me, and he might actually get stuff done. Honestly, it's the rich Republicans who he freaks out. He scares them for the same reason you scare them because you mean And they're like, This is embarrassing. Maybe I can't fully control it. I'm not sure I'm for this.

Part of the problem is they all talk to each other, and they all get their ideas from each other. It's just almost too inbred. They don't get down to talk to the people that you and I are talking about. They don't know them. They are not around them. They don't live with them. So they don't feel it. It's part of what your original point was. They just don't know these people. If they knew those people, I think, like you said, they're not bad people. I think if they can connect with people that are not billionaires instead of just with each other.

I think it's totally right.

It would help them.

I think it's totally right. I grew up in a rich person world. The greatest gift I ever got was spending time in a non-rich area for a portion of every year. And it really changed my worldview so dramatically, just having contact with people who aren't in that world, just getting out of it a little bit.

It's called perspective.

I don't have a ton of perspective, but I have a little bit of perspective. You know what I mean? That's super helpful.

It's super helpful.

It is. It's super helpful. Wow, that's so interesting. Can you win if you don't have the support of the big money in Texas?

Well, all I can tell you is I've been statewide for 12 years, and I've won my closest primary run-off when there weren't four people in the race was 65, 35. The last one was better, 68, 32. So I just go to the people, and I usually get outspend. As long as I can be within two to one spending, I have a really good chance of winning a primary. I think anybody that is consistent on views that take care of their constituents, that's the key to winning, is take care of your people, care about them.

Yeah, well, I've always thought that, but then I up and down the ballot in state after state, you see people elected who are basically promising to destroy their own constituents. All the the black leaders in Chicago who are lecturing about black political power and how important it is, and then they make the city Hispanic. Now they have no political power. I mean, whenever you think of identity politics, I'm opposed to it. I don't think you should be running on your race anyway. But it's just a fact that they did exactly the opposite of what they promised their constituents. And really, now nobody cares what those people think.

It's the same problem. People like that were taking care of themselves. They were not actually looking out for the people they said they were looking out for. And then they leave them in a terrible situation. They're not better off. What Donald Trump, supposed to be the guy that doesn't like those people, when he's finished, all categories of people, Black, White, Spanish, are better off. No, I know. That seems like a good thing, right? I know. But yet he's a bad guy.

It's amazing. So here's a complicated issue that I think I know that you've addressed it in court, data privacy. The idea that you ought to be allowed to have conversations without other people listening to them, the idea that people shouldn't be able to steal information about you and profit from it. Where are we on that?

My first term was about stopping Obama. Yeah. And so So I think in two years that he was there, I've seen him 27 times. Now, I stepped it up a little bit with Biden, but we had four years with Trump. The reason I ran the second term was to deal with exactly that issue. I saw big tech, and I saw big corporations, and people were are powerless because all their information is being taken. They have no control over it. They're being censored. And I'm like, How do I solve this? So I went out to Palo Alto. I spent a year of my life going out there talking to professors, talking to lawyers who were tech experts. And we ended up putting together many law It's several against Google, several against Facebook. We just had... We sued Facebook because there's a Texas law that says you cannot steal somebody's face, take somebody's face or their voice without their permission. And then once you've taken it, you have a certain amount of time, a reasonable period of time to keep it, and then you have to destroy it, and you can't sell it without their permission. Well, guess what?

Metta, now Metta, they were doing it. They just did it anyway. Why do they care? So we sued them. And we got the largest settlement between a state and a business ever, $1. 4 billion. We have sued Google I think five times. We've won two of those cases. We got two settlements, but the three biggest are coming. One of them is about the same thing that Metta did. They stole our faces. Another was about incognito, where they told people, By the way, you go into this incognito, you sign up for this, we will not track you. Lie. They attract us anyway. That's a deceptive trade practice in text, where they tell you one thing and do another. They lied, and they're so big, and they make so much money, they just think they can win everything. Well, the final one was, this is one that everybody thought was crazy, but we did it, and then DOJ followed a copy CAT case under Biden, actually, where they, where Google controls 97% of the ad market, and they destroy the competition. If you're competing, and we believe they cut a deal with Facebook to keep them out of it, pay them off, and they destroy you if you're small enough, they buy you if they're big enough, and they cut a deal if you're super big, and all of that's illegal under antitrust law.

In April, we are going to trial in Texas. They delayed me for two years by forcing me into what's called a multidistrict litigation, and I got put in New York. But we got a piece of legislation stuck on a bill that got us back out of that. So we're back in Texas. So we are going to take on the big tech companies. We're taking on General Motors because General Motors would sell you a car, and they wouldn't tell you that their OnStar system, when you signed up for it, was tracking all of your driving. And then they're selling that to insurance companies, and then you get canceled and your insurance goes up because they're tracking every turn of your car, what time you're driving, how many miles. They don't tell you. That's a deceptive freight practice. And of course, we sued Pfizer for lying to us about the vaccine.

It was a little weird after all of that to see Larry Ellison stand up and be like, Everyone's getting an mRNA vaccine for cancer. What?

