Speaker 1: Welcome. It's Verdict with Center Ted Cruz.
Speaker 2: It's nice to be with you in person today on
Speaker 2: a somber day, October seventh, it's the one year anniversary
Speaker 2: of the horrific attack, the worst attack on the Jewish
Speaker 2: people since the Holocaust, and it is one of those
Speaker 2: moments I think we should pause and really look at
Speaker 2: what's happened over the last year.
Speaker 3: Well, that's exactly right. Today is a horrific memorial. It
Speaker 3: has been one year since the mass murder that took
Speaker 3: the lives of one thy one hundred and ninety five Israelis.
Speaker 3: It was utterly horrific. It has changed Israel forever. It
Speaker 3: has changed America forever. It has changed, I believe, the
Speaker 3: world forever. We're going to examine what happened on October seventh,
Speaker 3: one year ago, and what has happened in the year
Speaker 3: since then. We're also in today's pod going to have
Speaker 3: an interview with a special guest, Sean Theory. Sean is
Speaker 3: a member of the Texas State House and she's an
Speaker 3: elected Democrat, or at least she was. She was an
Speaker 3: elected Democrat elected from Houston. She was elected four terms
Speaker 3: to the House of Representatives as a Democrat and she
Speaker 3: finally said enough is enough. She left the Democrat Party.
Speaker 3: She has changed to being a Republican. She's going to
Speaker 3: tell her story because her story is something we're seeing
Speaker 3: across the country. As the Democrat Party is getting more
Speaker 3: and more radical, people are saying, I can't take it anymore.
Speaker 3: I want to get back to sanity. We're going to
Speaker 3: break that down that as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a really cool and an interesting story that
Speaker 2: I think inspires other Democrats to lead their party as well. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we're going to talk about that. There are so many
Speaker 2: of you that have asked about what you can do
Speaker 2: to help the people in Israel, and right now this
Speaker 2: is a moment where I'm going to ask a lot
Speaker 2: of you to get involved, especially on this one year
Speaker 2: anniversary with the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. As
Speaker 2: I said a moment ago, October the seventh is the
Speaker 2: one year mark of the worst masker of the Jewish
Speaker 2: people since the Holocaust. Twelve hundred Israelis were murdered and
Speaker 2: more than two hundred and fifty taken hostage, many of
Speaker 2: them still being held hostage.
Speaker 1: Yet.
Speaker 2: The war in Israel is raging on today with a
Speaker 2: ran firing a massive barrage of nearly two hundred ballistic
Speaker 2: missiles earlier this month. Israel and our people are facing
Speaker 2: attacks from enemies on all sides, and the International Fellowship
Speaker 2: of Christians and Jews is on the ground providing food, shelter,
Speaker 2: and safety for those in need during the crisis. Now,
Speaker 2: since the war started, thousands of reservists every day Israeli
Speaker 2: citizens have left their families to serve their country. Soldiers
Speaker 2: have been injured, and their families need support. And your
Speaker 2: gift of one hundred and fifty dollars helps the Fellowship
Speaker 2: provide food and other necessities for these families to help
Speaker 2: them survive. Thanks to a generous Fellowship supporter, your gift
Speaker 2: will be matched, meaning it's doubling impact. Join us and
Speaker 2: let those families know that listeners like you stand with Israel.
Speaker 2: You can call to make your one hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: dollars gift now to eight to eight four eight eight IFCJ.
Speaker 2: That's eight eight eight four eight eight four three two five,
Speaker 2: or you can go online to support IFCJ dot org
Speaker 2: to give that's one word support IFCJ dot org are
Speaker 2: eight at eight four eight eight IFCJ Centator. As we
Speaker 2: sit here, it's shocking that's the one year anniversary from
Speaker 2: a standpoint that they still have hostages, and I think
Speaker 2: we should start with that because this is a day
Speaker 2: for those family members. I can't imagine what they've gone
Speaker 2: through last year, but to even think it's been an
Speaker 2: entire year since they've seen their.
Speaker 3: Loved ones, it's been a year of living hell. As
Speaker 3: I mentioned, oney, one hundred and ninety five people were
Speaker 3: murdered on that day. The estimates are not exactly clear,
Speaker 3: but the best estimate is two hundred and fifty one
Speaker 3: hostages were taken on October seventh. Now, of those two
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty fifty one hostages, we estimate that ninety
Speaker 3: seven remain in Gaza, plus an additional four hostages who
Speaker 3: were captured before October seventh, And to review what has happened,
Speaker 3: seventy hostages have died either on October seventh or in
Speaker 3: the month since then. Thirty four of the hostages who
Speaker 3: have remained in Gaza are dead, according to Israeli officials,
Speaker 3: and Hamasa has released one hundred and nine of the hostages.
Speaker 3: Eight of the hostages were rescued by the IDF, including
Speaker 3: the recent rescue of an Arab Israeli Muslim on August
Speaker 3: twenty seventh. Thirty seven of the deceased hostages have been
Speaker 3: returned to Israel, and on August thirty first, the IDF
Speaker 3: retrieved the body of American hostage Hirsch Goldberg Pollen, and
Speaker 3: five Israelis who were executed by Hamas and Southern Rapha
Speaker 3: after surviving for what was eleven months in captivity. There
Speaker 3: are thought to be four four American hostages still alive.
Speaker 3: The fifth was Goldbert Pollen, and he was one of
Speaker 3: the six people murdered and recovered on August thirty first.
