Speaker 1: This is the morning, and I'm Steve Schmidt, and this
Speaker 1: afternoon I'll please to bring a conversation with you to
Speaker 1: a conversation with Terry Rtz. Terry Urtz is a candidate
Speaker 1: for the United States Senate from the Great State of Texas.
Speaker 1: He's a retired Air Force colonel, a veteran NASA astronaut,
Speaker 1: and the retired commander of the International Space Station running
Speaker 1: as a Democrat in Texas. Tell me about the model
Speaker 1: of the Space Shuttle over your shoulder. You were the
Speaker 1: You did not command a Space Shuttle mission, but you
Speaker 1: were the pilot of the Space Shuttle.
Speaker 2: That's right. This is Endeavor and it's got the sink.
Speaker 2: You probably can't see. It's got the signatures of all
Speaker 2: my crewmates on there. They're starting to fade. But I flew.
Speaker 2: I was a F sixteen pilot and test pilot, and
Speaker 2: I flew on STS one thirty as Endeavor's pilot. It
Speaker 2: was the last assembly flight at the International Space Station,
Speaker 2: so we finished building the ISS and it was awesome.
Speaker 2: It was the honor of lifetime. Installed a module called
Speaker 2: the Kupola, which is this big seven window module, and
Speaker 2: also Node three, which is a living module. So the
Speaker 2: coupla is every astronaut's favorite place on the ISS.
Speaker 1: We're going to get into that. But what was it
Speaker 1: like to fly to Space Shuttle? Was that was so like?
Speaker 1: And what does it mean to fly to Space Shuttle?
Speaker 1: So were your hands on the stick from space flying
Speaker 1: it all the way back down to when it landed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was the best part of having the privilege
Speaker 2: of flying on the Space Shuttle is you could actually
Speaker 2: fly it. I was a test pilot. I like grabbing
Speaker 2: the stick and controlling it during launch we could, and
Speaker 2: I practiced flying it manually, but normally you don't want
Speaker 2: to do that because the computer is a lot better
Speaker 2: than humans are, so the computer flew ours automatically. Once
Speaker 2: we got I actually grabbed the controls and flew a maneuver.
Speaker 2: I flew around the space station, so, you know, manually
Speaker 2: flying it was really cool. Flying in space is very
Speaker 2: different than flying in air, and there's a lot of
Speaker 2: thing we could talk about ronevous and orbital mechanics if
Speaker 2: you want. And then coming back, the computer flies it
Speaker 2: most of the way. But I actually grabbed the stick
Speaker 2: and flew it in the air before landing, and then
Speaker 2: I handed it over to Zambo George Zamcam my commander,
Speaker 2: and he actually did the landing. But it was a rocket,
Speaker 2: it was a space ship, and then it was an airplane.
Speaker 2: So amazing vehicle. We're never going to have anything like
Speaker 2: that again. On over thing.
Speaker 1: And how much time did you spend in space when
Speaker 1: you count it?
Speaker 2: When you count it all up, So my first flight
Speaker 2: was about two weeks. We landed on flight day fifteen,
Speaker 2: and then my second flight was two hundred days. We
Speaker 2: landed on flight day two hundred and one. So if
Speaker 2: you add it all up, it was about seven months,
Speaker 2: a little over seven months in space, in outer space,
Speaker 2: outside of the outside of the atmosphere, flying around Earth
Speaker 2: in orby And now.
Speaker 1: As the crowd is starting to build a little bit,
Speaker 1: you are a candidate in Texas where Democrats correct if
Speaker 1: I'm wrong, I not want to stay wide election I
Speaker 1: think in thirty years, and you're running to be in
Speaker 1: a race as the Democratic candidate for John Cornyn's seat,
Speaker 1: though personally I don't think John Cornying is going to
Speaker 1: be the candidate. And so let me just ask you
Speaker 1: straight up, what's wrong with you? Wrong right of the
Speaker 1: US Senate? What's cobing on why are you doing this?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I joked that I lost a bet and had
Speaker 2: to run. Nineteen ninety four, the great Anna Richards don't
Speaker 2: mess with Texas was our governor. Pearl jam was at
Speaker 2: the top of the church. That's the last time a
Speaker 2: Democrat won here in Texas. But I've spent my whole
Speaker 2: career serving. When I was seventeen, I went to the
Speaker 2: Air Force Academy, spent over thirty years in the Air Force.
Speaker 2: You know, my oath there was to support and defend
Speaker 2: the Constitution of the United States, and I still take
Speaker 2: that very strongly. Even though I retired from the Air
Speaker 2: Force years ago. I still take that oath seriously. And
Speaker 2: what I see happening today is crazy and it's evil.
Speaker 2: And I just the last couple of elections I supported folks,
Speaker 2: you know, with my social media or I did some
Speaker 2: speaking on a couple of different candidates. Behalfs. I just
Speaker 2: got to I can't stand to just sit around and
Speaker 2: do nothing. So this is my turn to get back.
Speaker 2: There's a Bible verse to those who much has been given, much,
Speaker 2: we'll be expected. And I feel like I've been given
Speaker 2: a lot by this country. I've had the opportunity to
Speaker 2: fly F sixteens and to fly space shuttles. And so
Speaker 2: this is my chance to give back unless we do
Speaker 2: something different. Like you said, you know, we're not going
Speaker 2: to win as Democrats. So the Democratic Party needs to
Speaker 2: have a wake up moment. We would say we need
Speaker 2: to have a debriefing. Right as a fighter pilots or
Speaker 2: an astronaut, you need to debrief what went wrong so
Speaker 2: you can move forward.
Speaker 1: So we live in a moment right now. If you
Speaker 1: listen to a lot of the geniuses in Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: I'm looking at something that should not be You are
Speaker 1: a graduate of the Air Force Academy. You look like
Speaker 1: a white guy to me. You're an Air Force colonel,
Speaker 1: you're a veteran astronaut, and low and behold, like.
Speaker 2: John Glenn, you're a Democrat. Why are you a Democrat?
Speaker 2: I got asked that a few weeks ago, and it
Speaker 2: was a surprising question. I've never been asked that before.
Speaker 2: And I thought about values. You know, I value people
Speaker 2: serving people. I did a video today about my faith
Speaker 2: as a Christian, and I think I'm a Democrat because
Speaker 2: I'm a Christian, because I believe in things like do
Speaker 2: unto others as you'd have them do under yourself, you know,
Speaker 2: treat others the way you want to be treated, and
Speaker 2: serve the least of these, not the most of these.
Speaker 2: And that's the Democrats I know here in Texas are awesome.
Speaker 2: They want to govern, they want to get stuff done.
Speaker 2: They want to fix the flooding problem that we have
Speaker 2: here on the coast, obviously, that we have in central Texas.
Speaker 2: They want to get people healthcare, they want to actually
Speaker 2: do practical things to help people out. And I think
Speaker 2: the Democratic Party nationally needs to follow the Texas model,
Speaker 2: come learn from us. So the other thing, Steve, there's
Speaker 2: a saying in the military, you go to war with
Speaker 2: the army you have, and the army we have in
Speaker 2: America is Republicans and Democrats. We're going to pick congressman, senators,
Speaker 2: presidents who are either Republican or Democrat. That's just the
Speaker 2: reality that we have today. So you have to pick
Speaker 2: a side. And the Republican side is lost its way.
