Americans STRANDED In Mexico Amid Cartel WARFARE, Trump Says Mexico Must "STEP UP"
Tate Brown and Blake Tillery examine Mexico’s cartel crackdown after El Mencho’s death in a raid killing 62, including National Guard troops, while questioning U.S. involvement and Sheinbaum’s ties to Morena. They link 80% of cartel weapons to the U.S., debate debanking’s rise under Biden, and Georgia Senator Tillery’s SB 341 blocking closures for constitutionally protected activities—like gun manufacturing—citing Trump’s JP Morgan Chase lawsuit. Framing midterms as a fight for "Main Street" over corporate interests, they urge state-level engagement to preserve financial freedoms amid perceived liberal overreach, with Georgia’s tax cuts saving families $5,190 annually. [Automatically generated summary]
This is Tate Brown here holding it down for our beautiful Tim Cast news live show.
I'm very excited to be back with you guys today.
It is a wonderful Tuesday here, just outside of our nation's capital.
I am having a great day.
How about you?
I hope you're having a good day.
Let me know in chat what you think.
That being said, we are taking you from the morning to the afternoon in our Rumble Daily lineup.
And boy, do we have a slate of stories for you today?
I didn't talk about it yesterday, but I think it's time we talk about it.
The cartel situation in Mexico, it's all kicking off.
It's getting wacky and wild down there.
I don't know what's going on south of the border.
You know, most of my interactions with Mexico is the combo plate at my local Mexican restaurant.
So it's very exciting to see some activity going on down there because it might give us justification to finally just go and invade.
You know, James Polk sort of bring his vision for the Western Hemisphere into fruition.
We'll have to see what happens there.
But a lot of action, a lot of carnage.
There's still some Americans trapped there, which is quite interesting.
So we'll have to see what happens.
It looks like this is Shine Bomb.
You know, there's a lot of criticism of Shine Bomb, all warranted, by the way.
But she's taking a slightly different approach to her predecessor.
She's actually going after these cartels.
Her predecessor, a bregado, he wanted to placate the cartels.
He would try to, you know, alleviate poverty.
That was his methodology is that if I just exterminate poverty, then why would people commit crimes if they have all the money in the world?
Well, the problem is you can't really do that.
And so all he did was just make the cartel situation a lot worse.
So Shine Bomb, for what it's worth, is taking a different angle here.
So it's quite interesting.
But we have that story.
We have some more stories too.
I think we should be able to get to these other stories at some point.
And then at the half hour mark, we are going to be joined by Blake Tillery.
He's running for lieutenant governor in the state of Georgia, the great state of Georgia.
And he's going to be talking about debanking, which is something I don't know very much about.
I understand what it is very well, but I don't understand what the process looks like.
So I think he could come on and sort of illuminate that for us as well as talk about this bill that he's introducing that would seek to limit these banks' abilities to target conservatives.
So it'd be very interesting.
But before we get to all of that, we do have a word from today's sponsor.
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There's really some tremendous, tremendous stuff.
So with that, I think we should go ahead and jump into the news today.
I got a few pieces here from Reuters just to kind of stitch this together.
What happened in Mexico over the weekend leading into yesterday?
Well, this is what was quite interesting.
So I'll read here.
This is how this went down.
El Mencho, he's this leader of the C, what's it, this, the JN, the Jalisco New Generation cartel, the CJ, CJNG.
A lot of abbreviations are going on.
They are, by some accounts, the largest cartel in Mexico.
By some accounts, the second largest behind the Sinaloa cartel.
They're absolutely massive, and they expanded quite extensively in the last few years.
This was quite interesting.
So there was a raid.
I'm going to read from Reuters here.
A tip about drug lord Nemesio Osaguera's romantic liaisons led Mexican authorities to the cartel leaders hideout in the small town or in a small town of Jalisco state where he was killed.
Mexico authorities said on Monday in the first account of the ambush that spawned violence across much Mucho of Mexico.
Things are getting a little Latin over here.
At least 62 people died early Sunday in the early Sunday raid in Osoguera on Osaguera known as El Mencho in an ensuing violence, including 25 members of the National Guard military police.
Now, I'm not laughing because it's funny.
I'm laughing because that's like a very jarring number.