Speaker 3: The four American hostages thought to still be alived are
Speaker 3: number one, Keith Siegel. Keith is a grandfather born in California.
Speaker 3: He was last seen in a video released by Hamas
Speaker 3: in April. He was gaunt and weeping. The second American
Speaker 3: hostage believe still held is Eden Alexander, who grew up
Speaker 3: in New Jersey, and also Sagi decl Chen, a father
Speaker 3: of three, both of whom were spotted alive in late
Speaker 3: twenty twenty three by other hostages. So we don't know
Speaker 3: that they're still alive. It's been some time since they've
Speaker 3: been spotted alive. The fourth Omernutra is a New York native,
Speaker 3: was shown being pulled out of a tank by hamas
Speaker 3: gunman in a blurry clip recorded on October seventh. So again,
Speaker 3: it's been a full year since since Omer has been seen.
Speaker 3: And as for the total number of Americans. Last month,
Speaker 3: the FBI unsealed a complaint against hamas leaders for the
Speaker 3: October seventh crimes and others, and the charges were filed
Speaker 3: in February, but they were kept under seal and the
Speaker 3: precise language of the Department of Justice complaint is quote.
Speaker 3: As of the date of this complaint, at least forty
Speaker 3: three American citizens were among those murdered, and at least
Speaker 3: ten American citizens were taken hostage or remain unaccounted for. Wow,
Speaker 3: and look, I wanted to go through those numbers because
Speaker 3: it's easy and a lot of the news coverage will
Speaker 3: allide over what actually happened. Twelve hundred people murdered, two
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty one hostages. It is truly horrific. As
Speaker 3: you noted, it was the worst single day mass murder
Speaker 3: of Jews since the Holocaust. It's also one of the
Speaker 3: worst terrorist attack in American history. Americans are hostages right now.
Speaker 3: I have to say, I do not understand why Joe
Speaker 3: Biden and Kamala Harris do not talk about the American hostages,
Speaker 3: why they don't lean in and instead why they lean
Speaker 3: in repeatedly urging Israel to stop killing the terrorist instead
Speaker 3: of demanding that the hostages be released. But it was
Speaker 3: an act of horrific evil. And I will say, look,
Speaker 3: I remember in the days after October seventh, I reached
Speaker 3: out and I called and texted a lot of friends
Speaker 3: of mine, and I just asked him. I said, hey,
Speaker 3: I don't know if you have family in Israel, if
Speaker 3: you have people in harm's way, I gotta say bet.
Speaker 3: It was stunning to me the number of people I
Speaker 3: reached out to in the aftermath of October seventh who
Speaker 3: were directly connected to someone.
Speaker 1: The Jewish community.
Speaker 2: It's amazing how much of a connection there is between
Speaker 2: people America and people that are in Israel.
Speaker 3: I've probably reached out to twenty five or thirty of
Speaker 3: my friends, and more than half of them had a
Speaker 3: direct connection of someone where they'd say, yeah, my sister
Speaker 3: was there, Yes, my wife was there, my college roommate
Speaker 3: was there. It is. The Jewish community in America and
Speaker 3: the Jewish community in Israel are in many ways deeply interconnected.
Speaker 2: And the.
Speaker 3: Trauma and horror and evil of that day, October seventh
Speaker 3: will go down as one of the darkest days in history.
Speaker 2: There's another aspect of this too, And it's amazing how
Speaker 2: in this country, and I think even the Democratic Party
Speaker 2: has has really defended Hamas and they've defended that the
Speaker 2: people that did this. And you look at how they've
Speaker 2: treated these hostages and the reports have come out. You
Speaker 2: hope that if someone's taken hostage, at least they're treated humanely. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and that's not happen And I think that's part of
Speaker 2: the story that people need to understand the brutality of
Speaker 2: these terrorists. They are starving these hostages. The bodies that
Speaker 2: have been found in returned. They talk about that. It
Speaker 2: looks like they've taken a lot of abuse and malnourished
Speaker 2: and living conditions that are just horrific, not clean at all.
Speaker 3: Well, and they are using rape as a weapon of
Speaker 3: sexual violence. On October seventh, and sadly, in the time
Speaker 3: since then, they have targeted and repeatedly raped women and
Speaker 3: young girls. I will tell you, and I've talked about
Speaker 3: this on the podcast watching videos of October seventh, watching
Speaker 3: what happened, watching the dehumanization of Jews by the Hamas terrorists,
Speaker 3: that they don't view them as human beings. And I
Speaker 3: think I shared with you listening to the audio from
Speaker 3: that video that repeatedly the Hamas terrorists were referring to
Speaker 3: the Jews that they were murdering as it not even here,
Speaker 3: but it they mutilated the bodies. They would often cut
Speaker 3: the genitals, burn the faces. That a lot of the
Speaker 3: degradation was focused on sexual violence, and it is a
Speaker 3: level of evil. You know, in ordinary life, you don't
Speaker 3: encounter that grotesque evil the way October seventh was. But
Speaker 3: I'll tell you, I'm reminded of the Book of Genesis
Speaker 3: when when Joseph has been sold into slavery by his brothers,
Speaker 3: and then when he re encounters his brothers, what Joseph
Speaker 3: says to them is is what you intended for evil,
Speaker 3: God intended for good. And I think that principle is right.
