Chapter 1: What recent events have impacted the Department of Homeland Security?
Hello, and welcome to The David Frum Show. I'm David Frum, a staff writer at The Atlantic. My guest this week will be Beto O'Rourke, who ran for U.S. Senate from Texas in 2018, ran for governor of Texas in 2022. We'll be discussing about the politics of the state of Texas after the March 3rd primary. For my book talk this week, we're going to be doing something a little bit different.
This week marks the 250th anniversary of the publication of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. And I will be joined to discuss that by one of the world's leading experts on Adam Smith, an old friend of mine named Samuel Fleishacher, who teaches at the University of Illinois in Chicago. And we'll be doing a short book dialogue about Adam Smith and the Wealth of Nations.
Before turning to either Beto O'Rourke or the Wealth of Nations, I want to open with some preliminary thoughts about events of the recent days. If you traveled over the weekend just past, you probably encountered snarling queues at TSA or any of the other airport check-ins. This may have been maliciously organized by the Department of Homeland Security to drive home a point.
It may be a genuine problem. I can't assess that. But it is true that the Department of Homeland Security's budget is stalled in Congress. And it is true there is no leadership at the Department of Homeland Security. President Trump just removed the head of DHS, Kristi Noem, and her deputy, Corey Lewandowski. And he has proposed to nominate someone else, but there's no action on that nomination.
And so there's no leadership. There's no budget at the Department of Homeland Security in the middle of a U.S.-led war against the world's leading state sponsor of terror.
At the FBI, which is also a bureaucracy in charge of keeping Americans safe against terrorism, many of the leading counterterrorism experts have been purged from the FBI because they had worked on cases involving President Trump. Now, just how bizarre is this?
A week ago, the United States started a war or joined a war or resumed a war or intensified a war, you can put it however you like, against the world's leading state sponsor of terror. It is a predictable response by the Iranians to this military confrontation with the United States. They would try to turn on all of their worldwide terror networks
And the United States is without leadership and without a budget for the agency that is most responsible for keeping Americans safe against terrorism. That's something you would think that would be thought of in advance, but apparently it has not been. OK, all right. Maybe they didn't think about it in advance.
But now, now that the war is actually here, you think there would be a big hurry to get the Department of Homeland Security on a counterterrorism footing to stop the inessentials like detaining grandmothers and shooting Americans at street corners? And to focus on the core mission for which the DHS was created back in the George W. Bush years, counterterrorism. Focus on that. But no, no.
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Chapter 2: What insights does Beto O'Rourke offer about the Texas Senate primary?
They vote by mail. Their vote still counts. They are American citizens, naturalized or native born, but with just a different accent or a different skin color. So maybe that's what Donald Trump has in mind. But whatever he's got in mind, whether it's some...
strange or crazy reaction to his defeat in 2020, whether it's a strategic plan to stop or harass voting in 2026, or whether it's just a misconception of who votes by mail that, in fact, it is a Republican-leading constituency that mostly uses this option.
Whatever his motive, the point is he's holding hostage, he who started the war or who intensified this war, he's holding hostage the national security counterterrorism budget of the United States in a war with the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism. in a war that he timed and that he chose. It just seems a bizarre abdication of responsibility.
Now, if you watched my dialogue with Tom Nichols last week, you've noticed I have a lot of sympathy for at least the stated goals of confronting Iran to punish the world's leading state sponsor of terror, to stop the Iranian nuclear program, and to deliver the promised help to the brave people of Iran who rose in January against an oppressive government, one of the most repressive and aggressive governments in the world.
They rose in hundreds of thousands and were killed in the thousands. The President of the United States promised to help them. And I think even when the president is Donald Trump, the promises of the president should be made good.
But the anxiety that Tom and I discussed last week and that I've discussed in articles with The Atlantic is these guys, these guys, these guys are supposed to lead the war. They don't seem capable of organizing a lemonade stand. What do you mean they're going to lead a war and such an ambitious war?
And the proof of all of those anxieties being well-founded is what is happening now with the counterterrorism. The idea you would go to war against Iran with a non-functioning Department of Homeland Security.
And now that you know it's non-functioning and that the queues are snaking around the block at America's airports because global entry isn't working and TSA isn't there and Department of Homeland Security is not doing its job, it says because it doesn't have enough budget.
that you would not hasten to get that budget passed by any compromise necessary, hasten to install the most professional counterterrorism leadership you could find, and not pick the next DHS leader because that person is good at going on TV and defending President Trump no matter what he does.
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Chapter 3: Why do Texas Democrats struggle to win statewide elections?
It's great to be with you. Thanks for having me on.
So here's the first question. I sort of gave a summary of what has gone on in the longer view of Texas. What is your interpretation of Texas politics as it stands after March 3rd?
It's one of the most exciting times, at least in my lifetime, especially if you're a Democrat in the state of Texas. You have a generational talent in James Tallarico. who not only won the primary for the U.S. Senate in Texas, but won it against another generational talent in Jasmine Crockett. I think this contest only made him a stronger candidate.
