April 30, 2024 • 44 mins
Welcome to 'Conversations from the Hill Country', hosted by Adam West. This episode features an enlightening talk with Dr. Kristin Hook, a Democratic candidate for the Texas 21st Congressional District. As a scientist, former educator, and active participant in policy, Dr. Hook is crusading to balance the scales for working families and society's underdogs.
In this episode, we discuss her campaign's key focuses: women's rights, reproductive issues, accessible healthcare, and safeguarding our democracy. Learn about her strategies to endorse women's rights in Texas, amidst the tightening abortion laws, and how she believes that it's not just about personal beliefs, but about facilitating healthcare access for every woman.
We also cover campaign finance reform, as Dr. Hook identifies the gap between politicians and their constituents due to financial contributions from specific interest groups overpowering public voices. Moreover, we shed light on controversial issues surrounding banned books and the potential privatization of public education, providing an insight into the present state of American politics.
Together, we navigate the influential voices in media, challenges linked to it, and the potential threat of misinformation influencing politics and public service. Highlighting the significance of education and training, Dr. Hook advocates for long-term investments in these areas, outlining their benefits to our nation's prosperity.
This thought-provoking episode offers insights into the changing media landscape, political practices, and the urgent need to confront these issues to maintain integrity and truth in our systems. Join us and illuminate your understanding of the need for change in our media and political structures.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Music.
(00:11):
Vote. Conversations from the Hill Country. I'm Adam West.
On this episode, we're talking to Dr. Kristen Hook, Democratic candidate for
the Texas 21st Congressional District running against Chip Roy.
She's a scientist and former educator.
She has quite a list of impressive credentials to her credit.
We talk about some important campaign issues like women's rights and reproductive
(00:34):
issues, affordable health care for all, protecting our democracy,
and leveling the playing field for working families and underdogs in our society.
It was a very interesting conversation.
We're talking today with Democratic
candidate for Texas 21st Congressional District against Chip Roy.
It's Kristen Hook, Dr. Kristen Hook, I should say. How are you?
(00:56):
Hi, I'm doing great. Thanks so much for having me on. Well, thanks for being
here. You've got an interesting background.
You are a scientist. I'm impressed already.
Yes, I am a scientist. A former educator, a middle school science teacher.
Yep. I have a Ph.D. in animal behavior. And as a former middle school teacher,
(01:17):
I am well prepared to handle Congress.
Okay. Well, knowing about animal behavior, how can we keep our dogs from piddling in the house?
I can't help you there, unfortunately. Oh, man.
Okay. Anyway, yeah, I was getting to that. You have a Ph.D. in animal behavior
from Cornell University, focusing on reproductive biology.
(01:38):
Yes. Is that correct? Yes. A postdoc at the University of Maryland,
and your experience in D.C.
Prompted you to help women scientists promote science and evidence-based policy.
Absolutely. Okay. Kind of important, as we've discovered.
I would certainly say, yeah. Worked with Elizabeth Warren's office,
then with the National Institutes of Health, and And then as a biologist at the U.S.
(02:02):
Government Accountability Office, educating Congress on emerging science and
tech, among other things.
Absolutely. Okay. Well, with all that help that they've had,
what's wrong with Congress? Why don't they believe in science?
Congress is a bit of a mess these days, unfortunately.
You ain't kidding. Okay. So that leads us to some of the things that are science-based
(02:25):
and some that are not. but your campaign, your main issues that you're focusing
on in your campaign, women's rights and reproductive issues, right? Yes.
Okay. Well, let's talk a little bit about that. What...
What is it with these backward steps in in women's rights and reproductive issues in our country?
Yeah. You know, this is actually one of the reasons that I decided to jump in
(02:47):
and run for office, because right now we have representatives that are not paying
attention, that don't seem to care that they're harming women in our state.
And, you know, I feel I felt compelled to jump into this race,
given my background and the fact that, you know, I'm a woman in Texas living in Texas.
I come from a long line of strong Texas women. And, you know,
(03:09):
this is a battle over health care.
And it's horrifying to think of the lack of access to health care that women
in our state already had.
And this has only served to make it worse for us. So, you know,
whether or not you agree with abortion and people who have abortion on a personal
level, this is about banning health care and access to health care.
(03:31):
I've met women in the district who have, you know, wanted kids.
Had things go wrong because pregnancy is risky and can be messy and that they
don't have access to the health care providers that they need in order to get the care that they need.
So, you know, these laws and understand how they're written,
(03:51):
how they're written is to criminalize doctors in our state for helping their patients.
Their entire mission is to help care for patients.
And that's their promise to take care of us. They can't do their job when the
state is threatening them for doing their job.
(04:11):
And there's a lot of confusion about where the line is for what would constitute, you know, an abortion.
And so they're rightfully so fearful of the law and instead err on the side
of being more conservative and not kind of stepping back from situations that
might be construed to be criminal,
(04:32):
according to our policymakers.
Makers. So that's absolutely unacceptable.
We need to, you know, if you get cancer.
You're not going to your politician's office to get help. You're going to your
doctor's office because you trust them. They're experts.
Our politicians in this state and then some in Congress are trying to undermine
the expertise of people in their field, in the medical field, in the education field.
(04:55):
We're seeing it across different sectors of our society, and we absolutely should
not be standing for that.
These are, you know, it's political attacks, and they need to stop.
Where do you think that comes from? What, you know, what's their motivation
for trying to change the, you know, what makes common sense for,
you know, for health care and especially for women and reproductive rights?
(05:19):
I mean. It's a good question. So, you know, if you look at polls of how many
people actually believe that women and people should have access to abortions,
regardless of circumstance,
the majority of Americans, the majority of Texans want access to abortion.
Sure. And we are being, you know, led by politicians that don't have the interests
(05:42):
of their constituents in mind because they're being paid off by,
you know, certain groups of people who have a different agenda than what the
populace and the public want.
So we're unfortunately at the whims of those politicians that are in power because of those people.
So this kind of all, for me, stems from a problem with campaign finance reform.
(06:06):
You know, or campaign finance laws that need to be reformed.
That's the Citizens United? Yes. The fact that it's so hard to run for office
if you're an everyday working person and that it's impossible to have,
you know, people who aren't independently wealthy or connected to very wealthy
people running and running for office.
(06:26):
That's that's a huge part of the problem. So all of these different,
you know, interests have a bigger voice than we do as a public.
And we have to change that.
That's why it's so important that people make sure that they're voting and they're
getting other people to vote, because when we organize, we win.
But if we sit back and we complain about the problem without actually going
(06:47):
out to vote, we we're going to stay in the same situation and vote right now,
which is having people who don't have our backs speaking for us in the halls of Congress.
So it's really tough to compete with the big money in politics,
you know, lobbyists and PACs that donate so much money.
I guess what I was leaning toward was thinking that, you know,
(07:08):
instead of being common sense and doing or fighting for what's best for the
majority of people in this country,
it's based on their particular religious values.
Is that not accurate? I don't think that's accurate because there are a lot
of religious Democrats, right?
(07:28):
Like there are a lot of pro-life Democrats, right?
Who understand that it's not just, you know, they might personally not.
Ever want to have an abortion. And I would consider myself in that group as
well. Well, guess what? They don't have to. Exactly.
It's not every opinion you have needs to be legislated. And there are people
who understand that there should be exceptions.
(07:48):
I don't know if you saw this. There was a news article that came out last week
that showed that I think it was eight out of 10 Texas women do not understand
what our abortion laws include or don't include.
So there's a lot of misinformation being spread and misunderstanding about how
this is relevant to every single person in this state, every family.
(08:08):
And that certainly is something that needs to change.
So yeah, I don't think it's just, I wouldn't say it's as simple as,
you know, religious people.
Like I would not put it in that category. There are a few religious extremists
who are anti-abortion, right?
Who are funneling some of this, but that's not the majority of people, right?
(08:30):
And so the question is what is driving it. In terms of, for me,
it's always, this is an issue of, again, corruption at the highest levels,
people who want to hold on to power and they'll do anything to keep that power.
And that can look like, you know, the people who are funding their campaigns
to keep them in power, what they want, which is against the will of the people.
(08:52):
We're seeing that, we've seen that play out here in Texas with the primaries
recently, where there are billionaires funding, You know, funding the movement
for vouchers in our state education system.
You know, you asked a while ago, why would we see an undermining of experts?
That includes teachers.
That includes school counselors and social workers.
That, to me, is a coordinated effort on the part of our governor to honestly
(09:17):
try to privatize a public good. Public education is a public good.
And they've been working really hard over the years to undermine the public's
trust in our education system.
You know, that's where the banned book.
Situation comes from. That's where I was actually at a panel discussion on banned
books a few days back in San Antonio.
(09:40):
And one of the things that struck me was somebody on the panel,
they asked, when did you start to see these things coming about,
like talk of vouchers and talking about, or sorry, not vouchers,
talking about banned books?
When did you start to see the uproar? And they described that as something that
kind of peaked during COVID when all of the kiddos couldn't go to school.
(10:01):
So they were at home learning and their parents started to pay attention to what they were reading.
And to me, I don't know if you've ever read Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine. No.
Okay. So Naomi Klein, she's an intellectual. She's written a ton of different
books on different topics.