Speaker 3: But what man means for evil to result, God can
Speaker 3: use for good. And I do think in the past
Speaker 3: year there are two significant consequences of October seventh, both
Speaker 3: of which have been very very good. One is clarity
Speaker 3: this October seventh, in the aftermath, I don't think, to
Speaker 3: my mind, there is no gray. This is a battle
Speaker 3: between good and evil. This is a battle between civilization
Speaker 3: and barbarism. And everyone has to decide where you stand.
Speaker 3: Do you stand with the people of Israel or do
Speaker 3: you stand with the Hamas terrorists? And that clarity, I
Speaker 3: think has been incredibly valuable in the political world for
Speaker 3: elected officials to decide who do I stand with. It
Speaker 3: also has been incredibly valuable on college campuses. It is
Speaker 3: unmasked and revealed vicious, vicious anti Semitism. That clarity is
Speaker 3: important if we're going to combat evil. We have to
Speaker 3: see and understand and know who we're dealing with and
Speaker 3: have it be out in the open. And I think
Speaker 3: that clarity has been enormously consequential and enormous enormously beneficial.
Speaker 3: But I think secondly, a second, very good consequence of
Speaker 3: the hurrrific evil of what happened on that day is
Speaker 3: Israel's stated commitment to utterly and completely eliminate Hamas. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and eliminating Hamas, and they have made incredible progress eliminating
Speaker 3: Hamas and now eliminating many of the leaders of Hesbela
Speaker 3: as well. Eliminating Hamas and eliminating Hesbela is unequivocally good
Speaker 3: for the national security of Israel, and it is unequivocally
Speaker 3: good for the national security of America. And so both
Speaker 3: of those consequences have real and lasting effect in Israel,
Speaker 3: in America, and across the world.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about there was something I'll never forget. You
Speaker 2: saw it before I did, and I was asked to
Speaker 2: come watch the videos of the attack on this day.
Speaker 1: You saw it with I think several other senators if
Speaker 1: I had.
Speaker 3: About the Safity senators, about half the Senate went and
Speaker 3: watched it.
Speaker 2: And I was asked to go to Israeli consulate and
Speaker 2: watch and to have a briefing. And I will never
Speaker 2: forget what I witnessed. I think you're probably the same.
Speaker 2: But it also was.
Speaker 3: It made me physically sick, yes, like it made you
Speaker 3: want to vomit watching. And this is not Hollywood's sort
Speaker 3: of play acting. These are real people being murdered by
Speaker 3: people filled with genocidal hate. It was Nazi tactics for
Speaker 3: Nazi purposes carried out that day.
Speaker 2: I watched it, and I watched it, and I never
Speaker 2: wanted to see it again. I'm glad that I saw
Speaker 2: it because you understand who you're up against. And I
Speaker 2: also maybe very clear that they trained with the help
Speaker 2: of Iran. Yes, and without Iran's funding. I don't think
Speaker 2: it would have happened a year ago today, and now
Speaker 2: we see Iran doing exactly what we knew they were
Speaker 2: doing all along, directly now trying to take out Israel.
Speaker 2: That's another aspect of when you talk about good and evil,
Speaker 2: and evil can show what's happening, and then there can
Speaker 2: be good that comes from I think anyone that doesn't
Speaker 2: understand now the threat to the world from Iran, you're blind.
Speaker 2: We saw what they did with these ballistic missile attacks
Speaker 2: just days ago. What happens next now with that, because
Speaker 2: that's a large part of this story.
Speaker 3: Look, I think it is one of the most consequential
Speaker 3: elements of this election. In November, we're right about thirty
Speaker 3: days away, just over thirty days away from the election,
Speaker 3: and if Donald Trump is reelected, if we have a
Speaker 3: Republican Senate in a Republican House, the billions of dollars
Speaker 3: that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and the Democrats have
Speaker 3: flowed to Iran. That stops in January. Over four years,
Speaker 3: Joe Biden, Kamala Harris have flowed over one hundred billion
Speaker 3: dollars to Iran. It's a massive amount of money. Ninety
Speaker 3: percent of the budget for Hamas comes from Iran. Ninety
Speaker 3: percent of the budget for HESBLA comes from Iran. So,
Speaker 3: in a very real sense, the death squads that carried
Speaker 3: out horrific rapes and murders on October seventh were paid
Speaker 3: for by this White House. I gotta say, I don't understand.
Speaker 3: I mean, we spent a lot of time in this
Speaker 3: podcast talking about the ideology of the hard left, but
Speaker 3: I genuinely don't understand why you would send billions of
Speaker 3: dollars to people who want to murder you. Because the
Speaker 3: Iatola is not subtle.
Speaker 1: They are not yet.
Speaker 3: The Iyatola chance death to America and death to Israel.
Speaker 3: He refers to Israel as the little Satan, in America
Speaker 3: as the great Satan. And we should be absolutely clear
Speaker 3: that if he could murder you or me or any
Speaker 3: of us, he would, And to be clear, the Iatola
Speaker 3: and Iran is actively trying to murder Donald Trump right now,
Speaker 3: and is paying for hitmen and assassins to try to
Speaker 3: carry that out. And yet there is something in the
Speaker 3: ideology of the far left that giving him billions of
Speaker 3: dollars to enable him to wage genocidal war against Israel
Speaker 3: and kill Jews and to target Americans some how makes
Speaker 3: sense to this White House. I am aware of their
Speaker 3: positions and look in public discourse, I try to you
Speaker 3: try to show grace to those on the other side
Speaker 3: and understand them. I genuinely have a hard time if
Speaker 3: you asked me to articulate their argument.
