Has Donald Trump just gifted Texas to the Democrats? | The News Agents

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Donald Trump wanted this time round to back the MAGA candidate.Ken Paxton, one of the most euphemistically controversial candidates in this entire Senate race.

Donald Trump wanted his man, he's got his man, he's doing a victory lap now, but in November it might be entirely different.

He comes with huge, huge questions surrounding him, which if you cared about the ethics of your politicians, would represent a real problem.

Remind us all, what is Attorney General Paxton accused of doing?

The list is really long.

bribery, dereliction of duty, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy.A majority of Texas House Republicans voted to impeach one of their own.

60 Republicans voting in favor.Allegations he abused his office to benefit himself and a major donor, who allegedly paid for his home renovations and even helped him cover up an affair.

They claim the AG used secret email accounts, burner phones, and a fake Uber account to see his mistress.

of sort of criminal activity.Three felony fraud charges which have lingered for nine long years.And in between it all, the state's top attorney had a mug shot.

There are calls for Ken Paxton to step down.

Ken Paxton is an extremely fraud candidate, and I sense the worst is yet to come about his background.

Ken Paxton.How has the Republican Party just made this man its Senate candidate for Texas?And might this hand a gift to the Democratic Party in the midterm elections?Welcome to the News Agents USA.

The News Agents USA with Emily Maitlis and Jon Sopel.

It's Maitlis.

It's Jon.

And it's Maitlis.to take you to Texas this week to an extraordinary primary race that was going on between two Republican candidates.And the only thing you really need to know about this is that Donald Trump loves one and he hates the other.So the person that has been in the seat who has been electorally successful for Texas for the last four rounds was John Cornyn.He is somebody who has been critical of Donald Trump, but not that critical.I mean, what you might call a spineless critic.

He is somebody who's voted with him 90 % of the time.He's wanted to create a bridge named after him.But this was not enough for Donald Trump.Donald Trump wanted this time round to back the MAGA candidate, Ken Paxton, one of the most euphemistically controversial candidates in this entire Senate race.Somebody whose own staff called the FBI on him to impeach him because of his murky dealings.And on Tuesday night of this week, Ken Paxton beat John Cornyn to become the candidate by more than 30 percent.

In other words, it was a wipeout for the incumbent.And the big, shiny MAGA candidate, Ken Paxton, is the person who will face off against what the Democratic Party hope is their new dream.James Tallarico, young, fresh -faced, really exciting for the party.And the question I guess we're asking is, what happens to the race now?

Well, if Donald Trump had his ballroom built, he'd have been dancing round it.I mean, he was going on a victory lap as a result of Ken Paxton having been elected.And as you say, Emily, His past is murky, murky, ethically confused.He has been a thorn in the side.everybody in some ways since he became the Attorney General for Texas.I mean, I remember when I first moved to America, he was making life hell for Barack Obama and not enforcing any of the rules that the government had passed in Washington.

He was challenging everything.Come January the 6th and the 2020 election, he is challenging in the courts, the fairness of the election, that it had been stolen and wanted the Supreme Court to overturn the election result.On January the 6th itself, he's at the Ellipse and making a speech on Donald Trump's behalf.And on and on it goes.Mainstream Republicans, the Republicans in the Senate, wanted Cornyn to remain.And they put out a whole series of attack ads trying to go after Cornyn, which they're now, of course, having to...

No, no, no.Did I say I didn't want Ken Paxton?Of course I...No, no, I'm very happy.And there is this shotgun wedding that has now taken place between a person that the Republican Party in the Senate absolutely detest.And there's this wonderful clip of the North Carolina senator, Tom Tillis, talking about Ken Paxton.

And to call Paxton ethically challenged is to call Jeffrey Dahmer suffering from an eating disorder.This guy is an empty suit and will do us no service by being in the U .S.Congress.I hope that Texans realize how tough John Cornyn is, how pro -Second Amendment he is, how pro -limited government he is, how pro -America First he is.And when they go to the polls on Tuesday, I hope that they know that they've got a great American who deserves reelection.

