Reminder: It’s All Nonsense (with Rep. Colin Allred)

Hello, and welcome to the Sunday version of the next level. I’m Tim Miller here with my BFF forever. Jonathan Last Last. We have an awesome guest coming for you today. Congressman out of the Dallas suburbs, Colin Allred.

Congressman Allred was an NFL linebacker. He played at Baylor all four years, went undrafted, and then gutted it out through training camp, made it into the NFL just based on his own fortitude, testicular fortitude, internal mental fortitude, whatever it is, and it’s a great interview. He’s also on the oversight committee right now. And so we ask him about that. We ask him about Ted Cruz.

We talk about his football career and his time in Congress. JBL, what’d you think? He’s amazing.

What a cool guy and a smart guy and a genuine guy too is incredibly candid. Who normally politicians are not candid. And he just really told us what he thought about stuff. He was great.

And I found out afterwards he d m me, he had strep throat the whole episode. Oh, he had strep throat. So he got it out fifty five minutes with us, you know, listening to my BS and and he stuck with us. I bet his kids gave it to him. So it’s gonna be great.

Every week, by the way, for folks who are new to the Sunday show. Every week, we’re gonna do a little bit of politics at the top before we get to our special guest interviewer. Some weeks, the interview is gonna be more about stuff outside of politics. And we’ll talk more about politics at the top. This week, since we had a congressman, we did quite a bit of politics.

So I thought that maybe we just start really quick JBL with something a little lighter fare. Little lighter fare. I don’t know. Oh, pumping fingers. Yeah.

God. Yeah. A little putting finger content. Tiny d. Meatball run.

Have you seen this video that’s been going around this morning? I guess it went around in twenty eighteen, but I just I must not have paid as close attention to the twenty eighteen Florida governor’s races I thought. And it’s been resurfaced. And have you have you seen it yet? It’s about Ron DeSantis’ name, how he pronounces his own name?

Hit me with it. Let’s just do it live. I am Ron DeSantis. I’m

Ron DeSantis. Sure. I am Ron DeSantis. This is governor Ron DeSantis. Hello.

This is governor Ron DeSantis wishing everyone a merry Christmas. Hi. This is governor Ron DeSantis, and I wanna wish you a happy Thanksgiving. Hi. I’m governor Ron DeSantis, and I wanna congratulate all of you at rumble as you open your US headquarters.

Is that a deep fake?

I I literally I was con I saw it on Twitter and I thought it might be a deep fake before I suggested we discuss it. So I went back and I found a YouTube clip, a news clip of legit news, not fake news, twenty eighteen where they had it. Well, see, here’s the thing. Here’s a Ron DeSantis,

Love Paul, Ryan, and Love Ukraine, and wanted to go in there and gut so security, Medicare, and kick all those old folks off that because of the free markets, but Ron DeSantis. He is an America firster who is absolute hates the globalist cucks and is never gonna touch your entitlements to your old people.

It’s interesting. I mean, you know, look, after a few bourbons, I slip into a little bit of a southern draw. I do.

He can say, I’ve changed. I’ve changed so much. I don’t even say

my name the same way. I’ve been known to pick up in a Louisiana accent that’s not authentic. And so I get your own name, it’s a little weird. It’s a little odd in your in your forties to decide that decent to But was he worried about the tiny d nickname? Did he first see that coming?

Do you think? And he was like, I don’t wanna be tiny d. So we’re gonna go with Dustin. The other theory from the video I watch, Casey, the wife, the wife might not like Ron DeSantis. Because on her videos, it’s always been desantis.

I don’t know. It’s on. It’s it’s a little we can and it’s not the biggest deal in the world, you know. It’s surely not the same as, like, Donald Trump. Putting out a video doing Henry Wallace, like we should blame Americans instead of the comedies.

Trend has, like,

is that a big

deal is that, of course. But It’s weird. You’d we’d have to concur.

Well, it’s of a piece with the idea that he isn’t who he says he is. Right? And this is Trump’s main line of attack is that this guy over here he’s just copying me. You can’t trust him. He’s just, you know, looked at what he was saying about Paul Ryan just five minutes ago.

And don’t know. You know what? This is Amanda and I, Amanda Carpenter, and I talk about this all the time, which is, on the one hand, you can see how arguments would find purchase. With voters. But on the other hand, a lot of politics is just it.

And if voters like them, you know, you you could shoot a guy on Fifth Avenue and they won’t care. Alright.

Well, this is gonna be a really great interview. Stick around for Colin Allred. If you’re an audio listener of this podcast, go to YouTube. Subscribe also on YouTube for us. Comment on YouTube.

Like it. We’re trying to reach the masses out there, you know, on the worldwide web. So go to YouTube and subscribe as well. You’re gonna really enjoy this stick around to the end. Colin does assess how he would do in a wrestling match with Jim Jordan.

That’s something that you’re not gonna wanna miss. And we’ll see you back here on Wednesday with me J. V. On Sarah Longwell

we do every week. Enjoy. Congressman, thanks for being with us. Hey, thanks for having me, Tim. I’m good to see you, JV.

The origin story of this podcast is I was watching you just Tomahawk Dunk on the dude that was the special experts that the Republicans picked for the weaponization committee who, I guess, had great insight of supposedly into the FBI to fight back that they hadn’t worked the FBI since, like, nineteen eighty six when they were using pagers, and I was getting a huge kick out of that. And so I thought it’d be fun to have you on We can do a little bit of that and then talk a little bit about football in the spirit of our Sunday podcast to get off the news a little bit. So my first question for you is, I noticed you don’t have any hair. Wait a butter them up.

That’s great. Really get the guests all all butter. Thanks, Tim. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This will get you comfortable. I noticed you don’t have any hair.

You’re on this committee with Jim Jordan.

That’s right. Just

wondering how you’re kinda dealing with that since you can’t pull or twist your hair, which is what I do, and I’m like, stressed out? Like, did Nick or I come screaming internally, ujjayi Braats? Any any tips for dealing with Jim Jordan?