Speaker 1: What is it.
Speaker 3: I don't know how to think that way to say, Hey,
Speaker 3: this person wants to murder me, let's give them a
Speaker 3: bunch of money.
Speaker 2: I don't get that final question on this, and it
Speaker 2: comes up to the issue of the rand nuclear site.
Speaker 2: Iran is clearly trying to get a nuclear weapon. There
Speaker 2: was a report that came out that they could be
Speaker 2: days away, weeks away, as in not less than a month.
Speaker 2: It's been interesting to see how the American medias frame this.
Speaker 2: It's like they've asked the White House their thoughts on
Speaker 2: do you take out this site? You know what they
Speaker 2: want to do you know what they're chanting And they've
Speaker 2: said they've kind of punted and said, well, this is
Speaker 2: up to Israel if they want to do that. You
Speaker 2: look at that, and you look at the White House
Speaker 2: kind of just not really taking a stand on this.
Speaker 1: I think a nuclear ran is a threat to the world.
Speaker 2: Yes, they're obviously a threat to digital but they're a
Speaker 2: threat to the world when you look at this position
Speaker 2: of well, punt to Israel, is that a good foreign
Speaker 2: policy from Biden Harris?
Speaker 3: Well, and understand it's also a dodge listen of course,
Speaker 3: just this White House Kamala Harris doesn't want to do
Speaker 3: anything to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. Today,
Speaker 3: a year after October seventh, they're still not enforcing the
Speaker 3: oil sanctions. Today Iran is selling two million barrels of
Speaker 3: oil a day. They could stop that if they wanted to.
Speaker 2: And what was it when I think it's important to
Speaker 2: remind people how many barrels of oil was Iran selling
Speaker 2: when Donald Trump was in office at the end of
Speaker 2: his three hundred thousand and that's why they were broke,
Speaker 2: and that's why you were seeing unrest in the country
Speaker 2: because without oil money there broke.
Speaker 3: The regime was was near collapse, and Joe Biden, Kamala
Speaker 3: Harris Gain Revive Life Preserver, gave them a massive subsidy.
Speaker 3: I mean it is they gave him CPR. Yes, yes,
Speaker 3: that they were their lifeline. And look saying that's up
Speaker 3: to Israel to decide. You know, I'm reminded of many
Speaker 3: many years ago when Obama was president. There was an
Speaker 3: article in the Atlantic by Jeffrey Goldberg, and it got
Speaker 3: a lot of attention at the time, and and and
Speaker 3: what got attention is it was an insult from an
Speaker 3: unnamed senior official in the Obiden White House in the
Speaker 3: in the Obama White House. Rather who what got all
Speaker 3: the attention He referred to Benjamin Netanyah, who was the
Speaker 3: Prime Minister of Israel then as well. And and and
Speaker 3: he used an epithet that that that because this is
Speaker 3: a kid friendly show, I won't repeat other than to
Speaker 3: say it was poultry beneu her. And he was a
Speaker 3: little more colorful than that. And that got all the attention.
Speaker 3: And I remember at the time that article came out,
Speaker 3: I thought it wasn't news at all. It was obvious. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's what the Obama white House thought of Netanyah, who
Speaker 3: they treated him that way every day. So I was like,
Speaker 3: what's the news in this They're saying what they obviously believe.
Speaker 3: The most consequential element of that article to me was
Speaker 3: a different quote attributed to the same senior advisor in
Speaker 3: the White House. And by the way, there's a lot
Speaker 3: of speculation in Washington that that quote senior advisor was
Speaker 3: named Barack Obama, that it was the President pretending to
Speaker 3: be a senior advisor. I don't know that for sure,
Speaker 3: but that's the surprise. That's the diplomatic chatter in Washington.
Speaker 3: But the quote was something to the effect of the
Speaker 3: very best thing is we have delayed Israel from acting
Speaker 3: militarily for so long that they no longer have the
Speaker 3: military capacity to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear arsenal.
Speaker 3: That was the sentence that was chilling. Look this White House.
Speaker 3: They're not stupid. They know the endgame of what they're
Speaker 3: playing is a nuclear Iran. And I think ideologically they
Speaker 3: believe America has no right to stop the iotola from
Speaker 3: getting nuclear weapons. I think that makes no sense at all,
Speaker 3: and it is one of the many ways in which
Speaker 3: Americans are much less safe today because of the weakness
Speaker 3: of Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and tragically twelve hundred Israelis
Speaker 3: lost their lives a year ago today because of that weakness.
Speaker 2: They need prayers, they need support this one year anniversary,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of people today that are suffering. We
Speaker 2: need to pray for those hostages as well. Sa ay
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Speaker 2: this is a new trend. I love this trend. For once,
Speaker 2: we are seeing elected officials who are Democrats switching to
Speaker 2: the Republican Party, and one of them is right here
Speaker 2: in Texas.
Speaker 1: And our guests tonight.
Speaker 3: Well, that's exactly right. And as you know, and as
Speaker 3: our viewers know, we had Eric Johnson, who's the mayor
Speaker 3: of Dallas. He was an elected Democrat. Four years he
Speaker 3: was an elected Democrat state rep and elected Democrat mayor
Speaker 3: and then he shifted to be a Republican. We had
Speaker 3: him as a guest on this podcast. He told his story.