She wrote a book called No Logo. I mean, she talks a lot about capitalism and
she has a great book called Everything Changes.
(10:22):
Now I'm going to butcher that, but it's about climate change and capitalism.
And her book Shock Doctrine, the basic premise of it is when you have a catastrophe
of some kind, that leaves an opportunity for politicians to capitalize and leverage
that moment when people are fearful to push through unfavorable policies.
So a good example of that is when Katrina hit in New Orleans.
(10:44):
They were able to, you know, wash away the public school system and build up,
prop up a ton of charter schools in that community.
There's different, you know, you can look at this through different lenses for
different issues that have been that have happened across the country.
But to me, when I heard her say that COVID kind of chain was a pivotal moment,
(11:04):
I think that might have been our shock doctrine for education here in Texas,
where there were some folks who saw an opportunity to take advantage of the situation,
undermine parents, you know, trust in our public schools so that they could
push through privatizing them,
which to me, in my mind, is just an opportunity for them to indoctrinate children
(11:25):
with religious ideologies in our state. The opposite of what,
They're accusing schools of doing indoctrinating kids to liberal agendas, which is not true.
Right. Speaking of the library thing, I just read a story in the paper this
morning that a circuit court or Supreme Court's circuit court of appeals,
whatever, denied ruling or they upheld their ruling about librarians.
(11:50):
Oh, so so there so there was a provision in the law that was going to require
booksellers to rate their titles.
And for books that are sold to schools. Right.
And not have to do that. Right. And that this was a proposal from Governor Abbott
last year, but that was just shot down.
In fact, that was just in the paper this morning. So. Yeah.
(12:11):
So that is a win.
So I feel like there is some common sense in the judicial system somewhere when
I see some of these funky laws getting shot down, you know, some of these where
they try to limit choice or, you know, restrict things like that. Right.
Yeah. Yeah. And you know what it makes me think of, too, is like it's just so
(12:31):
ridiculous how much Chip Roy and people like him talk about the importance of freedom.
But for who? Yeah, exactly. Because why are you trying to tell other parents
how to parent their children if they want their kids to have access to certain books?
They should have access to certain books.
Your kid doesn't have to read those books. There are systems in place that you
(12:54):
could say, I don't want my kids to read this book. Don't let them check this book out.
We used to do that with movies in the 80s. You have a little card and you take
it and it limits what level of movie, PG-13 or whatever that your kid can check out.
That can happen with books too. You don't need to... This is the thing that
is just so infuriating about the Chip Roy's of the the world is like,
(13:16):
your freedom does not, you don't have the right to reserve, to restrict the
freedoms of other people who think differently than you.
And so much of their agenda is to try to get us all to think the same way. And that's not freedom.
Right. Your freedom ends where mine begins. Yes.
Along those same lines, the parents, maybe it's more of a knee-jerk reaction
(13:37):
when they, they probably don't read this material to find out what it's really about.
You know, it could be a clinical discussion about sexuality,
which typically books in schools that deal with those subject matters are.
You know, it's not necessarily encouraging discussion.
Behavior or whatever, right? Well, actually, I talked to somebody who's a bookshop
(13:58):
owner who brought that up, who said most of these book titles that these parents
are coming to attack, they've never even read the information.
And then they like to use the term children being exposed to these things.
And that can mean a 17 year old, right?
You know, when I was 12, I was reading Cosmo magazine, like what's the restrictions on that, right?
There's no, it's just a matter of who's doing the parenting and what do they
(14:22):
want their kids to be exposed to. And that's not something that the government
should be legislating. Yeah, that's a good point.
That's a good point. This is the government overreach party these days is what I'm learning.
It's the new GOP. I like that, government overreach party.
And so when you talk about rights and restrictions on abortion,
you know, wrinkly old men should not be making the decision women have to live with, you know? Yeah.
(14:47):
If you can't describe the menstrual cycle or what happens in pregnancy,
if you can't tell us the details because you're not a medical expert,
then it's not your place to tell us and tell our doctors what they can and can't
do. Absolutely. End of story.
Works for me. Okay. Well, when you mention reproductive issues,
of course, that ties in with health care.
(15:07):
And that's one of the biggest issues in this country.
And that's affordable health care. I mean, you know, we've been through it in
our family. We know zillions of people that have to struggle with it all the
time. What what can be done?
It's a great question. Health care, our health care systems.
And that's not a partisan statement.
Everyone has been through our crappy health care system. Yes.
(15:28):
We pay too much for things and we don't get the same, you know,
the benefits that we should be getting from it.
You know, if you look at other first world countries, they have they have seen
seemingly figured this out in a better way than what we have.
And for me, I know we have a giant country compared to some of those countries.
But a health care for all system just makes sense.
(15:49):
We need health care for everyone. Right now, the system is working great for
people who are profiteering off of it. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, you cannot.
The system is too deep now with the insurance companies.
That's the key probably, right, to get the insurance companies out of the health care business.
But that's probably impossible at this point, isn't it? Well,
it's yeah, you're right. Right. It's a series of wires and tubes that we don't
(16:13):
know where they lead anymore. And how do you start to untangle that, right?
It's not just the insurance company. So, I mean, this isn't our healthcare system
and the way that it's been designed is entangled with our economy.
One in six of our workforce works in the healthcare system, in the healthcare
industry, right? And that's huge. That's a huge part of our economy.
So, yeah, I mean, for me, the issue is we need to be prioritizing patients over
(16:38):
profits, get the profiteering out of our healthcare system.
You know, it doesn't make sense to me to have a system that.
Is paying more to keep people sick and dying than it would cost if we just had
everyone had access to affordable health care, that they could have preventative
care to detect and diagnose issues before they arose,
(16:59):
before they become too expensive to treat, before they, you know,
it's just the system doesn't make sense at all. You know, specific things.
Well, first of all, this is a state issue, right? Expanding Medicaid here in
the state of Texas would be hugely helpful.
And I know there's a lot of Democrats running in the state for state house races that are flippable.
(17:20):
And we should absolutely be supporting those candidates to get them in office.
And we need to get Abbott out of office. I mean, he's not doing anything to help us.
That's for sure. I read they just recently kicked off, you know,
several million more people from Medicaid. Yes.
Yeah. We are a sick state. We are a sick state.
There are one in five of us that don't have access to health care.
(17:41):
And we're all paying for that.
We're all paying for that in our property taxes. When someone shows up at an
emergency room to deal with an issue that could have been handled months before
or years before, we're all paying for that. That's true.
And my wife, who used to work in the medical field, we used to have the discussion often.
People that can't afford insurance end up in the emergency room,
(18:03):
and then guess who ends up paying for a lot of that? The general public anyway. Right.
Abbott doesn't want people to understand that property taxes are high because
of his choices to not to block the expansion of Medicaid.
That means people don't have access to basic, basic health care, and they should.
I personally, you know, see this from a social standpoint that it's a social,
(18:24):
this is a social issue and a moral issue.
But even if you don't believe in the social aspect of this, that people deserve
health care, even from an economic perspective, it does not make sense.
So, you know, I hear a lot of people, I have Republican family members,
right, who love to talk about, well, you know, Canada, their system is even more broken.
(18:45):
They keep coming here. They're coming here for their care.
And I'm like, no, like, I don't know how else to tell people.
Think of all the other countries that have this figured out,
that they have health care systems that treat people with dignity and they're
not going into medical debt and bankruptcy to cover their health care bills.
That's the system that we need. You know, don't tell me about the long lines
(19:09):
you're waiting for to get national health care system in England when,
you know, I recently this is a personal issue for me, too,
because, like, I recently broke my foot and it took forever to find access to.
Well, first of all, surprise billing, right? Been impacted by surprise billing.
I've skipped medications that I couldn't afford and didn't want to take.
(19:30):
So I know other people who have to struggle with that too.
Oh, yeah. But then just trying to find a provider that can see you within three
months. Oh, yeah, absolutely.
We've been in that same situation trying to get a doctor's appointment,
even with our regular doctor.
Right. And in order to get a referral for the thing you actually need,
you have to go to these PCPs who don't have any openings for months and months. Exactly.
(19:53):
So this is, don't tell me about these systems where they have long waits.
Like, what are we doing here?
Everybody's waiting too. We don't have a workforce that we need, right?
And part of that involves making sure that we incentivize people to want to
go into that line of business and incentivize them to want to come to our state.
Abortion bans aren't helping with that. That's for sure. Of criminalizing doctors
(20:13):
in a state that already has rural hospital closure, the worst rural hospital
closures in the country, and already has access to health care problems,
isn't helping, Greg Abbott.
Yeah. From what I've read about people that have had experiences in other countries
when they had an injury or needed something urgently, those health care systems,
they prioritize urgency.
(20:34):
So, you know, if it's something minor, of course, you're going to wait longer
than somebody that's got a life-threatening situation.
That would make sense to me. Yeah. Of course, they're not getting information.
They're getting misinformation.
Exactly right. And you can think of which news source news. I put that in quotations.
There's several out there, I'm sure. Right. Well, I just want to say,
(20:55):
you know, one more thing, too, about this.
I'm like, I'm attacking Greg Abbott for this problem, but I'm also going to
blame Chip Roy for this problem because he's Mr. No.