How how’s that going? Jim,

actually think that all of those would be nice to be able to do. I’m not getting I I try to remind myself how nonsense this committee is. And that normal folks back home are this is not why I was elected. This is not what they’re not paying attention to this. That mostly what we’re gonna be there to do is to just try and introduce some facts into a fact free environment.

But even having said that, I’m not somebody who is super online. And so during some of these committees, I think you heard me say that, Tim, I’m sometimes having a hard time following the conspiracy theories because there there’s so much, you know, specific terminology that you really have to be down the rabbit hole on it. You know, and like my staff will try to prep me on it. But I’m like, wait a second. So this is going back to how many years ago, you know, and and I don’t know.

I mean, The funny thing is if Democrats were ever organized enough to be able to pull off anything like the conspiracies that they accused us of then we would be a much stronger political force in in this country, you know. And we just don’t have that.

Well, it’s my burden to be aware of all of these conspiracy theories because I spent time listening to Steve Bannon’s podcast, so, you know, our listeners don’t have to. So I I think sometimes I’m down the rabbit hole, so maybe just to start for the listeners who like you are not very online. Can you just give us the reader’s digest version of what the Republicans are ostensibly arguing for this oversight committee and and kind of what your role is and pushing back on that?

Yeah. So the premise of the committee is that the by demonstration and the previous aspects of the Trump administration, particularly the national security aspects, the FBI, and and others, are, quote, weaponizing the federal government to attack Ron DeSantis conservatives. And, you know, but it’s an interesting theory, particularly since a lot of this occurred during the Trump administration, which is what we talked about so far.

You think the boss would have maybe done something about it? I guess, the big boss. You might have to

Right. And also, I mean, the idea that there’s some grand conspiracy and that you know, it’s not that they’re not able to connect with enough voters to to one in the last few elections. You know, it’s not that their views are fringe views. It’s just that they’re being silenced or they’re being targeted. And one of the interesting aspects of it is that many of the things that they accuse the by administration doing or the FBI doing are things that they have set themselves that they want to do.

You know? You know what I mean? Mhmm. This is it’s it’s very much a projection. Every

accusation is a confession type.

Right? Exactly. It’s very much projecting you know, this is what we would like to be doing. Unfortunately, we’ve not yet been successful in doing this, but should Donald Trump return that, you know, this is a preview of kind of the retribution to use this word, I think, that that they would be seeking. Our role, I think, is fairly straightforward.

You know, you can’t win an argument with people who don’t believe in in truth or who have a motivation that is, you know, outside of kind of discussion, you know, that their their motivation is totally different. So I think the way we see it and the way I see it is to just try and poke holes so that somebody who may be watching who might be maybe falling over the sway of this would question whether or not what they’ve been told is true. Maybe go find out for themselves whether or not you know, it’s really true that democrats are this bad or that, you know, that all of our national secured agencies are mostly focused not on China, not on Russia, but on conservative. Americans. Just kind of poke some holes in that and introduce some facts, understanding that the witnesses there are not gonna admit to anything that Certainly, my republican colleagues on the committee are not gonna back down from any of their claims.

That’s not what we’re trying to do. And so it is the least productive committee I’ve ever been on. There’s nothing that’s gonna come out of this. No productive legislation. Nothing to help average folks.

Nothing to help people who are, you know, trying to get by out there who are working hard. None of that. It’s just gonna be a partisan rancor. And to be honest with you, Tim, I think you know this about me. That’s not exactly my, you know, my forte, but that’s what we’re doing.

So Do

you hear from people in your district about this at all? Like, does any of it because we yeah. I think Tim coined the the term, you know, a couple years ago. There was this Trump cinematic universe. And it’s like, you know, dropping into see the fifteenth marvel movie if you’ve never seen any of the others.

Right? You can’t follow what’s

going on.

Man. What’s happening? And I think there’s an aspect to believe the the lovers Peter struck. Who is that? Right?

So when I don’t know. Like, you’re you’re back in your district and you pump it to someone at the HEB. Are they, like, you know, hey, that weaponization thing, you know, garners, why aren’t you doing more? Or does it just go right over their heads? Is this is this basically content produced by the cinematic universe?

For the cinematic universe? Or is it playing at all to people? I really think it

is it’s cable news fodder and and so folks who are maybe really plugged in on cable. But even, you know, Fox, was cutting away apparently and not showing the committee because it was so boring and didn’t have anything to deliver. Honestly, my office gets a lot of calls during these hearings. And they’re almost all from outside of the district. They’re not folks who Ron DeSantis.

They’re just folks who are watching and who wanna call and yell at a Democrat. And And Ron DeSantis so, you know, I I have yet to have a in person conversation about this. You know, when I drop my kids off at their day care, you know, nobody’s come out to me and be like, wow. You know, I’m really worried about Twitter files, you know, like, just

just kind of to strip this all down. People when you talk about poking holes, it’s got to be kind of news. To the extent that anyone notices that this is happening, and that’s to be kind of news to black Americans, brown Americans, liberal Americans that the FBI is actually biased against conservative. Right? Like, that’s gonna be breaking news that there’s a lot of woke lives in the FBI.

That’s a little bit of kind of an interesting theory based if you know anything about the FBI or the history of the FBI.

Like, yeah, the eager hoover is rolling over and is spray, you know, three layers underneath that. But I think you’re right. I think it’s also it’s hilarious for us because we actually offered we sent a letter to Jim Jordan saying, if you wanna talk about how African Americans are more likely to be audited by the IRS, we’re happy to talk about that. Was he interested in that? They have not yet taken us up on that.

Is

there a single person on that committee that is acting in good faith? Is there any is, like, has there been a single Iota or piece of information that’s made you think? Yeah. We should look into that. Anything?

You know, I think you know that I’m I try to be pretty played down the middle as much as I can. I do. And I’ll be honest with you. I have not heard anything that sounded even rational so far. Now, I I do think that, generally speaking, we need to have a conversation as a society about our online discourse about what how does content moderation happen?

