In short
The episode argues that Texas flood deaths were worsened by defunding weather forecasting and emergency services, and that MAGA politicians respond by blaming minorities (Black and Brown people) and politicizing the tragedy instead of preventing future disasters.
Guest backgrounds
No guests are identified in the transcript; the host repeatedly cites and critiques public figures (Charlie Kirk, Gov. Greg Abbott, Sen. Ted Cruz).
Key claims
National Weather Service funding was cut; Abbott and Cruz deflect blame; Charlie Kirk claims the higher death toll is due to DEI; MAGA uses racist scapegoating; Cruz’s “God bless Israel” rhetoric and Abbott’s “prayers halted the flooding” are portrayed as hypocritical.
Notable examples
Charlie Kirk blaming Black people; Abbott comparing blame to “losing teams” and football; Australia gun-control example; references to tornado preparedness in Oklahoma; headline about Cruz helping slash weather forecasting funding while on vacation.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOGovernment Services vs. Profit
0:00 to 0:45
The discussion contrasts the nature of government services with business profit motives.
“MAGA politicians love to say government needs to be run like a business.”
MAGA's Response to Texas Floods
0:46 to 2:20
Explores how MAGA politicians are blaming minorities for the Texas floods tragedy.
“Charlie Kirk blames Black people, of course.”
Texas Politics and Public Safety
2:21 to 5:13
A critique of Texas politicians' handling of public safety during emergencies.
“I saw a tweet not long ago from Charlie Kirk that said Ketanji Brown Jackson was a DEI hire because she was the only Black woman on the Supreme Court.”
Hypocrisy of MAGA Politicians
5:14 to 8:31
Highlights the hypocrisy of MAGA politicians and their religious rhetoric in times of crisis.
“a losing team to the deaths of children.”
Critical Thinking and Evangelical Beliefs
8:32 to 12:55
Discusses the relationship between evangelical beliefs and critical thinking in politics.
“But I mean, Donald Trump called his wife ugly.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:04MAGA politicians love to say government needs to be run like a business. We need to run government like a business. We need to cut all the fat and maximize profits. This is so stupid because government is to provide services and not think about profit. We have to put public safety at the very front and center of all government agencies. But MAGA immediately, immediately goes dirty with this tragedy, the floods I'm talking about in Texas that killed children. And I think there's to like over 100 people missing, 100 people dead that were just having their summer because the government defunded National Weather Services.
0:50But what does Charlie Kirk do? Charlie Kirk blames Black people, of course. Play the clip. Democrats are so despicable. The Democrats are not lifting a finger to remember the well over 100 people that have died in Texas Hill Country. What you are not being told by the media anywhere is that the death toll likely would not have been as high if it wasn't for DEI. This Texas tragedy is just the latest example. It's not just incompetent. This is what they immediately do. This is the MAGA playbook. They immediately go dirty and they immediately start demonizing minorities and Black people. This is a government, the state of Texas, that is predominantly white men.
1:40It was predominantly white men in the Trump administration that defunded the National Weather Services via Doge and all of these harebrained cuts. And these people just try to control the narrative all the time and say the Democrats are going to politicize it. And the Democrats, they should be front and center right now, screaming, demanding what cuts were made, who authorized them and why. If this were Biden or Obama and this happened, you can bet your sweet ass Fox would be going bananas. Charlie Kirk would be going bananas. But what do they do? They reach for this. Let's blame the Black people because our base is so racist.
2:21They'll like this. I saw a tweet not long ago from Charlie Kirk that said Ketanji Brown Jackson was a DEI hire because she was the only Black woman on the Supreme Court. And I audibly gasped and I thought even racists, he is too far for racists. And then for him to get on and politicize the tragedy and make it the fault of Black and Brown people, it should make even the most heinous racist blush. He is a stain on everything that is good about the United States of America. This is absolutely abhorrent. I appreciate the defense of racists, but they're incapable of blushing. He is speaking to his base.
3:09There is no blushing. There is just a Pavlovian style affect when they hear this, their mouth waters. They like it. They don't have to blame white people. They can blame black people. We can offer no excuses whatsoever for racist. When he talks about the Supreme Court Justice Jackson, 100%, they like it. There's no blushing. They are all chips in on blaming black people. It's important that we really, really, really understand how racist a lot of this MAGA base is because that's why they do all of this stuff with impunity. Next up, we have Governor Abbott. I guess he thinks when he's on national television that all of us are as stupid as his base.
3:55Play the clip. In an investigation, we know a special session's coming in about 10 days. That's where I would say where it begins. Kindly, those investigations will begin by both the House and Senate before we go into session. So probably beginning later this week or the early part of next week, Those big committees form that are already kind of working on ideas about ways to address this. Second part of the question needs to be addressed. You ask, I'm going to use your words. Who's to blame? Know this. That's the word choice of losers. Let me explain one thing about Texas. And that is Texas, every square inch of our state cares about football.
4:39You could be in Hunt, Texas, Huntsville, Texas, Houston, Texas, any size community, they care about football. High school, Friday Night Lights, college football, or pro. And know this, every football team makes mistakes. The losing teams are the ones that try to point out who's to blame. The championship teams are the ones that say, don't worry about it, man, we got this. We're going to make sure that we go score again, that we're going to win this game. Okay, I've heard enough. This is so stupid and dangerous. Nothing about running emergency services and keeping the public safe has a goddamn thing to do with football and trying to say everybody in Texas cares so much about football and comparing a losing team to the deaths of children.
