Why won't Texas close the primaries?

This podcast edition of Kenny Webster's Pursuit of Happiness features journalist Laura Loomer and Texas GOP lawyer Rachel Hooper. ( @KennethRWebster )

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Jack Ganic government sucks. Suit of Happiness Radio is DeLux.
Liberty and freedom will make you smile for Suit of
habing and us on your radio to hel justice. Cheezburger's
a Liberty Rise.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Breaking news, breaking news. China has surveillance drones the size
of a mosquito. It's a new national security alert. So
if you hear buzzing in your ear and your wife's
not in the room, you need to watch what you say. Hi,
I'm Kenny Webster. Thanks so much for joining us. And
afternoon filled with powerful women Today on the show Laura Lumer,
probably one of the most important journalists in America right now.

(00:46):
Every word that she writes, Donald Trump, You're President of
the United States. Reads those words. She's going to be
here in just a few short moments. Also joining us
this afternoon Rachel Hooper, the Texas Republican Party lawyer. She
does not do a lot of interviews. A rare opportunity.
Let's hope we don't embarrass ourselves. Stick around. It's pursued
a happiness radio.

Speaker 3 (01:06):
They see whenever you lose sight of the enemy, look
behind you. Yeah, that's a bad paranoia right there, probably
brought on by a bong Ripper to Kenny Webster's Pursuit
of happiness.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
I've made this point before on the air, but I
want to make it again. I think right now, in
this little corner in history that we're currently living in,
in American politics, there's probably no journalist more important than
Laura Lumer. Laura Lumer is probably the most influential journalist
in the United States of America right now. Argue with
me about that. Feel free, but understand every word that

(01:38):
she writes. Donald Trump reads. The President of the United
States reads everything this woman writes. And he's not the
only one. Jeff Landry reads everything that she writes. The
Governor of Louisiana, Ken Paxton, the Attorney General of Texas,
Congressman Wesley Hunt. There's a reason why Laura Lumer, who
isn't affiliated with any major news outlet, is so influential.

(02:00):
This woman wakes up early in the morning and works
until very late at night. The work ethic is intimidating,
but the coverage that she's doing that is what is
most important. Laura is covering stories the mainstream media is
afraid to cover. The Islamification of Texas. This is massively important.
You see on the front lines of the culture war

(02:20):
in this state. There's nothing more important right now than
stopping Islam from destroying the fabric of this culture. I mean,
it's true, we're importing large numbers of people from Islamic countries.
They're coming into the country. They don't agree with Southern hospitality,
they don't agree with Christian traditions, they don't agree with
evangelical values and frontier individualism. And as this is taking place,

(02:43):
one of our senior senators in the state while these
senior Senator John Cornyn doesn't seem to agree. Unfortunately. Laura
broke a story yesterday fascinating stuff covering Ken Paxton, our
Attorney General, uncovering illegal activities from the Jahandis developers of city.
And that's what it is, the East Plano Islamic community.

(03:04):
It's a Sharia law compound in Texas, not terribly different
than what Colony Ridge is for illegal immigrants here in
the state of Texas. That's what Epic City is supposed
to be. Basically in Hoa where you're living in Saudi
Arabia or cobble on the line right now. Laura Lumer
did some coverage of the story yesterday pointing out some
of the things that Senator John Cornyn had said about

(03:27):
Jehadis moving into the state. And I find this to
be fascinating. Laura, thank you so much for your time
this afternoon.

Speaker 4 (03:34):
Yeah, thanks for having me. It's great to be here, Laura.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
Break it down for me. As you see what Ken
Paxton's doing, what do you think the role is of
the other candidates in the Senate race. Let's start with
John Cornyn. On one hand, you have the Attorney General
trying to stop a Sharia compound from popping up in
the Dallas Fort Worth area, and then on the other hand,
his opponent, John Cornyn seems to be embracing the whole thing.

Speaker 1 (03:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (03:59):
Look, I mean there's a big problem in our country
right now with the Islamification of America, and Texas has
really ground zero for this. I think it has a
lot to do with the fact that you guys are
at border state and under the Biden regime, and really
since since the Obama administration, Texas and really our whole country,
but especially Texas being there on the UH on the

(04:19):
border has been flooded with g hotties. And that's why
you can't go a block without seeing a new mosque
pop up anywhere you go in Texas. All you have
to do is look online and look at some of
these mosque maps and you'll see that the entire state
is surrounded by mosque and uh. One of the latest,
you know, additions to the Islamification of Texas is this

(04:42):
Sharia compound known as Epic City. And of course, you know,
after a widespread outrage on social media, all of these
candidates have release statements over the last few months addressing
the Sharia compound. But you actually see Ken Paxton putting
his money where his mouth is and cracking down and
you know, saying that he has uncovered a legal activity

(05:04):
by developers and he has requested a referral from State
Securities Board to file a lawsuit. And what do you
have John Coryn doing. Well, just look at John Cornan's record.
He can say all he wants to that. Oh, well,
you know, it's an election year and I'm going to
refer this to the DOJ for an investigation. But let's
look at his record. He's on video pandering to Muslims

(05:24):
saying inshallah. He's on the record writing letters to Islamic
Relief which is one of the Islamic so called charities
organizations that got caught up during the Holy Land Foundation
terrorism trial, which took place in Texas, our nation's largest
terrorism financing trial ever, highlighting the fact that these Islamic
charities and five am C three organizations are using their

(05:46):
tax exempt status to raise money for jihad. And what
does he do? He does nothing. He writes letters saying
that it's his honor to represent them, saying that it's
his honor to be the Senator for Islamic relief. Yeah,
it's a big problem. We have photos of John Cornyn
with Katari representatives talking about how great it is to

(06:08):
meet with representatives from Qatar. Now we have this deal
where the United States is going to be training Katari
pilots on US soil. It's like Americans never learned their
lesson after nine to eleven.