About how do we limit, like, the impact of, you know, foreign adversaries, trying to take advantage of our free platforms, to influence our elections. And I wish we could have a productive conversation about that where we try and, you know, walk the narrow line there between what could be government overreach, you know, if you’re shutting down a story because you think it’s a Russian op and maybe it’s not or what kind of speech, you know, is and is not dangerous and is acceptable on these platforms. As you know, they’re not government platforms. They’re they’re private institutions. And so there’s a there’s also a nexus there that which lines are we crossing?

Is it first amendment? Is it is it just the business values of that platform? That would be an interesting conversation to have. And I’m happy to have that conversation because as you said, for African Americans, this is something that it comes up all the time, you know, a feeling that you know, the government is it’s for, like, we’re better monitoring you. And I got friends who, like, a big and a parking ticket.

They’re like, oh, they’re for me. You know what I mean? It’s

real time. Thanks, Bulwark Jeopardy

skin. Yeah. I mean, like, Tom’s making sense. Yeah.

Yeah. Even your former colleague, Tulsi Gabbard, she wasn’t making sense and bringing up some some really interesting concerns for the committee.

I thought her testimony was embarrassing. She positive that she had done well in a debate where she’d gone after Hillary Clinton and that it had not led to the online engagement that she’d expected because Google took down her ads. And, like, that kinda passed by every I think everybody kinda missed and I wrote it down, like, what? Did she really just say that? Because it was this like, you know, droning on basically, like, in a five minutes of just kinda nonsense.

Wait a second. So you think Google decided that today is the day we’re going to close to Gabbard. You know, they were directed by someone. To go out to dosing password. Yeah.

Dosing thought the big tech companies were the reason that she lost. It

was the Rothchild group. The Rothchild group was the one who sent a message through to the stone cutters and the stone cutters gave it to Google. I

have an alternate theory. Because maybe the Democrat from the Tucker Carlson wing of the Democratic Party wasn’t like best suited to win a primary. Like, you know, maybe maybe, like, you know, there was a lack of constituency there. Now that’s one that’s one possibility. Do you

have any theories on what happened to her? You

know, I I have a lot of folks have told me that they are just shocked because, you know, she came in and I started with her for a term. She was running for other things the whole time. And then I think she just stopped coming to Congress pretty much. But there was always a feeling that she was a little bit, you know, different and old fashioned. And, Tim, you’ve written about this, I think extensively, and you all talked about this, there’s certain kind of a lure to this whole authoritarian is a mix or whatever you wanna call it, that can sweep in these kinds of personalities.

You know, there’s a fine line in some case almost between being like a contrarian, right, and being conspiracy theorist. And, you know, I also though think that she saw that her path forward in this party was blocked and she’s taken a a totally different path that’s, you know, maybe financially more lucrative. And I I think we always kinda discount that. Right? Like,

Yeah.

Some of it is that you can believe it and some of it is a it’s got a paycheck attached to it.

As Rupert Murdoch said in an email, sometimes it’s not red or blue, it’s green. For why? You had Mike Wendell in there. That was a very insightful quote by Rupert. Okay.

That’s the webinization committee. I was hoping that maybe there was one thing and that was legit that I guess we’ll keep monitoring. I think it’s I’m glad it’s you, not me, best to sit in there with Jim Jordan. I get to watch, you know, when I when I wanna punish myself and, you know, do some funny tweets. But you, like, literally, have to be there for your job.

So we we appreciate your work on that. I wanna do a little more politics when we get the football. Sure.

You represent W.’s district. I do. Yeah. He’s a constituent. I I consider my friend, actually.

Yeah. Okay. So

what what do we think? K. So we got W Anne Laura. Do you think you got two votes out of that household or just just one? In the last election.

I actually think that they have not yet voted for me.

You don’t even think Laura?

Maybe Laura. Yeah. Maybe I think Laura. Yeah. Well, that’s true.

Yeah. He’s not gonna say it. W called me after I got elected, and I I didn’t answer because I didn’t recognize the number, and he left a hilarious voice mail. On my phone. I wish I had kept it.

I stupidly erased it. When was the bed? It was basically like, you know, it was like it was like like, congressman, you know, congratulations, and he’s, like, you know, he’s, like, I’m not gonna be one of those constituents blowing up your phone and and sending a bunch of letters, but, like, let’s get together, you know, and And so we scheduled a meeting. It’s supposed to be about a thirty minute meeting. I think we meant for about an hour.

And he was just so funny the whole time. And I’m a big baseball fan. I was a big Rangers fan. He was a former, you know, Rangers owner. And so he talked a lot about that.

He talked about kind of the presidential, post presidential speaking circuit. And he’s like, you know, I believe in freedom of speech, but not anymore. He’s like, they gotta pay me now.

He slowly kind of morphed into the Will Saletan character. Sure. Again, in his post presidential life, I got to spend a little time with him in twenty sixteen. It’s telling that that w is there because you are, I think, the beating heart, maybe the Atlanta suburbs is number one, but the Dallas suburbs is like the center of of these voters that I’ve written about, we’ve written about the Board that I called the Red Dog Democrats. Right?

People that are suburban, traditional Republicans, bush voting Republicans, they live in big metros, a lot of times they live in red states, and they might not be ready to identify themselves as Democrats yet. Like, for practical purposes they are. Right? Like, they they are not interested in the anti woke stuff. They’re not, you know, interested in the hate Trump, you know, they’re not interested in the isolationism.

They liked compassion. Conservatives. Right? Like, that was the draw for them. So you’ve got a lot of those folks in your district.

So give us a little bit on the ground, you know, when you’re talking to them. When you’re trying to nudge them over the line to say it’s okay, you know, you can pull the blue lever this time. Like, how are those conversations going? And and do you think that there’s still more, you know, getable folks there or or, you know, just what what’s your sense for that?