I mean, could you imagine this sort of thing happening in the United States?
And 34 suspected gang members as cartel loyalists set cars ablaze.
And 85 roadblocks in more than a dozen states authorities said.
So Shinebaum came out Monday.
She said the situation is normalizing.
Roadblocks were under control.
But it's a little hard to believe.
Reuters explains here.
Mexico beefed up security in Jalisco, the stronghold of Osaguera's famous Jalisco New Generation cartel, the CJNG, with the deployment of 2,000 troops.
And Mexicans, as well as tourists in these states, famed coastal towns, fretted over the quick spread of violence to the far corners of Mexico.
There was a lot going on.
Things were getting very chaotic.
This is what they interviewed a school teacher in Mexico City, Fabiola Cortez.
She said, and I think this is accurate.
Unfortunately, it's not the first time we're experiencing this, but it does seem a bit more worrying because there's no successor to these cartels.
We hope that truly our president does something for us, protects us, because honestly, fear is everywhere in the streets.
So this is what's interesting about the CJNG.
Sorry, it's kind of a weird abbreviation to say.
They should be viewed more as like a franchise than a cartel because the way they operate, at least to the best of my understanding, is they set up franchises, for lack of a better word, all across Mexico.
And so they have these groups that are independent by all accounts that are sort of waving the flag of the CJNG.
By all accounts, are subservient to the CJNG.
Now, the problem is when you take out the head of this cartel, it's going to start unraveling this cartel.
What happens to those independent, these groups now that they're becoming independent, these sort of franchises, for lack of a better word?
Well, they're going to start looking for new allies.
And you have, you know, these groups that have sort of built out an understanding of whose territory is what, suddenly going to go into disarray.
A vacuum will form after this.
So this is why, you know, Sheinbaum is having to keep the pressure on here.
You know, this isn't a situation where you can take him out and then withdraw because it's going to it's going to devolve into chaos.
So Scheinbaum has to keep the pressure on.
Now, Reuters, again, and there was a few other pieces.
I'm just using Reuters here today.
There's a few other pieces that shared this similar sentiment.
Unprecedented military raid is risky gamble for Mexico's Scheinbaum.
Now, again, they're pointing out sort of the difference between how she is sort of governing versus the previous administration in Mexico.
The Mexican military raid that killed the country's most wanted cartel leader on Sunday was President Claudia Sheinbaum's biggest bet yet, doubling down on her historic offensive against the country's most powerful organized crime groups.
They talk about the raid itself.
El Mencho had a $15 million bounty on his head from U.S. authorities and was considered all but untouchable after he evaded capture through multiple U.S. and Mexican administration.
His killing on Sunday, the biggest security-related operation in Mexico in at least a decade, marks a potential inflection point in this country's war against the cartels.
Again, this is what Reuters' analysis says here.
For Scheinbaum, the raid was a successful way to send a signal to Washington that it can pull off sophisticated operations against the most powerful criminals in the country without U.S. troops on the ground.
But in Mexico, the operation also risks triggering a backlash against the popular leader if violence spins out of control in its wake.
David Mora of the International Crisis Group in Mexico said it was a huge bet to go against the most powerful criminal group in the country.
The stakes are very high.
And that is absolutely true.
Again, this could form a vacuum.
This could backfire in so many different ways.
I also don't know if that's 100% accurate, that this is her way of sending a signal to Washington that it can pull off these.
She's trying to keep the pressure off because Trump obviously is keen on going in and just mopping the situation up.
But something else must be pointed out here.
This is quite interesting.
So this was television south of the border, obviously.
Journalist Carlos Rukov revealed that the United States led the capture of El Mencho, but Scheinbaum decided to assassinate him during the transfer, so he did not expose his links with the Mexican drug government and the financing of Morena.
Now, Morena is the left-wing party that Scheinbaum is a part of.
Very left-wing party, socialist by all accounts.
This interview is in Spanish, so that won't be of much use for any of us really watching.
But it is a very real link.
And for the record, this was pointed out in the pages of the New York Times.
Raw Ag Nationalists put this statement up.
A State Department investigation into Scheinbaum's predecessor and mentor, Amlo, which is Andres Manuel Lopez Oberdor.
It's so hard to say these names, man.
Thankfully, they're south of the border.