Speaker 2 (06:19):
Yeah, it's also interesting too, John Cornyn received contributions from
an Iranian linked pack. IA PACK is what it's called,
not to be confused with a PAC, which is the
Israel Group. Ia PAC is a political action committee with
ties to Iran. A lot of people have asked questions
about whether or not Iran has any influence on John
and obviously by proxy through the oil and gas community.

(06:40):
There does appear to be some money trinkling down the
well there into John Cornyn's, you know, political hands, into
the hands of the people that he works with. I
wonder why more people don't care about this. I see
you calling him out for this, I see Amy Peck
calling him out for this. The guy is very soft
on radical Islam. And I also find a kind of
concerning being a resident of the Dallas Fort Worth area

(07:03):
that in Houston ground zero right now for people trying
to push Sharia on the Lone Star State. I noticed
you asked Wesley Hunt on social media this week, does
he believe Islam is incompatible with Western civilization? How does
he feel about the epic community the Sharia compound? He
responded to you on social media. I'm curious what you

(07:24):
thought about his response.

Speaker 4 (07:27):
I actually thought that his response was great. Now what
really matters is whether or not he's actually going to
practice what he's preaching. I don't really understand why he's
running for Senate. It seems like it's going to be
a big waste of money. And that's not an attack
on his character, it's just to say that we have
these g hottie candidates running across America. We have a

(07:49):
mayor's race in New York City in three weeks, New
York City's about to fall to a Muslim communist. We
have a open Muslim Brotherhood operative who pledged allegiance to
the Muslim Brotherhood running for Senate on the Democrat ticket
in in uh in Michigan's you have a Sharia compliant
ge Hattie Muslim woman who wears a key job who
is running for the governor of uh Georgia, Georgia, Michigan,

(08:13):
New York, Texas. Where does it end? Right? And so
my question is is he actually going to practice what
he preaches? And and why is he running a race
that he cannot win? And you know, pretty much pretty
much helping in a sense, helping John Cornyan because we
all know what's gonna happen. It's going to lead to
a runoff election. And from my understanding, you guys have

(08:35):
open primaries, so you're gonna have a bunch of Democrats
led the polls and are gonna support John Cornyan because
as we know, Democrats vote and support John Cornyan. You
have Jasmine Crockett on video probably the most radical Democrat
in Congress aside from the Muslims in Congress, or she
did to leave, and and uh Ilhan Omar saying that
she really likes Jean Cornan and he's just such a

(08:56):
nice man, and that he's not actually pro Trump, he's
anti Maga, which is why they're buddy buddy, So Leslie Hunt,
maybe his intentions are good. I thank him for a
service to our country. Obviously, you know, as somebody who
was almost blown up by Muslims, he seems to have
a really good understanding of the threat of his blom.
But if you can't win, you can't win. And we

(09:16):
don't need to be wasting hundreds of millions of dollars
on a primary to satisfy people's egos and their vanity
projects when we could be using this money to actually
defeat the Islamic enemy across our country. I mean, the
people just have to realize, if you're not going to
be pulling about forty percent, you can't raise millions of dollars.
Get the hell out of the race. Get the hell

(09:37):
out of the race. We don't need to we don't
need to be having vanity projects when we're in the
fight to save our country from this Islama fascist takeover.

Speaker 2 (09:46):
Is that amazing? This guy John Corny's spending three million
dollars a week to stop Ken Paxton from taking his job,
and now apparently to stop Wesley Hunt. I don't know
what the internal pulling says, Laura. People have told me
that Wesley's seems to be taking as many votes away
from John as he is away from Ken. If that's true,
I welcome it. I think Wesley and Ken Paxton in

(10:08):
a runoff and John Cornan spending seventy million dollars to
come in third place. That's music to my ears. But hey,
I digress. Let's talk about this for a minute. You
guys have closed primaries in Texas coming up in a
short time.

Speaker 5 (10:19):
Here.

Speaker 2 (10:19):
Rachel Hooper is joining us. She is the attorney for
the Texas Republican Party trying to close the primary. She's
working very quick closely with Attorney General Ken Paxton. I
can't help, but notice Governor Abbott's secretary of State is
working against this effort. John Cornyn's people are against this effort.
Dan Crenshaw's people are against this effort. Have you noticed
there's a common denominator between all these people.

Speaker 4 (10:42):
Yeah, yeah, they're all rhinos, okay, and they all are
anti Trump. So yeah, yeah, Greg Abbott who allowed his
state to be flooded by criminal illegal aliens and has
done really absolutely nothing to actually enforce the law. He
does a lot of complaining, right, he seems to have

(11:02):
no spine. Then you have Dan Crenshaw, they call him
I Patch McCain. Okay, we already know his record in
opposing President Trump and opposing the MAGA agenda, and John Cornyman.
I mean, look, the common denominator is all of these
men have been able to run on a Republican ticket
because of the open primary system in Texas that allows

(11:23):
for Democrats to vote for these people because they know
that Texans for the most part are so conservative. So
if they're going to vote for a Republican or they're
going to end up with a Republican, they're not going
to throw their vote away by voting for a Democrat.
They're going to vote for this leftening Trump Republican on
the ballot. So look, I think that it's common sense.
I think all primaries should be closed because why would

(11:46):
you want to have Democrats participating in your primary to
sabotage the system. I mean, if I had open primaries
that maybe I probably would. I probably would vote in
the Democrat primary to try to sabotage their primary. I mean,
it's a it's a pretty smart thinking process. So if
you don't want your your primaries to be sabotaged by
people who are going to try to vote against the

(12:09):
candidates that you know, our most conservatives, then close them.
You're not depriving anybody of their vote. The Democrats can
go vote in their primaries, and the Republicans can go
in their primaries, and if you're independents, you have to
choose a party affiliation to vote in the primary or
get to fit it out. I think that's a good process.
It's how it works here in Florida, and I think
it's one of the main reasons why we've been able to,

(12:32):
you know, keep Florida red for the most part.