Yeah. Well, I try to start with values because I do think that these are folks that you said who they haven’t really changed their politics. It’s just politics has changed around them, but they are hesitant to be considered a different crowd like you said. I mean, they’re not they’re not gonna put a sign in their yard. But they have been, I think, deeply insulted in some cases by sort of the the the bent of the Republican Party.

These are folks who are intellectuals with high powered degrees. You know, they, you know, they read The Wall Street Journal. I mean, they’re not gonna just buy, you know, some conspiracy theory or or go follow you down at a rabbit hole. That’s not who they are. So with them, it’s always been for me, number one, you know, push kind of like my story, which is that, listen, I grew up right here in this community.

I know what we are like. I know kinda who we are. And that stuff that you’re seeing over there from, like, the trunking, I know it’s not us. I recognize that we’re not gonna agree on everything. On a policy perspective, but we’re gonna agree, I think, on the values.

And it’s been, you know, very effective. And I think you’re right. Particularly the women are not going back to political transformation that is complete. Now I do think that we can do a lot better as a party appeal into some of these, you know, men and and making sure that they feel like we can be a political home for them too. So I do think that they’re looking around and wondering word about long, you know.

And they can be scared off by, you know, radical rhetoric or things that are maybe blaming them for all of society zills, you know, or something like that, you know. And I think for us as a party, we need to be smarter about welcoming those folks in. I think they have chosen to be with us in the last elections because of the threat that Trump posed, but they’ve also chosen, in many cases, to vote. For a Republican member of Congress maybe while they’re voting for Joe Biden. You know, I I I think we need to do a better job making sure that we’re not letting our kind of left flank be just who were identified as.

If

the Republican nominee is somebody who says, Ukraine’s territorial dispute. We shouldn’t be involved at all over that. Is that gonna resonate with people at all? Or

is it is foreign policy just too hard to drive actual voting. No. These are folks who care about foreign policy. They care about foreign policy, at least in my

district, and they’re very pro supporting Ukraine. And they believe, you know, this is like a Reagan ask view, I think, you know, that — Yeah. — we we should stand up for freedom, the Russians or the enemy. You know, and we with a Valiant democracy fighting for its survival, you know, I I saw that Ron DeSantis you

know,

kind of capitulated, I guess, you could say, on on Ukraine. And I thought I mean, I was just like, that’s not that’s not the the way, man. You know what I mean? Because maybe he believes that. Maybe that’s true.

I don’t know. But I think that the folks who I represent, the George Shelby Bush fan, who Tim, you know, when I was a little younger. They’re driving out those w stickers on the back of their car. And now they’re coming from me, you know.

I had one. Yeah.

But you did. I mean, those folks you know, they they think that this is this is the right path and that we should continue to pursue it. I don’t understand kind of the the impulse to back away from supporting a democracy that It’s our help. One

more about those men. I think you hit on this exactly right. And and I think sometimes in the Democratic coalition, it’s not like fashionable to be like, you know who’s an important swing group that we need to reach out to is white college educated men and the suburbs. But really, they are. Ron DeSantis you are exactly right.

And I think the Joe Biden voter that he improved with was that voter. Right? That that couldn’t come around on Hillary for whatever reason, and and then they had four years of their wife you know, lagging their finger at them and being like, this is these racist asshole. Like, I can’t believe you did that you didn’t vote for, you know, and they came around. Right?

Are there ways without sacrificing values. Right? Like, are there ways to you know, you said that they’re a little bit scared to the left. Right? And they’re and maybe they’re a little bit scared than, like, white men are kinda being targeted or whatever.

Like, are there ways to to, you know, distinguish you know, yourself and Joe Biden and the mainstream part of the Democratic Party from the,

like, lefty university types that freaked them out. How do you do that? We’re not gonna be able to do it just by campaigns. I think it’s the way we govern

and showing that, you know, we’re serious and, you know, presenting an alternative. But I do think in our campaigns, we need to be as broad as possible in our messaging. And, you know, I I feel like and for me coming from football background, I’m used to the idea that we can come from all kinds of different, you know, world views and and, you know, backgrounds and you come to an NFL locker room and you come you go to lunchtime, you’ll see the the country as boy sitting next to the guy from the middle of the city who are like best friends and who are, you know, gonna who are working really hard together and and feel like they’re brothers. And and so I under I I’ve seen these divides be bridged but you have to be inclusive and you have to give folks some buy in. And you can it’s a treat like you do any other appeal that you’re trying to make where, you know, you try to appeal the values.

You try to make people feel like they have a home with us. But you also, I think, to be honest with them is that, you know, we’re not gonna agree on everything, but we’re gonna agree on more things. And this is why I think you should give us a shot. And I have said this for some time that I think in particular, these are pro democracy folks. I think the biggest divide in our politics right now isn’t so much from Democrats and Republicans.

It’s between folks who believe in our democracy and and those who don’t. And, you know, like a Liz Cheney or someone like that is extremely popular among, you know, my kind of, you know, the folks that we’re talking about, the folks I represent. And I think it’s because she took principled stance. She’s very conservative, but they respect her. And I think they expect that from us.

It’s straight talk, delivering and being inclusive as we can. But there’s always gonna be a challenge there because we’re a big coalition, Tim. And you know that when we bring in a lot of different folks.

One of the impeachers besides Liz, I want to ask you about I was listening to one of the other podcast you did. You tried to hit your pals with Anthony Gonzalez, not the former football guy.

Yeah.

JBL is a big fantasy politics man, so I’m gonna play put on the JBL fantasy politics hat. I think in a lot of cases, it’s asking a lot to tell people they should change parties become a Democrat. Right? I I get it. Right?

Why? It’s not like renouncing your family, Tim. It is kind of. It’s not like you have to disown your mother and father in order to change political party. For

some people, they had the bumper

sticker. It’s like transferring school. That’s what it’s like moving from, you know, Missouri state to the University of Missouri. That’s all it is. Yeah.

I went

and transferred for AlloSure to Bama. Okay? Alright. Like, there’s there’s gonna be some alright. Would you transfer from Baylor to UT?