None of them have come here, thankfully.
Found clear evidence that he took millions of dollars from drug cartels and that they have infiltrated the Mexican state at every level.
Here's reporting from the New York Times on the operation.
Again, this is the New York Times.
This is not exactly the most pro-Trump publication out there.
This is from February 2024.
American law enforcement officials spent years looking into allegations that allies of Mexico's president Andres Manuel Lopez Oberdor, I think I'm saying that correctly, met with and took millions of dollars from drug cartels after he took office, according to U.S. records and three people familiar with the matter.
The inquiry, which has not been previously reported, uncovered information pointing to potential links between powerful cartel operatives and Mexican advisors and officials close to the president where he governed the country.
But the United States never opened a formal investigation into Mr. Lopez, Lopez, Oberdor, and the officials involved ultimately shelved the inquiry.
They concluded that the U.S.'s government had little appetite to pursue allegations against the leader of one of America's top allies, said the three people familiar with the case who were not authorized to speak publicly.
Again, Amlo, he said the allegations are completely false.
What's interesting is this does seem to have a very strong link.
Now, this is a big claim from this journalist that the United States led the capture and it was Scheinbaum who decided to assassinate him.
Again, that's going to take quite a bit of proof.
But this idea, this is what's interesting to me.
So let me take a swig here, and I'll get back to you.
Oh, yeah.
That's what the doctor ordered.
Need a little cocoa nut water.
That's what we're all about here.
We're about that nut water pause.
What's interesting here is Carolyn Levitt came out, the press secretary, and she was like, Mexico, great raid.
Well done.
You know, tipping the hat.
Even Trump came out, and I think I've the truth to do so post.
Yeah, again, he was just like, terrific.
Mexico must step up their efforts on the cartels and drugs.
But so far, the Trump administration has been fairly congratulatory towards the Mexican government.
I don't know if Scheinbaum, this is why I question the Reuters reporting a little bit, because I don't know if Sheinbaum is actually, again, intent on completely sort of growing ties with the United States, I guess, for lack of a better word.
Like, for example, this is Mexico's defense secretary.
This is an indirect way of blaming a lot of this cartel activity on the United States.
So Mexico's defense secretary says 80% of the weapons seized from the cartels are of U.S. origin.
Now, it's again, it's in Spanish, so it's not going to be of much use to us.
But that is what's been said in this clip.
So again, they're like this idea that this is what they're doing here.
It's a little bit of a misdirection from the Mexican government here, is they're trying to, again, paint it like there's nothing they can do.
This is like America, an American problem, uniquely American problem.
Okay, it's true that these cartels do exist in large part because of the drug trade in the United States.
But again, who's facilitating the drugs?
It's Mexico, by and large part.
It's one of our two borders that we have.
So not coming from Canada, at least not yet.
It's coming from Mexico.
So this idea that, okay, 80% of weapons seized from the cartels are of U.S. origin.
Again, whose fault is that?
That's your fault.
Again, you can monitor what the imports are coming in from the U.S., what's coming across the border.
It's not difficult.
And you can just do what Bukele did.
This is the thing.
This is a side note.
I'm a little over the place today, but these are all important things because this is our neighborhood.
We have to discuss these things.
One thing I got corrected on was, I don't remember which crime spree this was following, which highly high-profile criminal incident followed.
But everyone is saying we need to Bukele the United States.
We need to operate like Bukele.
One issue, this was pointed out to one of my friends with the, I think he's with the DOJ now.
He made this point where he's like, the thing is, the Bukele thing works really well in El Salvador, where everyone is on the same page that crime is the number one issue.
And that if we can remove crime, we'll be a fairly prosperous society.
That's evident because that's the only policy anyone really knows about Bukele internationally.
It's the one policy everyone knows about him that he's implemented is his tough on crime policy.
And that's delivered tremendous electoral success in El Salvador.
He's like a 90% approval rating, something like that.
So very, very popular.
The problem, you can't really apply that to the United States.
I know you could in theory, but you're not going to do it and have a 90% approval rating because by and large, the Democrat Party just accepts criminality because any effort you would make to clamp down on criminality by and large would be perceived as racist or something like that.
So, okay, you could implement a lot of Bukele-style politics, but the Democrats are going to hamstring you at every step of the way.