Speaker 2 (12:34):
Laura, you are for some I mean, you're young, you're
a young millennial, you're practically a zoomer. You're one of
the youngest people in your industry, certainly the youngest that's
been this influential, and I find I mean, I just
think that's really impressive. But one of the things that's
so remarkable about you. You were an activist. You came
out with a splash, it was a big deal. You
tried to run for office. The establishment got in your way,

(12:57):
They blocked you in every direction. Then you became im
an independent journalist. It's very inspiring how you went from
one thing to the next. The establishment essentially wouldn't let
you run for office, so you started your own news outlet,
and now that has become arguably one of the most
influential media outlets in the industry, certainly in the independent industry.

(13:17):
I was wondering if you could speak to that for
a minute. You know, we have a lot of listeners,
young conservatives that tune into the show that want to
try to do something like that. Do you ever feel
unsafe to you? What are the hurdles?

Speaker 5 (13:27):
Like?

Speaker 2 (13:27):
What's that like?

Speaker 4 (13:29):
Yeah? I mean, look, I got death threats every single day, right,
So every day I get death threats, and it's just,
you know, it's not excusable, but it's part of the
territory of doing this work and speaking out and being effective.
And you know, you mentioned the president reads my content
and sometimes makes decisions after reading my content and you know,
seeing my reports. But you know, I would just encourage

(13:52):
people to not be a part of the system, be
your own voice, find the power of your voice, because
one truly can make a difference, and you don't have
to be a part of the establishment. Now. Sure, you
know it comes with some trade offs, Like you know,
you're certainly not going to be like swimming in cash.
I mean, I'm certainly not rolling in it. But you know,

(14:13):
I really value the ability to be able to be
independent and not having to answer to anybody. And there's
no amount of money that I would take to sell
my soul to you know, have somebody self censor me
or to tell me that I'm not allowed to say
something or I'm not allowed to do something. So for me,
it's about being able to truly be an independent change maker.

(14:35):
And I couldn't do it without the support of my
day Americans and people who support my work, and they
choose to give power to my voice by by supporting
me as an independent voice. But you know, it's not
something that happens overnight. Obviously, I've been attacked. I ran
for office twice and the establishment worked against me. They

(14:56):
worked against me harder than they spent going a against
the Democrat. They spent more money campaigning against my Republican
primary than they did against the Democrat challenger. Who uh yeah,
but you just you just got to keep on fighting, right,
I'm still spensored on a lot of social media platforms,

(15:16):
but I don't may, I don't use it as an
excuse to stop doing what I'm doing. And you just
got to you gotta have, you know, conviction and what
you believe. And I really do believe that the Islamification
of America is the most important issue right now. We
we we spend so much effort trying to settle this
conflict between Israel and Hamas. Now what is President Trump

(15:37):
going to do to settle the war between the Muslims
and the infidels here in the homeland? What is he
going to do? And I think that Republican voters really
need to start waking up to the threat of Islam
and the fact that uh it states like Texas where
you have Chip Roy, Greg Abbott, Florida you got Ronda Santis,
Randy Fine and now you know in Alabama you have

(15:58):
Tubberville talking about no Sharia legislation. So what does it
tell you of states like Alabama, Texas, and Florida red states.
I mean, I know Texas is a bit purple. What
does it tell you though, these rationally red states are
having to pass legislation to ban Sharia. That means that
they have a Muslim problem in those states. Imagine how
bad the Muslim problem is in the Blue states. Imagine

(16:18):
how bad the Muslim problem is in the Blue States
if the Republicans are having create legislation in their own
states to address the islamifications. So you know, every single
Muslim to take over every single you know, brutal conquest
done by Muslims has been carried out over time by

(16:38):
a Muslim minority. You don't need to have a majority.
People say, oh, they're.

Speaker 6 (16:42):
Only two percent of the population.

Speaker 4 (16:44):
You're overreacting. They've always been two percent of the population
in every single conquest in which they've been successful in
taking over. So you know, you don't you don't need
to have a Muslim majority in order to have an
Islamic takeover. These people are militant, They're militarized every single
maths because a military center. Yeah, if you look at
if you look at the Koran and you look at Isom,

(17:06):
they instruct Muslims to view their mosque as like a
military command post to carry out, you know, warfare against
the non Muslim. And just look at a map. You
are surrounded, You are you are surrounded. Texas is surrounded
by by military outposts, Islamic military outposts. So keep that
in mind when you think, oh, well, you know these

(17:27):
people are just praying. No, it's not a place of worship.
It's a it's a it's a military it's a military
command center. Yeah, every single mosque in America is a
military command center.

Speaker 2 (17:36):
Boy, I've been saying it for years. I completely agree
with you. You live in Florida, we live in Texas, two
places with lots of pretty girls in the beach wearing bikinis.
And it's kind of amazing. The Party of neo feminism
wants to import a culture that's against that. I think
that's remarkable. We went way long on this segment, but
Laura had a lot to say, uh and I wanted
the radio listeners to say to hear it. Laura Lumer,

(17:57):
you have to follow her on x check out her
work online Lumor Unleashed. Laura, keep up the great work
you're doing. Awesome and We really appreciate your time this afternoon.

Speaker 4 (18:08):
Thanks. I appreciate it. And people want to see my reports,
they can follow me on x AT Laura Lumer again,
that's x AT Laura Lumer or lumor Unleashed. Appreciate it,
I love it.