I don’t know. There’d be some people that would be questioning you if you’d had done that. Think. Okay. Yeah.

That’s true. Gonzalez, though. I don’t know what he’s doing in his life right now. You guys are friends. Ohio has been a tough state for Democrats.

It’s moving red. Why can’t Anthony Gonzalez just run as a Red Dog Democrat? Why can’t he just get into a Democratic senate or governor primary and say, hey, I haven’t changed my views on anything. I’m still for life. I’m still for smaller government, but I want to, you know, defend Ukraine.

I wanna defend democracy. I’m gonna be a productive member of the Democratic caucus. Why can’t somebody like that do that? What’s your view on that? You wanna put your body on this spot right now?

Well, knowing it. He considers himself to be the true Republican. Right? Like, you know, so he’s got the old time religion. Right?

So I think he sees himself as probably fighting or representing what the republican party should be. And so I I think that’s probably it would be a big leap for him to make that kind of a decision. I think on our side,

I think

we need to be open to folks who are looking to make a transition and maybe agree with us on these values and who could be productive members. You know, like, the the senate campaign in in Utah, Evan McMullen, you know, as it says similar kind of circumstance. And I think you might see a stage that’s reached in so many states where that’s something that that does happen. It may not be in Ohio where we still have, you know, Sherritt Brown and and maybe folks think that we can, I don’t know, come back or I hope the shared history likes because I think he’s a great senator? But, you know, I I think the the transition that you’ve written about to him is still underway.

You know,

let’s let’s go have a beer with him and just let him know the old time religion is dead. Alright? He’s out there. He wants the Latin mass still. Okay?

Like, it’s over. Alright? It’s dead.

I’m sorry, Joe Biden is Reagan’s third term.

We have one

more politics thing for you. We might have a a mutual kind of competitor. Soon in a way because me and JBL are in a podcast ratings competition with fellow podcaster Ted Cruz, who is professional, podcaster, sometimes he’s beating the Bulwark in the rankings, sometimes we’re beating him. That’s why people got a rank, you know, got a subscribe. Comment, download us so we can beat him in the podcast rankings.

But you might also be a competitor with him in his side hustle. Which is in the senate. Is that something you’re thinking about doing, challenging him? Yeah.

I think it’s such a a funny way to pose that question. I am personally insulted by the fact that this guy is doing three podcasts a week. I represent, you know, a little bit less than a million texts since he represents thirty million. I am so busy. Like, I mean, you know, on top of, you know, being a a father too.

And don’t

forget the shit posting. Spends he spends more time shit posting on Twitter than he does even podcast.

I mean, it’s you gotta feed the beast, you know. And he he certainly He’s a content machine. He’s not a legislative machine. And I I know many of us feel that we have one senator here. When a crisis hits Texas.

It’s gonna be Coron who responds for us. It’s not gonna be center cruise. We saw that, I think, very visibly when he, you know, went to Cancun during probably the worst environmental crisis that we’ve had in the last century. I mean, like, the whole state was frozen. People were burning their fence posts to stay warm.

People in my district were dying from carbon monoxide poisoning for bringing generators indoors. And he said that was a time to go on vacation. I was so busy with FEMA and other things. But the point though I think is that we deserve a better senator in Texas. And I know that I’m gonna play a role in in CNS.

Get a better senator. And and that’s what I know right now. I’m really proud of Bulwark I’ve done at Congress. I think I’m

I’m

getting to the point now where I know what I’m doing and, you know, worked really hard to get in the seat and to hold the seat. And I wanna see us do so much better in terms of getting folks out to vote. Tim, I I don’t know, this is not your question, but just pause at this. We had nine point six million registered voters, not vote in the last election. Okay?

That’s more voters who didn’t vote than most states have, you know, the other states had people. Right? You know? And We just have an enormous apathy problem, and we have to address that. A lot of it’s in our cities, and so we need to get folks out to vote at a much higher rate.

Yeah.

Now some of those are red next though. I mean, some of those are, I said it not you, but, you know, some of those apathetic folks are non college whites. Which is not our target demo. Okay? No.

No. You know? No.

No. You’re right. You’re right. I’m not gonna go for a demo. That’s that’s for sure.

Yeah.

Let’s do some football. Sure. JBL, what do you think? Did you have anything else on Ted Cruz? Or do Let’s do some football.

Dude,

I wanna talk football so far.

Not Beto. I guess, can I still that out there? Love Beto. Nice guy. I like he’s a great journalist.

I loved Beto’s blog, but let’s try to let’s try to find somebody else this time. I guess that’s my only bias. The football stuff The thing that really strikes me about your football career is so you play a Baylor. You go undrafted. You’re obviously a very talented guy.

A lot of school, there’s a lot of other things you could have done, but you’re like screw it. Gonna go try to make a team as an undrafted person. Like, what is that process like? Like, what made you decide to do that? Tell us, like, for those of us who have no experience or anything like this, have check-in arms, like, what’s it like to just be the undrafted guy showing up to camp, trying to make the team?

I had to be crazy.

Yeah. I don’t talk about this as much because most people, and they see that as a NFL player, think that I went to the combine, was drafted, got made a lot of money. I was you know, a a guy who had to fight in scratch to get into league and to stay in the league and, you know, made a career. And and by the time I was just about to, you know, maybe be able to move into a higher financial on. I got injured and had to retire.

But the way it worked was I was gonna go to law school. I had taken my OSAT. I had done well in school, and I was all prepped for that. And agents started calling me in my senior year, saying they wanted to represent me. And I told him you got the wrong guy.

I’m going to law school and blah blah blah. Eventually, they have to send me my draft report saying that I I might be at a bottom fifth to seventh round pick. Those are the last rounds Tim’s since I know you don’t follow them. Everything.

No. I follow.

Oh, no. I follow. Okay. Sorry to say this wrong pic.

I almost wore my Joe Burrow shirt to rub it in, but I just felt like I was too on the nose. Like, wearing the band tee to the concert, you know? Good.