Speaker 3: We now have another guest, Sean Theory, is with us today.
Speaker 3: Sean is a state representative in Texas. She was an
Speaker 3: elected Democrat, first elected in twenty seventeen, then elected again
Speaker 3: in twenty eighteen and twenty twenty in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 3: She's been an elected Democrat her entire career in politics
Speaker 3: until just recently when she publicly announced enough was enough
Speaker 3: and she switched to the Republican Party. And so Sean,
Speaker 3: welcome to Verdict. We're very glad to have you with us.
Speaker 4: Thank you, senator, thank you for having me. It's a pleasure.
Speaker 3: You know, you and I were sitting down talking and
Speaker 3: I said, listen, I want you to tell your story.
Speaker 3: Tell your story to our listeners, to our viewers and Verdicts.
Speaker 3: So let's just start with tell us, tell us your
Speaker 3: personal story where you grew up and and and what
Speaker 3: drew you to the world of politics, what drew you
Speaker 3: to running for the for the state legislature.
Speaker 4: Sure, thank you, Senator. Well, I'm a native Houstonian, born
Speaker 4: and raised here. Pretty uneventful story, but just grew up
Speaker 4: a Christian, both parents married at home and hardworking folks.
Speaker 4: And always say my parents were Democrats because I believe
Speaker 4: they felt like that was the party of you know,
Speaker 4: middle class folks.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 4: My mom was a teacher, an English teacher. My dad
Speaker 4: worked for the City of Houston, and so we were Democrats,
Speaker 4: thinking that that was just the party of middle class,
Speaker 4: hardworking people. And I went away to college Howard University,
Speaker 4: I came back, went to law school here at Thirdgard
Speaker 4: Marshall School of Law. And really I always had a
Speaker 4: heart for public service. My parents kind of raised us
Speaker 4: that way, from being in Girl Scouts all the way
Speaker 4: through doing things at my church at my church. And
Speaker 4: so folks asked me to run, and I wasn't sure
Speaker 4: if I wanted to do it, because I knew that
Speaker 4: I didn't really like the politics of politics, but I
Speaker 4: did have a heart for public service. So when the
Speaker 4: seat for State rep House District one forty six became
Speaker 4: available in twenty sixteen. I said, well, okay, I'll do it,
Speaker 4: and I won, and I really just kind of jumped
Speaker 4: right in the moment I got elected. I started writing
Speaker 4: legislation to help women and childbirth and term mortality, legislation,
Speaker 4: helping the elderly, doing work to prevent a anti prevent
Speaker 4: human trafficking, should I say, and just never really always
Speaker 4: thought of it in terms of party. I always looked
Speaker 4: at it in terms of people. But as time went on,
Speaker 4: I started to notice session after session the Democratic Party
Speaker 4: moving further and further away from mainstream values. And I
Speaker 4: kept quiet, but it was something that always kind of
Speaker 4: troubled my soul. And I was hoping that I could
Speaker 4: continue to be the voice of reason, which I was
Speaker 4: a lot of times. I was always kind of the
Speaker 4: moderate voice in the room and kind of became known
Speaker 4: as that. In the Ledge text Ledge, I was known
Speaker 4: as a consensus builder. And I don't want to be
Speaker 4: too much of a spoiler alert. We can talk about it,
Speaker 4: but this past session, the Democrats really started pushing policies
Speaker 4: that were so contrary to the well being of children
Speaker 4: and just our country. Overall, I said, as you said
Speaker 4: at the top, enough is enough. I said, you know,
Speaker 4: get me off the bus now. And I made a
Speaker 4: very personal decision. It was very difficult because I knew
Speaker 4: the attacks that I would receive. But just like my
Speaker 4: good friend Mary or Eric Johnson, I did what I
Speaker 4: know is right for me, where I can look myself
Speaker 4: in the mirror every day.
Speaker 1: What they treat you like afterwards, I mean, when you
Speaker 1: leave the party.
Speaker 2: I think people don't understand in politics that is like
Speaker 2: a really bad day because all of these people you
Speaker 2: build these consensus with, now you're the enemy to them.
Speaker 4: Well, mine was a little anti climactic on some level
Speaker 4: because I took a stance. Honestly, during session a year
Speaker 4: and a half ago, I spoke out against child sex
Speaker 4: change surgeries. This legislation where we had was to decide
Speaker 4: to decide what is the appropriate age. This sounds weird
Speaker 4: for a child to have sex chain surgery, which most
Speaker 4: people would say, well, why would a yall be doing
Speaker 4: that anyway, But that's what we were dealing with because
Speaker 4: it was happening in the state of Texas. Girls and
Speaker 4: boys as young as eleven, twelve, thirteen were getting their
Speaker 4: bodies mutilated, also taking drugs like lupron to stop them
Speaker 4: from going through puberty. And so the bill, which seemed
Speaker 4: very reasonable, just set the age of consent to eighteen,
Speaker 4: which is the age of consent for most things in Texas,
Speaker 4: if not twenty one, honestly. And so I said, well,
Speaker 4: I'll support that that we need some safeguards. And you
Speaker 4: wouldn't believe my former party, the Democratic Caucus, went crazy.