He doesn't want to fund any legislative efforts that would help solve some of these problems.
His whole goal is to make our government break, keep breaking it.
He's holding a hammer over a broken government and saying, look at how broken
this is, rather than trying to fix and solve our problems.
(21:17):
If you funded education in this country, we would actually be able to fund specialized
trainings and build up the workforce that we need for our future economy and
for our future healthcare needs with a growing population.
That's not something that he seems to be capable of doing. We need somebody
who sees long-term problems and can come up with long-term solutions for them.
(21:40):
And he's looking, you know, as far as his nose goes, so.
Yeah, and they need to think in terms of what's going to help the,
you know, their constituents, the largest portion of the
The voting the voting people. Right. Well, but they need to know what his record is.
And that's that's part of the problem that we have a misinformation and lack
of information happening in our district.
(22:02):
But people don't really know what it is he's doing or not doing for us.
If he's trying to defund, you know, he loves to complain about spending in our
government, how it's wasteful government spending, but he's not focused on the right kind of spending.
We need spending that is going to have big returns on investment.
(22:22):
And I would argue education is one of those. When you build out a workforce,
you build out a future and you build out and help us with our prosperity as
a state and as a country. Why is he shutting that down?
He doesn't want to talk about the things that we could spend on that would be
hugely important and beneficial for all of us.
Sure. Yeah, I think a lot of cases they don't really look at the big picture.
(22:43):
My boss used to always say, don't just come to me with a problem, come with a solution.
And, you know, that's all you hear is pointing out this problem or that problem.
Well, let's offer some solutions.
Right. Yeah, no, he's not there for public service. He's there for lip service.
Yeah, absolutely. Oh, I was going to say, you know, going through the ACA,
(23:03):
you know, when I lost my employer insurance, it was, even that was unaffordable.
Oh, absolutely. Even with the subsidy, the tax subsidy, too expensive for our
budget, so we just had to go without insurance for several years.
Yes, yes. So I actually just had this happen. So I quit my job to run for office,
which is a crazy thing to do, but drastic times call for drastic measures.
(23:26):
I gave up my federal job because you can't run for partisan office when you're a federal employee.
I gave up my federal job, my benefits, my health insurance, my pension,
my retirement, all of these things.
And so, yeah, when I tried to get on the health care exchange on a zero dollar
income, I didn't qualify.
That's absolutely crazy. And yeah, this is a this was my choosing,
(23:49):
right? Like I made this choice.
But there are a lot of people who are disabled and who have,
you know, they still have health care needs.
And we still should treat them with dignity and the respect that they deserve,
especially because we I want to live in a society where everyone's taken care
of and is cared for, not just, you know.
The people who have enough money are taken care of. That's not acceptable.
(24:13):
Richest nation in the world. You know, we ought to be able to handle these problems. Yeah, absolutely.
And so, yeah, to me, there are one of the things that we're not talking enough
about is the is the inequality, the income inequality in our country.
Oh, yeah, absolutely. It is massive.
And and there's a lot of people struggling. And instead, Fox News wants us to
(24:36):
think about immigration issues and DEI and culture wars like banning books.
And these are not the important problems of our time.
The important problems of our time is why do we have so much wealth amassed
by a certain group of people and then everyone else is struggling to keep up?
(24:56):
60% of our country is living paycheck to paycheck.
Poverty. In the richest country on earth, we have an incredible amount of poverty
in our country, and no one is talking about solving that and fixing that problem.
Why are we accepting that? This is what we need to be working to address.
We're never going to address it when you have wealthy people who can afford
(25:18):
running for Congress doing this, right?
And that's who's in office. I mean, this is where I would charge young people
with making sure that they're showing up no matter how hard and long your workday is.
You have to show up and get these people out of office because they are not working for us.
They are not here to speak for us. They are there to line their pockets.
(25:39):
They're there to keep themselves in office and in power as long as they can.
And they're not actually solving our real problems.
They're not looking. They will not understand our real problems. You know, I'm 40.
I just turned 40 this year. And I consider myself young, but it's my generation
was screwed over with the housing crisis that happened in the, you know, near 2010.
(26:00):
We graduated from college with student loan debt.
I'm still paying my student loans, by the way, 20 plus years later.
And, you know, I can't afford to buy a house.
And I had a great salary as a scientist in government. And I can't afford to buy a house.
That's only gotten worse for people behind me, you know, generations behind me.
(26:21):
We have to solve this. And we're never going to do it with 70 and 80-year-olds
in office because that's the only people who can, or 60-year-olds even, right?
Like people who can afford to be, you know, to be in office.
We need different voices.
We need different voices in office that understand the problems that we're facing.
Absolutely. And that are there to help. Well said.
Oh, yes. Term limits. Yeah. We need term limits. I would love it.
(26:44):
I would love that. I'm not interested in being a career politician.
I'm interested in solving problems and would love nothing more than to get the
money out of politics and also to, you know, term limits are wonderful.
And I wish that more people would support them because we need fresh ideas. We need turnover.
We don't need people making a career out of being a politician,
especially the chip roys of the world where they love to talk about wasting
(27:07):
taxpayer dollars yet. Yet I've never seen him turn down a paycheck off of the
backs of the hardworking constituents in our district.
Yeah, of course not. One of the issues that you mentioned in your campaign information
is about protecting our democracy.
Where have we gone wrong? What can we do to make sure we protect it?
Yeah, so that's what we've been talking about this whole time, right?
(27:30):
Like money, getting the money out of politics, getting money out of politics
and making it easier for everyday working people to be in.
Office and to take, you know, leadership in office so that they can be a voice
for the people. We have people in office like Chip Roy that are not the voice of the people.
And we need that. It's our government and we need to take it back.
(27:50):
You know, for me, the lack of access to voting rights is a huge problem as well.
It's a shame what's happened in our country where states like Texas can do everything
in their power to keep voters from being able to choose their leaders.
And that leaders can choose their voters, that's wrong.
(28:11):
And we've seen the impacts of that disenfranchisement where we have one of the
largest non-voting populations of registered voters in the country,
people who don't show up because they feel powerless.
They feel like their voice isn't going to be heard.
We say every election year is the most important one.
(28:31):
Right now, there's a lot hanging on the balance and we need people to show up
and get their voices heard. I've likened this to like a football stadium where
it's full of people in the crowd.
And, you know, there's a football play happening that everyone can see what needs to be done.
If only one person up there is shouting at the players, they're not going to hear it.
(28:52):
We need to all be shouting in unison. And that's what our votes do. Our votes are...
Our votes are our voice, and that's what leads to our democracy.
And if people sit out, we're not going to have a democracy.
Well, absolutely right. It seems like, at least in the media and at least in
some media, the loudest voices are actually coming from the minority of the general population.
(29:16):
Well, that's part of the problem. I don't know if you've seen this.
I was trying to track this morning what was going on with NPR News because there's
like a big kerfuffle in the rain. I read about that.
Yeah. And I saw some some folks commenting that, you know, one of the problems
with media these days is they think that balance means presenting the opposing side.
But that gives it equal weight. Right. So if you say, you know,
(29:37):
you know, to present the other side as though enough the same amount of people
are complaining about that issue and weighing weighing that like it's an equal
option is is doing a disservice to people.
And that leads to this small minority of people having an outsized voice when
that's not, you know, how most people feel or what most people believe.
(29:58):
So I think there's, you know, I don't know what the solution is there.
But again, that's another field where there's been an undermining of integrity
that isn't there. Because for me, I liken journalists to scientists.
Our job is to uncover the truth.
It may not be what you like. It may not be what you believe in,
(30:18):
but you can't argue with the truth.
It's just the truth. There's a, you know, opinion journalism and then there's factual journalism.
And obviously a lot of networks, influential networks, both radio and television
are presenting themselves as factual when really it's more opinion.
(30:40):
Sure. And they've muddied or it's entertainment.
Yeah. Yeah. They've muddied the waters. But for a true journalist.
You know, just like a scientist, you are trained.
You're bound by an ethical obligation and you have to cite your sources.
You have to have evidence for the things that you say. Yeah.
And if you can't back it up, then you don't need to publish it and it doesn't
(31:01):
need to be out there. Right.
So I think that that's often lost. Yeah. And now with so many people getting
their information, not from traditional news sources, when they go online,
you know, it's guaranteed to be slanted in a lot of cases.
Absolutely. I think one of the most important roles that news plays is holding
policymakers accountable.
(31:36):
Mm hmm.
President. More so in the far right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Trump is a leader in this.
Right. And for him to try to shut down journalism, that's that's that's a Russian
tactic. That is a Chinese tactic. Oh, yeah, absolutely.
The propaganda machine. Right. And and for people to buy into that and say,
yeah, they're they must they're corrupt, not the person who all of the arrows are being flung at.
(31:57):
Like this is a person who has who needs to be held accountable and is doing
everything he can to tear down the people who can't hold.
Yeah. To whine about not getting free speech and then and shutting,
trying to shut down opposing speech, you know, where's the, that's nothing but
hypocrisy, of course. It's conservative fragility.
Yeah. Yeah. And what's with now in Congress, you know, it used to be that you
(32:22):
could compromise and that was fine.
That's the way things got done in this country.