I love to occur by the way. He is incredible though, or a priority for agent. Which means that after the draft’s over, you get a bunch of calls. And so I didn’t get drafted, but I was called right after the draft by a number of teams. And I thought I was gonna sign with the Cowboys, which would have been great for me as a Dallas guy.

They made an offer. We accepted an offer. They pulled the offer. So I know Jerry Jones. And then and then I signed with the Titans, which was actually not a great landing spot for me because they had just drafted three line backers in that draft.

And they had, like, you know, seven on the roster. And so, you know, come to training camp and there’s, like, you know, fourteen of us Ron DeSantis of us are gonna be there at the end of it. In a long story short, I get cut and get me back. I make the team and me and one of those other draftics that the only two who are left standing at at kind of the end. And the way I did it was that just like in any other field, you have to kind of figure out, like, what value do you bring to the company?

Right? Like, what’s your niche? And for me, it was that I could play all the the three line back response. So I was a a versatile player on the defense, and I was a plus player on special teams. I could I could do all the coverage, all the returns.

And so I could be a core special teamer and a Swiss army knife on defense. And turns out that, you know, that’s basically filling two jobs with one player in a lot of ways. And so my made my career is in a four three d fence where we had three starters. I was the fourth guy. If anybody got hurt, I came in.

If we went to an extra linebacker set, I came in and then played all the core special teams and that’s how I made my career. Can

I ask why you chose football? You played baseball and basketball. Footfall is in many ways that the sport where you are the least control of your own destiny because you I forget who said this, but it Yeah. You don’t just have to be the right piece. You have to be the right piece and the right puzzle.

In order to make a career in football. Like, so much of a just out of your control. Yeah. Yeah. What it it just you just love ball and is that was that what it is?

Just love football?

No. I I preferred baseball. I wish I was a playing center group for the Rangers, you know. Like, I my body type was turned out that I was, you know, six two two forty and not one eighty, you know. And so, like, I I just had a different kind of a body type.

CECL fielders, though, had a good baseball career. He was That’s

true. Yeah. That’s true. Yeah. You know, some big guys.

Do you like

that JBL? I haven’t watched baseball in twenty years. I can do football with you, but all my baseball references are from nineteen ninety two.

I know. Oh, yeah. Vlog. Vlog. VOD’s a big guy.

Yeah. First in college, I was like, okay, I’m gonna pay for my school with this. And then I thought if I could make it a couple years and then if I’ll pay for my law school with this, when I got cut, I got really annoyed. So I was like, how

dare you choose to Just to be ordering, you decide to make a

career out of football. Right. And I was like, well, you know what? Now I gotta show you. And I worked so hard to make that team.

I would do our workouts, and then I’d do my own workout. I I wouldn’t didn’t just study my position. I studied every position. I mean, I became like a coach on the field and I maximize my talent. And it took everything that I had, but it wasn’t that I love football so much.

It was mostly that they had told me I couldn’t do it. And I was like, I’m gonna I’m gonna prove you wrong. And then when I when my career was over, I, you know, I I pretty quickly decided, okay, I’m going to law school and I didn’t look back and you know, to be honest with you, I I still follow football. I enjoy watching certain players and certain teams. But, you know, I’m not like a fan who is is following it the way a fan would.

I I followed kind of like from from a professional, you know, kind of perspective.

What’s the biggest difference between ecology and the pro game from, like, know, the uninformed spectator, all the the big difference I see is just the blade blinding speed. Yeah. The pro game looks So, like, every single guy on the professional field looks like they’re running basically a four six, even if they’re not. Right? I mean, even the even the offensive alignment look like they’re insanely fast.

But is is that the big difference or is there other stuff? What what hit you most as you’re transitioning from

the college to the pro’s? It’s three things. It’s a speed of thought. These guys think so quickly, they’re professionals. We know what we’re seeing.

And we move and that that’s why it appears that we’re moving so much faster in a lot of ways. Although we are faster because we’re but the other thing is that we’re we’re bigger and stronger than your average college player. And then the third thing is complexity. Complexity just goes up by, you know, multiple factors. I was laughing, people think the whole players are dumb because, like, and they may be dumb in some certain aspects of life.

Defense of Wyman don’t be that smart, but I feel like a a defensive pack or a linebacker like, your blitz package, it might be five blitzes, let’s say. It’s actually thirty blitzes because it’s all dependent on formation down in distance and what happens even during after the ball is snapped and the blips can change. And so you’re making split second decisions And so I’d I’d say the athletes are bigger and faster and stronger, and they are professionals. Their job is to make their body into a, you know, a tool which is just different from the college level. The speed of thought though shocked me.

I mean, I I used to love watching the really great players on film like Ed Reed, Ed Reed was somebody who when the ball was snapped, sometimes he wouldn’t move for a couple seconds. He’s like, what the hell is Ed doing? Because everyone else is running around like a kick up their head cut off, and he’s not moving. He’s just watching and seeing how the play unfolds. And then he would just strike and he would, you know, spread twenty twenty yards across the field, you know, have an interception, take it back for a touchdown.

And it’s you’re like, well, how that happens? Like, well, he knew from that formation there were a certain number of routes they could run. During the route, he’s like, okay. It’s this route. Then he saw the quarterback.

He said, okay. The quarterback’s throwing there. I’m going. And so and it looks like a, you know, incredible freak athletic play, but it’s really it was so much of it was up here. And that speed of thought, that complexity just separates it so much.

Was

there anybody that was just like such a physical specimen once you got out there, like somebody that that knocked you on your ass and camp or something where you’re just like, man, I can’t even believe this. How is this person a human.

So many so many. I mean, the NFL was full of freaks, and I was not an athletic freak. I maximized my athletic ability. But the NFL has so many I could tell you endless stories. I’ve seen guys who literally run out of wait to live because they just are bored.