Speaker 2: He used to work for Republicans. That party's long gone, obviously,
Speaker 2: And the Democratic Party here in Texas, there's a lot
Speaker 2: of awesome Democrats, And I guess that's why I'm a Democrat.
Speaker 1: So you made this jump into politics, and you're going
Speaker 1: out now and competing in really a process at is
Speaker 1: two elections.
Speaker 2: You are auditioning, if.
Speaker 1: You will, for the privilege to be up against the
Speaker 1: Maget candidate in those finals. As like we just talked about,
Speaker 1: it's been a very long time since the confetti was
Speaker 1: coming down on election night on a statewide race with
Speaker 1: a Democratic candidate in Texas. And one of the things
Speaker 1: you're trying to do, I know, is to set about
Speaker 1: changing that. And I'll give you a lot of credit
Speaker 1: because you went out and you said something that a
Speaker 1: lot that I think is deeply true, but like not
Speaker 1: a lot of your your peers have had the guts
Speaker 1: to say. And what what you've said, unless I've heard
Speaker 1: it wrong, is that under no circument what you said
Speaker 1: was that the first vote a a new senator takes
Speaker 1: is for their parties leaders, and under no circumstance would
Speaker 1: you vote for Chuck Schumer to remain as the as
Speaker 1: the leader of the of the Democratic Party. And you
Speaker 1: you also said, as I was getting ready for this,
Speaker 1: that senator from Texas ought not to work uh functionally
Speaker 1: for the senator from New York, which seems like common sense,
Speaker 1: but you know is a revelation in these days, and
Speaker 1: so I just wanted to ask you about that. Is
Speaker 1: that right that you would not support Schumer to be
Speaker 1: the Senate to be the Senate leader, and and and
Speaker 1: that and that too, you know, broadly, broadly speaking, you
Speaker 1: know you are you are pretty critical of the team
Speaker 1: that has lost two elections over the last whatever ten years.
Speaker 2: To Donald Trump. Absolutely, you know, we need new leadership.
Speaker 2: We love football here in Texas. So if you're an
Speaker 2: NFL team and you're going four and twelve and you're
Speaker 2: losing for thirty years, you need a new leader. We
Speaker 2: just lost the most winnable election in our histor. You
Speaker 2: lost it to somebody who everybody knows is a liar.
Speaker 2: Voters know that Donald Trump is a liar. They know
Speaker 2: all of his problems, and yet they still trusted him
Speaker 2: more than they trusted Democrats. I just had breakfast with
Speaker 2: one of our leaders here in Austin, in the state
Speaker 2: Democratic Party, and he was like, Terry, I just got
Speaker 2: new polling data. We're at twenty four percent popularity. We
Speaker 2: have to change a bunch of poll numbers came out yesterday.
Speaker 2: I was looking at Donald Trump, is unpopular. Americans don't
Speaker 2: like most of what Trump stands for on every issue,
Speaker 2: but they like Democrats even worse. And I was just
Speaker 2: in DC recently Stee a couple months ago, and the
Speaker 2: vibe at the National Democratic Party level, which is very
Speaker 2: different than Texas Democrats. These are not Texas Democrats. The
Speaker 2: National Democratic Party level thinks two things. We can't win
Speaker 2: the Senate, so let's raise a lot of money in
Speaker 2: Texas and forced Republicans to spend money here, but we're
Speaker 2: going to lose. That's what they think. They're wrong. And
Speaker 2: the other thing is we're going to to pick up
Speaker 2: some House seats because Trump is going to be a disaster,
Speaker 2: and the opposing party always picks up house seats, so
Speaker 2: we'll get the House majority back. It's not let's change,
Speaker 2: it's not let's listen to voters. It's not let's give
Speaker 2: voters what they want, which I think is growing the
Speaker 2: middle class and focusing on middle class issues. It's we're
Speaker 2: going to win the House, and if we in the House,
Speaker 2: they'll pat themselves on the back and talk about how
Speaker 2: great they are. That needs to change. That's a fatalistic
Speaker 2: that's not a leader that I want to follow and
Speaker 2: I think we need We have great people in the
Speaker 2: Democratic Party, Melissa Sluckin, Ruben Diego, Corey Booker, Mark Kelly.
Speaker 2: I could go on and on and on. There's some
Speaker 2: really great Democrats out there. It's time for them to lead.
Speaker 2: To your point, Schumer's been in office for fifty years.
Speaker 2: Fifty years is too long. It's time for new leadership.
Speaker 1: What is it that you're going to say to Texas
Speaker 1: Democrats over the course of this primary?
Speaker 2: A let chain about why you Yeah, that's a great
Speaker 2: question because I'm not a politician, and you know, Texas
Speaker 2: Democrats don't know me as a politician. The point I'm
Speaker 2: going to make is we number one, we have to win.
Speaker 2: We can give speeches on the House Senate and we
Speaker 2: can send out mean tweets and we can do whatever.
Speaker 2: That's not resistance. Resistance is winning. We have to get
Speaker 2: the fifty one senators. We need to win Texas if
Speaker 2: we're going to get the fifty one in the Senate.
Speaker 2: And the real question, there's one question for Democrats here
Speaker 2: in Texas. Who do we want on the ballot next November.
Speaker 2: Do we want the same guy that just lost he's
Speaker 2: running again? Do we want to try the same thing again.
Speaker 2: We haven't won here in thirty years by running kind
Speaker 2: of traditional democratic politicians, or do we want to run
Speaker 2: somebody different? And it's not like personally I'm some great
Speaker 2: person or a candidate, but my background's really unique as
Speaker 2: a fighter pilot, as a test pilot, and as an
Speaker 2: ash or not. I have a perspective and my way
Speaker 2: of focusing on things is to get the mission done,
Speaker 2: is to just like, let's get the mission done, let's
Speaker 2: do good for the people of Texas, and that let's
Speaker 2: be a politician who's just on one side or the
Speaker 2: other bashing the other guys. So the real questions Steve,
Speaker 2: and it's one question, who do you want on the
Speaker 2: ballot nex November? Who is John Cornin or probably Ken
Speaker 2: Paxson going to worry about more another traditional Democratic politician
Speaker 2: who just lost, or somebody with my background.
Speaker 1: So for people that are watching, Ken Paxton is the
Speaker 1: extremely corrupt attorney general in the state of Texas who
Speaker 1: was impeached, barely survived the process, and was impeached by
Speaker 1: a Republican legislature. He's going through a hot profile worse
Speaker 1: right now his wife, who I think is a state
Speaker 1: senator has filed for divorce on on biblical grounds. It's
Speaker 1: a whole spectacle that's that's playing out. But but honest
Speaker 1: to God, I mean this, if it was a type
Speaker 1: of Olympics and you were looking for the obvious gold
Speaker 1: medal candidate in a competition of the worst of the worst,
Speaker 1: and you look at that, and you look at that,
Speaker 1: Maga senate, uh, teaming with scumbags. In my view, maga scumbags.
Speaker 1: You have some of the worst in the worst, a
Speaker 1: guy like a Ted Cruz, dishonest, self interested, uh, dishonest,
Speaker 1: self interested. And what you have to appreciate about Ken
Speaker 1: Paxton is the moment, the moment he got there right
Speaker 1: in a in again of thieves. He's the worst guy there, right,
Speaker 1: He's the he's the oussin bolt right of of crookedness, right,
Speaker 1: takes the place.