And I don't know if it's misinformation or, which leads to conspiracy theories,
of course, which influenced a lot of people that are in office now.
And God, how do we, you know, how do we rectify that situation?
That's where a lot of this. I think there are some Congress members who need
(32:44):
to read some books instead of trying to ban them.
Yeah, they need to go to. Yeah, that too.
Need to vote them out. No, I mean, yeah, this is this is the problem, right?
I would love to make a bumper sticker that says make politics boring again,
because it's become way too much.
It's a soap opera because we had a TV star running as a president.
(33:09):
And that's not the people you want developing policies that are going to determine
whether your kid who gets cancer is going to have the care that they need.
This is not
way to run a country. And too much of this seems to be driven by entertainment politics.
Right. And that's not that's not what we need. We need people who can understand the policy.
(33:32):
You know, so much of the process of campaigning is just antithetical to what
it actually takes to do the job well. Yes. Right.
If you're if you're actually a policy wonk, like you might not be great on TV
or in interviews or, you know, on a stage like but but people are selecting
people based off of that who can yell the loudest.
And that's not that's not what a politician should be.
(33:54):
But I do think there's very much this problem, especially with people like my
opponent, Chip Roy, that, you know, it's their way or the highway.
That's not how you legislate. If you actually care, if you actually care about
public service, that is not how you legislate.
And he's trying, again, he's holding the hammer over government saying,
(34:15):
look at how broken this is, but unwilling to sacrifice or compromise on anything.
He loves to talk about immigration and the need for, you know,
need for immigration reform.
Right, right. But he did not sign the bipartisan border deal.
We have the bipartisan border deal and then, you know, which both sides contributed to.
Yes. So it was definitely, you know, it was a step forward. Yes.
(34:38):
And and then, you know, you hear from Trump.
Yeah. Not to support it. So suddenly everybody just kowtows. Yeah.
Well, and that's ridiculous. Yeah. I'm sure, you know, the audience here probably is aware of this.
But please make sure that you're talking to your friends and family about this,
who see things differently, because I don't think they're even aware that there
was a bipartisan border deal. They love.
(35:00):
No, the Fox News is blaming this all on Biden. Biden's not doing this.
Mayorkas. I mean, that sham impeachment trial yesterday.
What a joke. What a waste of taxpayer dollars. Exactly.
And and yeah, they're they're scapegoating trying to find a scapegoat,
but they're not sharing with the public. Hey, you know, we actually.
Democrats actually came to the table. Republicans held their feet to the fire
(35:23):
and said, look, we want we want to we want to deal on the border before we sign anything else.
And and Democrats, they became they were true to their word.
They spent four months crafting a bill in a bipartisan manner.
Republicans and Democrats came together, came up with a bill.
And Chip Roy and his faction of the radicals on the far right turned it down.
(35:43):
And that's why we don't have a border a border deal. So don't tell us this is
an urgent issue if you're not willing to sign something that was come up in
a in a bipartisan manner.
And that's all he's going to campaign on is immigration, immigration, immigration.
Well, please remind your friends and family that he shut down an opportunity
that would have provided the resources that are needed to control the situation
(36:05):
happening in our border. And he he ducked out of it.
So that he needs to be held accountable for that. You're absolutely right. Okay.
(36:41):
Cause. There are, you know, I personally, I've tried to describe this to Republican
family members too, because they love to make DEI issues racial.
And it's not just racial. It's also about economics and economic opportunity differences.
It's also about gender. It's everything. You know, in the sciences,
I never saw my whole career at UT Austin as an undergrad.
(37:06):
I didn't have a single biology professor.
Actually, now I know I just thought of one. One. One.
Out of four years, three years of biology, excuse me, who was a woman.
Most of my professors were men. I didn't see myself in that world.
I pushed through, I persevered. It's who I am.
But when we know there's data to suggest that who mentors us matters and that
(37:31):
you are more likely to see yourself in that position.
There's a story, I'm going to butcher this now. There's a story I loved hearing.
I think I saw back in DC a long time ago, I saw somebody who was high up in
Finland And at the time, the prime minister was a woman.
And someone in kindergarten there said there was a young boy and a young girl.
And the young boy said, I wish that I was a woman so that I could be president
(37:53):
one day or I wish I was a girl.
And that tells you everything you need to know, right? That you see this one,
you know, model of what things could look like. And that's your imprint. True.
(38:33):
Extraneous extra things for their jobs that aren't actually a requirement for their job.
And that makes them less likely to be able to publish, which is the currency of success in academia.
And so, yeah, you're going to end up with fewer women in that role.
So you need to have processes in place to take a look at those discrepancies
and say, how do we make this more equal for people?
(38:56):
The same thing is true for rural communities, right? If we get rid of DEI issue,
DEI programming in government, there's science funding agencies that actually
pay attention now, because someone asked about it, to where the funding is going.
Is it all going to city centers or is it coming to New Braunfels?
There's got to be processes in place that take a look at those disparities and work to address them.
(39:19):
The current Republican Party is trying to shut down all of these abilities for
us to create equal opportunity regardless of what the disparity is driven by.
And this is a disservice for us to pursue liberty and justice for all.
Yeah, it's unfortunate.
And when I was in high school, girls were smarter than the boys in all the classes
I was in. So, you know. No comment.
(39:43):
I'll tell you one thing. I can certainly outsmart and outwork Chip Roy any day
of the week. So. Oh, I bet you could.
I bet you could. So, yeah, you know, yeah, you actually bring up another good
point that I'd like to make here, which is, you know, we have to solve the problems of...
Like we're in the midst of a crisis, right? Like we are in a boat that's sinking
(40:03):
and we have politicians in office like Chip Roy, they're pouring more water
into it instead of figuring out how to get the water out.
We need people who are interested in solving these problems.
As a scientist, that's what I bring to the table, right?
My whole job and training is in how to solve problems.
And I'm going to have a different approach to that than someone who went to
law school. But most importantly, a lot of the issues that we have in our country
(40:28):
are driven by a deficit in our workforce. We aren't training.
We aren't doing the right training. We aren't gearing the right training.
And we are not funding our education system to the point that we have the workforce
that these businesses need for innovation.
So, when Chip Roy complains about spending,
(40:48):
he again is just looking as far as his nose and not looking into the future
and saying, what's going to help build the training workforce and build the
training resources and the workforce that's needed for our future and for innovation?
Absolutely. So, he's stifling innovation. He's killing innovation.
He is not pro-business. You're not a pro-business candidate when you're not
(41:09):
supporting that innovation and the workforce that's needed to do it. Yeah, for sure.
Okay. Well, you've definitely got an uphill battle going against somebody like
him that's got some money behind him. So...
Are you doing outreach? Are you doing some, some, you know, additional,
I'm sure you're doing additional campaigning. Where can we find you?
How can we help support you? Yes. So I'm never going to, you know, well, I won't say never.
(41:34):
Right now, Chip Roy has a $2 million lead on me in his, you know,
in his coffers. And I'm really doing this from the grassroots.
Believe it or not, I'm not accepting any of Ted Cruz's PAC money.
That's not where, that's not what I'm about. So I am, you know,
I'm hoping for people who, if any of my messaging resonated with you,
if you have a bone to pick with Chip Roy, if you love scientists,
(41:57):
if you want to support, you know, a Latina from South Texas in our district,
I just ask that you make a contribution, any small contribution.
No contribution is too small, right? And you can make small recurring donations
just to keep our campaign afloat.
That would be super helpful. You can find me at www.drkristinhook.org.
(42:21):
I'm at drkristinhook.org. And I don't have any E's in my name.
I get the confusion of that a lot. But yeah, I have an ActBlue.
My ActBlue is Flipchip. So feel free to go to my site and I would love to see you on social.
And yeah, thanks so much for having me here. Will you be out and about doing
any meet and greets or anything like that? Oh, yes.
(42:42):
I'm always happy to... I don't have any events scheduled in the hill country
right now that I'm aware of.
But we can keep up on your website? Yes. Yeah, definitely.
Yes. I do have... I'm not sure when you're airing this, but I do have a campaign
kickoff on May 9th in San Antonio.
So, yeah, I couldn't tell you what's coming up in June. Okay.
(43:02):
I'll be in Fredericksburg for the July 4th parade. And honestly...
If anyone wants to host a meet and greet or have me, you know,
come out to a group meeting, then I'm happy to happy to jump in.
I know the badass lib ladies here and here.
I've heard of them. Yeah. Yeah. I know they do like a happy hour on Fridays.
(43:23):
I keep me. It's on my calendar.
I keep meaning to come up whenever I have a free moment. But it turns out running
for office is one of the few things you have is a free moment.
So one of these Fridays I'm going to show up, but I'll probably post online.
Line. I'll just need to make a commitment and say, I'm going to be there this Friday.
And then people can give enough heads up so that you can come and come meet
me and say hello and tell me about,
(43:43):
you know, your story and what you care about and what I can help fix.
Well, excellent. Thanks for spending some time with us. I wanted to ask you,
though, one question, Dr.
Hook. I don't know if you've ever gotten this question before,
but have you ever appeared on the cover of The Rolling Stone?
I have not, although I definitely have been. I have been asked.
(44:05):
I've been told I should on Twitter.