Again, with the court system, look what they did with one with a Brego Garcia.
Congress certainly isn't going to go to bat for you.
You're going to need funding if you're going to build out these massive detention centers like we see in El Salvador.
You're going to need funding for that.
You're going to need a lot more personnel.
You're going to use the military for things like that.
There's a lot of impediments in the United States that prevent us from Buqueley the country.
Now, Mexico is kind of an interesting case because even Moreno, Morena, the party that Sheinbaum is a part of, that she's, you know, she's now been elected under their banner.
Even their voters still perceive crime as like the biggest issue in Mexico.
They still, by and large, the cartels is the biggest issue in Mexico.
So this is, again, Mexico is more like El Salvador in the sense of if you could successfully clean up crime in Mexico, you would become an immensely popular political figure.
I mean, Mexico is a bit more advanced in their political philosophy in the sense of they have leftists.
Like El Salvador, not so much.
Again, most Salvadorans, their primary concern was crime.
Mexico, again, you do have like people that do care about like social justice or whatever.
But by and large, if you can remove crime out of the way, that is a guaranteed pathway to being an electoral juggernaut in Mexico.
So the Bukele sort of style of governance could realistically be applied in Mexico.
And again, it would deliver you some massive electoral benefits.
Morena was elected with that promise.
I have a few comments, tweets, commentary that were put on this story that's quite interesting.
So this was the announcement, or not an announcement, this was one of the posts talking about the Sinaloa, or sorry, the Jalisco cartel killing 25 Mexican National Guard soldiers in Jalisco yesterday, the Mexican security secretary reveals this is a huge loss of life for the Mexican army.
The Defense Secretary broke into tears mentioning it.
Tragedy for the soldiers and their families, which is, yeah, I mean, that's an unacceptable 25 American National Guard members would literally cause like Insurrection Act to be invoked.
This is what Paul Scalis, Lindy Man, he put this commentary up.
I thought this was very salient.
The cartels are weak.
Killing their leader should have led to them kidnapping U.S. tourists.
Very easy to do.
But they are afraid of Trump sending in airstrikes and know the Mexican government won't stop the U.S.
This is absolutely correct.
The Mexican Shinebaum is actually in a slightly better position here than the cartels.
The cartels are really in a tough spot because if it was Biden, it might be a different story, but they really don't have much leverage right now.
There's not much leverage.
They can't really mess with these American tourists very much.
And again, the drug trade is sort of clamping down.
The border is tightening up.
There's not really any flow of illegal immigrants into the country.
So it's become an increasingly difficult situation for these cartels.
And now Shinebaum, the Mexican government, actually has the upper hand here, which is quite interesting.
Sorry, my throat is just parched.
I don't know what's going on.
So this is, that was a very good point by Lindy Man.
This is pretty funny here.
I like this.
Just booked a 10-day family vacation in Cancun for the end of April for 55% less than I paid last year.
Don't miss these deals.
So true.
This is so true.
This is what you need to be doing, honestly.
They call it like danger tourism.
I don't think, I think Cancun's going to be fine in a month.
They interviewed him like on the streets of New York.
And they talked about how he always books his vacations following like a massive tragedy.
Like if he sees an earthquake in the Dominican Republic, you better believe he's going to be on the first plane down there because everything is cheap.
Everyone is like happy to see you because there's no tourists everywhere.
They're all terrified.
I think he said he went to Kenya after they sawed a bunch of tourists' heads off.
So it's like there's something to this.
If you see a tragedy, if you see something just horrific that really is gut-wrenching, you should hop on Travelocity, I would say.
I think that would be the play to make.
So this is a very brilliant play by Bowtide Yukon here.
There were some other posts people are saying.
This was interesting.
Did you guys see the Marriott?
It was the Marriott in Puerto Vallarta.
There was a Reddit post.
I should have pulled it up where this person was complaining about their Marriott gold status, but they weren't allowed to check in or check out late.
Even though the city was being sieged by the cartel, and the Marriott still would not grant them a late checkout.
It's like, who's checking into the hotel?
The city's siege.
There's no one coming later on.
So this person took to Reddit to complain, and it was a pretty funny post.
This was interesting from seeking around 17.