It allowed him to introduce himself not just to the voters in Texas who are the most important constituency in this, but also to the rest of the country. The Texas Senate race is by definition a national race. If Tallarico wins this in November, he could very well be the 51st vote in the United States Senate. So the position that he's in right now, I don't know, could be any better.
And you contrast that, David, with the Republican Senate primary where John Cornyn and Ken Paxton and their allies have spent more than $90 million. I think it's the most expensive Senate primary in world history. $90 million tearing each other apart only to have to face each other again in a runoff to that primary on the 26th of May.
There's two more months of this unless, as you alluded to, one of them drops out at the behest of the president. But I don't see either one of them doing that, even if Trump
demands it so tallarico has the opportunity over the coming two months to consolidate support to go out and earn the votes of jasmine crockett's constituency and the people who are most excited about her and to go into the final stretch into november in a very strong position in addition and this has never happened before at least not in the last 50 years
There is a Democrat running for every single state house seat in Texas. There's 150 of them. Every open state Senate seat, there's 16 of them. And every congressional race, there are 38 of them. We have a full ticket for the first time since 1974. And even if many of those Democratic contenders do not win in, let's say, the Panhandle or Abilene or Odessa or East Texas,
they are still going to draw in net new Democratic voters and send those votes all the way to the top of the ticket, which is only going to help James Tallarico.
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Chapter 4: What strategies are Texas Democrats employing for the upcoming elections?
And James Tallarico, who no one had ever heard of, defeated an incumbent state house Republican in that year. It was a sea change for Texas. And David, the response from the governor, Greg Abbott, and the Republican legislature was to make it even harder for people to vote in Texas. This is the state that makes it harder than any other, not only to register to vote, but to cast a ballot.
The highest forms of voter suppression, ironically, in the state that produced LBJ and the Voting Rights Act in 1965 in the first place. So those targets are on black voters, they're on young voters, they're on census tracts in communities like Houston, Texas, the most diverse city in America.
where Republicans cynically believe that if they make it harder for people in these communities to vote, they can hold on to power. And so far, that has proven true. You see these restrictions getting more onerous with each passing election cycle. I think this perfect storm that I just described is the best way to overcome that. Not that it will be easy.
Despite all those conditions that I described earlier, you also have now a president hell bent on retaining power because he understands the consequences of a potential loss. There will no longer be impunity for his crimes and corruption. There will be the very real prospect of free and fair elections in 2028.
And you will have Democratic chairs who have subpoena power to be able to disclose the full Epstein files, for example, or to lay bare the connections between money and influence and outcomes in the White House. He understands what's coming for him if he loses.
Hence, asking Greg Abbott and the Republican legislature to gerrymander five congressional districts in Texas, which they did last summer, his threat to cancel mail-in voting. And I would not be surprised if he sent federal agents, Border Patrol, ICE, or otherwise to popular polling places in big cities in Texas. But here's a glimmer of hope.
In addition to the monster turnout that we saw in Texas over our primary that concluded on March 3rd, shattered records across the state, in five of those newly gerrymandered seats, more Democrats voted in the primary in those congressional districts than did Republicans. And that's with a hotly contested Republican primary for Senate and a hotly contested Democratic primary for Senate. So
the momentum is with us right now and if we needed more proof you probably saw this but on january 31st in a special election for a state senate seat a democrat defeated the republican by 14 points in a district that trump had won 14 months earlier by 17 points it was a 31 point swing in Tarrant County, home to Fort Worth.
So there are really good things happening here, but we know that we're going to meet the threat of the president trying to control this situation in Texas.
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Chapter 5: How does voter turnout affect Democratic chances in Texas?
It's in the game and it's not spoken for already. I think that's an exciting dynamic in Texas. So I think it's both a turnout issue and a persuasion issue. And I think we have an amazing candidate at the top of the ticket who can help us accomplish both.
Well, persuasion versus turnout was kind of the abstract issue in the primary. Crockett saying, we don't need to persuade anybody. We just need to turn out the voters who are not turning out. Flying in the face of the political scientists who said, the people who don't turn out are more Trumpy, not less Trumpy.
And Tallarico saying, I think I can persuade some of the people who formerly voted for Trump. And that was the question, persuasion versus turnout. And those are both plausible points of view. Why, given that there were two plausible theories of the election, why did the election turn so nasty? Why can't Democrats in Texas play nicer with one another?
I think to some degree, it's just a function of a contested primary, which we haven't had in Texas in as long as I can remember. There nominally have been
primary contest but there really hasn't been one like this where where you have two people who can raise you know more money than god who have almost universal name id amongst democrats and as you pointed out have two really distinct theories of the case whether it's persuasion or whether it's turnout and and stylistically i don't know that you could pick
two more polar opposites than jasmine crockett and james talarico i think it was a great thing honestly having that spirited contest drew in precisely the kinds of voters who've been missing from our politics and our elections in the state of texas overwhelmingly young people who turned out at much higher rates in this primary than they ever have before
in the state of Texas, and if we can keep them engaged now that their interest is peaked after this contest, if James Tallarico can consolidate that support, especially from Jasmine Crockett's base and the folks who are most excited about her, I think this just adds more wind So I'm not perhaps as disturbed as you might think I would be by the nature of that contest.