Speaker 4: They started pulling me to the side saying, Sean, you
Speaker 4: cannot do it. We're going to kill this bill. And
Speaker 4: because I would not agree that children should undergo this
Speaker 4: type of harm, which by the way, many of my
Speaker 4: colleagues privately told me they know it's wrong. But because
Speaker 4: I wouldn't co sign with that, I started getting attacked
Speaker 4: right then and there. So I've been going through it
Speaker 4: for a year and a half.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and look, this is an issue that you know,
Speaker 3: it's amazing that this is an issue now. I mean
Speaker 3: even a few years ago, there was no one in
Speaker 3: the political arena that was talking about little children eight, nine, ten,
Speaker 3: eleven year old kids being sterilized, being permanently surgically altered.
Speaker 3: And look, my view, which I think is the common
Speaker 3: sense of you, of the vast majority of Texans, is
Speaker 3: that a child doesn't have the emotional maturity to make
Speaker 3: that decision. That no eight year old or ten year
Speaker 3: old can decide I never want to be a father,
Speaker 3: I never want to be a mother, and go in
Speaker 3: and make it so that I can never never have children.
Speaker 3: That I think it is a very reasonable position to say,
Speaker 3: if you're going to do something with those sorts of consequences,
Speaker 3: you need to be an adult and have the the
Speaker 3: emotional maturity to make that decision. That that's a very
Speaker 3: common sense view. And yet when you articulated that, you know,
Speaker 3: one of the things that struck me when you and
Speaker 3: I were talking is you said that a lot of
Speaker 3: your Democrat colleagues in private agreed, but they were scared
Speaker 3: to say it.
Speaker 4: Yes, the party has just been completely, i'll say it now,
Speaker 4: completely hijacked by radicals who have a chokehold on elected
Speaker 4: Democratic officials, who have told them you will fall lockstep
Speaker 4: in line with this ideology, and if you do not,
Speaker 4: we will put millions of dollars into a primary to
Speaker 4: get you on the life.
Speaker 1: In other words, you're being held hostage for your job.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, the Democratic party says you don't go along with this,
Speaker 2: we'll find somebody that will will run against you and
Speaker 2: beat you.
Speaker 3: Its that sin and threaten with money, with real money,
Speaker 3: real money.
Speaker 4: And I'm living proof of it. But I like to
Speaker 4: say I'm a positive testimony because I tell people, losing
Speaker 4: a seat is one thing, but losing your soul is another. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and I did not lose my soul. But they put
Speaker 4: in over a million dollars in a race against me,
Speaker 4: and they absolutely found someone.
Speaker 3: And this is a primary and a state rep race
Speaker 3: in Texas for a million bucks.
Speaker 2: What was it before when you ran, Like, what was
Speaker 2: a normal amount of money? Put in perspective compared to
Speaker 2: a million I.
Speaker 4: Don't think I've ever had anybody spend over fifty thousand
Speaker 4: dollars running against me.
Speaker 2: And listen, if you're listening to this right now or
Speaker 2: you're watching this, when you think about going from fifty
Speaker 2: thousand dollars race to a million dollars against you, that's
Speaker 2: a political assassination on your career. That's saying we're just
Speaker 2: going to buy a winner and make sure you're a loser,
Speaker 2: because that's how much we want to punish you and
Speaker 2: make sure everybody else stays in line.
Speaker 4: Exactly. It always help folks. It was literally to make
Speaker 4: an example out of me and to warn others don't
Speaker 4: get any right ideas. Don't stand up there and speak
Speaker 4: out and tell the truth for your constituents, because we
Speaker 4: will shan theory you and put over a million dollars
Speaker 4: in your race. But I said it on the house floor,
Speaker 4: you know, I always say sunlight is the disinfectant Senator.
Speaker 4: And so I did rip the lid off of it,
Speaker 4: and I exposed the harms, and I exposed the hypocrisy.
Speaker 4: You talked about eighteen being such a reasonable age. Every
Speaker 4: policy that the Democrats put forth is usually to raise
Speaker 4: the age. This is the only area where not only
Speaker 4: do they not want to set the age, they want
Speaker 4: no age. If they want to raise the age from
Speaker 4: eighteen to twenty one for it to have a gun.
Speaker 4: We raised the age from eighteen to twenty one to
Speaker 4: buy tobacco cigarettes, which everyone you know agreed. We raise
Speaker 4: the age from eighteen to twenty one to work in
Speaker 4: a sexually oriented business. We have acknowledged. They said they're
Speaker 4: the Party of science. They said the frontal lobe of
Speaker 4: the brain is not developed until almost twenty five. Why
Speaker 4: on earth are Democrats saying, as you said very well, Sentator,
Speaker 4: that a child as young as nine, who hasn't even
Speaker 4: entered puberty has the capacity to sign away their future
Speaker 4: in terms of being astrated and sterilized. What is this?
Speaker 3: So so tell us the sort of things. What did
Speaker 3: your then fellow Democrats say to you as this is
Speaker 3: all going down? What sort of conversation did y'all have?
Speaker 4: Well, I guess the cat kind of got out of
Speaker 4: the bag that there was a potential dissident who wasn't
Speaker 4: going along with the program, and so they started pulling
Speaker 4: me to the side, usually in like groups of three,
Speaker 4: then groups of six and telling me, you know, Sean,
Speaker 4: what's going on here?
Speaker 1: A lot of these are your friends, right, I mean
Speaker 1: these are the people, they're.