Speaker 2 (18:18):
Coming up, Rachel Hooper is waiting in the green room
right now, the attorney for the Texas GOP. We're going
to talk about closing the primaries, the pursuit of the
Happiness Radio is more than just a talk show. Very
sad news today, DiAngelo passed away. R and B singer
DiAngelo has died at age fifty one. He is survived

(18:39):
by the thousands of children who were probably conceived to
his music. That is a lot of people, and that
has nothing to do with what we're about to talk about.
Thanks so much for connecting with us today. If you're
tuning in on the radio, you already know who you are.
It's KPRC nine to fifty m Kenny Webster. If you
are watching us live streaming on social media, I have
a very special guest this afternoon. Now, this afternoon guest

(19:00):
include Laura Lumer, one of the most controversial journalists in
Texas she's on the phone, but in studio right now,
Rachel Hooper is here, Texas Republican Party attorney. Let me
fix that microphone for you. Rachel. You don't normally do interviews,
and I was an exception. What was so? Is it
my handsome physique? What was it that made you decide

(19:20):
to do the show today?

Speaker 6 (19:21):
You are such a wonderful treasure in our community, Kenny,
and I was very moved by the fact that you
helped the students at Stratford High School who simply wanted
to start a turning point chapter, and your work with
them in supporting them has just been phenomenal.

Speaker 2 (19:43):
I feel like that is high praise from you. You're
a respected member of society. I am a right wing
morning radio shock jock, and I sometimes I'm very grateful
for that. I am humbled by what you've just said,
So thank you so much, Rachel. For those that don't
know who you are, you're an attorney, you were a prosecutor.
Your story. A lot of people just associate you with
the Texas Republican Party, but you go way back prosecuting criminals.

Speaker 6 (20:06):
Right Well, I'm a native Houstonian, I'm a fifth generation
Texan I was a prosecutor in Harris County for twelve years,
where I handled everything from a Class C misdemeanor to
capital murder. And after my time at the DA's office,

(20:27):
I went into private practice in big law, and Matt
Renaldi brought me into the Republican Party of Texas to
serve as the general counsel, and I do so today.

Speaker 2 (20:40):
I like Matt a lot. I endorsed Matt and some people.
I think Mattwys did a great job as the head
of the chairman of the Texas Republican Party. Now Abraham
George is in charge. Do you have a good relationship
with him?

Speaker 6 (20:51):
I have a wonderful relationship with Abraham George and Matt Ronaldi.
Some say that Matt Ronaldi made being conservative cool.

Speaker 2 (21:00):
Is that I would agree with that? Yeah? I think
he did. Who if you had to pick, who do
you think would win in an arm wrestling match? Matter Abraham,
go ahead?

Speaker 6 (21:09):
Arm wrestling?

Speaker 2 (21:10):
Yeah? Thumb more?

Speaker 6 (21:11):
Wow, I'm gonna I don't know. Matt is a big
hockey guy.

Speaker 2 (21:18):
You don't have to answer the silly questions. Just so
you know, Rachel, you could just laugh at me and say,
come on, give me real questions before I want to
talk to you about what's going on right now in Texas.
This is a big deal. But before we get to
any of this, can I tell the Texas the steakhouse
story real quick? Sure? Is that? Okay? I'm hanging out
three weeks ago, four weeks ago? How long ago was it?

(21:39):
It was a while ago, And there's a in front
of a steakhouse in this neighborhood. I'm out on the patio.
I've had a few drinks. I'm with some friends. A
gang fight breaks out in the parking lot between some
black teenagers and some Hispanic teenagers. This is a nice
part of town, and the cops come, the staff all
run out. Is normally you don't see things like this

(22:00):
in uptown Houston. You shouldn't, at least that's why people
come to nice neighborhoods as soon as the dust settles
and they take the kids away, their teenagers, I assume,
are very young in their early twenties. All of a sudden,
District Attorney Kim Ogg, former DA Kim Ogg walks up.
Members of the Republican Party, local prosecutors all walk into
the banquet hall of the steakhouse like moments after the

(22:22):
gang fight gets settled, and then you and your husband
Don Hooper walk up. And at the time I was thinking, Man,
if that had all gone slightly worse, nobody would believe
that I was just sitting on the patio of this
steakhouse when a gang fight broke out and then Kim
Ogg showed up with her friends. But that's exactly what happened.

Speaker 6 (22:43):
Wow, we did not see the gang fight, although I
would not be surprised. Houston, Texas has become a very
dangerous place, and we need a permanent US attorney in
the Southern District of Texas. Right now, we have an
interim US attorney. We need a permanent US attorney. And

(23:05):
I sure do hope it's Kim Ogg.

Speaker 2 (23:07):
Most people don't know that what you just said, I
think that's really important information. The media doesn't pick up
on stories like that. That's not a salacious, nefarious ground.
You know, that's not a punchy headline, so that just
doesn't get any attention. But you cover crime, you investigate crime,
and this is your life. Do you think it's getting
better or worse right now? In Southeast Texas?

Speaker 6 (23:30):
In some ways things are better. HPD Chief no ideas
is tremendous and wonderful and making wonderful strides. I'm very
thankful to the mayor for supporting the police and supporting fire.
But we have a SOROSDA in Harris County, and what

(23:52):
does that mean for you? It means that this District
Attorney's office refuses rejects charges that are very important and
things like burglar of a motor vehicle that some may discount.
Those crimes must be prosecuted, must be investigated, must be prosecuted,

(24:15):
and we need a stop gap for when we have
a Soros DA, and that is the federal prosecutor.

Speaker 2 (24:22):
The former district attorney was Kim Ogg, and the Houston
Chronicle years ago reported this was a woman funded by
George Soros money. A lot of people thought that she
was going to be that kind of district attorney, kind
of like John Whitmeyer. She was not that kind of
like our mayor becoming. You know, our mayor was a
lifelong Democrat, took over the city, became the most conservative
mayor we've had in years here in Houston. When Kim

(24:45):
Ogg first took her job, some people were surprised to
find out she was a lot more conservative than we expected.
Were you surprised?