Speaker 2: Down another entire notch.
Speaker 1: He's awful, and he's gonna beat John Cornyn in in
Speaker 1: the primary. In my view, I don't think Cornyn has
Speaker 1: a has a has a prayer. And so the Democratic
Speaker 1: race is about who's gonna be the candidate who's in
Speaker 1: the toughest right, uh, who gives the who gives Ken
Speaker 1: packs in the toughest race. Who can beat beat Ken Paxson.
Speaker 1: And so when when you think about this, what what
Speaker 1: is it that you're gonna say from you know, the
Speaker 1: west of the state in l pax you know l Pass,
Speaker 1: so all the way across to to Shreveport, from the
Speaker 1: you know Panhandle to North Texas, right on down to
Speaker 1: the to the southern to the Southern Tech. What what
Speaker 1: is it that you're gonna say to Texas voters that
Speaker 1: is different than what Dave heard over the last couple
Speaker 1: couple of years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So my focus to Eve is going to be
Speaker 2: on one thing, growing the middle class. I came from
Speaker 2: a middle class background. I had the opportunity to go
Speaker 2: to good public schools. Those types of middle class issues
Speaker 2: are going to be my focus. Now. Texas is a
Speaker 2: big place, as you know, if it was a nation,
Speaker 2: we'd have the eighth largest economy in the world. You
Speaker 2: were very proud of that. You know, it's a big state.
Speaker 2: It's a giant state. The issues that affect the Premium
Speaker 2: Basin and the Eagleford Basin are oil and gas issues.
Speaker 2: The issues that affect ranchers and agriculture are the Ogolalla
Speaker 2: aquifer is drying up, you know the issues that affect Houston,
Speaker 2: our logistics, medical space, you know energy. So there's a
Speaker 2: lot of different issues in Texas and I want to
Speaker 2: address them all. I want to focus on what Texas
Speaker 2: voters need and not what the folks in watching and
Speaker 2: DC need. But I always want to bring it back
Speaker 2: to the middle class. And Democrats have such a terrible brand,
Speaker 2: and there's a lot of people that just would never
Speaker 2: vote for a Democrat because all they ever hear is that,
Speaker 2: you know, we're left wing Marxists, we're radical communists and stuff.
Speaker 2: I can't wait for all these ads that Paxton is
Speaker 2: going to make about me. But I'm going to go
Speaker 2: out and talk to people and meet them where they're at.
Speaker 2: I'm not just going to stay on MSNBC. I got
Speaker 2: a call from Fox News about fifteen minutes ago. They
Speaker 2: wanted to be on right now. I said, no, I
Speaker 2: got to talk to Steve Schmid. I can't go on
Speaker 2: Fox News. I'm gonna go on Fox News. I'm gonna
Speaker 2: go on AM talk radio. You talk about Ken Paxton,
Speaker 2: That's who he is. He's a He's a AM talk
Speaker 2: radio guy. He has never did anything interesting in his life.
Speaker 2: He's a he's good at talking loud and bloviating. But
Speaker 2: I'm going to go on those shows they're gonna call
Speaker 2: me a radical Marxist. I'm gonna be like, what are
Speaker 2: you talking about? I joined the Air Force to defend
Speaker 2: Europe from communism. Literally, that's that's why I joined the
Speaker 2: Air Force. So we Democrats have to get out there
Speaker 2: and talk to people where they're at, because, as you know,
Speaker 2: if you're in your little information ecosystem, you're never going
Speaker 2: to hear anything other than what you're listening to. So
Speaker 2: our duty as Democrats is to go talk to the
Speaker 2: people in Middle and I'm going to Middland here in
Speaker 2: a few weeks and kind of meet them where they're at.
Speaker 2: Talk to me about the concept of duty. What does
Speaker 2: that word mean to you? Well, we had to learn
Speaker 2: a lot of quotes about that duty then as a
Speaker 2: sublimest word in the English language, that was a quote
Speaker 2: we had to learn it there Force Academy. Duty is
Speaker 2: well with respect to the country, it's asked not what
Speaker 2: your country can do for you, but what you can
Speaker 2: do for your country. As Americans, we've been given a
Speaker 2: lot and by the way, as Democrats, we need to
Speaker 2: take back patriotism. Republicans don't have patriotism, they're actually very
Speaker 2: anti patriotic. Democrats need to be patriotic. I love my country.
Speaker 2: I am blessed to live in this most nation and
Speaker 2: human history. So I'm very patriotic. I'm very thankful, and
Speaker 2: my duty is to serve the country. Now that might
Speaker 2: be raising a good family and working hard and just
Speaker 2: contributing to society. That's a huge contribution that most that's
Speaker 2: kind of your duty. My duty as a man was
Speaker 2: to protect my family and provide for my family. But
Speaker 2: I've been given a lot now, you know, as an
Speaker 2: Air Force F sixteen pilot and as an astronaut, so
Speaker 2: I think there's going to be a lot more expected
Speaker 2: of me. And in this case, it's running for Senate
Speaker 2: because I see, I see the disaster like to your
Speaker 2: point of what Ken Paxton is going to be, and
Speaker 2: I see a Democratic Party that can't get out of
Speaker 2: its own way and can't put forward a candidate that
Speaker 2: can actually beat them. So this is where my duty,
Speaker 2: at this moment in my life is to jump in
Speaker 2: the battle. And you know, running for office is not
Speaker 2: necessarily the most fun thing that you could possibly do.
Speaker 2: You've seen it up close a lot more than I have.
Speaker 2: But it's a duty. And at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: I think we all, everybody listening to this who's an American,
Speaker 2: we all owe a lot to our country and we
Speaker 2: should think about how we can give back to that.
Speaker 2: It might be working as a as a volunteer at polls,
Speaker 2: you know, helping people vote, might be working at your
Speaker 2: church or serving at a soup kitchen or whatever it is,
Speaker 2: but we we should all think about how we can
Speaker 2: give back because this country's given all of us a lot.
Speaker 1: I enjoy reading these old Life magazines behind me, and
Speaker 1: you know one one of I usually don't bring visual
Speaker 1: aids to this, but but I wanna. I want to
Speaker 1: hold this one up. Yeah, that's a very famous Life
Speaker 1: magazine and the men on that, of course, are the
Speaker 1: original seven Astronauts, of whom you were destined to join
Speaker 1: in theirs as it expands. And so did you always
Speaker 1: want to be an astronaut since you were a little kid?
Speaker 1: And I asked that because right before we were on
Speaker 1: you were talking to me about this obligation you feel
Speaker 1: around the American dream, that it was a lived experience
Speaker 1: for you and it's something that's fading too dark for
Speaker 1: a lot of people.
Speaker 2: By lived experience.
Speaker 1: That you believe in, And so I wanted to ask
Speaker 1: you about for you, what was it like in that
Speaker 1: moment that you got accepted? How did you get accepted?
Speaker 1: How do you find out that, hey, you're going to
Speaker 1: be an astronaut?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was when I was the first book I
Speaker 2: remember reading. You know, when you're a little kid, you
Speaker 2: get those cardboard books with one line per page, And
Speaker 2: I was reading that to my granddaughter a different book
Speaker 2: last night. It was about astronauts, and I can remember
Speaker 2: this Apollo book. It was black and white. In my mind.