Breaking Marriott gold members in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico are being forced by hotel staff to fight the cartel gold members to be armed with broomsticks and soap bars for throwing.
This is a very salient point.
I heard the silver leader being sent out only in towels.
So there's a lot going on.
This is why you need to read the terms of service when you sign up for these rewards programs because you never know what's going to be required of you if there is a sort of cartel siege happening in your city.
This was quite interesting from Mike Madrid commenting on this post by Mario Naufo per an anonymous CJNG source, Juan Carlos Valencia Gonzalez, alias 03, has been named the new leader of CJNG.
Again, this is still needs to be confirmed.
But what's funny is you can see here, he's from Santa Ana, California.
This is Orange County, California.
This kind of really demonstrates how out of control immigration has gotten in the United States is that we are now growing, we are homegrowing cartel leaders for other countries, which I do suppose really exemplifies American excellence that we're pretty much the best at everything, including drug trafficking.
We're now exporting our drug trafficking leaders, which is really something.
But it is tragic to see that someone can come to the United States.
And in theory, like when immigrants are coming to the United States, they're supposed to leave behind everything.
Well, this guy not only didn't leave everything behind, he literally took the most obvious position you could take being like a Mexican, which would be leading a cartel.
So not only did he fail to assimilate, he's like extra Mexican.
I don't have much to say here, but it kind of reminds me.
This is Drupka.
I always have trouble saying his name.
Drupka Cunley.
I always call him Drupka.
A really interesting post here is these pre-Columbian, so pre-arrival of the Spanish Mexican ethno-linguistic groups you see down here overlaid with cartel cartel maps, which is quite interesting.
It's not one for one, but it is interesting to see that Mexico hasn't quite civilized yet.
You know, the United States, you see all of our tribal groups up here, and we mopped that up quite quickly.
But there is some similarity here to this sort of pre-conquest map, which I think is quite interesting.
So, yeah, really interesting stuff.
I think we should move on to this next story.
More fallout from the BAFTA awards in Britain.
If you didn't see the story, there was a gentleman with Tourette's syndrome.
He was the feature of a film that was sort of raising awareness for Tourette's syndrome.
Obviously, Tourette's syndrome is where you involuntarily blurt out sounds or you make involuntary movements, these sorts of things.
You can't do anything about it.
For the same reason, you know, that someone with narcolepsy can't help but going to sleep.
You know, it just happens.
It is what it is.
Well, this person, this gentleman, was in attendance at the BAFTA Awards, this major film award show in Britain.
And Michael B. Jordan and another gentleman, I forget his name, it was another black gentleman.
And they were, you know, announcing something on stage.
It's neither here nor there.
And the gentleman blurted out the N-word, the man with Tourette's syndrome, blurted out the N-word.
For everyone to hear it, it was picked up on the cameras, and the BBC aired it.
And it's caused this huge firestorm where I think we've kind of realized that black America, I don't want to generalize, so it's obviously not all black Americans, but black Americans, I think it exemplifies the fragility that is very permeates their culture, where they can't even hear a word.
Because obviously this gentleman, there's zero hatred behind it.
He literally can't help but say it.
And they're demanding an apology from this man.
He has to apologize for having a disability.
That's where we're at in 2026, I guess.
If you offend black Americans and you have a disability, you need to now apologize for your disability.
We'll get into it.
This was interesting.
This was Pub Wanghaff.
He's a great mutual here.
Donald Trump should bring the guy that yelled the N-word at the BAF doors to the State of the Union.
That would be really some exciting stuff.
Yeah, so I've been hearing about some guy who said the N-word.
Who is that?
I'm not racist, so I don't know.
That is what they expect is they're like, if he's not racist, how does he even know what the N-word is?
That's literally what people are saying about this guy.
So there's a lot of commentary here.
I'm a parent.
This is from Lou Perez.
I'm a parent.
My children have never heard the N-word, and I plan on keeping it that way.
That's why I refuse to live around people who say it.
It's so true.
We should never say around, you never should be around people who say the N-word.
So true, so true.
Dick Masterson says here, would absolutely love to hear the Tourette's guy apologize to the black people live and uncensored.
Because again, they're demanding this apology.
I think that would just make the situation far worse is if he actually tried to apologize while having Tourette's syndrome.