I think overall it was a good thing. It's a reflection if the market is telling us something that this is a very winnable seat. So I take all this as a good sign. And David, it's not just because I'm an optimist. It's because I really see it. in the turnout where you had really tough contests on both sides, but 100,000 plus more Democrats voted in Texas on March 3rd than Republicans.
That never happens. It happened in 2020 only because we had a contested Democratic presidential primary, but that's the anomaly. Otherwise, this never happens in Texas. So that many more Democrats turning out in the primary bodes very well for November.
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Chapter 6: What role does voter suppression play in Texas politics?
is that Jasmine Crockett did overwhelmingly well amongst black voters in Texas. And as you probably know, David, there are more black voters in the state of Texas than there are in any other state in the union. And this is a constituency in Texas, as it has been throughout the country, that I think my party has taken for granted. Your skin is black. You're probably going to vote for me.
I don't have to work on it or earn your vote or spend time in your community. You this party. Jasmine was able to electrify, energize, and turn out people who felt like they had been taken for granted by the Democratic Party before. If she and Tallarico can work in tandem to make sure that these voters know that they are a priority,
in this party, not just in the primary, but through the general election, I really think we have something there. And that hopefully is going to be the other side to the story that you've begun to tell today about this division within our party. These two people coming together, bringing the rest of us together, I think could just be the most positive thing to happen for Texas.
And given the outsized role our state plays in our national politics for the country as well.
You keep reminding us of the size of Texas. And as obvious a point as that is, it's really important to keep in mind. And sometimes people in the rest of the country just, the idea that Texas is not just massively large in physical space, but so overwhelmingly populous. I did not know the point you just made that there are more black voters in Texas than in any other state.
If you'd asked me that in advance, I would have guessed that question wrong. So that's another reminder. But let me test a theory on you. One of the consequences of the vastness of Texas and the fact there are so many different large metropolitan areas, means it just takes a lot of money to mount a competitive campaign.
And Texas then becomes a magnet for money from all over the country, and especially from national donors who are much more progressive than Texas voters. And so you get this push of candidates farther to the left than really suits the Texas electorate.
And one of the reasons the Texas Democrats have not done well since the time of Lloyd Benson and Ann Richards is they are pushed, unlike Benson and Richards, away from the Texas voter by the national donor.
And when you look at Tallarico, he seems to have staked out a lot of issue positions in pursuit of donations that are not going to suit him as he becomes a general election candidate against whoever the Republicans produce, especially if it's John Cornett.
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Chapter 7: How is the Democratic Party addressing internal divisions in Texas?
And I think the AB is all red in 24 in Tallarico in 26.
Well, let me push you a little more on this. It seems to me, and again, I'm looking at this from outside, but the theory of the National Democratic Party is the way you hold together a coalition is you find candidates who give the progressives what they want on the issues, but have some biographical element that in theory should appeal to non-progressives.
And that's how Tim Walz found himself Harris's running mate in 2024. He's very, very progressive on the issues, but former football coach, and he had this kind of shuffling dad from a TV comedy show demeanor, and so he would, the biography, the physical presence would appeal to the center and the right, but the positions would appeal to the left, result, failure.
You can't blame it all on him, but it obviously didn't work. And there seems to be some similar theory about Tallarica, which is he's very liberal on the issues, much more so than you were in 2018, but he speaks a lot about religion, he's a seminarian, and the theory of the case is that by talking about religion and his background in seminary, that will offset the issues.
He's a much more refined version of the Tim Walz proposition, but it's the same proposition. And what do you think of that theory?
I don't know. And I don't know how calculated this approach is. I... really like to think that this is authentic and genuinely James Tallarico and his approach to the world. But I understand how it can seem programmed, right? Like you're gonna be a straight white male who's conversant in Bible verse and New Testament theology.
and has a way of breaking through to audiences and parts of the electorate that maybe were unavailable to Democrats before and might also kind of buffer the impact of liberal or progressive ideas on hot button issues. What I think that people want even more than that package is change from what has failed them so far.
And James Tallarico is just so different than anything that we have seen, or at least that I have seen in the state of Texas. That package that you just described, you know, his extraordinary ability to connect with audiences, whether he's doing it on TikTok or or Instagram digitally through a screen or in person in large gatherings and town halls in rural communities and big cities alike.
This feels different to people because I think it is different for all of us. And if 2024 was a change election, I think 2026, I guess they're all change elections. But I think the premium on change and something different is going to be greater than perhaps at any other time. So I think he's going to represent that to people.
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