Somebody actually loved to make the Dr. Hook in the medicine show joke.
So, yeah, I think they might have tweeted at Rolling Stone and said,
you need to get her on the cover.
Yeah, absolutely. Well, for spending some time with us and hopefully we'll talk again soon.
Thank you. Thanks so much for having me. your family your
(44:27):
future your vote conversations from the hill country
is a production of the kamal county democratic party precinct
204 precinct chair and podcast director
teresa patrick deputy chair and podcast executive producer donna kelter music
provided by john malane online at j-o-n-m-u-l-l-a-n-e dot bandcamp.com we welcome
(44:51):
your comments i'm adam west thanks for listening.
Music.
(00:11):
Vote. Conversations from the Hill Country. I'm Adam West.
On this episode, we're talking to Dr. Kristen Hook, Democratic candidate for
the Texas 21st Congressional District running against Chip Roy.
She's a scientist and former educator.
She has quite a list of impressive credentials to her credit.
We talk about some important campaign issues like women's rights and reproductive
(00:34):
issues, affordable health care for all, protecting our democracy,
and leveling the playing field for working families and underdogs in our society.
It was a very interesting conversation.
We're talking today with Democratic
candidate for Texas 21st Congressional District against Chip Roy.
It's Kristen Hook, Dr. Kristen Hook, I should say. How are you?
(00:56):
Hi, I'm doing great. Thanks so much for having me on. Well, thanks for being
here. You've got an interesting background.
You are a scientist. I'm impressed already.
Yes, I am a scientist. A former educator, a middle school science teacher.
Yep. I have a Ph.D. in animal behavior. And as a former middle school teacher,
(01:17):
I am well prepared to handle Congress.
Okay. Well, knowing about animal behavior, how can we keep our dogs from piddling in the house?
I can't help you there, unfortunately. Oh, man.
Okay. Anyway, yeah, I was getting to that. You have a Ph.D. in animal behavior
from Cornell University, focusing on reproductive biology.
(01:38):
Yes. Is that correct? Yes. A postdoc at the University of Maryland,
and your experience in D.C.
Prompted you to help women scientists promote science and evidence-based policy.
Absolutely. Okay. Kind of important, as we've discovered.
I would certainly say, yeah. Worked with Elizabeth Warren's office,
then with the National Institutes of Health, and And then as a biologist at the U.S.
(02:02):
Government Accountability Office, educating Congress on emerging science and
tech, among other things.
Absolutely. Okay. Well, with all that help that they've had,
what's wrong with Congress? Why don't they believe in science?
Congress is a bit of a mess these days, unfortunately.
You ain't kidding. Okay. So that leads us to some of the things that are science-based
(02:25):
and some that are not. but your campaign, your main issues that you're focusing
on in your campaign, women's rights and reproductive issues, right? Yes.
Okay. Well, let's talk a little bit about that. What...
What is it with these backward steps in in women's rights and reproductive issues in our country?
Yeah. You know, this is actually one of the reasons that I decided to jump in
(02:47):
and run for office, because right now we have representatives that are not paying
attention, that don't seem to care that they're harming women in our state.
And, you know, I feel I felt compelled to jump into this race,
given my background and the fact that, you know, I'm a woman in Texas living in Texas.
I come from a long line of strong Texas women. And, you know,
(03:09):
this is a battle over health care.
And it's horrifying to think of the lack of access to health care that women
in our state already had.
And this has only served to make it worse for us. So, you know,
whether or not you agree with abortion and people who have abortion on a personal
level, this is about banning health care and access to health care.
(03:31):
I've met women in the district who have, you know, wanted kids.
Had things go wrong because pregnancy is risky and can be messy and that they
don't have access to the health care providers that they need in order to get the care that they need.
So, you know, these laws and understand how they're written,
(03:51):
how they're written is to criminalize doctors in our state for helping their patients.
Their entire mission is to help care for patients.
And that's their promise to take care of us. They can't do their job when the
state is threatening them for doing their job.
(04:11):
And there's a lot of confusion about where the line is for what would constitute, you know, an abortion.
And so they're rightfully so fearful of the law and instead err on the side
of being more conservative and not kind of stepping back from situations that
might be construed to be criminal,
(04:32):
according to our policymakers.
Makers. So that's absolutely unacceptable.
We need to, you know, if you get cancer.
You're not going to your politician's office to get help. You're going to your
doctor's office because you trust them. They're experts.
Our politicians in this state and then some in Congress are trying to undermine
the expertise of people in their field, in the medical field, in the education field.
(04:55):
We're seeing it across different sectors of our society, and we absolutely should
not be standing for that.
These are, you know, it's political attacks, and they need to stop.
Where do you think that comes from? What, you know, what's their motivation
for trying to change the, you know, what makes common sense for,
you know, for health care and especially for women and reproductive rights?
(05:19):
I mean. It's a good question. So, you know, if you look at polls of how many
people actually believe that women and people should have access to abortions,
regardless of circumstance,
the majority of Americans, the majority of Texans want access to abortion.
Sure. And we are being, you know, led by politicians that don't have the interests
(05:42):
of their constituents in mind because they're being paid off by,
you know, certain groups of people who have a different agenda than what the
populace and the public want.
So we're unfortunately at the whims of those politicians that are in power because of those people.
So this kind of all, for me, stems from a problem with campaign finance reform.
(06:06):
You know, or campaign finance laws that need to be reformed.
That's the Citizens United? Yes. The fact that it's so hard to run for office
if you're an everyday working person and that it's impossible to have,
you know, people who aren't independently wealthy or connected to very wealthy
people running and running for office.
(06:26):
That's that's a huge part of the problem. So all of these different,
you know, interests have a bigger voice than we do as a public.
And we have to change that.
That's why it's so important that people make sure that they're voting and they're
getting other people to vote, because when we organize, we win.
But if we sit back and we complain about the problem without actually going
(06:47):
out to vote, we we're going to stay in the same situation and vote right now,
which is having people who don't have our backs speaking for us in the halls of Congress.
So it's really tough to compete with the big money in politics,
you know, lobbyists and PACs that donate so much money.
I guess what I was leaning toward was thinking that, you know,
(07:08):
instead of being common sense and doing or fighting for what's best for the
majority of people in this country,
it's based on their particular religious values.
Is that not accurate? I don't think that's accurate because there are a lot
of religious Democrats, right?
(07:28):
Like there are a lot of pro-life Democrats, right?
Who understand that it's not just, you know, they might personally not.
Ever want to have an abortion. And I would consider myself in that group as
well. Well, guess what? They don't have to. Exactly.
It's not every opinion you have needs to be legislated. And there are people
who understand that there should be exceptions.
(07:48):
I don't know if you saw this. There was a news article that came out last week
that showed that I think it was eight out of 10 Texas women do not understand
what our abortion laws include or don't include.
So there's a lot of misinformation being spread and misunderstanding about how
this is relevant to every single person in this state, every family.
(08:08):
And that certainly is something that needs to change.
So yeah, I don't think it's just, I wouldn't say it's as simple as,
you know, religious people.
Like I would not put it in that category. There are a few religious extremists
who are anti-abortion, right?
Who are funneling some of this, but that's not the majority of people, right?
(08:30):
And so the question is what is driving it. In terms of, for me,
it's always, this is an issue of, again, corruption at the highest levels,
people who want to hold on to power and they'll do anything to keep that power.
And that can look like, you know, the people who are funding their campaigns
to keep them in power, what they want, which is against the will of the people.
(08:52):
We're seeing that, we've seen that play out here in Texas with the primaries
recently, where there are billionaires funding, You know, funding the movement
for vouchers in our state education system.
You know, you asked a while ago, why would we see an undermining of experts?
That includes teachers.
That includes school counselors and social workers.
That, to me, is a coordinated effort on the part of our governor to honestly
(09:17):
try to privatize a public good. Public education is a public good.
And they've been working really hard over the years to undermine the public's
trust in our education system.
You know, that's where the banned book.
Situation comes from. That's where I was actually at a panel discussion on banned
books a few days back in San Antonio.
(09:40):
And one of the things that struck me was somebody on the panel,
they asked, when did you start to see these things coming about,
like talk of vouchers and talking about, or sorry, not vouchers,
talking about banned books?
When did you start to see the uproar? And they described that as something that
kind of peaked during COVID when all of the kiddos couldn't go to school.
(10:01):
So they were at home learning and their parents started to pay attention to what they were reading.
And to me, I don't know if you've ever read Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine. No.
Okay. So Naomi Klein, she's an intellectual. She's written a ton of different
books on different topics.
She wrote a book called No Logo. I mean, she talks a lot about capitalism and
she has a great book called Everything Changes.
(10:22):
Now I'm going to butcher that, but it's about climate change and capitalism.
And her book Shock Doctrine, the basic premise of it is when you have a catastrophe
of some kind, that leaves an opportunity for politicians to capitalize and leverage
that moment when people are fearful to push through unfavorable policies.
So a good example of that is when Katrina hit in New Orleans.
(10:44):
They were able to, you know, wash away the public school system and build up,
prop up a ton of charter schools in that community.
There's different, you know, you can look at this through different lenses for
different issues that have been that have happened across the country.