I think that would escalate quite quickly.
Sridhar Ramesh put up this post here.
A lot of ignorant commentary about the outbursts at the BAFTA's from people who haven't bothered to do five seconds of research.
In Britain, that word means cigarette, which is really great stuff.
I'm just throwing up all these funny tweets because this is just really some great stuff.
Jesus Murphy says here, actually racist guy with Tourette's that keeps screaming nice things about black people.
He's just yelling like reparations at them or something like that, or happy Black History Month.
This is what's interesting.
So this, again, this is coming back to like black people on Twitter.
Again, I want to generalize.
I think the majority of black people probably understand what Tourette's is.
It's obviously.
But on Twitter, this is not what's being amplified.
On Twitter, there's these people.
Never heard a white man with Tourette's say black power.
These people are dead serious when they say these things, by the way.
Vocal tics are often swear words.
All I'm seeing from black Twitter is ableism.
And then this other person weighs in, don't give an F.
No one's putting aside racism for a P word that refuses to be accountable for it.
Able or disabled.
So they're just demanding.
And look, this guy got ratioed big time by these people.
They're literally coming out and demanding that disabled people apologize for being disabled.
Like, that's where we're at in 2026.
This is funny, spouting the nerd at the Oscars and not apologies.
You're too tired from long COVID.
That is true.
But this, I think, encapsulates the whole kind of situation is you're seeing now British people make these posts where they're like, these stupid Americans don't understand what Tourette's is.
But they're not actually talking about all Americans.
I think every white American, not a single white American was offended by what happened at the BAFTAs because A, it doesn't affect them.
B, they understand that this guy can't help it.
But these British people, they're coming out and they're like saying, they're like lambasting Americans, by and large, calling Americans stupid, et cetera, et cetera.
This is very good here from Mintz.
This is exactly right.
Do British people really think Americans don't know what Tourette's is?
Or are they just trying really hard to avoid calling black people dumb?
Because again, if they tried to like specify who specifically is upset with the situation, it's not Americans by and large.
It's black Americans specifically.
So they're making these posts over and over again, calling Americans stupid, saying, oh, they don't even know we have, do we seriously have to explain Tourette's syndrome to Americans?
Which specific Americans are you talking about?
Because this is like, again, white Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans don't care.
We don't care at all whatsoever.
It's specifically black Twitter, I think, is really animated by this.
There was one tweet.
I don't know where it went.
Maybe it was in the back half.
I don't know where it went.
There is a few different tweets from, again, from black Twitter just demanding this guy apologizes, saying, how come he doesn't blurt out positive things about black people?
Why is it the only N-word?
Why would that even cross his mind?
Again, now it's the cardinal sin to even think of a word.
Even if there's zero intention behind it, zero animosity.
I'm from South Georgia, Vidalia, Georgia, and I chair the Senate Appropriations Committee in the Georgia Senate.
I represent 11 counties in Southeast Georgia.
I've been in the Senate now for 10 years and chaired the Appropriations Committee for seven.
So it's been a tumultuous time.
I came in during COVID.
We had to take 15% out of the budget.
But man, it set us up for where we are now to be able to return what you're hopefully going to see next week over $2 billion to taxpayers in income tax and property tax savings.
Well, I think you gave the best simplistic answer there.
That's what happens.
And there's two types of debanking.
You've got debanking that occurs because someone's involved in fraud, right?
Nobody has a problem with that.
If you're doing things fraudulently, you're investing in things you shouldn't be investing in, money laundering, et cetera, you know, drug cartels, then yeah, that should, people should who do that should be debanked.
Their bank accounts should be closed.
But when their bank accounts are closed because of speech, that's a problem.
When they're closed because of their political beliefs, that's a problem.
When they're closed because they're manufacturing firearms, because they possess firearms, which is protected still by the Second Amendment, that's problematic.
And that's what we saw.
So I dropped a bill last year.
I think it started as Senate Bill 57.
And Tate, you made it very clear.
You said some people, this becomes kind of a wonky issue.
Folks don't understand it.
Well, the folks who opposed me, they used that to their advantage.
They said debanking rarely happens.
You know, conservatives don't see their bank accounts closed.
And that's why they tried to oppose it.
The banking industry came out in full force.