Speaker 2: It was about the moon, and I thought, well, that
Speaker 2: would be cool. I'm going to go to the moon.
Speaker 2: So I grew up with I had a poster of
Speaker 2: the Space Shuttle on my wall. When I was a boy.
Speaker 2: I had a poster of the old Red, white and
Speaker 2: Blue IF sixteen on my wall. When I was thirteen,
Speaker 2: a friend said, hey, you should read the right stuff.
Speaker 2: So I read Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff. The book
Speaker 2: The movie, by the way, is spectacular, and it talked
Speaker 2: about how those guys had been fighter pilots and then
Speaker 2: test pilots and astronauts, and I didn't know what to do.
Speaker 2: You know, my mom was a secretary. My parents were divorced.
Speaker 2: She never graduated from high school. I grew up in
Speaker 2: poverty and my dad never went to college. So I
Speaker 2: was the first person in my immediate family to go
Speaker 2: to college. And I followed that right stuff path through
Speaker 2: F sixteen's test pilot and I was at Edwards Air
Speaker 2: Force Base as a test pilot, and the application process
Speaker 2: had taken a year. Everything was really delayed for a
Speaker 2: lot of reasons, and everybody knew I was one of
Speaker 2: the finalists at Edwards Air Force Base. Everybody told me
Speaker 2: that I had no chance of getting picked because I
Speaker 2: was the youngest guy by far. I was too young,
Speaker 2: I wasn't experienced enough, I wasn't good looking enough. So
Speaker 2: everybody knew. And the phone call came in and if
Speaker 2: you got a call from the chief astronaut, you got selected,
Speaker 2: and if you got a call from the HR lady,
Speaker 2: you didn't get picked. So I get this call, you know,
Speaker 2: and it's from Charlie Precourt, the chief astronaut, and I
Speaker 2: was in a room we were debriefing our mission, and
Speaker 2: there was all these engineers around me, and I was
Speaker 2: talking about this F sixteen sorty I had just flown
Speaker 2: and like I turned bright red and I was on
Speaker 2: the phone, yes sir, and he goes, hey, Terry, are
Speaker 2: you still interested in coming down to Houston? And I
Speaker 2: was like, let me think about that. Yes, and anyway,
Speaker 2: so he said, but don't tell anybody because Congress still
Speaker 2: needs to approve it. It's secret, but you'll show up blah
Speaker 2: blah blah. So yes, sir, yes or yes sir. And
Speaker 2: I hung up and everybody was staring. There's like ten
Speaker 2: guys starring at me. What was that? And I was
Speaker 2: like nothing. And then about a minute later, on the loudspeaker,
Speaker 2: you know, celebration party for Captain verts in the ten
Speaker 2: minutes or something. So that's how I found out. I
Speaker 2: went home. There was a lot of screaming and crying
Speaker 2: and excitement. That was a pretty cool That was a
Speaker 2: pretty cool day. One of my one of my favorite.
Speaker 1: Favorite covers, one of my favorite astronauts of all of
Speaker 1: the originals is is this man who was who was
Speaker 1: the first man in space, Alan Alan Shepherd. And one
Speaker 1: of the things you talked about is the politics of
Speaker 1: the moment in the country. And there's this story about
Speaker 1: Alan Shepherd that I love, and it's that as he
Speaker 1: was sitting atop the capsule waiting to blast off, there
Speaker 1: was an open microphone and Alan Shepherd, uh, said a
Speaker 1: prayer out loud. And I have always shared this with
Speaker 1: political candidates backstage before debates. I've always said, right in
Speaker 1: that awkward moment of silence, right, whether it's John McCain
Speaker 1: getting ready to walk out national debate stage, whatever, you know,
Speaker 1: I'll say, well, do you know do you know the
Speaker 1: Alan Shepherd prayer? And invariably they go no, And I
Speaker 1: and I tell the story about Alan Shepherd's prayer over
Speaker 1: the open mic, which was not relayed precisely to the
Speaker 1: audience by the news pastors because because the prayer was
Speaker 1: Dear God, please don't let me fuck this up. And
Speaker 1: so when you think about the Alan Shepherd prayer, and
Speaker 1: you you apply it the politics, and in a two
Speaker 1: party system where one of the parties is the playground
Speaker 1: of Donald Trump, and so by necessity the other party
Speaker 1: must oppose that, and the other party has failed in
Speaker 1: that mission to stop it. What I would say is
Speaker 1: that the Lord did not hear their prayer. Uh. You know,
Speaker 1: to say, to say, to say the least, and and
Speaker 1: so why why do you think that in the state
Speaker 1: of Texas, which produced Lyndon Johnson and Ann Richards and
Speaker 1: Barbara Jordan, that the Democratic Party in the age of Trump,
Speaker 1: who has a thirty eight thirty six percent approval level
Speaker 1: and some polls forty percent, which also sucks in the
Speaker 1: in the latest one.
Speaker 2: Why why in that context.
Speaker 1: Is this party at a twenty four percent approval level?
Speaker 1: How do you how do you explain that? How do
Speaker 1: you get your head around that? And why do you say, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm with that, which I'm with them too. I mean,
Speaker 1: I got it. Maybe the same thing is wrong with
Speaker 1: both of us, but like what, but how do you
Speaker 1: sort that out? Yeah, that's a great question.
Speaker 2: By the way, back to Shepherd's prayer, I had the
Speaker 2: same exact thought they were asked. I get asked all
Speaker 2: the time, were you afraid? And honestly, I wasn't afraid
Speaker 2: of dying. I was afraid of screwing up because my
Speaker 2: buddies were watching and they would give me a nickname.
Speaker 2: So that was my That was my biggest fear. During
Speaker 2: my space flights as Air Force fighter pilots, you get
Speaker 2: call signs and it's usually based on something you screwed up.
Speaker 2: So I didn't want to do it. What was your
Speaker 2: What was your call? So I was I was Flanders
Speaker 2: like Homer's I should have my first call signed Flying
Speaker 2: callsign was cave Man and I was probably a lot
Speaker 2: more of a Homer Simpson kind of guy. But they
Speaker 2: call me Flanders, which is Homer's Christian neighbor. It was, Yeah, anyway,
Speaker 2: there's a whole story there. So, like I said, before
Speaker 2: you go to war with the army you have and
Speaker 2: the army we have. You're either on Team Trump or
Speaker 2: you're a Democrat. I mean, you could be an independent.
Speaker 2: You're not going to win a statewide election in Texas
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty six. The primaries in two hundred and
Speaker 2: fifteen days, so we are on the clock. And the
Speaker 2: Democratic Party traditionally, I know you're a historian. I'm a
Speaker 2: JFK Democrat. You know, we choose to go to the
Speaker 2: moon and do the harder things. It's the party of
Speaker 2: the working people. And my fat both my grandfathers were
Speaker 2: union men. They talked about it their whole lives. Both
Speaker 2: my parents were in unions, briefly, my cousin is a
Speaker 2: longtime union person, builds drones for north for the Navy,
Speaker 2: for Northrop Crumben. So my family is a Union family
Speaker 2: and that Traditionally, the Democratic Party has been the party
Speaker 2: of the working class. Unfortunately, in recent years it has
Speaker 2: devolved into kind of a coastal elite, you know, college educated,
Speaker 2: out of touch party. A friend of mine Adam Frish,
Speaker 2: he ran against Lauren Bobert in Colorado. He has a
Speaker 2: great statistic. There are thirty two hundred counties in America.