But to me, when I heard her say that COVID kind of chain was a pivotal moment,
(11:04):
I think that might have been our shock doctrine for education here in Texas,
where there were some folks who saw an opportunity to take advantage of the situation,
undermine parents, you know, trust in our public schools so that they could
push through privatizing them,
which to me, in my mind, is just an opportunity for them to indoctrinate children
(11:25):
with religious ideologies in our state. The opposite of what,
They're accusing schools of doing indoctrinating kids to liberal agendas, which is not true.
Right. Speaking of the library thing, I just read a story in the paper this
morning that a circuit court or Supreme Court's circuit court of appeals,
whatever, denied ruling or they upheld their ruling about librarians.
(11:50):
Oh, so so there so there was a provision in the law that was going to require
booksellers to rate their titles.
And for books that are sold to schools. Right.
And not have to do that. Right. And that this was a proposal from Governor Abbott
last year, but that was just shot down.
In fact, that was just in the paper this morning. So. Yeah.
(12:11):
So that is a win.
So I feel like there is some common sense in the judicial system somewhere when
I see some of these funky laws getting shot down, you know, some of these where
they try to limit choice or, you know, restrict things like that. Right.
Yeah. Yeah. And you know what it makes me think of, too, is like it's just so
(12:31):
ridiculous how much Chip Roy and people like him talk about the importance of freedom.
But for who? Yeah, exactly. Because why are you trying to tell other parents
how to parent their children if they want their kids to have access to certain books?
They should have access to certain books.
Your kid doesn't have to read those books. There are systems in place that you
(12:54):
could say, I don't want my kids to read this book. Don't let them check this book out.
We used to do that with movies in the 80s. You have a little card and you take
it and it limits what level of movie, PG-13 or whatever that your kid can check out.
That can happen with books too. You don't need to... This is the thing that
is just so infuriating about the Chip Roy's of the the world is like,
(13:16):
your freedom does not, you don't have the right to reserve, to restrict the
freedoms of other people who think differently than you.
And so much of their agenda is to try to get us all to think the same way. And that's not freedom.
Right. Your freedom ends where mine begins. Yes.
Along those same lines, the parents, maybe it's more of a knee-jerk reaction
(13:37):
when they, they probably don't read this material to find out what it's really about.
You know, it could be a clinical discussion about sexuality,
which typically books in schools that deal with those subject matters are.
You know, it's not necessarily encouraging discussion.
Behavior or whatever, right? Well, actually, I talked to somebody who's a bookshop
(13:58):
owner who brought that up, who said most of these book titles that these parents
are coming to attack, they've never even read the information.
And then they like to use the term children being exposed to these things.
And that can mean a 17 year old, right?
You know, when I was 12, I was reading Cosmo magazine, like what's the restrictions on that, right?
There's no, it's just a matter of who's doing the parenting and what do they
(14:22):
want their kids to be exposed to. And that's not something that the government
should be legislating. Yeah, that's a good point.
That's a good point. This is the government overreach party these days is what I'm learning.
It's the new GOP. I like that, government overreach party.
And so when you talk about rights and restrictions on abortion,
you know, wrinkly old men should not be making the decision women have to live with, you know? Yeah.
(14:47):
If you can't describe the menstrual cycle or what happens in pregnancy,
if you can't tell us the details because you're not a medical expert,
then it's not your place to tell us and tell our doctors what they can and can't
do. Absolutely. End of story.
Works for me. Okay. Well, when you mention reproductive issues,
of course, that ties in with health care.
(15:07):
And that's one of the biggest issues in this country.
And that's affordable health care. I mean, you know, we've been through it in
our family. We know zillions of people that have to struggle with it all the
time. What what can be done?
It's a great question. Health care, our health care systems.
And that's not a partisan statement.
Everyone has been through our crappy health care system. Yes.
(15:28):
We pay too much for things and we don't get the same, you know,
the benefits that we should be getting from it.
You know, if you look at other first world countries, they have they have seen
seemingly figured this out in a better way than what we have.
And for me, I know we have a giant country compared to some of those countries.
But a health care for all system just makes sense.
(15:49):
We need health care for everyone. Right now, the system is working great for
people who are profiteering off of it. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, you cannot.
The system is too deep now with the insurance companies.
That's the key probably, right, to get the insurance companies out of the health care business.
But that's probably impossible at this point, isn't it? Well,
it's yeah, you're right. Right. It's a series of wires and tubes that we don't
(16:13):
know where they lead anymore. And how do you start to untangle that, right?
It's not just the insurance company. So, I mean, this isn't our healthcare system
and the way that it's been designed is entangled with our economy.
One in six of our workforce works in the healthcare system, in the healthcare
industry, right? And that's huge. That's a huge part of our economy.
So, yeah, I mean, for me, the issue is we need to be prioritizing patients over
(16:38):
profits, get the profiteering out of our healthcare system.
You know, it doesn't make sense to me to have a system that.
Is paying more to keep people sick and dying than it would cost if we just had
everyone had access to affordable health care, that they could have preventative
care to detect and diagnose issues before they arose,
(16:59):
before they become too expensive to treat, before they, you know,
it's just the system doesn't make sense at all. You know, specific things.
Well, first of all, this is a state issue, right? Expanding Medicaid here in
the state of Texas would be hugely helpful.
And I know there's a lot of Democrats running in the state for state house races that are flippable.
(17:20):
And we should absolutely be supporting those candidates to get them in office.
And we need to get Abbott out of office. I mean, he's not doing anything to help us.
That's for sure. I read they just recently kicked off, you know,
several million more people from Medicaid. Yes.
Yeah. We are a sick state. We are a sick state.
There are one in five of us that don't have access to health care.
(17:41):
And we're all paying for that.
We're all paying for that in our property taxes. When someone shows up at an
emergency room to deal with an issue that could have been handled months before
or years before, we're all paying for that. That's true.
And my wife, who used to work in the medical field, we used to have the discussion often.
People that can't afford insurance end up in the emergency room,
(18:03):
and then guess who ends up paying for a lot of that? The general public anyway. Right.
Abbott doesn't want people to understand that property taxes are high because
of his choices to not to block the expansion of Medicaid.
That means people don't have access to basic, basic health care, and they should.
I personally, you know, see this from a social standpoint that it's a social,
(18:24):
this is a social issue and a moral issue.
But even if you don't believe in the social aspect of this, that people deserve
health care, even from an economic perspective, it does not make sense.
So, you know, I hear a lot of people, I have Republican family members,
right, who love to talk about, well, you know, Canada, their system is even more broken.
(18:45):
They keep coming here. They're coming here for their care.
And I'm like, no, like, I don't know how else to tell people.
Think of all the other countries that have this figured out,
that they have health care systems that treat people with dignity and they're
not going into medical debt and bankruptcy to cover their health care bills.
That's the system that we need. You know, don't tell me about the long lines
(19:09):
you're waiting for to get national health care system in England when,
you know, I recently this is a personal issue for me, too,
because, like, I recently broke my foot and it took forever to find access to.
Well, first of all, surprise billing, right? Been impacted by surprise billing.
I've skipped medications that I couldn't afford and didn't want to take.
(19:30):
So I know other people who have to struggle with that too.
Oh, yeah. But then just trying to find a provider that can see you within three
months. Oh, yeah, absolutely.
We've been in that same situation trying to get a doctor's appointment,
even with our regular doctor.
Right. And in order to get a referral for the thing you actually need,
you have to go to these PCPs who don't have any openings for months and months. Exactly.
(19:53):
So this is, don't tell me about these systems where they have long waits.
Like, what are we doing here?
Everybody's waiting too. We don't have a workforce that we need, right?
And part of that involves making sure that we incentivize people to want to
go into that line of business and incentivize them to want to come to our state.
Abortion bans aren't helping with that. That's for sure. Of criminalizing doctors
(20:13):
in a state that already has rural hospital closure, the worst rural hospital
closures in the country, and already has access to health care problems,
isn't helping, Greg Abbott.
Yeah. From what I've read about people that have had experiences in other countries
when they had an injury or needed something urgently, those health care systems,
they prioritize urgency.
(20:34):
So, you know, if it's something minor, of course, you're going to wait longer
than somebody that's got a life-threatening situation.
That would make sense to me. Yeah. Of course, they're not getting information.
They're getting misinformation.
Exactly right. And you can think of which news source news. I put that in quotations.
There's several out there, I'm sure. Right. Well, I just want to say,
(20:55):
you know, one more thing, too, about this.
I'm like, I'm attacking Greg Abbott for this problem, but I'm also going to
blame Chip Roy for this problem because he's Mr. No.
He doesn't want to fund any legislative efforts that would help solve some of these problems.
His whole goal is to make our government break, keep breaking it.
He's holding a hammer over a broken government and saying, look at how broken
this is, rather than trying to fix and solve our problems.
(21:17):
If you funded education in this country, we would actually be able to fund specialized
trainings and build up the workforce that we need for our future economy and
for our future healthcare needs with a growing population.
That's not something that he seems to be capable of doing. We need somebody
who sees long-term problems and can come up with long-term solutions for them.
(21:40):
And he's looking, you know, as far as his nose goes, so.