Speaker 4: Colleagues, colleagues, Uh, some friends. The friends were the ones
Speaker 4: that really just came with the warning. They said, Sean, listen,
Speaker 4: because I was pulling out papers and showing what lupron does,
Speaker 4: showing that it causes early on set osteoporosis, and that
Speaker 4: some of these cross sex.
Speaker 3: Weren't tell our viewers and listeners what is lupron? So
Speaker 3: give some of those teachers.
Speaker 4: Sure, So, Lupron is the drug that they want to
Speaker 4: give children in a mirror could to stop them from
Speaker 4: going to puberty. It is prescribed for men who who
Speaker 4: have prostate cancer. It is a chemotherapy drug. Wow, this
Speaker 4: is a drug you are giving children that do not
Speaker 4: have cancer. The only other use for it. It gets
Speaker 4: even grosser that they want to give it to children.
Speaker 4: This drug is given as a chemical castration drug to
Speaker 4: child rapists, to pedophiles.
Speaker 2: And they're giving it to kids because they say, or
Speaker 2: the parents say, they want to transition at the age
Speaker 2: of eight or nine or ten.
Speaker 3: And by the way, if the kids when they get older,
Speaker 3: they change their mind. Much of this is irreversible. If
Speaker 3: you have a teenage girl who has a double misectomy,
Speaker 3: you don't get your breast back. That's right, that's right,
Speaker 3: that's it and forever.
Speaker 4: It's too late. And that's what the loopron is for.
Speaker 4: It is to put you on the trajectory for a
Speaker 4: sex change, to make it easier, because if your body
Speaker 4: never develops in the first place, is that much easier
Speaker 4: to start mutilating and amputating body parts. So I started
Speaker 4: to meet Now you talked about transitioning. There's a group
Speaker 4: of young people called d transitioners. These were the kids
Speaker 4: there are now many of them are grown that went
Speaker 4: through this that have deep regret, and they visited the
Speaker 4: Capitol as well. Unfortunately, their voices were shut out by
Speaker 4: these radical activists and they didn't want us to listen
Speaker 4: to these kids. I met a young lady who had
Speaker 4: a double misectomy and a full hysterectomy. She's only twenty six. Wow,
Speaker 4: she said, rep theory, crying in the hallway to me,
Speaker 4: I have the biological profile now of a seventy two
Speaker 4: year old woman.
Speaker 1: She said, biological profile is seventies woman.
Speaker 4: She's in full full men pause. She's twenty four. She said,
Speaker 4: my bone, my bones hurt me so badly. She was
Speaker 4: on so much testosterone. So now she said, I realized
Speaker 4: I never I really wanted to be a boy. She said,
Speaker 4: I was love bombed. And I said, tell me more
Speaker 4: about that, and she said, I was a lonely child,
Speaker 4: a girl. She said, I think I'm gay. She said,
Speaker 4: but I don't want to be a man. And she said,
Speaker 4: but I watched a lot of YouTube and she met
Speaker 4: these transgender ideologists who love bombed her and then she
Speaker 4: told her mom. Her mom was scared. She took her
Speaker 4: to her gender clinic somewhere outside of Austin. Despite what
Speaker 4: they tell you, she said, in thirty minutes, they had
Speaker 4: a letter authorizing for her to get on all of
Speaker 4: these hormones.
Speaker 2: Wow, thirty minutes. And they always say that there's all
Speaker 2: this profiling that's done in all these interviews and mental
Speaker 2: you know, they look at everything. Thirty minutes, here's your letter,
Speaker 2: go change sex.
Speaker 4: I have a child, absolutely, And Senator, here's the part that
Speaker 4: really got me. She said that they told her mother
Speaker 4: because her mom thought she was doing the right thing.
Speaker 4: Her mom wasn't one of those women that was pushing
Speaker 4: it on her kid. You can either have a dead
Speaker 4: daughter or a living son. Threatening her mother that she
Speaker 4: would kill herself, and she said, I never said that,
Speaker 4: She said she goes. But then I started to believe that.
Speaker 4: And so when I was talking to the D transitioners,
Speaker 4: they even took a photo of me. I think it's
Speaker 4: on Twitter somewhere and it said look at rep theory,
Speaker 4: you know, meeting with these They called the D Transitioners
Speaker 4: a hate group. These are elga.
Speaker 2: They're saying, we've already done this, listened to us, and
Speaker 2: then they call them a hate group.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that I was meeting with a hate group that
Speaker 4: I was anti lgbt key.
Speaker 3: It's amazing. Is there's no compassion for these kids and
Speaker 3: the life altering decisions that I think in many instances
Speaker 3: it's adults who are foisting it on them. So let
Speaker 3: me ask you, if you listen to the media, if
Speaker 3: you listen to the conventional wisdom, Republicans are a bunch
Speaker 3: of intolerant biggots. You were a four time elected Democrat representative,
Speaker 3: you flipped over to the Republican Party. What has the
Speaker 3: reaction on both sides, ben and what have you? What
Speaker 3: have you found?
Speaker 4: Well, the reaction was one very welcoming, from the Governor
Speaker 4: of Texas, to the Speaker of the House, to all
Speaker 4: of my colleagues, to just regular folks writing me on
Speaker 4: Facebook and in boxing me and saying welcome rep Theory,
Speaker 4: Praise God. You know, we're so grateful to have you.