Speaker 2: Two thousand of them are rural, you know country out
Speaker 2: in the country counties, two thousand. Bill Clinton in the
Speaker 2: nineties won fifty two percent. Bill Clinton won a majority
Speaker 2: of rural counties. That number has been going down to
Speaker 2: where Kamala Harris won eight percent eight percent. Basically none
Speaker 2: the entire middle of America has given up on the
Speaker 2: Democratic Party, and I want to help. I want to
Speaker 2: be a part of leading the party back to the
Speaker 2: people because the policies that I'm going to have as
Speaker 2: a Democrat, I think that the Democratic Party have actually
Speaker 2: help working Americans. They help farmers, they help mechanics, they
Speaker 2: help policemen, and we need to get the message out
Speaker 2: that we're going to be the party for them, and
Speaker 2: that Trump and the MAGA Republicans are the party of billionaires,
Speaker 2: because that's actually what they are. They lie and they
Speaker 2: say they're the party of the working people. They're not.
Speaker 2: The policies they have benefit the wealthy. And I want
Speaker 2: to bring the party back to just a middle class.
Speaker 2: None of the culture war stuff. You know, I'm the
Speaker 2: Democrat you don't have to be afraid of. I've got
Speaker 2: a nine mil sitting right next to my bed. It's locked,
Speaker 2: it's safe, the magazine's not in the weapon, But I'm
Speaker 2: not afraid of guns. That's the kind of Democrat that
Speaker 2: American needs to get back the middle of the country.
Speaker 2: And once we do that, if we do this right,
Speaker 2: we'll be winning elections two thirds to one third. But
Speaker 2: we need to have leaders that have the right message
Speaker 2: and that have the right beliefs.
Speaker 1: The first picture of erg is taken in nineteen forty
Speaker 1: six from.
Speaker 2: Space, and.
Speaker 1: The Army strapped a camera into the nose cone of
Speaker 1: a V two rocket and sent it up, and it's
Speaker 1: a grainy image. And in nineteen sixty eight, a very
Speaker 1: troubled year in the history of the country. NASA makes
Speaker 1: a decision to expedite the launch of the Pollo spacecraft
Speaker 1: that will for the first time circumnavigate the Moon. And
Speaker 1: this spacecraft, Apollo eight, goes around the Moon and coming
Speaker 1: around the side, there is a legitimate, a fair to say,
Speaker 1: national broadcast, but really it's an earthwide broadcast. And in
Speaker 1: this grainy black and white imagery coming from the spacecraft
Speaker 1: is the three astronauts and they read from the Book
Speaker 1: of Genesis, and they take and show the world the
Speaker 1: first image of the Earth. And that photograph is this,
Speaker 1: and if it was taken by Bill Anders, if you
Speaker 1: passed away, I think this past year in in this
Speaker 1: picture of the of the Earth, is the first time
Speaker 1: the planet is seen set as a sphere against the
Speaker 1: blackness of space by human eyes.
Speaker 2: And this takes place.
Speaker 3: In nineteen sixty eight, at the edge of the transition
Speaker 3: from one year to another.
Speaker 1: And again right a very very difficult year. Doctor Keny
Speaker 1: has assassinated. Robert Kennedy is assassinated, and there is a
Speaker 1: really awe in people from seeing this. And as you said,
Speaker 1: you spent a couple of hundred days in space. You
Speaker 1: have spent time in that Cupola. You know, one thing
Speaker 1: that you've talked to me about is that many people
Speaker 1: are on the Earth.
Speaker 2: Eight billion, I think is the number.
Speaker 1: You were one of a handful of people who were
Speaker 1: above the Earth on the space station, flying over it,
Speaker 1: you know, seeing a sun ra, seeing a sunset. You know,
Speaker 1: every what is an hour? Every however hour and a half? Yeah,
Speaker 1: every hour and a half. And I just what is
Speaker 1: your what is your cake away from that? From that experience?
Speaker 2: Right? Is? What is it cape away from all that? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I did a I made a video yesterday about this.
Speaker 2: When you see Earth from space, when you see the galaxy,
Speaker 2: when you see the universe, it's hard to get too
Speaker 2: impressed with celebrities or with politicians that think highly of themselves.
Speaker 2: You're like, man, right now, there's a sunrise happening somewhere
Speaker 2: on this planet, and so it gives you a perspective
Speaker 2: that we're on this spaceship Earth together flying through the universe.
Speaker 2: My crewmates, Samantha Christoph Friday, an Italian astronaut, I think
Speaker 2: put it best. She said, we all need to be
Speaker 2: crewmates on Spaceship Earth and not just passengers, so we
Speaker 2: should work together. But the other thing is that It
Speaker 2: showed me the importance of having systems that work for people.
Speaker 2: When you look at Earth during the daytime, you can't
Speaker 2: see people, and if you know what you're looking at,
Speaker 2: if you're looking at London and New York and you
Speaker 2: squint at it, you can see the concrete cities, but
Speaker 2: you don't really see people during the daytime. You see
Speaker 2: people at night time in city lights. And I think
Speaker 2: everybody has seen, you know, these astronauts from the space
Speaker 2: station images of city lights. And I thought about it
Speaker 2: for a few days and I realized that what I
Speaker 2: was looking at is not population. What you're looking at
Speaker 2: really as wealth, and really what you're looking at is
Speaker 2: corruption or lack of corruption, or a political system that
Speaker 2: works or one that isn't. Because in places like Africa,
Speaker 2: especially Central Africa, there are no lights on. There's a
Speaker 2: lot of people there. There's a billion people in Africa,
Speaker 2: there's no lights on. Of course, most of those governments
Speaker 2: are terribly corrupt. North Korea, South Korea is the most
Speaker 2: visible one. South Korea is this bright, vibrant, you know,
Speaker 2: very modern economy. Birth Free is just a black hole
Speaker 2: with a little white dot where Pyongyang is. So I
Speaker 2: never expected to see politics from space. But after I
Speaker 2: thought about it for a while, I realized that's exactly
Speaker 2: what I'm doing. And so in America we need to realize,
Speaker 2: let's have a system that is not corrupt, which, of course,
Speaker 2: this administration is the most corrupt administration in America history.
Speaker 2: They put Rockefeller in JP Morgan in the eighteen hundreds
Speaker 2: to shame. We need to get back to systems that
Speaker 2: work for people growing in the middle class. Really, those
Speaker 2: city lights are a function of middle class. Like that
Speaker 2: means that there most of the people in that region
Speaker 2: have some basic level of wealth. I didn't expect that
Speaker 2: I'd see that from space. It's a lot more fun
Speaker 2: to talk about the beautiful oceans and mountains and rivers
Speaker 2: in the galaxy and the Aurora. The video I did
Speaker 2: yesterday on my YouTube was about seeing the Aurora from space.
Speaker 2: But that's a perspective that's pretty unique. I mean, there's
Speaker 2: only been a handful of politicians John Glenn and Mark
Speaker 2: Kelly and Harrison Schmidt was a Senator for term who
Speaker 2: have had that perspective. And Howison Schmid walked on the
Speaker 2: moon right he did. He was Originally it was all
Speaker 2: fighter pilots back in the sixties, and he was like
Speaker 2: one of the first scientists astronauts. He was a geologist.