That’s how strong they are. Like a guy like like Albert Haynesworth who I played with, and Albert really went downhill after he left us and went to the We remember him in Washington. Yeah. What’s the the Fedskins? When he was playing with us, he was, like, almost, like, when two magnets of, you know, opposite force, you know, getting near each other and, like, one just, like, goes back It’s, like, that’s how he was with, like, grown men who were offensive and trying to block him.

I mean, he would just pick you up with, like, one arm and, like, throw them. I like, the brutality of watching him do a patch rush is still something that to this day. I mean, he was, like, six four six five, you know, three thirty or something, and quick. And strong. And and he could I think he could do, like, the splits, you know.

I mean, it’s like a athletic freak. You know? You know, you just think Like, a human shouldn’t be able to do that. Alright.

It’s something that hit me when you’re talking earlier about the locker room vibe and I’m the country boy and I’ve missed everybody gets together as a gay person, like, one thing that, like, football, the culture around being openly gay, like, has been kind of a hot button. Right? And Michael Sam tries to get in the league and — Yeah. —

you know, Tony

Dunnji, I forget who it was. Some of it some GMs are like, oh, I don’t know. They’d be a distraction locker room. And Carl Nasib comes out. I thought it was a huge deal.

I did, like, my Snapchat show on it. I’m, like, tweeting about it. And, like, it barely even makes the news. Right? Carl, like, Carl is not a household name, really.

Even. And and he’s in the he’s playing the NFL openly gay. Like, what’s your sense for that? Like, obviously, there’s more than one gay person in the NFL. I’m not asking to out of anybody, but, like, what is the, like, at this point, the holdout there.

Like, what’s your sense for that? Well, the NFL’s come Jonathan Last bastion of kind of the unconstructed young man. Like, you know, like, and a lot of it starts and begins with the owners. I mean, you know, you you get a group of thirty two NFL owners together, and it’s probably thirty two of almost, you know, maybe the worst people in the country at any given time. And, you know, some of them do great stuff, but by and large, I mean, It’s a personality type that you are that wealthy and you wanna spend your money on a on a end of fennel football team.

Right? But, you know, I played from o six to eleven, And I would say that — Yeah. — a story like Carl and Asps would have been a much bigger deal when I was playing than it was just five or six in seven or eight years later. And I think that says a lot for us about, you know, our culture and how quickly it’s moved. And I’m I’m glad that that has happened.

But if you go to NFL game and you sit there and and you’ll see, you know, the flames coming out and the cheerleaders dance sing, and then you see, like, the guys come out and the music, and then the jazz spy over. And, I mean, this is, like Huge flag. Yeah. The huge flag. I mean, this is a spectacle and it’s a spectacle that I think is in some ways kind of filling, you know, maybe a a whole of our society that, you know, like, in a

lot of people, the NFL is going, well, I

was just gonna say that. We’ve heard like years, we’ve been told all the NFL’s in decline because they went, whoa. Go whoa.

Go broke. Is that not what you see? Think the NFL is more popular than it’s ever been. I mean, it’s making more money than it’s ever made. I get

a

note of the NFL when they do performative stuff that they don’t believe in. Like, like, when, you know, when they have, like, they put, like, you know, an end racism sign in in zone next to, like, the Kansas City Chiefs logo, you know, and it’s

a little bit of disconnect there for you.

Yeah. Mostly because I’d rather see them take actions that show what they’re doing then, like, you know, just kinda performative stuff. But, no, the NFL is is still, you know, the home of you guys who can

illegally beat each other up. Right? I got one more football kind of politics right thing. One of my hobby horses has always been as a big console and as I was mentioning about the shoe has always been payer play. So we finally have NIL now, which I think I think is a good step.

But, like, you lived through this like, what’s your sense for that? Like, what do you think would be a good system? Like, it is true that some guys are getting bags back then, but it’s also true that there are guys, like, this is the peak like Baylor you know, let’s say you hadn’t made the PROs. Right? Yeah.

And let’s say you weren’t a law school kind of guy. Right? Like a version of Colin that is that doesn’t have the skills to go do something else that’s gonna make them a lot of money. That is their maximum earning potential years like if they are. They’re the they’re the big shit on campus and and they couldn’t monetize.

It’s like, how do you deal with that while also still making it be college?

I remember when the incident with a football game was coming out. You know, on on PlayStation and all that. And and I would play with my player, and I had a pretty good rating. It was, like, for Baylor, it was okay. But, like, like I was an impact player and the guy the little character model didn’t have my name, but he was born in Dallas in April you know, and he was six two two thirty five, you know, like, he was this was me.

Right? And I know that they made just so much money on that game because we played it down stock. Right? And but we saw nothing from that. And I would walk past the Baylor bookstore where they’d have my Jersey selling in the window.

And, you know, you wouldn’t get any piece of that either. And so and now those kind of examples always stood out to me because I remember I was so broke. Like, you know, for us to be like, oh, like, if you get, like, a package of ramen, that was, like, a big deal. You know what I mean? Like, we were so broke, like, dead broke, like, our scholarship check, covered our living expenses, And if there was anything outside of that, like, that was it, you know, going to see a movie.

No. No. No. I couldn’t afford that. Right?

I didn’t have any money coming from home. I actually even took out a loan my senior year, a student loan, not for paying for school. Just for paying for, like, you know, being able to socialize while these other things were going on. And I think that was wrong. It’s crazy.

But I also am worried about where an IL is going, particularly the combination of boosters and the state by state difference in laws. I think we have a potential for a race to the bottom here to wear, you know, how much Tim really is at work to Louisiana. To have the best players in Louisiana State a lot.

I mean,

it brings in a lot of money revenue for the for the state of Louisiana. And there’s there’s basically nothing that I would say that legislature wouldn’t do to incentivize —

Yeah.

— coming to an LSU. But these are still kids and they’re still students and they’re still very young. And so I think we have to have a balance of it. So I think we need to have a, you know, a federal standard that Ron DeSantis the rules for the road I wanna see it be like Olympians, you know, where you can be on the Weedy’s box if you have Olympian, but you’re still an amateur. Right?