Yeah, and they need to think in terms of what's going to help the,
you know, their constituents, the largest portion of the
The voting the voting people. Right. Well, but they need to know what his record is.
And that's that's part of the problem that we have a misinformation and lack
of information happening in our district.
(22:02):
But people don't really know what it is he's doing or not doing for us.
If he's trying to defund, you know, he loves to complain about spending in our
government, how it's wasteful government spending, but he's not focused on the right kind of spending.
We need spending that is going to have big returns on investment.
(22:22):
And I would argue education is one of those. When you build out a workforce,
you build out a future and you build out and help us with our prosperity as
a state and as a country. Why is he shutting that down?
He doesn't want to talk about the things that we could spend on that would be
hugely important and beneficial for all of us.
Sure. Yeah, I think a lot of cases they don't really look at the big picture.
(22:43):
My boss used to always say, don't just come to me with a problem, come with a solution.
And, you know, that's all you hear is pointing out this problem or that problem.
Well, let's offer some solutions.
Right. Yeah, no, he's not there for public service. He's there for lip service.
Yeah, absolutely. Oh, I was going to say, you know, going through the ACA,
(23:03):
you know, when I lost my employer insurance, it was, even that was unaffordable.
Oh, absolutely. Even with the subsidy, the tax subsidy, too expensive for our
budget, so we just had to go without insurance for several years.
Yes, yes. So I actually just had this happen. So I quit my job to run for office,
which is a crazy thing to do, but drastic times call for drastic measures.
(23:26):
I gave up my federal job because you can't run for partisan office when you're a federal employee.
I gave up my federal job, my benefits, my health insurance, my pension,
my retirement, all of these things.
And so, yeah, when I tried to get on the health care exchange on a zero dollar
income, I didn't qualify.
That's absolutely crazy. And yeah, this is a this was my choosing,
(23:49):
right? Like I made this choice.
But there are a lot of people who are disabled and who have,
you know, they still have health care needs.
And we still should treat them with dignity and the respect that they deserve,
especially because we I want to live in a society where everyone's taken care
of and is cared for, not just, you know.
The people who have enough money are taken care of. That's not acceptable.
(24:13):
Richest nation in the world. You know, we ought to be able to handle these problems. Yeah, absolutely.
And so, yeah, to me, there are one of the things that we're not talking enough
about is the is the inequality, the income inequality in our country.
Oh, yeah, absolutely. It is massive.
And and there's a lot of people struggling. And instead, Fox News wants us to
(24:36):
think about immigration issues and DEI and culture wars like banning books.
And these are not the important problems of our time.
The important problems of our time is why do we have so much wealth amassed
by a certain group of people and then everyone else is struggling to keep up?
(24:56):
60% of our country is living paycheck to paycheck.
Poverty. In the richest country on earth, we have an incredible amount of poverty
in our country, and no one is talking about solving that and fixing that problem.
Why are we accepting that? This is what we need to be working to address.
We're never going to address it when you have wealthy people who can afford
(25:18):
running for Congress doing this, right?
And that's who's in office. I mean, this is where I would charge young people
with making sure that they're showing up no matter how hard and long your workday is.
You have to show up and get these people out of office because they are not working for us.
They are not here to speak for us. They are there to line their pockets.
(25:39):
They're there to keep themselves in office and in power as long as they can.
And they're not actually solving our real problems.
They're not looking. They will not understand our real problems. You know, I'm 40.
I just turned 40 this year. And I consider myself young, but it's my generation
was screwed over with the housing crisis that happened in the, you know, near 2010.
(26:00):
We graduated from college with student loan debt.
I'm still paying my student loans, by the way, 20 plus years later.
And, you know, I can't afford to buy a house.
And I had a great salary as a scientist in government. And I can't afford to buy a house.
That's only gotten worse for people behind me, you know, generations behind me.
(26:21):
We have to solve this. And we're never going to do it with 70 and 80-year-olds
in office because that's the only people who can, or 60-year-olds even, right?
Like people who can afford to be, you know, to be in office.
We need different voices.
We need different voices in office that understand the problems that we're facing.
Absolutely. And that are there to help. Well said.
Oh, yes. Term limits. Yeah. We need term limits. I would love it.
(26:44):
I would love that. I'm not interested in being a career politician.
I'm interested in solving problems and would love nothing more than to get the
money out of politics and also to, you know, term limits are wonderful.
And I wish that more people would support them because we need fresh ideas. We need turnover.
We don't need people making a career out of being a politician,
especially the chip roys of the world where they love to talk about wasting
(27:07):
taxpayer dollars yet. Yet I've never seen him turn down a paycheck off of the
backs of the hardworking constituents in our district.
Yeah, of course not. One of the issues that you mentioned in your campaign information
is about protecting our democracy.
Where have we gone wrong? What can we do to make sure we protect it?
Yeah, so that's what we've been talking about this whole time, right?
(27:30):
Like money, getting the money out of politics, getting money out of politics
and making it easier for everyday working people to be in.
Office and to take, you know, leadership in office so that they can be a voice
for the people. We have people in office like Chip Roy that are not the voice of the people.
And we need that. It's our government and we need to take it back.
(27:50):
You know, for me, the lack of access to voting rights is a huge problem as well.
It's a shame what's happened in our country where states like Texas can do everything
in their power to keep voters from being able to choose their leaders.
And that leaders can choose their voters, that's wrong.
(28:11):
And we've seen the impacts of that disenfranchisement where we have one of the
largest non-voting populations of registered voters in the country,
people who don't show up because they feel powerless.
They feel like their voice isn't going to be heard.
We say every election year is the most important one.
(28:31):
Right now, there's a lot hanging on the balance and we need people to show up
and get their voices heard. I've likened this to like a football stadium where
it's full of people in the crowd.
And, you know, there's a football play happening that everyone can see what needs to be done.
If only one person up there is shouting at the players, they're not going to hear it.
(28:52):
We need to all be shouting in unison. And that's what our votes do. Our votes are...
Our votes are our voice, and that's what leads to our democracy.
And if people sit out, we're not going to have a democracy.
Well, absolutely right. It seems like, at least in the media and at least in
some media, the loudest voices are actually coming from the minority of the general population.
(29:16):
Well, that's part of the problem. I don't know if you've seen this.
I was trying to track this morning what was going on with NPR News because there's
like a big kerfuffle in the rain. I read about that.
Yeah. And I saw some some folks commenting that, you know, one of the problems
with media these days is they think that balance means presenting the opposing side.
But that gives it equal weight. Right. So if you say, you know,
(29:37):
you know, to present the other side as though enough the same amount of people
are complaining about that issue and weighing weighing that like it's an equal
option is is doing a disservice to people.
And that leads to this small minority of people having an outsized voice when
that's not, you know, how most people feel or what most people believe.
(29:58):
So I think there's, you know, I don't know what the solution is there.
But again, that's another field where there's been an undermining of integrity
that isn't there. Because for me, I liken journalists to scientists.
Our job is to uncover the truth.
It may not be what you like. It may not be what you believe in,
(30:18):
but you can't argue with the truth.
It's just the truth. There's a, you know, opinion journalism and then there's factual journalism.
And obviously a lot of networks, influential networks, both radio and television
are presenting themselves as factual when really it's more opinion.
(30:40):
Sure. And they've muddied or it's entertainment.
Yeah. Yeah. They've muddied the waters. But for a true journalist.
You know, just like a scientist, you are trained.
You're bound by an ethical obligation and you have to cite your sources.
You have to have evidence for the things that you say. Yeah.
And if you can't back it up, then you don't need to publish it and it doesn't
(31:01):
need to be out there. Right.
So I think that that's often lost. Yeah. And now with so many people getting
their information, not from traditional news sources, when they go online,
you know, it's guaranteed to be slanted in a lot of cases.
Absolutely. I think one of the most important roles that news plays is holding
policymakers accountable.
(31:36):
Mm hmm.
President. More so in the far right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Trump is a leader in this.
Right. And for him to try to shut down journalism, that's that's that's a Russian
tactic. That is a Chinese tactic. Oh, yeah, absolutely.
The propaganda machine. Right. And and for people to buy into that and say,
yeah, they're they must they're corrupt, not the person who all of the arrows are being flung at.
(31:57):
Like this is a person who has who needs to be held accountable and is doing
everything he can to tear down the people who can't hold.
Yeah. To whine about not getting free speech and then and shutting,
trying to shut down opposing speech, you know, where's the, that's nothing but
hypocrisy, of course. It's conservative fragility.
Yeah. Yeah. And what's with now in Congress, you know, it used to be that you
(32:22):
could compromise and that was fine.
That's the way things got done in this country.
And I don't know if it's misinformation or, which leads to conspiracy theories,
of course, which influenced a lot of people that are in office now.
And God, how do we, you know, how do we rectify that situation?
That's where a lot of this. I think there are some Congress members who need
(32:44):
to read some books instead of trying to ban them.
Yeah, they need to go to. Yeah, that too.
Need to vote them out. No, I mean, yeah, this is this is the problem, right?
I would love to make a bumper sticker that says make politics boring again,
because it's become way too much.
It's a soap opera because we had a TV star running as a president.
(33:09):
And that's not the people you want developing policies that are going to determine
whether your kid who gets cancer is going to have the care that they need.