Speaker 2: They actually made those guys go through pilot training, so
Speaker 2: they started hiring scientists, but they made him go through
Speaker 2: Air Force, you know, fighter jet pilot training, which is
Speaker 2: pretty cool. But he's a good guy like I like
Speaker 2: Jack Shmid a lot.
Speaker 1: There is a crater out in Arizona that I have
Speaker 1: been to where they made the astronauts train for that
Speaker 1: mission in geology class. To approximate, to proximate that what
Speaker 1: I would say in response to what you just said
Speaker 1: on processing it, it's incredibly powerful and it's deeply wise,
Speaker 1: and I can't help but make the comparison to what
Speaker 1: a man named Avner Less said. And he was a
Speaker 1: German Jew who became an Israeli policeman and was the
Speaker 1: man who interrogated at Off Hikman for two hundred and
Speaker 1: seventy five hours and twenty years after Iikman is hung,
Speaker 1: Less Is asked, did you have any takeaways from the experience,
Speaker 1: and he says, yeah, it gave me my faith in
Speaker 1: democracy because there are Atoll Hikemans everywhere. They're all around us.
Speaker 1: But in the democracy they're perfectly harmless. They turn deadly
Speaker 1: in an instant in a dictatorship of the left and
Speaker 1: a dictatorship of the right. And really coming to that
Speaker 1: conclusion in the broader context about have there is no
Speaker 1: escaping politics. Even from space is a really remarkable is
Speaker 1: a remarkable thing. And I know you were in space
Speaker 1: with Russian astronauts, and I know you were up there
Speaker 1: when the war in Ukraine had started.
Speaker 2: Were you ever able.
Speaker 1: To see explosions from space of Russia's aggression playing out
Speaker 1: on Earth?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Absolutely. I was there in twenty fifteen, twenty fourteen,
Speaker 2: and twenty fifteen when they first invaded Kremea, they first
Speaker 2: invaded the Dombas, And I was there one night in
Speaker 2: the Russian segment with a guy named Sasha Samokuchayev. Excuse me,
Speaker 2: I had this chronic cop I've had it since I
Speaker 2: was in space. It comes and goes, and we were
Speaker 2: sitting there floating looking out. They have this big giant
Speaker 2: window in the Russian segment, which is pretty cool. And
Speaker 2: as you go over Western Europe there's a lot of lights.
Speaker 2: The further east you go there's less lights because obviously
Speaker 2: Eastern e is not as wealthy as Western Europe, and
Speaker 2: all of a sudden you could see these red flashes
Speaker 2: on the ground and it was like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: I can't believe what we're watching. We didn't say anything.
Speaker 2: Both of us our eyes got big, and we just
Speaker 2: watched these bombs. We were watching Russians kill Ukrainians a
Speaker 2: decade ago, and we didn't say anything. It was a
Speaker 2: very profound moment. And when we got back to Earth,
Speaker 2: Sasha and also a lady named Ulna Suova that I
Speaker 2: was with in space, and another guy named Max Sarayav
Speaker 2: who I was also with in space on my first
Speaker 2: Space Shuttle mission, and also some other cosmots. But those
Speaker 2: three that I flew with, they went and joined Putin's
Speaker 2: political party, joined the DUMO, which is the Russian Congress,
Speaker 2: and are promoting the war. And it's the most profoundly
Speaker 2: angering thing I've ever experienced. Because they know better. They
Speaker 2: lived in the West, they speak English, they know that
Speaker 2: America doesn't care about Russia. And there's all this propaganda
Speaker 2: there that we're out there get Russia, that the West
Speaker 2: is against someone or whatever. The reality is, we don't
Speaker 2: care about him. Just please don't invade Europe. And kill
Speaker 2: your neighbors. And yet so they know better and they
Speaker 2: still are promoting these lies. It's like my opponent John Cornyn.
Speaker 2: John Cornyan knows better. He knows that Pete Haggs shouldn't
Speaker 2: be Secretary of Defense. He knows that Tulsea Gabbard and
Speaker 2: Christy know him, and all the rest of them shouldn't
Speaker 2: be Who's the latest guy, Joe Kent. These guys shouldn't
Speaker 2: be in office. He knows that the Big Bill is
Speaker 2: going to hurt Texans, and yet he still does the
Speaker 2: wrong thing because he wants political power. These cosmonauts know better,
Speaker 2: they still want they do the wrong thing because they
Speaker 2: want apartments in Moscow and jobs for their kids. So
Speaker 2: that's something I don't have tolerance for people who don't
Speaker 2: do the right thing. And like I said, you could
Speaker 2: see that in a certain extent from space in terms
Speaker 2: of city lights or lack of city lights. I'm going
Speaker 2: to talk about Ice will probably get to ice on it.
Speaker 2: But yeah, the Russian cosmonauts, there are a few good ones.
Speaker 2: There's very few good ones. Most of them are just
Speaker 2: on team putin actively promoting it. We just launched a
Speaker 2: Russian Air Force officer who's you know, promoting Putin in
Speaker 2: the war launching them on our on our spaceships. We
Speaker 2: shouldn't be doing that. I think it's immoral.
Speaker 1: Oh when you when you think about when do you
Speaker 1: think about this, this moment that we're dealing with in
Speaker 1: the in the country, as an Air Force Academy graduate,
Speaker 1: as an Air Force colonel, as a first time political
Speaker 1: candidate in in Texas. UH.
Speaker 2: One of the.
Speaker 1: Astonishingly issues in the race are what I view as
Speaker 1: a massed secret police force that is out of control
Speaker 1: and running loose. How do you see that issue?
Speaker 2: So I spent over a decade in my life traveling
Speaker 2: to Russia. I was training there to launch into space,
Speaker 2: learn the language about the people. In twenty twelve, I
Speaker 2: was there for training and I was in Moscow walking
Speaker 2: around sightseeing by myself, and all of a sudden there
Speaker 2: was a big mob. So of course I went and
Speaker 2: looked and it was a Lexayingnavolney. This was when Putin.
Speaker 2: First he left the president for the Constitution, then he
Speaker 2: violated the constitution and came back. And the Russians at
Speaker 2: that time were out protesting and there was this kind
Speaker 2: of army dressed up like Navy seals. They had mass
Speaker 2: son and they came out and I left and they
Speaker 2: dispersed the crowd. So the Russians have this, it's called mchis.
Speaker 2: They had different ones, and now in America, steep, we
Speaker 2: have the same thing. Guys who are not these are
Speaker 2: not the Navy seals, These are not green berets. These
Speaker 2: are kind of the bottom of the barrel. You've talked
Speaker 2: about this before, wearing masks. Who wears a mask besides Batman?
Speaker 2: I mean, this is America. One of the laws, one
Speaker 2: of the first laws I'm going to vote for, is
Speaker 2: to outlaw masks. If you're a police officer, show your
Speaker 2: face and wear your badge prominently displayed. And here's the problem.
Speaker 2: In Russia, they've had so much propaganda. There's so many
Speaker 2: thousands or millions of men really that have served in
Speaker 2: these secret police organizations. Even when Putin's gone, it's going
Speaker 2: to be hard to get rid of that culture. And
Speaker 2: we're doing the same thing here in America. We're exploding ice.