And the other guy is going to be nothing but an anchor on our conference for as long as he's in the US Senate.

That is Tom Tillis who is now probably having to eat his words just as Jeffrey Dahmer.his victims.Because when he says that, you know, it's like saying Dahmer had an eating disorder.I mean, what a comparison you are making to Ken Paxton, this mass killer who became a legend for all the wrong reasons in America.And Tom Tillis is making that comparison.And now he is the Republican candidate for the Senate.

Yeah, I mean, Tom Tillis, we should remember, is newly unchained, because he's also somebody that stood in a primary that Trump took against and is now basically unleashed and free to say and think exactly what he likes for the next six months.But if you want to understand why he's making this claim of Paxton being ethically challenged, and we heard a little bit in that attack ad at the very top of the episode, he comes with what we would call significant political baggage.He was, this is Paxton, impeached in 2023 after being accused of corruption.That was when he was reported to the FBI.He was later acquitted in trial in the Texas Senate where his wife was a state senator, but not allowed to cast a vote.And he was then also indicted on charges of felony securities fraud, which would have led to a prison sentence.

But the case was dismissed after 2024 pretrial diversion agreement.He got divorced last year.His wife, in the end, filed for divorce on what they call biblical grounds, citing adultery.So I think political baggage probably doesn't, you know, doesn't kind of fill up the sort of the easy jet airline hold in those terms.But he comes with huge, huge questions surrounding him, which if you cared about the ethics of your politicians would represent a real problem.But he's already fired out an astonishingly, potentially effective attack ad against James Talleyrand.

And we're going to play you a bit of that.He's called Tallarico.He's accused him of loving trans kids and running a vegan campaign.And the whole framing of it is about Texas.Texas, this red meat state that doesn't like political correctness, that doesn't really like diversity, that definitely doesn't really do gay.They are trying now to frame Tallarico as the, well, let's say it, what Richard Tice would call the Wokerati.

Here's a little clip of that ad.

This is Texas.This is not.

There are many more than two biological sexes.In fact, there are six.

This is Texas.This is not.The American flag is such a complicated symbol for most of us.This is Texas.This is not.

They're going to call me a radical leftist.

This is Texas.This is not.

Something that you love that's not family or friends.

I love, and I'm just saying this because it's on my mind, the trans children.

This is Texas.This is not.

Our southern border should be like our front porch.There should be a giant welcome mat out front.

This is Texas.This is not.

It is now existential that we try to reduce our meat consumption.I am proud to say that our campaign has officially become a non -meat campaign.

This is Texas.This is not.

Yeah, radical Tallarico is what they're calling him.And you can see how even though they have very carefully edited a lot of those answers to sort of two word soundbites, that is probably going to hit exactly where they want it to in a deep red Republican state like Texas.I guess the real question is, and we shouldn't, we shouldn't forget that actuallyTexas votes for its Republican candidates, like breaking news.It would be extraordinary if Tallarico won this seat and turned it blue for the Democrats.It would be beyond extraordinary.

But because he is this sort of great new hope for the Democratic Party, they think there genuinely is a chance.And in some ways, they think that Ken Paxton is helping them because he is such a MAGA candidate that they believe he might push more people in the centre to Tallarico.And I guess that's where it comes down to.That anyone who is MAGA is obviously going to vote Paxton and anyone who hates MAGA is obviously going to go with Tallarico.And the question is how many people are left in Texas that are persuadable, that are marginal, that are independent minded enough to kind of go, he sounds a bit of a criminal.Um, this was Tallarico's own response to Paxton, which I think is worth hearing because this was in response to Ken Paxton calling him Tallar -freak -o.

Well, I think if Ken Paxton is worried about freaks, he should stop giving Epstein -style sweetheart deals to pedophiles.You know, this is the guy who just released Adam Hoffman from jail and admitted child rapist after one of Ken Paxton's wealthy lawyer friends got involved in the case.Ken Paxton even kept him off the sex offender registry.Adam Hoffman was supposed to serve 25 years to life, but instead he served less than a month.As of this week, he's now back on our streets because of Ken Paxton's corruption.Ken Paxton is the most corrupt politician in America, and it is costing Texans.