Speaker 6 (24:52):
I was not surprised because I have known Kim Ogg
for many years. I knew her when I started as
an intern at the DA's office, and I knew her
to be a fair and honest person. At that time,
when Kim Ogg was elected district Attorney, there was conversation
about what should be prosecuted, and in particular, there was

(25:17):
a group that filed a civil lawsuit in federal court
about misdemeanor bail reform, right called the O'Donnell case. I
remember it, yeah, And what happened ultimately is Rodney ellis
a Democrat, a radical Democrat, commissioners court commissioner of Precinct one.

(25:40):
He pushed something called the O'Donnell Consent Decree, and that
takes bail decisions out of elected judges hands and automatically
releases people who are accused of misdemeanors. So, for the
most part, if someone is arrested in our county for
a misdemeanor, even assault family member, they are released without

(26:06):
even seeing a judge in a lot of circumstances. And
so recently, our Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has fought
back on that, and that is something kim Ogg fought
back on, this automatic release of individuals without even a

(26:28):
judge's review of the matter.

Speaker 2 (26:31):
Here in Harris County, we have a rhino problem. You know,
a lot of people don't like Dan Crenshaw in the
greater across the Texas, a lot of people don't like
John Cornyn. Some people feel this way about Abbott, and
they pointed out part of the reason why we get
liberal Republicans in high ranking positions like the House speakership
at the Texas House is because of our open primaries.

(26:53):
For a long time, we've been trying to close the
primaries in this state. I just interviewed Laura Lumer from
Florida and she talks about how they were able to
get such conservative candidates in her state. It's because the
primaries are closed in states like Illinois, blue states. They
don't have open primaries in places where the Democrats. Not
every state obviously, but in a lot of states where
the Democrats have overwhelming, unmitigated, unchallenged power, they have closed primaries.

(27:18):
Why isn't that good enough for Texas.

Speaker 6 (27:20):
So this is a fight that I have been fighting
for the last few years. In when Matt Rinaldi was
in the Texas Legislature. He filed a bill to close
the primary, and interesting enough, one of the co authors
on that bill was a representative named Matt Shaheen who

(27:42):
is currently a representative and he is now opposed to
close primaries.

Speaker 2 (27:48):
What changed, You would have to ask him, sure.

Speaker 6 (27:52):
But he does he is part of a group that
has a false narrative about closed primaries. So what is
a closed primary? A closed primary means that someone who
is registered as a Republican votes is eligible to vote
in our primary elections. And we love and support all

(28:18):
of the new Trump voters. That is wonderful, and we
want them to vote for our nominees obviously, but we
want Republicans picking our nominees. Some people may remember Nikki
Haley Nicki Haley in twenty twenty four. She stayed in
the race for president in the primary until she got

(28:42):
to states that had open primaries because she was openly
advocating for Democrats to vote for her.

Speaker 2 (28:49):
Sure, we don't.

Speaker 6 (28:50):
Want Democrats picking our nominees. We don't want somebody like
this woman and I really don't even want to say
her name, but this woman who was literally trying to
undermine kids trying to start a Turning Point USA chapter
in high school. We don't want someone like that branch exactly.

(29:12):
We don't want somebody like that picking our Republican nominees.

Speaker 4 (29:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (29:17):
I tend to agree with you, and I can't even
believe this is controversial. I've had a handful of people
reach out to me privately. I'm not going to throw
anybody under the bus. I won't say who they are,
Bill King, but the point is they wanted to discuss
this private with me about why they think the primary
should remain open. By the way, I like Bill King.
I don't have a problem with him. For those who
don't know who that is, He's was a former Houston

(29:38):
mayoral candidate. He's not the only one. But I've had
a handful of people reach out to me and say
they want to talk privately with me about why we
need to keep the primaries open, and none of them
It's like, if it's so obvious we need to do it,
why does it require secret meetings?

Speaker 6 (29:52):
Well that's interesting because are any of them Republicans who
are worried about it?

Speaker 2 (29:58):
I mean they're republic ends.

Speaker 6 (30:00):
Like Bill King started a third party.

Speaker 2 (30:03):
Sam party, right.

Speaker 6 (30:04):
So that I don't consider that if he wants, I
don't want to pick who's in his party and who
his nominees are.

Speaker 2 (30:12):
Well, it's a book club, Rachel. It doesn't really matter
who's in his party, right. Sure, but we're gonna have
a bake sale on Sunday. I'm sure it's going to
be very exciting.

Speaker 6 (30:21):
Let me tell you something that happened in the eighty
seventh Legislature that was really instructive. So a lot of people,
most people have no idea who I am. They may
not even know what the Republican Party of Texas is
or does. But the Republican Party of Texas has a
chair and a vice chair. They're elected at our state

(30:41):
conventions that happen every two years.

Speaker 2 (30:44):
Sure, we also have.

Speaker 6 (30:46):
A man and woman from each of the thirty one
Senate districts, and they compose what's called the State Republican
Executive Committee. These are volunteers, every one of them. The
vice chair, the chair, and all of these members are volunteers.
And these people in the eighty seventh Legislature, on a

(31:10):
Saturday night Sunday morning, the legislature changed a bill to
try to make these grassroots volunteers elected on the primary ballot.

Speaker 2 (31:23):
And it was claimed, if I'm not mistaken, so you're
talking about the meeting last Saturday night, obviously, No, I.

Speaker 6 (31:28):
Am talking about something that happened two legislative sessions ago. Oh,
and so what I'm talking about is people in the
legislature working to undermine grassroots activists and volunteers.

Speaker 2 (31:43):
Wow.

Speaker 6 (31:43):
And this kind of started the alarm bell for a
lot of people, like, we need to take action here.
And so what I did is in our next state convention,
I removed and stripped all references to the Texas election
Code from our rules, our party rules, because I wanted

(32:05):
to send the message that we control our party, not
the legislature.

Speaker 2 (32:10):
Is there anybody in the political party over the last
several years since you took this job, when Matt Renaldi
took over, who got in your way from trying to
do what was obviously the objective of the party. Were
there people in the party that were an obstacle for you?