5:32I'll tell you what, smart people look at a tragedy like this and they say, how can we prevent it in the future? I'll give you an example. Gun violence. They had gun violence in Australia. Smart government said, we never want to have this again. What did they do? They instituted severe gun limitations in their country and they haven't had a mass shooting since. What do we do here? Thoughts and prayers and football games and coach style locker room talk when there are kids that are dead because they defunded emergency services and weather predictions. It's he is absolutely the biggest hypocrite on the planet.
6:13And here's what I have to say about all this. They, his government is now politicizing this tragedy to run more bad legislation through Texas, gerrymandering. That's what he's using this tragedy for. And I look at this tragedy and I think, will this wake people up to the fact that the government needs to be run like a protection agency for their citizens? Or are they going to continue down this road? And then, like you said, I look at the gun violence situation. I don't think they're going to take any lessons from this. But make no mistake, the reason we are in this predicament is because of Donald Trump and his incompetent and corrupt administration who doesn't give a shit about the citizens, nor does Greg Abbott.
6:58And then days after talking about who God blesses, you might remember Ted Cruz and Tucker Carlson and Ted Cruz's epic face plant on a very friendly podcasting atmosphere, Tucker Carlson put this post up. Ted Cruz, you know, in his evangelical preacher voice says, God will bless those who bless Israel. Two weeks later, this happens in his home state while Ted Cruz is on vacation in Greece. And I just want to remind everybody that everybody hates Ted Cruz. And when he was in Cancun during the power outages, his neighbors were sending copies of text messages to the press about how much they all hated him.
7:45And so this is the danger of having these MAGA Christian politicians. Governor Abbott said stuff like, there's no question that the prayers halted the flooding. So it wasn't even worse. Ted Cruz is saying, if you bless Israel, God will bless you. I mean, this is just Iron Age crazy ass thinking, but it hits hard in the MAGA base. All of this MAGA Christian shit hits so hard with them. And it's just, we live in the modern era and you have people clinging on to this Iron Age religion. But Ted Cruz is so culpable in all of this because he is a MAGA Christian. He is a corporatist to his core. He is a terrible husband.
8:35I mean, that's just an aside. But I mean, Donald Trump called his wife ugly. And he stands up at the Republican National Convention. God bless Donald Trump. And I guess this hits hard MAGA, all of this hypocrisy and just like blind loyalty, you know, like blind loyalty to Israel, blind loyalty to your religion, blind loyalty to Trump. I guess it hits hard, but the rest of the nation, we're not fucking stupid. It's simple. We live in Oklahoma where we have tornadoes all the time and emergency services, meteorologists funded to know where the storms are coming from when they're developing. You can wake up at eight in the morning and the meteorologist can say, we're looking like around three o 'clock today, the conditions are going to be perfect for massive tornadoes.
9:24So then you know, okay, I'm going to be weather aware all day. They would have known that we have a buildup of potential flooding here and could have evacuated all of the Guadalupe River to the people, especially in these camps, to get these people in higher grounds. But they don't do it. Why don't they do it? Here's one final headline. Ted Cruz insured Trump's spending bill slashed weather forecasting funding. Senator on vacation abroad while Texas was hit by deadly floods, a disaster worsened by forecasting cuts. So here's what I have to say to MAGA Republicans. I don't know. I would think if you value life that we shouldn't defund these types of services, or is it just suck up to billionaires and suck up to Donald Trump and make sure we subsidize Jeff Bezos so that he doesn't have to pay taxes, even though he uses the roads with all of his Amazon delivery trucks a lot more than we do.
10:30suck up to Israel because they support Ted Cruz and other politicians. And somehow we're going to get this imaginary blessing from God because we sucked up to Israel. I mean, are people this fucking stupid in this country is what I'm asking? Are we really this fucking dumb that we have to sit here and have a conversation about something that was preventable? I mean, we're the richest country in the world and we're cutting weather services and kids, little kids going to summer camp are dying? I mean, is this fucking real? And in Trump's America, it is. You have dipshits like Ted Cruz, God bless Donald Trump, God bless Israel.
11:10We're all going to get blessings. Well, you know what? I bet there's a bunch of fucking parents waking up this morning that done everything right. They voted, they prayed, they paid their taxes, and they still get dicked over by these lying ass politicians. It makes me fucking sick. It's so gross. And I think the answer to your question is yes, we are that dumb because here's, here's a fundamental thing that we always have to remember. Christianity is patriarchal. So all these white men, and you can't be black, you can't be as big, you have to be white in their eyes, even though Jesus was brown.
11:46But you have to be white and you have to be a man. So everybody else is secondary and they are primed to believe all of this shit because it is frowned upon to have critical thinking. It is frowned upon to take care of the poor because despite what that is, what they say the Bible teaches, they're used to their pastors grifting. So Donald Trump is the perfect vessel for all of that. So the reason we're in this awful predicament that we are is because these evangelical Christians have been primed by their religion to believe bullshit and that white men can solve all our problems. And I guess I'm sure exactly right, because that's why at the top of the story, the turning point guy, Charlie Kirk, says he has to blame the black person.
12:35A bunch of white people died. So who can we blame? It can't be the white Christians. It's got to be the DEI person. And I just hope that everybody is so fucking tired of this political party's excuses for their breathtaking incompetence. Okay. That's all we have right now. We'll see you all later.
From the publisher
Texas' elected officials continue to abandon their own constituents.
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