It's endangering our children, and it must end.I think the Epstein class has no place in Texas.And this November, we're going to come together to defeat Ken Paxton and take back our state.for the people.

And it's worth noting that when the results of the primary came through that Ken Paxton has won, Palo Rico had his record fundraising evening as money piled into his campaign because of the horror of the idea of Ken Paxton becoming Texas's next senator.Now, look, the Democrats have been here before, when Beto O 'Rourke was then suddenly seen as the great hope of the Democratic Party in the Lone Star State, and that didn't go anywhere.But things have changed since then, and I'll tell you how they've changed.For a start, In the presidential election in 2024, very large numbers of Hispanic voters voted for Donald Trump because they too were concerned about the border and they liked the sort of rather macho style of the president.Since then, He has been hemorrhaging support from Hispanic voters because of the ICE policies, because of the crackdown on illegal immigrants, because of the way that kind of anyone who happens to be brown is just being picked up and arrested and kind of roughed up by these ICE officers.And that is costing Donald Trump.

Married to that is Talarico himself, who is young, charismatic, speaks the language of God, is a pastor, and he is someone who is reaching out.And I think the Republicans are terrified by this.And the other thing, you know, I said that there's now this kind of shotgun wedding between Republicans in the Senate who really don't want Ken Paxton, but they have to get behind him because the Democrats could retake the Senate if he wins.And the other side of that is this fight is going to cost a fortune.The primary fight Between Paxton and Corning costs $130 million.That's two republics.

fighting each other for the nomination alone.And the Republicans in the Senate say, well, OK, Donald, you've got your MAGA candidate now in Texas.Who's going to fund what we need to win this campaign?I think you need to stump up the money rather than the Republican Senate caucus having to stump up the money, because he's your guy, he's not our guy.And that's going to be another fascinating battle that, as we'll see, who's going to pick up the tab for this?

Yeah.And the person who's actually really good at fundraising in that race, in that whole race, is Tallarico.You might remember Tallarico's appearance on the Stephen Colbert show, the late, late show, the one that's now ended, where Colbert was told by the sort of American Ofcom equivalent that he couldn't appear on the live show.And so they ended up putting it on YouTube.And there was quite a lot of controversy at the time from the person who was in the runoff with Tallarico, Jasmine Crockett, who sort of, I don't know, thought there was something slightly fishy about this.And she wondered whether he was getting a bit of a hand up over her at that point.

But they did put it on YouTube.It got four million views overnight, like way, way outstripping the actual program itself.and his fundraising went off the charts at that point.But I think to your point about Ken Paxton reaching the non -MAGA voters in Texas, there is also a charge for Tallarico because he has to pick up Jasmine Crockett's supporters.She is a young, female, black American who might have been taking her voters with her.So he has somehow got to reach across the Democratic aisle and make sure that even though things ended badly between those two, he is still picking up all the potential available Democratic votes in that state.

And you're right.I mean,on the one hand, yes, we've been through it all before with Beto.On the other hand, there is something about this guy when he stumps, and it's something that Obama has noticed and sort of hailed.If he made it through this race, if he became the Democratic senator for Texas, I think I can almost guarantee you that he would then be talked about as a potential president for either the next round or the one after that, because to have done that would be so seismic.for the Democratic Party.

It would be so unusual and it would be such a vote of confidence in the kind of charisma and the potential and the personality of one man that I think the Dems would immediately start sort of, you know, getting the bunting out and possibly the halo out and thinking they'd found their saviour.

Look, it is decades since the Democrats last took a Senate seat in Texas.And so this would be a huge event.And I think that, frankly, if Tallarico could take Texas, then the Democrats are going to win control of the Senate, which would be hugely significant and absolutely kind of thwart Donald Trump's ambition in the second half of his second term.Although Donald Trump is trying to profess that he doesn't care about the midterm elections.And, you know, he was saying that in the context of Iran and the fact that the Strait of Hormuz is still shut and the cost of fuel in America is still very high and all those things.And so, yeah, I don't care about any of that.