And what we did find out later on, though, is that it does happen.
Happened to companies in Georgia, a gun manufacturer in Georgia, to conservatives who were traveling just to be part of a conservative rally here in Georgia.
Saw their bank accounts closed, saw their debit cards cut off.
I think it was maybe the Texas Senate race, Beto O'Rourke versus Ted Cruz.
And Beto, he was, you know, this is a red state.
So this is him making a moderate sort of appeal to the Texas electorate, which is hilarious to think.
And he said something along the lines of, I believe it was, they were asking him how he would combat, you know, gun violence or whatever.
And he said, well, I would instruct banks like JP Morgan and Chase to ban purchases of AR-15s.
They would just flag it immediately and then deny the purchase from happening.
And I remember when I heard that, every alarm bell went off.
So, I mean, obviously, we're seeing the debanking happening, but even if we weren't seeing the debanking, I think that's why it would be worthwhile for these states to start passing these bills because that's what the Democrats' intention is.
The Democrats' intention is to twist these banks' arms on these sorts of things.
What we've seen is that liberals are not going to win at the state house.
So they carry the fight instead to the courthouse or to the boardroom.
And if they can get a bank to turn off a service like banking, you're essentially cut off from the U.S. economy.
And so what my bill originally, Senate Bill 57, it's now Senate Bill 341.
What it said is that if you're involved in providing an essential service, you can't terminate that service because someone's doing something that's otherwise constitutionally protected.
And we named those essential services.
We called it water, sewer, power, internet.
And then we added banking to it.
And Tate, here's what's so funny.
Those other companies, the water companies, the sewer companies, the electrical companies, even, they had no problem with this bill.
Like Tillery, we don't cut off conservatives because we don't cut their electricity off because they're conservative.
We don't cut off gun manufacturers water because they're making guns.
You know, the only industry that had a problem, you can guess it.
I mean, because that's something I think Americans are just kind of removed because so much of our transactions now happen via Apple Pay or debit cards or whatever.
We're kind of removed from, it's like Dave Ramsey gives the advice.
It's like, you should always pay cash as much as you can because when you feel that money leaving your hand, you like realize how much you're spending.
I mean, that's how people are wanting, if you're wanting them to save.
And Tate, you're hitting on an issue that's extremely important for a couple of other reasons.
There's other folks who've been debanked.
There's a congressman in Georgia, Andrew Clyde.
He saw his account seized.
It turns out he was before he was a congressman.
But why was it seized?
Well, he owns an armory.
He sells firearms.
The liberals are not going to win these battles against the Second Amendment at the state house.
Right now, they're not even winning them at the courthouse.
Where are they going to fight them?
They're going to fight them in the boardroom.
And that's why things like Senate Bill 341 to ban debanking are important.
And I know that you've kept up with national politics.
You see, the day that my bill fell on the Senate floor, by the way, President Trump filed suit in the state of Florida against Capital One, alleging 300 counts of debanking.
You've seen where more recently he's filed suit against JP Morgan Chase, alleging that he was debanked there.
And JP Morgan, they actually admitted it.
They said, yeah, we debanked him based on events because of his political speech.
If the president of the United States, if a now congressman can be debanked, then what chance does the average American have if folks aren't willing to stand up and fight for them like we're doing here at the Georgia State House?
Yeah, well, you've seen what the president's done at the national level.
Tim Scott tried to do it at the national level as well.
And there's been a little bit of a slowdown there.
And we've obviously been in contact with him.
But again, these rights are reserved by the 10th Amendment to the state.
I'm a constitutionalist.
We have an ability.
We have a constitutional right, I would argue, to enforce these things, especially the police powers here at the state level.
And so that's why you see me tackling this issue.
I know that if you're conservative, that the term debanking is not new to you.
You know what it is, even though if you walk in the halls of our Capitol Hill, folks will say that it's a nuanced issue, that this very rarely happens.
Well, President Trump sued alleging 300 counts.
That sounds like a pretty good number to me.
The gun manufacturer down in Savannah that got his accounts closed, not once, but twice, that's anecdotal, right?
But it starts to add up.
The folks in Southwest Georgia who saw their debit cards cut off, all of a sudden, these one-offs, these anecdotal cases, when they start adding up, we realize that it's not something that happens seldom.