Speaker 6 (32:24):
Most people, most people, most people, because for whatever reason,
they were working to undermine some of these efforts. Now,
I will say, Abraham George immediately started working and reaching
out to elected Republicans, and we do enjoy a good

(32:47):
relationship with the governor and the Lieutenant Governor and the Speaker,
and are very happy to see them work with us.

Speaker 2 (32:56):
Don't you wish she was from Houston though? Wouldn't they
make you like it more? He the speaker, isn't he
from DFW?

Speaker 6 (33:04):
I was talking about Abraham, But oh, Abraham, he spends
a lot of time here. He came to the TPUSA there.

Speaker 2 (33:12):
I know, I'm just joking around. Rachel, you are very diplomatic.
I appreciate that. I have tried a couple times to
get you to bad mouth Abraham George for being a
Dallas Cowboys fan. You wouldn't do it. I appreciate that
Rachel Hooper is in studio right now. We've been talking
about the open primaries. If you're just turning on your
radio and you're wondering who this is, you should know
who this is. She is the official attorney, the attorney

(33:32):
for the Texas State Republican Party. Quick break more with
Rachel Hooper right after this.

Speaker 3 (33:39):
The only thing that hurts more than paying taxes not
paying taxes. Kenny Webster's pursuit of happiness.

Speaker 2 (33:51):
This is a surprise workplaces are increasingly allowing employees to
go shoeless at work. Now, in case you work at Walmart,
I think it's just so that workers can blend in
with the customers. That would be my guest to people.
Rachel Hooper's here, she's the attorney for the Texas Republican Party.
Do you wear shoes at your office?

Speaker 6 (34:09):
I always wear shoes.

Speaker 2 (34:10):
It's not a shoeless environment.

Speaker 6 (34:12):
No, we well, I will say this at home, we
do not allow shoes to be worn in our home
because of germs.

Speaker 2 (34:22):
Uh huh.

Speaker 6 (34:22):
But I do wear slippers that never leave the house.
At the office, I cannot imagine not wearing shoes.

Speaker 2 (34:31):
I have a friend who works as prosecuting stalkers and
child predators and people like that, and she tells me
one of the obstacles they have sometimes is witnesses will
come in to testify in a case and they're not
dressed appropriately for court. So they have a closet in
the back room that's filled with like a sweater, a dress, shoes.

(34:52):
Because weirdly, some people that are sometimes very important parts
of an effort to put a terrible person in prison
don't know what is expect in this environment. As a
lawyer who's dressed very conservatively, obviously better dressed than most
people at this radio station because you're wearing a you know,
you're dressed nice like for church. No one around here
is Have you had to deal with that in your

(35:13):
history as an attorney.

Speaker 6 (35:14):
I've I have had and do deal with that. That
is a whole cle for lawyers.

Speaker 2 (35:22):
What does that mean? CL?

Speaker 6 (35:23):
So CL is continuing learning education for lawyers. It's important
what a witness looks like. When I first started as
a lawyer in court juries, they dressed up right, and
so over the last twenty years, I've noticed jurors are

(35:44):
dressed very casually, but their expectations of what a witness
should look like have not changed. They expect witnesses to
come in and look their Sunday best. Yeah, but if
you're telling a witness dressed like you do on Sunday,
that's not enough anymore.

Speaker 2 (36:02):
No, what changed exactly? Why do you think it is
that the like has been Has the world become more casual?
Why is it so different now? I don't remember the
nineties being vastly more conservative than what it is now.
But as you just pointed out, there is a difference.

Speaker 6 (36:16):
Certainly COVID has changed, but even before then, there were
I've had witnesses of the years who simply didn't know
what was appropriate to wear, and I didn't. I have
learned my lesson in my expectations of what they would

(36:38):
think is appropriate. I have actually had witnesses show up
to the courthouse without shoes on.

Speaker 2 (36:46):
Wow, and then what did you do? Why didn't they
have shoes?

Speaker 6 (36:49):
They didn't have shoes because they didn't know that wearing
shoes would be expected of them at the courthouse.

Speaker 2 (36:55):
But like when you just think their feet would be uncomfortable,
I couldn't imagine going anywhere without shoes or at least
flip flops or something.

Speaker 6 (37:01):
I can't imagine. Wow, that was the situation, and we
just we found clothes for them.

Speaker 2 (37:09):
That's what you had to do. And that's for people
that work as defense are as prosecutors in a criminal court.
This sort of thing is pretty common. I did not
know that. All right, I want to talk about what
happened last Saturday night in the state of Texas. We
were just talking about Abraham George, the chairman of the
Texas Republican Party. I just followed it on social media.
Me and my buddies were out in Waco doing a

(37:30):
comedy show at the Fantastic Waco Hippodrome Theater. But while
I was backstage in the green room, I was following
along on social media with the censuring of certain lawmakers.
And I will tell you my friends are real mixed
on this one. Some of them thought this was a
necessary thing. Some of them felt like it was a
waste of time and effort. Can you explain what happened
Saturday night? And weather? And is it true that someone

(37:50):
from Trump's office called in the middle of this? Is
that true?

Speaker 4 (37:53):
Sure?

Speaker 6 (37:55):
So, as I mentioned earlier about the Party of Texas rules,
we are a party that believes in the rule of law,
and so our rules, it's called Rule forty four, has
a process and procedure for censure. The centers originate at

(38:17):
all times, originate with the county parties. So these are
very grassroots type efforts. And we had ten counties centerre
ten elected officials, and they're all state representatives.

Speaker 2 (38:36):
Is that unusual for like a state party to do that?
Does that happen a lot?

Speaker 6 (38:40):
Well? In response to the impeachment of kN Paxton, we
had three centers last term and so I think that
the reason why we had so many this time is
that there was a lot of animosity at the beginning

(39:01):
of session, and there was a speaker fight, and some
people were very upset that one side seemed to discard
the rules in order to get elected. If you'll remember,
there was one representative who was up for censure, he
actually filed a criminal complaint on Abraham George with the

(39:25):
Texas Ethics Commission.