Speaker 2: The budget for ICE is just going through the roof,
Speaker 2: and we're going to have all of these people who
Speaker 2: are trained to be cruel, who are trained to be
Speaker 2: you know, plain clothes grab people off the street, throwing
Speaker 2: amarked cars. And so I worry about the future of
Speaker 2: our country now that we have this big group of
Speaker 2: people who are frankly being trained to do evil. So
Speaker 2: that's that's something no one ever I haven't heard anyone
Speaker 2: else to talk about that. But I worry about the
Speaker 2: implications of all of these people throughout our government. Who,
Speaker 2: by the way, let's talk about that. If you get
Speaker 2: if you have a serious job in the government, if
Speaker 2: you're a top executive, you got your job by lying.
Speaker 2: You had to pass this loyalty test. And as part
Speaker 2: of that loyalty test, my friends went through it, they
Speaker 2: had to say Donald Trump won the twenty twenty election.
Speaker 2: So every senior government leader we had literally got their
Speaker 2: job by lying. And now we have ICE, which is
Speaker 2: the secret police. Getting rid of that and changing our
Speaker 2: culture back to a truly American culture. That's going to
Speaker 2: be one of many challenges that the next hopefully democratic
Speaker 2: president has.
Speaker 1: One of the issues that we were tired about before.
Speaker 1: And I thought this was really incredible when you said this,
Speaker 1: because I deeply believe this is true. And what you
Speaker 1: said is that the job of being a senator is
Speaker 1: about showing good judgment, Like that's what the job is.
Speaker 2: You. And you make the point that you have all
Speaker 2: these Democratic.
Speaker 1: Senators who who voted for Christy Nome and all these
Speaker 1: other unfit people.
Speaker 2: And the.
Speaker 1: Incredibly right you have you have national party leaders right
Speaker 1: that try to pick the candidates and states that they
Speaker 1: haven't woned their party hasn't won an election in like
Speaker 1: in Texas for thirty thirty plus years. And you told
Speaker 1: me this story real quick about Neil Armstrong, and he said,
Speaker 1: your why was Neil Armstrong the first person picked.
Speaker 2: To land on the moon?
Speaker 1: And I was he was the best pilot And You're like, no,
Speaker 1: he has the best judgment. Yeah, So like talk talk
Speaker 1: about the role of judgment right in this in this moment.
Speaker 1: And then I very specifically want to ask you in
Speaker 1: in that context and about judgment, about your judgment around
Speaker 1: the accumulation of power, whether it's by big corporate interests,
Speaker 1: right by big tech, right by big government.
Speaker 2: Uh, you know.
Speaker 1: Federal police, ice, police, what whatever, whatever it whatever it
Speaker 1: whatever it is. So if if you would just your
Speaker 1: point about judgment as the core of what a US
Speaker 1: senator's job is and and the issues right involving the
Speaker 1: lack of judgment that that we see swirling all around us.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, Neil, there was a whole astronaut office full
Speaker 2: of great pilots. Just ask them, they tell you. But
Speaker 2: for the first man to land on the Moon, they
Speaker 2: wanted to know, are you going to hit the aboort
Speaker 2: button when you need to abort the landing? Are you
Speaker 2: going to continue down to lander's surface the lunar surface
Speaker 2: when you need to continue down? And that's why they
Speaker 2: picked me A Larmstrong. They made a great choice. He
Speaker 2: was a great pilot, but he made some really tough
Speaker 2: decisions on a split second during that time. And I
Speaker 2: think when you hire a congressman or that's what you're
Speaker 2: doing as a voter. You're hiring your leaders and your representatives.
Speaker 2: When you hire a senator, certainly when you hire a president,
Speaker 2: you're hiring them for their judgment. Because they can have
Speaker 2: tax policies and healthcare policies whatever, they'll have their whole
Speaker 2: list of programs, but what you really need them is
Speaker 2: when something comes up, when there's some unknown thing, when
Speaker 2: nine to eleven happens or whatever, are they going to
Speaker 2: make the right decision? And that's what it's all about
Speaker 2: and are they going to decide what their party wants.
Speaker 2: Are they going to represent the people or are they
Speaker 2: going to represent some guy in Washington, DC, some guy
Speaker 2: in mar A Lago. And unfortunately, too many of our
Speaker 2: politicians do that the only thing that matters for them
Speaker 2: is getting elected. And I'd rather, I've heard you say
Speaker 2: this before, I'd rather lose an election than say the
Speaker 2: wrong thing. I'd rather you know, do it. I'd rather
Speaker 2: tell the truth and talk straight about things then lie
Speaker 2: and gravel just to just to get a job. This
Speaker 2: is about telling the truth and talking straight. And we
Speaker 2: need to hire leaders who are willing to stand up,
Speaker 2: to say something that might be popular, to say something
Speaker 2: that goes against their party, but to do the right things.
Speaker 2: Because John Cornyn knows that what Ice is doing is wrong.
Speaker 2: He knows that taking construction workers and farm workers off
Speaker 2: the streets here in Houston, Texas is wrong, and yet
Speaker 2: he's still voting for it. The entire Republican Party is
Speaker 2: who is not in the Republican Party. Maybe Don Bacon.
Speaker 2: Is he the last one? You know a few years
Speaker 2: ago there was Adam Kinsinger and Liz Cheney and others.
Speaker 2: They're all gone now, and so we need Democrats who
Speaker 2: will do the right thing and not grabble to their party.
Speaker 2: And we need Republicans who will do the right thing,
Speaker 2: Like is there nobody left who's willing to serve their people?
Speaker 2: And I think when you talk about judgment, that's judgment.
Speaker 2: You're willing to do the right thing even when it's
Speaker 2: not popular.
Speaker 1: What is the core economic message that you're going to
Speaker 1: go out to Texas voters with that makes you different
Speaker 1: from what they hear from Democrats in Washington.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so this is the key, Steve. It's easy to
Speaker 2: bash and trump this and trump that, and we're always negative.
Speaker 2: We need to have a positive vision because people want
Speaker 2: something that's positive and not just hearing how evil the
Speaker 2: other side is all the time. We've been trying that
Speaker 2: for years. That plan by itself doesn't work. My focus
Speaker 2: is going to be on the middle class. I'm a
Speaker 2: product of the middle class. My parents were poor. They
Speaker 2: came out of that into the middle class. When I
Speaker 2: was in fourth grade, they bought a house they couldn't afford.
Speaker 2: It was a great house, but it was old. Like
Speaker 2: I had a chop wood all summer and then we
Speaker 2: had a wood stove in the winter for heat. But
Speaker 2: it was in a good school district. So I literally
Speaker 2: from fourth grade on through high school, I went to
Speaker 2: really good public schools. And that's why I got into
Speaker 2: the Air Force Academy, and that's why I became an
Speaker 2: F sixteen pilot, and that's why I became a test
Speaker 2: pilot and astronaut. So I am literally the best of
Speaker 2: the American middle class. My parents came out of poverty
Speaker 2: into that in public education allowed me to have the
Speaker 2: amazing experiences that I did, and I want to grow that.
