Hi, this is Josh Marshall, and this is the TPM show with Josh and Kate.

It is Wednesday, May 27th, starting just before noon as we normally do.

Before we get started on what we're going to talk about today, you know, I was at a college reunion last weekend.

And, you know, as happens at these things, people come up to me and they ask me about politics and stuff like that. But I had a number of people come up to me and they said, a lot of them said in one way or another, you know, you and Kate have sort of brought me around on court reform. But the interesting thing,

and the, you know, the Kate part of that is a giveaway, they focused on the podcast. And obviously,

I write about this just as much in the editor's blog. And it was just gratifying because a lot of

you are listening to the podcast and enjoying it. So obviously this was not a cross-section of the population in general.

It was people I went to college with and, you know, similar ages and stuff like that.

But it was really fun to hear.

So I just wanted to thank the people who came up and mentioned stuff to me, but also just generally, all of you who are enjoying the podcast.

So today, we're going to start with some breaking news out of Texas.

We had the primaries last night.

The big story there, although I guess not really a huge surprise, Ken Paxton ended the career of John Cornyn.

Then we are going to talk about the ongoing news of redistricting racial gerrymandering in the Deep South. And then finally,

we're going to come back to the situation up on Capitol Hill, where things like the end of John Cornyn's career, the slush fund, and all

these other things are, you know, they're pushing things to the breaking point, even with the

normally highly compliant Republican majorities on Capitol Hill.

So, Kate, let's get started.

What can we say about Ken Paxton and John Cornyn?

Embarrassing way for Cornyn to go out, you know.

It's rough.

It's rough.

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