49: Stand Up with Beto O’Rourke
The Lincoln Project
The Lincoln Project
4.6 • 9.1K Ratings
🗓️ 23 July 2021
⏱️ 38 minutes
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Summary
Host Reed Galen is joined by Beto O’Rourke, former United States Congressman and Founder of Powered By People. They discuss the political landscape that is Texas, the latest regarding the Texas Legislature's voter-suppression bill and the 50+ Texas Democrats currently in Washington, and Speaker Pelosi’s decision to reject the additions of Jim Jordan and Jim Banks to the January 6th House Select Committee. Plus, Beto O’Rourke spotlights the work of his PAC, Powered By People.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to the Lincoln Project. I'm your host, Reed Galen. Today, I'm joined by |
| 0:13.3 | former United States Congressman for the 16th District of Texas. I candidate for the |
| 0:17.9 | US Senate in Texas in 2018 and a Democratic primary aspirin in 2020. When founder of |
| 0:23.9 | the PAC powered by people, Beto Arork, Beto, thanks for joining me. Reed, it's good to be |
| 0:28.9 | with you. Thanks for having me. Listen, today I want to talk about what's going on down in |
| 0:32.6 | Texas. Obviously, you're from El Paso, so you know the place well and how that's impacting voting |
| 0:37.7 | rights. And I also want to talk a little bit about what we're seeing going on with Speaker |
| 0:41.7 | Pelosi and the Select Committee on January 6th. And then a little bit more about what powered by |
| 0:46.8 | people is doing. I know you've done a ton of voter registration in the last couple years, |
| 0:51.0 | but let's start with what's going on in Texas. So just as a little bit of background, |
| 0:55.2 | you know, I went to high school and college down there. I worked for George W. Bush, you know, 97, |
| 0:59.7 | 98 worked for Tony Garza, David Doherst, people who are all sort of very out of step with the |
| 1:05.2 | Republican Party of Texas of today. And so, you know, right now there's a special session going on. |
| 1:10.6 | It's called by Greg Abbott. Obviously, there's the voter suppression piece. There's trans issues, |
| 1:15.5 | but a lot of this is sort of performative in nature. So I want to ask you two questions. One is |
| 1:20.5 | in the conversations you're having with folks down there, do you believe that they're going to be |
| 1:25.6 | successful in this special session? Secondly, do you believe Abbott when he says that he'll just |
| 1:30.4 | keep calling these things, you know, between now and whenever to try and get this stuff done? And |
| 1:36.0 | lastly, what kind of evolution have you seen in Texas politics since you got your start first in |
| 1:42.1 | El Paso and then as a member of Congress? So let's start with how you see SB one in the fight. |
| 1:47.1 | Obviously, I've talked to a number of the Democratic members of the House. I had Julie Johnson on |
| 1:50.8 | the podcast earlier this week. So what's going on from your perspective down there? I think you have |
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