You can be sure that the Republican Party as a whole is absolutely crapping itself about that.And so for when Donald Trump just says, yeah, You know, oil prices don't care.I don't care about the midterms.I think the Republicans start tearing their hair out.

The economic system is broken down.They thought they were going to outweigh me.You know, we'll outweigh him.He's got the midterms.I don't care about the midterms.Look what happened last night.

That was the prelude to the midterms.

And the prelude to the midterms that he's talking about, about the victory he won last night, is, of course, Ken Paxton.And it's Donald Trump simultaneously, and we've seen it before, in his political career simultaneously can win and he can lose.Yes, he got Ken Paxton, his person in, but has he made Texas now?

Why did you do it?

Why did you do it?What have you gained?And, you know, it would have been an absolute shoo -in for Cornyn if he had stood again for the Senate.But no, Donald Trump wanted his man.He's got his man.He's doing a victory lap now.

But in November, it might be entirely different.

Yeah, it's the very definition of a vanity project, really, isn't it?

Completely.And Donald Trump has done this because he willed it and he wanted to have, you know, he places such a premium on total abject loyalty.that he went ahead with this idea of Paxton to be the Senate candidate for Texas and he may pay a really, really heavy price for it.

We'll be back in a moment talking to the Pennsylvania Congressman Brendan Boyle about the other races we should start keeping an eye on now.

The News Agents USA.

Well joining us now, Brendan Boyle, Congressman from Pennsylvania and ranking member of the House Budget Committee.Congressman, Do you think that the Democrats are now looking at the Texas race in a new light, given who James Tallaricobe up against?

Yeah, good to be with you.You know, I have to say I have not been one of those Democrats who every cycle predicts that this will be the year that we win statewide in Texas.The last time, in fact, Democrats won a major statewide race in Texas was Ann Richards in 1990.So it has been more than a generation.And as I mentioned, I've always been a bit of a skeptic.That said, if we are ever going to win taxes, This really is the perfect formula for a variety of reasons.

First and foremost is just the overall environment.I mean, we are now, I checked it as of this morning, Democrats have an eight point lead on the generic congressional ballot.That is massive.And I'm used to political races nowadays decided by half a percentage point or one percentage point.So to have an eight point lead, the last time Democrats won an election by that margin, was the blue wave of 2018 that saw us win 40 House seats.So that's number one.

Number two, I think we do have a talented Democratic candidate in James Tallarico.And then the third reason, finally, is the deeply damaged Ken Paxson.The Republicans just spent more than $100 million in negative advertising against the man who is now their Republican nominee.He is a guy who was impeached by a state house that was controlled by Republicans.So if it is ever going to happen, this would be the cycle.

You will have seen his attack ad that plaints Tallarico as a vegan in Texas, as a lover of trans kids in Texas, as somebody who is a radical leftist in Texas.I mean, that stuff will have traction, won't it?

Republicans always run the same race basically saying look this Democrat is weird.He's probablygay, not normal.That's their same schtick basically every election.In many ways, George Herbert Walker Bush ran that race against Mike Dukakis in 1988.And this is just the latest variation of it.

The question is, in an environment like this, in which not just Texas, but nationwide, The views on the economy by the American public are the lowest they have been since polling began asking this question in 1952.The approval rating of President Trump when it comes to his handling of the economy, the last time we saw a president in the 20s was George W. Bush at the height of the Great Recession in the fall of 2008.So maybe it will work again this time, but I actually think that the economic issues far and away will be the number one reason why people vote for Democrats.

Let me take you to your home turf of Pennsylvania and John Fetterman, who is a senator there who is not a kind of normal cut of Democrats and has been sort of welcomed by the other side, as frankly sounding quite maggot on a lot of issues.I mean, do you still think of him as useful to the Democrats or is he is he just not on the same side?