You can make good money — Yeah. — from the the use of your name, image, and likeness. But there are certain things that you’ll be protected from. Right. Because one of the things I’ve heard about is, you know, these agent contracts that are being that are being signed with these very high commissions for these agents.

There’s a reason why in the NFL NFL Players Association limits agents to three percent. Of the contract. They can’t go above that. And it’s because otherwise it would be abused, you know. And and I think we’re we’re already seeing some stories of real abuse here.

So I’m happy for these kids to make a lot of money. I’m happy for them to be paid more for their services that are delivering incredible value to their university, but I also wanna protect them.

Luckily, the NCAA and the Republican Congress is so functional that that they’ll easily come up with assist some hair of rules, so the roads that won’t be abused. J. V. Are you getting anything else on football before you get a rapid fire?

You know, I’m real quick, CTE. Yeah. How much does it worry you I mean, look, football’s a contact sport. Everybody knows they’re they’re putting themselves at risk. But maybe we don’t know the full extent of the risk can you manage the risk of injury to players in football to a place where it’s acceptable?

Do you think that is that is that possible? Or is the league moving in the right direction? Is When you think about CTE, do you worry more about the pros or college or like prep football with kids who aren’t gonna go on? Or or is all of this overblown?

No. It’s not overblown. It’s a very real concern. A lot of the the studies and research on this came out after I left the league or at the end of my career. Yeah.

And I always felt that since the NFL knew about it, they should have disclosed it to us. Because it’s one thing to take a risk when you know about it. That take to take a risk when you don’t know about it. Now we all had stories and we all know guys who played in the seventies and eighties who were, you know, having a hard time in Italy. And a lot of it was attributed to, oh, well, these athletes can’t get over their football career being over.

But we know now that a lot of it isn’t that that’s out of their control, that they’re trying their very best to battle something that they have no control over. And the NFL should do a much better job of taking care of those guys who built this league and the guys who are playing now when they’re done playing. And I get really annoyed when I see, you know, Demar Hamlin, for example, we all rightfully so felt so, you know, impacted by his injury on national TV. And I think when that injury is over, we then, you know, forget that the NFL will really not gonna take care of him when his career is over. You know, should he have complications down the line and things like that.

And so I think the week should do a better job of that. I think that they have made some really important steps. JBL, the biggest impact hit in football when I was playing was a kick off. Okay? Like Yeah.

The kick returns. Right? That’s why they’ve tried to do. Basically, make the kick return go away.

Yeah. I

would start with the twenty yard line. Yeah. I would start the twenty yard line, the kick off was in thirty. When my kick when my kick hit six yards away from the ball, I would take off running, and I would make contact again on the other twenty. And I’m running full speed the whole time.

It’s a big high octane impact. Right? And they’ve changed that entirely. And I think that’s the right thing to do. They’ve also limited amount of hitting and practice because we’ve learned that it’s it’s not just the concussive hits, it’s the sub concussive hits, and and the repetitive ones.

But I don’t think that they can take the risk out of the game. And these athletes are getting bigger and stronger, and the feel is the same size. So they’re hitting harder. And that is something that we have to just struggle with, I think, as a society. You know, is what are we gonna do with the fact that this game that we love so much is so brutal to the people who play it.

Alright.

It’s been great. We got rapid fire. We gotta get you out of here. Okay? Rapid fire fun questions.

Are you ready for this? Okay? Ready? Alright. Number one.

OBAMA FAMOUSLY JOKED THAT PEOPLE WANTED HIM TO HAVE A DRINK WITH HIS REPUBLICAN COLLEX AND HE SAID YOU HAVE A DRINK WITH Mitch McConnell and have a drink with people so bad. Which Republican colleague would you most like to have a whiskey with? And which one would you least like to have a whiskey with?

Oh my goodness. I mean, Lisa’s gotta be in front of Jim George. Most I’ll I’ll say my my friend Jake Elsey, I like him. He’s That’s

a good follow-up. I’ll do my second lab fire then to JBL on Jim Jordan. If there was a wrestling match between you and Jim Jordan, how many seconds do you think it would take for you to get a pin?

One second. I would pin them in a second.

One second. Jonathan. Rank the following three presidents. Joe Biden, Barack Obama Bill Clinton. Obama Biden Clinton.

Well, a clear answer there. Coolest football stadium you got to play in. You went in there and you’re like, man, this is this is just an unreal experience.

Texas City name had this thing where they made their fans rock that their different directions. So, like, it looked like the whole stadium was moving. They practiced this by the way.

Shailfield. Yeah.

Kylefield. They practiced this where they they practiced, you know, rocking in different directions in the rows. And it’s a it’s a bizarre fantasy from the field. And it’s not very scary, but I think it’s it’s was interesting.

You never played in time stadium?

No. I didn’t get to play. That that I’ve heard is really intense. We’ll

get you down the sales sometime. JBL last one. Alright. Vince Young,

the best college QB of all time?

I think so. I really do. I mean, he won a national title single handed league. It’s probably the best team in college football history. I mean, he that that USC team had what?

Two high speed winners on it, how many all Americans, how many first round picks. And that Texas team was not nearly as good as they were, and he beat them on his own.

Second to Joe Burrow, disagree on that one. Okay. I lied. We got one more pre draft pre draft you’re in a four eight five forty. How’s that looking these days?

You get you under five? You’re keeping it under five? On on your forties?

Absolutely not. No way. Go ahead. I mean, I I got a bad back. I’m a oh, I’m a dad now.

Yeah.

Congressman has been so good. Please write us something right for the Bulwark some time. Let’s stay in touch. If you decide to do something interesting against our podcast competitor and we have, you know, a mutual a mutual interest, in that. We’ll keep in touch on that too.

We’re really grateful. Say hi to your constituent George w Bush for us. We’ll see all our listeners on Wednesday for the regular next level with Sarah Longwell catch you back next Sunday with a really cool guest. Peace.