I mean, it's crazy. I don't even know.

I'm trying to digest all that.

Maybe just living in Lanais.

Yeah, exactly. But do you have a hope? It does seem... Look, I'm not against... Well, that's the way I am, against technology, but I don't think I should be against technology. I should be a little more open-minded. But there's a place for technological progress, of course. There is. But it does seem like it's unrestrained. I believe in force, counterforce. I believe in balance. I believe in marriage, which is that. You know what I mean? Two forces having to accommodate one another. And in that, you find a piece. I don't see that dynamic with tech right now. It just seems unrestrained, the charge of the elephant, like nothing can get in the way.

So that is the reason. I saw that if we didn't step in soon, and I didn't see anybody else doing it, DOJ wasn't doing it. I didn't see other states doing it. So that's why I ran the second time. My mission was, if we don't stop this now, they make so much money. They just buy their way out of everything. So they get sued by the European Union. They just pay 2 billion. They just jack up their price. When you're making $130 billion a year, that's just a a minor little tax for Google. So that is why I'm not just doing this for money. I'm asking for restructuring of Google. I don't want them to be able to do this to us anymore. They need to divest things so that there is competition in the marketplace. I am totally free market, but one company that controls 97% of the market and then destroys competition, that is not good for consumers. And that's why we have antitrust laws. So if we don't stop them now, they'll control all our-We still have antitrust laws? We do.

You'd never know it.

We brought them back. And by the way, DOG copied our Google case. Exactly. Biden did.

Is there any hope?

There's hope. And I think the fact that you see after we settle with market Zuckerberg. He's showing up at Trump. So he spent, what, 400 million trying to beat Trump last time? You're seeing the CEOs come in. They're trying to keep their profit motive going, and it's hard to get anything done in Congress because they give so much money. But I think the state AGs, and hopefully DOJ with Pam Bondi, are key to making sure that they play fair. Look, go make billions. I don't care. I want you to. Go make a lot of billions. I want American companies to do well all over the world, but play fair and allow consumers' choices. Don't destroy choice.

Yeah, and just acknowledge that what you do has an effect on a lot of other people, and it's okay for other people to weigh in and have an opinion. I know a lot of these People, you get this sense they're so annoyed. If there's any impediment to what they want, so annoyed, they can't even believe it. Like, what? You're getting in the way of progress. It's like, well, first of all, I'm not totally convinced this is progress. That's a subjective term. We can debate what that is. But second, I don't know. There are all kinds of things I want to do, but I have to negotiate with the people who are affected by those things to reach some accommodation. That's just what life is. You see this with some countries, too. Like, oh, our neighbors don't like it. Tough shit. It's like, I don't know. That's not what life is.

Everything is a give and take. Compromise. Where do we get these attitudes?

I just get to do exactly what I want. It's going to totally overturn your life. If you don't like it, shut up.

These are super companies, right? Companies that bigger than most countries. They have more money. And I think that arrogance that we talked about in politics. Oh my gosh. It happens in business. And so not only do they want to control every market and control every transaction on the internet, but they also want to tell you what to say and what you can say on their platforms. Then they tell you they're not censoring, but they are. Even with the Pfizer case, where we went in and sued them, we sued them not just for lying about the effectiveness of the vaccine, which they did do. You've been noticed. But secondly, for trying censor people once they found out that their vaccine didn't work.

I want to do that with this podcast. What I want is Congress to pass a law preventing anyone from suing me no matter what I do. Then anyone who criticizes me is pulled off the internet and called a racist. That's a pretty good deal, don't you think? Absolutely.

Then if you happen to not participate in their little scheme with the vaccine, then you lose your job and you're so- Listen to my podcast or you're fired.

Right. Yeah. That does seem like an unfair business advantage.

It It's pretty unfair. Actually, it's crazy because then there's no incentive for them to test it. They didn't test the vaccine. They don't have to. Why would they? They test it for like six days.

Well, they're fully indemnified.

There's nothing you can do to them. We got, actually, we sued the Pfizer over the vaccine. We got dismissed by a federal judge who said, We didn't have, because of that federal law, our state laws don't apply. I don't think that's right. So we've appealed the Fifth Circuit saying, Wait a minute. They have their federal laws, but our state law, if you deceive something, you lie to them, that is a violation of state law. Who cares federal immunity thing is? It has nothing to do with our state laws, and that's our argument.

Man, you guys, there's so many arms available in the black market. I think Texas should buy some just for a little more influence.

You know what I mean? That's not my department. I always tell people, they want me to go. They went, Why don't you do something? Why don't you do something more? I said, Well, I am, but they didn't give me any guns. They just gave me like a lawyer's. All I have is lawyers.

If you like the drug cartels, just buy them on the dark web. Oh, hilarious. Kim Paxton, thank you so much for taking all this time.

I enjoyed it. Thanks for having me.

I hope you crushed that, John Cornyn. I really do. I'm written for you. Well, thank you. No one else agrees, but I'm in Highland Park, but I'm on your side.

Hey, thank you. Appreciate it.