Well, his evolution has certainly been head spinning because it was just a few years ago that he was seen as a very far left figure.And the sort of Fox News hardcore right that is now embracing him were, of course, the ones who were bashing him just a few years ago.So, look, he's still a Democratic member of the U .S.Senate, votes with us a majority of the time.But I do notice that he is on American television here pretty much daily.

spouting a lot of the common maggot oil.points.So where Federman will be tomorrow, I really can't predict.

Would you take him on?Are you interested in standing for that seat?

Well, you know, although I love the news agents, this is probably not where I'd be announcing a candidacy for statewide office in Pennsylvania.But I will say that the most important thing is that we win the midterms this November.If we do, I will be the chairman.of the House Budget Committee, obviously a very important position.And then whatever I may decide in 2028, I'll worry about when that cycle comes.

You could rule it out, though.

I could, but I won't.I won't rule out in or anything, in or out, whether it comes to 2028, 2030, 2032.One game at a time is something I learned long ago as a long -suffering Philadelphia sports fan.

So there's a man who still believes that 2028 will see a normal presidential election cycle, presumably.The thing we learned in the last week is that Trump has amassed a slush fund 1 .776 billion to bail out what sounds like convicts.Is that going to get through?Is that going to get through Congress now?

Well, first, I mean, it's it's just disgusting.And as someone who personally experienced January 6th barricaded in my office, the idea that any one of those criminals would get just even one penny of taxpayer money.Frankly, a lot of them should still be in jail today.And they would be had they not been pardoned by Donald Trump.In terms of the brass tacks of whether or not they will actually get a payout, at this moment, I would say I'm skeptical.We were supposed to vote last week on a piece of legislation that would keep the government funded in terms of the rest of the Department of Homeland Security, including Congress.

when it comes to ice and CBP that vote did not happen because the effort to attach this Trump slush fund for criminals.was simply did not have majority support.And John Thune, the Republican Senate leader, has flat out said publicly that he doesn't have the votes for it.So while, you know, everything can change on a dime when it comes to life on Capitol Hill, as we sit here today, I would say that I think the odds are it does not pass.

I was listening to one of the police officers who was injured in January the 6th, and he was sort of almost angrier at the relaxed nature of the Democratic Party at this point.He was like, why aren't people literally marching on the streets, marching on the bridges?Why don't people call this out for what it is?The most, I mean, the sort of corruption, off the charts.And I wonder if you think that he has a point that we're still sort of playing this asymmetric politics here, where, you know, you might stop a bill or you might sort of, as Gavin Newsom is suggesting, tax at 100%, but none of it is kind of shaking America by the shoulders.

Yeah, look, I don't speak for every Democrat.I can only speak for myself.I was on CNN last week and I called those people scum.And I'm pretty pissed that they would, frankly, that they even got pardoned.Just like I'm pissed off that Trump even was elected a second time after January 6th.And I think a lot of us are still trying to figure out exactly how that could happen.

So I share his anger.You know, he's one of 140 U .S.Capitol Police officers who were injured, many of whom badly injured on that dark day.So I share his anger.and we'll keep speaking out on this.

I am a co -sponsor, by the way, of legislation that would stop.this.I'm a co -sponsor on another bill that if it were to come to pass, would tax it at a 100%.So my view is I will do anything possible in order to prevent this from happening.

Why do you think so many Republicans are so relaxed with what Trump is up to right now?

I mean, I think you know the answer to that question.What we've seen the last few weeks, they're afraid of losing a primary.They saw what happened to Cassidy.in Louisiana.They saw what just happened to Cornyn in Texas.They saw what happened to Thomas Massey.

And so that's why you have a number of congressional Republicans who will privately, in quiet, say something to me, and then in public, play a different role on TV and try to be more MAGA than they actually are, because they're afraid of losing their jobs.It's that simple.

And would you, I mean, would you call them out?Would you name them?

