Brandon Waltens - Texas Scorecard Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right or fank Republicans. I guess six twenty two
is our time here in Houston's Morning News. So our
next guest, Brandon Waltons with Texas Corecard, wrote the article
for the publication where he checked in with the Texas
GOP chair Abraham George, who expressed some concerns that the
Trump administration is willing to endorse somebody who may not

(00:20):
even be a candidate for the Republican Party. I guess
let's start with this one brand as we can make
it a little bit easier for everybody to understand. They
started with a concern over the Republicans closing their primary
here in Texas. What was the Trump administration concerned about that?

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Well, supposedly some political operatives who you know, work with
the president as far as you know, kind of help
him with his endorsements and such, expressed some concern that
they didn't like the idea of closing the primaries, essentially
saying that only Republicans can vote in the Republican primary
and that Democrats should be voting in the Democrat primary.

(00:57):
You know, as far as why this is, you know,
some of these these consultants has been tied to more
liberal candidates, not President Trump, of course, but they might
have worked for other candidates who have benefited from this
kind of you know, these kind of open primaries in
the past. Now seems like the administration says no, actually,
now they're saying that that's not a problem. We have

(01:18):
no issue with that. And so, you know, that's certainly
a positive development. But there's some other, you know, concerns
that the Republican Party of Texas is expressing about, you know,
potentially some of these endorsements coming down the pike from
the President.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
I guess they're concerned that there may be an endorsement
coming from somebody who's not a preferred Republican candidate. And
what Abraham George is saying, we have people who are
running who we don't consider to be really real Republicans,
and these are not the people we want elected. So
we'd appreciate it if you wouldn't endorse these people, because
you know, if you endorse them, people are going to

(01:53):
vote for them.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
Exactly. There there is a you know, a new mechanism
in play, you know, the centure, meaning that the Republican
Party of Texas can remove some candidates that you know,
essentially don't vote with like Republicans. When they're in office,
they can be removed from the ballot. Whether or not
this happened to this cycle or if this gets tied
up in court, I mean, we'll see, but the party

(02:19):
has until October to make those decisions. So far, the
President hasn't issued any endorsements, but he has reportedly told
members that if they voted for the school choice bill
earlier this year in the Texas legislature that they would
receive his support. And so, you know, these things can
always change, and so we'll see what happens. But that's

(02:40):
why you have the Republican Party of Texas, the State
Republican Executive Committee, which is the governing body of the
Texas GP, passing a resolution saying, you know, just just
hold off a bit on these endorsements while we can
sort of sort through the results of the session and
have a bigger, more clear picture about how makers.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
Did, how what type of vetting if any, does the
National Republican Party do or does the president's administration do
on candidates before they decide to endorse them. Do they
do voting do they bother to look at voting records?
Or do a deep dive into what a candidate stands for,
or do they just ask them about a couple of
key issues.

Speaker 2 (03:20):
You know, it's tough to say, I mean, especially whenever
you're talking about something like the state legislature. You know,
the more degrees the way people are from it. If
they're you know, working in DC or they usually do
national races, it's you know, I think there's less scrutiny
generally into their performance just simply based on the fact
that you know, they're talking to a lot of people

(03:42):
and they might not have all the information needed to
put into context people's voting records in the state legislature.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
All right, sir, good to hear from you, Thank you
appreciate it. That is Brandon Walton's with Texas Corecard