Speaker 2 (39:26):
And did that make any sense to you?

Speaker 6 (39:28):
It did not, and it good, good job Texas Ethics Commission.
They quickly dismissed it. They did not want to be
used or misused as a political tool. But there was
a lot of controversy and a lot of definitely not

(39:49):
unity at the beginning of the session and actually for
a few months. And what changed that is the Democrats leaving.
The Democrats leaving really did unify for the most part,
the Republican party in Texas. So on Saturday at the

(40:10):
Texas Capital, the State Republican Executive Committee met to consider
whether they would decide to concur with these ten centers
or not. And so over the day all ten were
taken up and there were votes, there were motions made,

(40:34):
but Ultimately there were votes on whether to concur or not.
That State Republican Executive Committee voted to concur in five
of the ten. And then there is something called penalty three.
So there's penalties assessed. Sure, I broke it down that
there's two phases. So there's the question of do you

(40:55):
concur with the center, and then the second question is
should there be a punishment, and if so, what is it.
There are three penalties under rule forty four. One is
allowing the party to campaign in a primary against this person.
The second is to discourage this person from running for reelection.

(41:20):
And the third is a brand new penalty from the
twenty twenty four state convention, and that penalty is to
deny ballot access, so to say to this person, you
cannot run in our Republican primary. And that is a

(41:43):
brand new thing, and it passed overwhelmingly at convention. But
right now, the Republican Party of Texas, all of the
legal efforts are related to the closed primary fight, and
so to open up a two front war would be
very costly and, by the way, in a lot of

(42:06):
people's minds, unnecessary. Right now, we're pretty unified in doing
the right thing.

Speaker 2 (42:13):
I get that right. I will tell you I didn't
care for Dustin Burrows when he first got elected. I
didn't like that all these Democrats voted for him. I
will say, I don't feel like this was the worst session.
I feel like they got some great stuff done. Property
tax relief would have been nice. But I digress. It
is now primary season. We're in it. Anybody, The biggest
Senate race in America is a Republican primary in my opinion,

(42:34):
right now. Wesley Hunt, Ken Paxton, John Cornyn, Laura Lumer
was just here. We were just talking about this a
short time ago. What else are we going to see
on that ballot prop amendments next year? I think there
should be a prop amendment that makes it illegal to
unicycle on Galveston's boardwalk with a small baby. I saw
someone do this recently. It baffled me. I don't know

(42:54):
why you're around allowed to ride a unicycle on the
boardwalk with a child. I saw.

Speaker 6 (42:59):
Is that the ballot that particular measure is not on
the ballot yet, not yet, okay, But so in the primary,
the ballot propositions are decided by the state Republican Executive Committee,
and so in twenty twenty four. One of those ballot

(43:19):
proposition measures related to closing the primary that passed by
over seventy two percent. So we as a party, we
use these ballot propositions in our advocacy with the legislature.
I can tell you we have ten ballot propositions for

(43:42):
the twenty twenty six primary. Ballot Number one relates to
property taxes, so we the measure will read Texas property
taxes should be assessed at the purchase price and phased
out entirely over the next six years.

Speaker 2 (44:01):
Thank god reductions. If my house was worth as much
as the county says it's worth, I would have sold
it yesterday. It's not there. I mean there, I'm not
on that the only one. Even if you challenge this,
you never get what it's worth. I don't know how
to convince them. I have no idea. They say there's
own well or these different companies and anyway, I don't
want to get off topic, but I feel like having

(44:21):
that on the ballots. It sounds like it's helpful. What
do you think.

Speaker 6 (44:24):
I think it's helpful, and I think what is really
helpful is to have this ballot proposition on the ballot
and then to understand what Texas Republicans say on these
issues and then for us to use that as a
party in advocating with the legislature on legislation right changes.

Speaker 2 (44:47):
Okay, very cool. What else is on the ballot? Do
we know?

Speaker 6 (44:50):
So spending caps about local government vaccination status?

Speaker 2 (44:58):
Oh? Okay? Yeah, wow. Paxton's involved in a lawsuit with that,
right with Methodists the hospital about time, not.

Speaker 6 (45:05):
A lawsuit yet, I think right now it's just a
stern warning.

Speaker 2 (45:09):
It's moving forward. Do you think it's It seems like
it seems like a no brainer that your vaccine status
shouldn't prevent you from getting an organ transplant. I mean, frankly,
that goes from just being unethical to kind of evil
in my opinion. So thank god Ken Paxton's doing.

Speaker 6 (45:25):
Something or denying healthcare at all?

Speaker 2 (45:27):
Right, this is America. I know that that is very
It's very soviet esque to me to deny somebody healthcare
because of their personal decisions.

Speaker 6 (45:34):
But unbelievable.

Speaker 2 (45:36):
Yeah crazy? What else is on education on life?

Speaker 6 (45:39):
So we are a pro life party, and so education
on life beginning at fertilization will be on the primary ballot.

Speaker 2 (45:48):
So basic science, basic science? Wait a second, you mean
not just a clump of cells, but actually acknowledging that
an unborn child is a life. Yeah, and to teach it. Okay, yeah,
I'm with that. Well, it's true. So if somebody had
a plant growing in a pot of dirt, you wouldn't
deny that the plant was existing just because it hadn't
sprouted up from the earth yet. Yeah, that's not controversial

(46:10):
to me.

Speaker 6 (46:11):
So also, what is very coming up now a lot
in Texas is this, Texas should prohibit sharia law.

Speaker 2 (46:22):
Okay, so you're talking about Epic City that.

Speaker 6 (46:26):
Has really gained a lot of attention, and so that's
why that's going to be one of the ballot propositions.

Speaker 2 (46:33):
So what would that imply exactly? Because to me, sharia
law is like requiring women to wear towels on their
heads and then food weird rules about food what you
can and can't serve, And does that extend to an
hoa or a private community like what Epic City would
have essentially been.