Speaker 2: I want tax policies that are favorable for the middle class,
Speaker 2: not just billionaires. This big beautiful bill was discussing biggest
Speaker 2: transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in
Speaker 2: our in our history. I want health care that's affordable
Speaker 2: health care. In America, we spend more than twice what
Speaker 2: Japan and Europe does for worse outcomes, you know. I
Speaker 2: want families to have health care that if their kid
Speaker 2: breaks an arm, they don't go bankrupt, and a lot
Speaker 2: too many families are living in that situation. I want
Speaker 2: an education system that strengthens public education. Here in Texas,
Speaker 2: they're tearing public education down with this ridiculous voucher bill
Speaker 2: that Greg Abbott promoted. So, and I want a democracy
Speaker 2: that works. I just saw a statistic. I'm always reading stats,
Speaker 2: eighty eight percent. Basically, everybody in America thinks our political
Speaker 2: system is broken. There's some things we need to do
Speaker 2: to fix that. I think term limits, I think getting
Speaker 2: money out. You know this crypto bill that just passed,
Speaker 2: and it had merits to it, but the crypto industry
Speaker 2: poured a couple hundred million dollars into politics, and all
Speaker 2: the politicians voted for it. Like that stuff needs to stop.
Speaker 2: The worst of all is stock trading. When you serve
Speaker 2: in Congress or the Senate, you're not getting rich person salary.
Speaker 2: You're getting middle class salary. And yet too many people
Speaker 2: are coming out of Congress wealthy, beyond your dream. So
Speaker 2: that stock trading needs to needs to stop. The Republican
Speaker 2: Party got members are not voting for that. So those
Speaker 2: are the types of policies I want to support that
Speaker 2: will help the middle class. Last question I have for.
Speaker 1: You, and then I'll leave it to you to say
Speaker 1: whatever you want in closing, But first off, where can
Speaker 1: people find you?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I'm on Twitter and Instagram and substack at Astro
Speaker 2: Terry is my Twitter at astro Underscore Terry's Instagram. Probably
Speaker 2: the best way to find me is on my website
Speaker 2: Terry Urtz dot com. T r y v I r
Speaker 2: T s that you can watch a launch video. I
Speaker 2: made a pretty cool short video filmed in a World
Speaker 2: War two one of the original jeeps from World War Two.
Speaker 2: So it was a fun launch video to make. But
Speaker 2: they can kind of see who I am and what
Speaker 2: I'm about when I'm running for Senate at Terry Urtz
Speaker 2: dot com, and it'd be great to interact. I'm making
Speaker 2: a lot of content trying to talk about common sense
Speaker 2: issues and things that people want to hear about, and
Speaker 2: also calling out the Mega Party for some of the
Speaker 2: for many of the ridiculous things that they're doing.
Speaker 1: You talked and mentioned corruption earlier as a singular issue
Speaker 1: as an important issue. How important do you think? I
Speaker 1: mean real top to bout an ethics reform is for
Speaker 1: the next Congress, the one hundred and twenty at Congress,
Speaker 1: which is hopefully has a Democratic majority but a very
Speaker 1: different Democratic leadership in charge of it. How imporant is
Speaker 1: that issue as as the as like the first issue
Speaker 1: I mean, one of the things that happened is, you know,
Speaker 1: you go to washing can everybody will say to you, well,
Speaker 1: that's a that's important issue, Senator Verts, but you know
Speaker 1: we have to we have to that'll have to wait
Speaker 1: a little bit. Right, How how important do you think
Speaker 1: that ethics is and ethics reform and all of this
Speaker 1: is in terms of that suite of issues that are
Speaker 1: that are going to have to be dealt with.
Speaker 2: It is at the core of what needs to happen.
Speaker 2: You know, Steve, when I'm when I was looking at
Speaker 2: Africa and there was no lights on, it's because those
Speaker 2: countries are corrupt. Money comes in and all goes to
Speaker 2: the leader, all the people are left in poverty. That's
Speaker 2: what corruption does. That's why there's no lights on in
Speaker 2: North Korea. And I've never seen corruption like what's happening now.
Speaker 2: We laugh about it. Anybody who works for a company
Speaker 2: has to do ethics training and email security training and
Speaker 2: all that stuff. And NASA there was a system called Saturn,
Speaker 2: and my buddies we laugh, like, imagine if there was
Speaker 2: a satur In question, you're a government contractor, are you
Speaker 2: allowed to give hundreds of millions of dollars to the
Speaker 2: president and then have him give you contracts. Is that ethical? Like?
Speaker 2: Of course it's not ethical. Of course the stuff we're
Speaker 2: seeing is ridiculous. The Trump boys are going around the
Speaker 2: world doing multi billion dollar deals for his golf courses
Speaker 2: and his hotels, and now those countries get favorable tariff treatment,
Speaker 2: those countries get weapons. It's the basic conflict of interest,
Speaker 2: and we need to stop that because it's undermining our
Speaker 2: moral authority is a country. How can we yell at
Speaker 2: Ukraine for corruption when the very top of the American
Speaker 2: government is the most corrupt that we've ever had in
Speaker 2: our nascentce history. Ethics reform, corruption reform is going to
Speaker 2: be I hate to say my top party because there's
Speaker 2: so many top parties, but it's absolutely up there. Anything
Speaker 2: you want to close out with This moment demands that
Speaker 2: we get our politics right. And if the Democrats keep
Speaker 2: on doing the same old thing, we're going to keep
Speaker 2: on getting the same old results. Here in Texas. We
Speaker 2: haven't won for thirty years. Unless we win in Texas,
Speaker 2: we're not going to have fifty one centers in the
Speaker 2: US Senate. And until we get the fifty one, all
Speaker 2: we can do is give twenty four hour filibuster speeches,
Speaker 2: or all we can do is write angrily written tweets.
Speaker 2: We have to get a majority. That means we have
Speaker 2: to win in Texas. And the question is who do
Speaker 2: we want to put on the ballot the primaries in
Speaker 2: two hundred and fifteen days. It's March third. But the
Speaker 2: real question is who do we want on the ballot
Speaker 2: next November to beat Ken Paxton or John Cornyn or
Speaker 2: whoever it is. Because until we do that, we can't
Speaker 2: fight back. And I think I'm the best candidate to
Speaker 2: put on the ballot. I think of all these other
Speaker 2: kind of typical Democratic politicians. A friend of mine works
Speaker 2: in the Paxston campaign. He's like, yeah, we could care
Speaker 2: less about these democratic names. They're not worried at all
Speaker 2: about the typical Democratic politicians. I think they worry about me.
Speaker 2: So the question is who do you want on the
Speaker 2: ballot next November. I think I'm the right candidate to
Speaker 2: put on that ballot to win in a year and
Speaker 2: a half. Leave it there.
Speaker 1: Terry Verts everybody candidate for the US Senate in the
Speaker 1: Great State of Texas. A veteran NASA astronaut commander of
Speaker 1: the International State Station Air Force Colonel test pilot Terry
Speaker 1: Verts in the race. You can find him at terryvertz
Speaker 1: dot com. Terry Verts everybody, Terry, thank you, thanks for
Speaker 1: having me on.
Speaker 2: Steve. This is awesome. You bet.
Speaker 4: I'm Steve Schmidt. This is the warning. I invite you
Speaker 4: to join this community where I promise to be honest,
Speaker 4: blunt and direct about what is happening in this country.
Speaker 4: America is in crisis. Follow and subscribe to this channel
Speaker 4: and on substack.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Yeah,