Speaker 4: So there was none of this boogeyman racism that people
Speaker 4: that the Democrat Party is using to fear monger I
Speaker 4: think half of America. But I knew that because I
Speaker 4: served with this folks and you know, all of this
Speaker 4: talk of calling people bigots and Nazis and white supremacists.
Speaker 4: It was always so bizarre to me because I would
Speaker 4: sit with my colleagues who were seeing those things, and
Speaker 4: they would be in the members longe five minutes later
Speaker 4: sharing ice cream with these very folks that they were
Speaker 4: calling Nazis. And then they actually started calling me a Nazi.
Speaker 4: And I'm like me, I'm a black woman. I'm not okay,
Speaker 4: I'm a Nazi now. So Sinat, I knew, you know
Speaker 4: that that was just a bunch of crazy talk. The
Speaker 4: Democrats had been, Like I said, from the moment I
Speaker 4: stood up on that bill. I started getting death threats
Speaker 4: the night before because the cat got let out the
Speaker 4: bag that rep theory is probably gonna vote in favor
Speaker 4: of setting it.
Speaker 3: Did any other Democrats crossover and both of the film.
Speaker 4: Three others, three others, so four and they told me
Speaker 4: each one of them said they would not have done
Speaker 4: it but for hearing my speech. I gave a twelve
Speaker 4: minute speech on the House floor. I think it's on YouTube.
Speaker 3: And it's gone viral.
Speaker 4: It went viral. The letter I wrote explaining it got
Speaker 4: over two and a half million views on Twitter. But
Speaker 4: if you watch it, my hands were shaking, my voice
Speaker 4: was cracking because I was so sleep deprived, because for days,
Speaker 4: you know, they had just been harassing me and pounding
Speaker 4: me and threatening me and trying to change my mind submission,
Speaker 4: just like a cult. And there was one colleague who
Speaker 4: you said could be a friend. And I remember he
Speaker 4: pulled me to the side and he said to me, Sean,
Speaker 4: hold your nose. You better hold your nose and vote
Speaker 4: with us if you want to make it back here.
Speaker 4: And I just looked him in the face and said,
Speaker 4: I can't do that. I can't do it.
Speaker 2: A lot of people listen are going to ask, are
Speaker 2: you a cautionary tale? Are you safe now in your
Speaker 2: elected position? What's the end of the story for your
Speaker 2: career when it comes to this position that clearly you
Speaker 2: won four times?
Speaker 4: Well, I did not win my seat for reelection. I
Speaker 4: went to a run.
Speaker 1: The question that everybody listening right now is like, what happened?
Speaker 3: They beat her in the Democrat primary with a million
Speaker 3: dollars worked.
Speaker 4: They found a candidate who said she was a dual
Speaker 4: identity queer black woman that had never run for office.
Speaker 4: I'd never seen her in the district one time, volunteering
Speaker 4: doing anything it never served. Put the money behind that candidate,
Speaker 4: and even though nobody knew her, she won. However, I
Speaker 4: always say there's a comma, not a period there, Okay,
Speaker 4: As I said again, that's a temporary pit stop. My
Speaker 4: dad who passed away, I share it. We were talking
Speaker 4: about our fathers when we sat down and talked, and
Speaker 4: before my dad passed away, it must have been very
Speaker 4: fratuitous of him for no reason at all. He was
Speaker 4: in the hospital and he looked at me and he said, John,
Speaker 4: I want you to promise me one thing. I was like,
Speaker 4: of course, Daddy, and he said, don't ever let the
Speaker 4: power and the prestige of the position cause you to
Speaker 4: sell your soul. And I didn't, and I stay with that.
Speaker 4: So I think people need to look at it and say,
Speaker 4: you can't survive it. I'm still here. They censored me,
Speaker 4: but they did not silence me. So I think that
Speaker 4: the good news is you can survive it. I've switched
Speaker 4: parties not because I'm so much politically ambitious, but because
Speaker 4: I'm a citizen. I'm an American and i want to
Speaker 4: do what's right for our country. And so now I'm
Speaker 4: speaking out. I'm using whatever platform I have to educate
Speaker 4: Americans and Senator so many folks, and I'll even say
Speaker 4: African American voters have come to me and said Rep. Fiery,
Speaker 4: If only I had known, I didn't even know the
Speaker 4: Democrat Party was up to this.
Speaker 3: Well, Sean, thank you for your courage and thank you
Speaker 3: for sharing your stories. Stories are powerful. A lot of
Speaker 3: what we try to do on this podcast is tell stories,
Speaker 3: stories that impact people's lives, stories that are reality. As
Speaker 3: you know, the media has their own narrative that they
Speaker 3: want to convince people of, and it's part of the
Speaker 3: reason we've seen things like podcasts grow so much. It's
Speaker 3: people are hungry for the truth. And so I appreciate
Speaker 3: you coming and joining us, and thank you for standing up.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 1: I can't wait to see what's next.
Speaker 2: I want to I love how you describe it as
Speaker 2: it's like a comma.
Speaker 1: It's not.
Speaker 2: The story has not been fully written. I wish you well.
Speaker 2: I'm excited you ever want help. I'm on your team
Speaker 2: on this one.
Speaker 4: Hey man, thank you. Only i'd say God is going
Speaker 4: to continue to order my footsteps.
Speaker 1: I love it, I love it.
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Speaker 2: of Israel on this anniversary of the attack that win
Speaker 2: your anniversary. Pray for those hostages as well and the
Speaker 2: Center and I will see you back here on Wednesday.