You know, it's, you know, publicly naming them, I try to, in private, stiffen their backbones.There's also the reality that, you know, for a number of them who have spoken out and have been defeated in primaries, the person who wins ends up being far worse than they were.So it's a real conundrum.Ultimately, the root of the problem is that as unpopular as Donald Trump is now with the general election audience, his approval is in the high 30s, nonetheless, among the Republican primary electorate, Donald Trump still has about 75 to 80 % support, and that has proven decisive.So until we can get that figure low enough, unfortunately, this is the very unhealthy, sick dynamic that we have to continue to live with.

In this country, an investigation's just been launched into Nigel Farage by the ethics commissioner about funding that he received, a donation he received of 4 million pounds.In the US, that figure wouldn't even touch the sides of the money that is swilling around now, admittedly, in the White House itself.Why do you think the American public is not more concerned by that?

I would push back on that.I have to say, just going around the streets of Philadelphia, I do have a lot of people bring up to me, the corruption issue.Remember, we haven't had any sort of, other than the special elections, we haven't had any sort of election since we have seen the unbelievable scale of corruption in this Donald Trump second term, which makes him look like a Boy Scout, actually, in his first term.The lesson he learned from not being prosecuted was that he is a green light.He can get away with it.So the first time we will really have a referendum on this sort of gross level of of corruption will be the midterm elections in about five months from now.

I do wanna make one other point though.I really hope the British public learns the lesson of Donald Trump when it comes to Nigel Farage.It is amazing to me the way these hucksters and flim flam artists are able to get away with some of this stuff in this new media environment.Farage is a total fraud and I hope the British public realizes it before it's too late.

I guess their response would be it's the failures of the traditional parties and their traditional policies, which have allowed, encouraged these insurgents to say they haven't delivered you what you want.What would you say as a Democrat to that?

Yeah, I would say, I mean, I think there's a lot of blame to go around, whether it's the traditional parties or traditional media.But ultimately, in a democracy, the responsibility ultimately falls on the shoulders of the viewers or the voters and their good common sense.So I think that a lot of us are still trying to figure out in this new media.how we fight back against figures like Trump and Farage, but making sure they're at least held to the same standard.I mean, it's pretty amazing, this Texas race, for example.All I've heard about in the last 48 hours is this incendiary ad against Tallarico, calling him low -T and those sorts of things.

Here is Paxton, a guy who has a rap sheet.You need multiple pages in order to capture it all.I mean, a guy who has violated every rule in the book And then they're making all sorts of unfounded allegations about the Democratic nominee.So I think that, you know, the reality is the as you know, better than I, the traditional gatekeepers are gone.And how we fight back in this new environment is something that I think.traditional parties are still grappling with.

Yeah.I mean, do you think you've worked it out?Because you've basically laid it out there that one man's voice, even if he's a, you know, FBI chased, you know, crim is louder than the other guys, right?So how, how are you dealing with that now?And as a party, You know, you've sort of, I guess there has been a change, you know, when we would have talked about gerrymandering of sort of congressional seats a year ago, I think the Democrats would have been, a year ago, two years ago, the Democrats would have been horrified by it.And now your party is saying, well, yeah, we'll do whatever it takes.

I mean, are you as a Democrat saying, gloves off, whatever it takes?I'm not trying to go high anymore in the Michelle Obama line.I'm just trying to win this.

You know, I mean, being from blue collar Philly, I never accepted the Michelle Obama line of when they go low, we go high.My my attitude was go 10 times lower and punch them where it really hurts.

Where is that?

Where it really hurts?

Yeah.

Well, I was I was making actually a kind of a graphic allusion to.

No, I get it.I'm not.asking physically, but I'm saying where can you as a Democrat, where can you as a party actually hurt the Republicans that keep on winning elections?

For a minute there, Emily, I thought you were asking me for an entirely different kind of conversation.So you brought up gerrymandering.I have been vocal on this for years, going back many cycles.Democrats made a tremendous mistake by unilaterally disarming with these high -minded and naive and dopey independent commissions in blue states while getting our teeth kicked in in red states.So you have New York, Colorado, Ustav, California, where Democrats would have good government, fair maps, frankly, the way I think it should be nationwide, but would do this on an ad hoc basis in blue states.while red states like Florida and Texas and Ohio would gerrymander out the wazoo.