Speaker 6 (46:50):
So I think some people would argue that Texas already
banned sharia law and this is not a necessary ballot proposition.
But what this response will do to this ballot proposition
is to let the government know what Texas Republicans think
about Sharia law having anything to do with Texas law. Yeah,

(47:16):
so making sure I anticipate that the response will be
overwhelming on this ballot proposition, and I think that will
help in advocacy and help in the ninetieth legislature.

Speaker 2 (47:31):
Interesting, Okay, anything else on there you think is worth highlighting?

Speaker 6 (47:36):
How about term limits?

Speaker 2 (47:37):
Okay?

Speaker 6 (47:38):
For who term limits on all elected.

Speaker 2 (47:41):
Officials, all of them, all of the state lawmakers. Who
doesn't have term limits right now? The governor can keep running?
Who has a term limit?

Speaker 6 (47:48):
Well, the governor does not, the Lieutenant governor does not,
and both of them are are I don't mean to
speak ill of either of them.

Speaker 2 (48:00):
You don't think Dan Patrick getting mad about CBD shops
and strip malls is a waste of time?

Speaker 6 (48:04):
Or I think that we are so fortunate to have
someone who really does care about what the grassroots thinks.

Speaker 2 (48:13):
I can appreciate that.

Speaker 6 (48:15):
He has both both Governor Abbott and Lieutenant Governor Patrick
and Speaker Burrows have spent time with the party and
the State Republican Executive Committee, and we're real thankful for that.

Speaker 2 (48:30):
Yeah, But I.

Speaker 6 (48:32):
Think this is this is just an interesting issue about
term limits.

Speaker 2 (48:38):
I love term limits. I mean that's interesting, it's beautiful
to me. That is very cool, Okay, very exciting. And
then before we're running out of time here, why don't
you just walk us through the rest of the list.

Speaker 4 (48:47):
Sure.

Speaker 6 (48:47):
Yeah, So the rest of the list relates to water sale.
So there that's a real hot issue in Central Texas,
the sale and export of water.

Speaker 2 (48:59):
Yeah, and a parent on in Lovin County too, I'm
told that exactly. It's a different topic altogether, doctor Malcolm Tanner.

Speaker 6 (49:05):
And illegal immigration and the burden and who should bear
that burden?

Speaker 2 (49:11):
Oh like because we had to pay our own money
to secure the border when the Democrats are in charge,
right yeah.

Speaker 6 (49:16):
And banning Democrat chairs in our legislature.

Speaker 2 (49:20):
Wow, Rachel, you are that see? That is to me,
that's a big one, that one at the end that
you just threw in there. If you had to guess,
if we're on polymarket dot com, do you think any
of these don't pass? I mean, I guess it's impossible
to say without pulling data, but I think.

Speaker 6 (49:34):
They will pass because they come from we listen to
what our local grassroots activists are seeing and doing and
what's interesting to them. And so I do think these
will pass, just like just like anything, just like the
constitutional amendments that are on the ballots starting next week.

(49:56):
There's something for voters to text it to in Texas
to pay attention to Rachel.

Speaker 2 (50:02):
When you were on the show, did you think you
would get a big response from people? No, well you did.
I have my knucklehead journalist and comedian friends come in
here all the time. We'll have several hundred people watching
our live stream. This has thousands of yews right now,
like this has been shared dozens of times across multiple platforms.

(50:23):
People were very you don't do a lot of interviews.
People were very curious to hear what you were going
to say today. It's because of you, is it? Yeah?
What is? So let's get down to the bout. One
last really important question here. How did you meet Don
Hooper and what is he like in private?

Speaker 6 (50:36):
Don Hooper is a wonderful man and I'm so fortunate
to have him in my corner last week last Saturday,
at the meeting. We stream our meetings and they're on YouTube.
And after the meeting, I talked to my parents. After
I watched the Longhorns beat the Sooners, and my parents said, well,

(51:01):
your husband was commenting on YouTube and sticking up for you,
and I'm just I'm so thankful to have fighters like
my parents and my husband in my corner and it
helps me to do the best job I can do.

Speaker 2 (51:17):
He is a big Don's a good guy. I like Don.
But seriously, though, what does he do that you don't like?
Choose with his mouth open? Or what does he do exactly?

Speaker 6 (51:23):
He doesn't do anything nothing.

Speaker 2 (51:25):
Does he have some old socks you don't like that
you'd like to throw out? That is admirable.

Speaker 4 (51:29):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (51:29):
I don't think there's any spouse in America that wouldn't
have had a thing. I love that, Rachel. I'm a
big fan of you. You know, there's a lot of
lawyers in Texas, and one thing you never hear people
say is we need more lawyers. But you are a
very good one. There are a lot of people out
there that are big fans of you and a very
rare opportunity to get you in here to do an interview.
So I'm very grateful for your time. God bless you

(51:50):
and God blessed Texas. Any closing thoughts, Thank you, Thank.

Speaker 6 (51:52):
You for asking me to be here. Please go to
Texas GOP and find out what we're doing at the
Republican Party of Texas. It's just it's such an honor
to work with these volunteer grassroots activists, and I love
talking about their work.

Speaker 2 (52:10):
I love it all right, Rachel Hooper, I don't. You
can't follow her on social media? Can you? Are you
on social media? Maybe normally people have a book to
sell or something, but you don't. You just came in
to give us news today. Well, I'm Kenny Webster. Thank
you so much to everybody that watched this live stream.
Share it for us, do us a solid hit the
share or the retweet or the like, or give me
a follower or whatever it may be. I'm Kenny Webster.

(52:32):
I love you all. We'll be back Bryan early tomorrow
morning for more of what you bought a radio for.
I have a great day.

Speaker 5 (52:42):
You are listening to the Pursuit of Hapiness Radio to
the Government to kiss yours When you listen to this show,