This is not
way to run a country. And too much of this seems to be driven by entertainment politics.
Right. And that's not that's not what we need. We need people who can understand the policy.
(33:32):
You know, so much of the process of campaigning is just antithetical to what
it actually takes to do the job well. Yes. Right.
If you're if you're actually a policy wonk, like you might not be great on TV
or in interviews or, you know, on a stage like but but people are selecting
people based off of that who can yell the loudest.
And that's not that's not what a politician should be.
(33:54):
But I do think there's very much this problem, especially with people like my
opponent, Chip Roy, that, you know, it's their way or the highway.
That's not how you legislate. If you actually care, if you actually care about
public service, that is not how you legislate.
And he's trying, again, he's holding the hammer over government saying,
(34:15):
look at how broken this is, but unwilling to sacrifice or compromise on anything.
He loves to talk about immigration and the need for, you know,
need for immigration reform.
Right, right. But he did not sign the bipartisan border deal.
We have the bipartisan border deal and then, you know, which both sides contributed to.
Yes. So it was definitely, you know, it was a step forward. Yes.
(34:38):
And and then, you know, you hear from Trump.
Yeah. Not to support it. So suddenly everybody just kowtows. Yeah.
Well, and that's ridiculous. Yeah. I'm sure, you know, the audience here probably is aware of this.
But please make sure that you're talking to your friends and family about this,
who see things differently, because I don't think they're even aware that there
was a bipartisan border deal. They love.
(35:00):
No, the Fox News is blaming this all on Biden. Biden's not doing this.
Mayorkas. I mean, that sham impeachment trial yesterday.
What a joke. What a waste of taxpayer dollars. Exactly.
And and yeah, they're they're scapegoating trying to find a scapegoat,
but they're not sharing with the public. Hey, you know, we actually.
Democrats actually came to the table. Republicans held their feet to the fire
(35:23):
and said, look, we want we want to we want to deal on the border before we sign anything else.
And and Democrats, they became they were true to their word.
They spent four months crafting a bill in a bipartisan manner.
Republicans and Democrats came together, came up with a bill.
And Chip Roy and his faction of the radicals on the far right turned it down.
(35:43):
And that's why we don't have a border a border deal. So don't tell us this is
an urgent issue if you're not willing to sign something that was come up in
a in a bipartisan manner.
And that's all he's going to campaign on is immigration, immigration, immigration.
Well, please remind your friends and family that he shut down an opportunity
that would have provided the resources that are needed to control the situation
(36:05):
happening in our border. And he he ducked out of it.
So that he needs to be held accountable for that. You're absolutely right. Okay.
(36:41):
Cause. There are, you know, I personally, I've tried to describe this to Republican
family members too, because they love to make DEI issues racial.
And it's not just racial. It's also about economics and economic opportunity differences.
It's also about gender. It's everything. You know, in the sciences,
I never saw my whole career at UT Austin as an undergrad.
(37:06):
I didn't have a single biology professor.
Actually, now I know I just thought of one. One. One.
Out of four years, three years of biology, excuse me, who was a woman.
Most of my professors were men. I didn't see myself in that world.
I pushed through, I persevered. It's who I am.
But when we know there's data to suggest that who mentors us matters and that
(37:31):
you are more likely to see yourself in that position.
There's a story, I'm going to butcher this now. There's a story I loved hearing.
I think I saw back in DC a long time ago, I saw somebody who was high up in
Finland And at the time, the prime minister was a woman.
And someone in kindergarten there said there was a young boy and a young girl.
And the young boy said, I wish that I was a woman so that I could be president
(37:53):
one day or I wish I was a girl.
And that tells you everything you need to know, right? That you see this one,
you know, model of what things could look like. And that's your imprint. True.
(38:33):
Extraneous extra things for their jobs that aren't actually a requirement for their job.
And that makes them less likely to be able to publish, which is the currency of success in academia.
And so, yeah, you're going to end up with fewer women in that role.
So you need to have processes in place to take a look at those discrepancies
and say, how do we make this more equal for people?
(38:56):
The same thing is true for rural communities, right? If we get rid of DEI issue,
DEI programming in government, there's science funding agencies that actually
pay attention now, because someone asked about it, to where the funding is going.
Is it all going to city centers or is it coming to New Braunfels?
There's got to be processes in place that take a look at those disparities and work to address them.
(39:19):
The current Republican Party is trying to shut down all of these abilities for
us to create equal opportunity regardless of what the disparity is driven by.
And this is a disservice for us to pursue liberty and justice for all.
Yeah, it's unfortunate.
And when I was in high school, girls were smarter than the boys in all the classes
I was in. So, you know. No comment.
(39:43):
I'll tell you one thing. I can certainly outsmart and outwork Chip Roy any day
of the week. So. Oh, I bet you could.
I bet you could. So, yeah, you know, yeah, you actually bring up another good
point that I'd like to make here, which is, you know, we have to solve the problems of...
Like we're in the midst of a crisis, right? Like we are in a boat that's sinking
(40:03):
and we have politicians in office like Chip Roy, they're pouring more water
into it instead of figuring out how to get the water out.
We need people who are interested in solving these problems.
As a scientist, that's what I bring to the table, right?
My whole job and training is in how to solve problems.
And I'm going to have a different approach to that than someone who went to
law school. But most importantly, a lot of the issues that we have in our country
(40:28):
are driven by a deficit in our workforce. We aren't training.
We aren't doing the right training. We aren't gearing the right training.
And we are not funding our education system to the point that we have the workforce
that these businesses need for innovation.
So, when Chip Roy complains about spending,
(40:48):
he again is just looking as far as his nose and not looking into the future
and saying, what's going to help build the training workforce and build the
training resources and the workforce that's needed for our future and for innovation?
Absolutely. So, he's stifling innovation. He's killing innovation.
He is not pro-business. You're not a pro-business candidate when you're not
(41:09):
supporting that innovation and the workforce that's needed to do it. Yeah, for sure.
Okay. Well, you've definitely got an uphill battle going against somebody like
him that's got some money behind him. So...
Are you doing outreach? Are you doing some, some, you know, additional,
I'm sure you're doing additional campaigning. Where can we find you?
How can we help support you? Yes. So I'm never going to, you know, well, I won't say never.
(41:34):
Right now, Chip Roy has a $2 million lead on me in his, you know,
in his coffers. And I'm really doing this from the grassroots.
Believe it or not, I'm not accepting any of Ted Cruz's PAC money.
That's not where, that's not what I'm about. So I am, you know,
I'm hoping for people who, if any of my messaging resonated with you,
if you have a bone to pick with Chip Roy, if you love scientists,
(41:57):
if you want to support, you know, a Latina from South Texas in our district,
I just ask that you make a contribution, any small contribution.
No contribution is too small, right? And you can make small recurring donations
just to keep our campaign afloat.
That would be super helpful. You can find me at www.drkristinhook.org.
(42:21):
I'm at drkristinhook.org. And I don't have any E's in my name.
I get the confusion of that a lot. But yeah, I have an ActBlue.
My ActBlue is Flipchip. So feel free to go to my site and I would love to see you on social.
And yeah, thanks so much for having me here. Will you be out and about doing
any meet and greets or anything like that? Oh, yes.
(42:42):
I'm always happy to... I don't have any events scheduled in the hill country
right now that I'm aware of.
But we can keep up on your website? Yes. Yeah, definitely.
Yes. I do have... I'm not sure when you're airing this, but I do have a campaign
kickoff on May 9th in San Antonio.
So, yeah, I couldn't tell you what's coming up in June. Okay.
(43:02):
I'll be in Fredericksburg for the July 4th parade. And honestly...
If anyone wants to host a meet and greet or have me, you know,
come out to a group meeting, then I'm happy to happy to jump in.
I know the badass lib ladies here and here.
I've heard of them. Yeah. Yeah. I know they do like a happy hour on Fridays.
(43:23):
I keep me. It's on my calendar.
I keep meaning to come up whenever I have a free moment. But it turns out running
for office is one of the few things you have is a free moment.
So one of these Fridays I'm going to show up, but I'll probably post online.
Line. I'll just need to make a commitment and say, I'm going to be there this Friday.
And then people can give enough heads up so that you can come and come meet
me and say hello and tell me about,
(43:43):
you know, your story and what you care about and what I can help fix.
Well, excellent. Thanks for spending some time with us. I wanted to ask you,
though, one question, Dr.
Hook. I don't know if you've ever gotten this question before,
but have you ever appeared on the cover of The Rolling Stone?
I have not, although I definitely have been. I have been asked.
(44:05):
I've been told I should on Twitter.
Somebody actually loved to make the Dr. Hook in the medicine show joke.
So, yeah, I think they might have tweeted at Rolling Stone and said,
you need to get her on the cover.
Yeah, absolutely. Well, for spending some time with us and hopefully we'll talk again soon.
Thank you. Thanks so much for having me. your family your
(44:27):
future your vote conversations from the hill country
is a production of the kamal county democratic party precinct
204 precinct chair and podcast director
teresa patrick deputy chair and podcast executive producer donna kelter music
provided by john malane online at j-o-n-m-u-l-l-a-n-e dot bandcamp.com we welcome
(44:51):
your comments i'm adam west thanks for listening.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!