I have publicly anyone on Twitter knows this for years have been calling for an end to that.I'm glad that finally this cycle Democrats responded.And by the way, really have to give Gavin Newsom credit.He took a big risk when he said, you know what, we are actually going to undertake changing the state constitution so that we can fight back.so that we can have a map that basically applies the same rules in California that Republicans are using in Texas.And he went about and he did it.

Democrats went ahead and did that in Virginia.Unfortunately, an outrageous court decision threw out a publicly held free and fair election of the public.But I encourage Democrats to keep doing this for next cycle.We need to do it in New York state.in Colorado, in Oregon, in Washington, until we get a fair nationwide standard on gerrymandering,we have to fight back and fight back harder.

And what are your three words for Democrats fighting the midterms in November?I mean, if there is the simplest message that you could distill what you want to in a line, what is it?

I mean, it's about the voters.I know that's four, sorry.It's about the voters.It always is.Ultimately, when we're talking about a 50 % increase in gas prices in just the last two months, when you're talking about the highest utility bills on record, when you're talking about healthcare premiums through the roof, and a big reason why is the Republican tax bill for billionaires.They passed last summer.

Ultimately, this midterm election, like almost every midterm election, is a referendum and not a choice.Talking about the incredibly bad economy that we have now, and that we will actually focus on the middle class and working class of this country.That's ultimately what people care about more than any of the other sort of social issues that tend to dominate media conversation.

Are you optimistic?

I am, yes.You know, I'm very, I am incredibly optimistic about this midterm election.And I would say I'm neutral about 2028.We will win.a big victory this November.That will be the good news.

But what I will say a week later, when we House Democrats convene in Washington in the majority and I have the gavels Budget Committee chair, what I will say to my new members is, all right, be wary of irrational exuberance.This tells us nothing about the dynamics of 2028.That will be more of a choice election.And we still have some issues that we need to resolve on our own side.

Congressman Brendan Boyle, thank you very much.

Thank you.

The News Agents USA.

Exclusive and breaking news right now.The Justice Department, CNN is learning, has launched a new criminal investigation into one of Trump's enemies, E. Jean Carroll.Now, E. Jean Carroll was the former magazine columnist who accused President Donald Trump of sexual assault, ended up being that he was liable for sexual abuse.The source is telling CNN that the investigation now is focused on whether Carroll committed perjury during her two civil lawsuits against the president.

So let's just remind you who E. Jean Carroll was.She's an 82 -year -old woman who successfully sued Trump not once, but twice after his first administration, during that time when he was out of office.Now, that first suit was her civil case, which alleged he sexually abused her in a department store, a clothing store in New York, right back in the mid -1990s.And he denied that, but she won.And she sued him again for defamation, getting an absolutely massive payout in the millions after he accused her of being a liar and fabricating her own claims to sell books.So he has clearly decided this week that she is enemy numero uno and he's put the Department of Justice on on to an investigation to decide whether she committed perjury.

She was asked about her funding when she was going through the trial, and she denied that she was getting external funding.And it then emerged that she was getting funding from the billionaire Reid Hoffman.And so he is trying to essentially reopen litigation on the basis of whether she lied to the courts.It's It is extraordinary that since that trial he has been engaged in legal battles with her pretty much non -stop and it is now set in motion.go to the Supreme Court.And I guess the thing that is on people's minds is, a, whether It is ever worth fighting a legal battle with Trump because clearly all he wants to do is make sure that it never ends and they can never win and that even in this case with a million many million pound payout, she is still suffering years on.

But I guess the alternative way of looking at this is, if it is found to be that she is a victim of political attack, could she actually become one of the first victims to receive a payout from his potential slush fund?All these questions are circulating now around E. Jean Carroll.We'll be back next week.We'll see you then.Bye for now.

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