It's something that happens very often.
And it overwhelmingly happens to only one political group.
Well, at the Georgia State House, you can't win if you only have the Liberal Party.
So they're winning over conservatives.
In fact, there was one conservative leader who was the thought leader against this.
He said that this very rarely happened.
He's no longer in the state senate, but he was.
He said this very rarely happens and that it's all this is a play for folks to be able to sue banks.
Well, you know why they should be able to sue banks?
Because they lost money because their accounts were closed.
If you're a Georgia business and you've got accounts overseas, you've got accounts all over wiring money to you to buy things, whether it be cars or it be widgets or it be firearms.
When your accounts get closed, that costs you money.
Marty Daniel at Daniel Defense said it cost him over a million dollars each time he was closed by two national banks.
When you're a Southwest Georgia family that was traveling and your debit card gets cut off, well, what do you do with all those overdraft fees or things that happen because of that?
You should be able to seek redress because of that.
Turns out there's a seventh amendment to the Constitution for a reason.
Our founding fathers realized this was going to happen and they provided a remedy.
The idea that this very rarely happens or it's some lawyer grab, that's just cover to make sure that liberals still have the opportunity to make this change in a boardroom because they can't win it at the state house.
And this is so refreshing to hear because I can't tell you how many like, you know, state reps or congressmen even want to come on the show, but they want to talk about like, oh, here's a bill to like reform like the gas station code.
And why?
And it's like, okay, whatever.
This is something that's like directly affecting Americans.
Very tangible.
This is why this is what the GOP should be hitting on.
I mean, we're coming into the state of the union and all eyes are going to be on President Trump and sort of the administration's record thus far.
And this is what people, I think, are crying out for is bills like this that are kind of common sense in a lot of ways.
And again, that just have tangible, what's going to come out of this is very tangible.
People understand it.
And again, it's, and you're saying it's happening, it's obviously happening, but it's also protective because it just stops it here from getting worse and worse.
And then, you know, we're looking at the midterms.
Who knows what happened?
If it does go our way, we're going to start looking at our state house, the state, you know, state senates and being like, guys, can you protect us here?
The folks in our country, the ones I'm talking to, especially here in Georgia, I know the president's working really hard to make sure that he's putting America first.
We're trying to put Georgians first.
Well, how do you put Georgians first?
Well, you tackle the issues they're talking about.
They're talking about affordability.
They're talking about gas prices.
They're talking about child care.
You know what else they're saying?
They need to be protected from big business.
In Georgia, our state income tax brings in about $16.2 billion, but we give out $30 billion in corporate welfare.
They don't like that.
Let's take and cut back that corporate welfare and reduce their income tax.
Make it where things are more affordable to them.
They don't want it where banks can close their accounts because they don't like their political speech.
They want to be able, they want to be free, right?
And if we, again, we're not talking about whether or not they can walk into a lollipop store or they can go buy ice cream.
We're talking about whether or not they can be involved in the United States commerce system.
Because now, if you can't be involved with in banking, if you don't have a debit card, if you don't have Apple Pay, as you've already mentioned, you can't be involved in commerce.
So you're telling me about these Republicans that have sort of flipped and now they're opposing the bill.
This kind of really illustrates the problem with the Republican Party at large: they just, I assume maybe you can outline what the motive is for these, for these congressmen that have flipped sides here.
From my outside of perspective, when I see this happening across state houses, even at the national level, it seems like they're just really wanting approval from Democrats for some reason.
They're not as concerned with their base.
They're not even as concerned with Georgians at large because they want to ensure that they're still invited to some of these parties or maybe they're still given sort of glossy coverage by the press and these sorts of things.
Well, that's hit the nail on the head because we had a gentleman.
He's sort of in charge of this Andy Roth, I believe is his name, and he's sort of setting up these freedom caucuses across these different state governments.
And what was interesting is he really honed in on this point of at the state level.
We already see it at the national level.
It's documented quite well, but the state level, how easy it is for these corporations to really put their thumb on the scale in these high pressure situations, right, Bert.
This is a bill that's going to directly infect Georgians.
And it's amazing how like corporations, how close they can get to the decision-making process where they become indistinguishable from these lawmakers in a lot of situations.
I think that most people who serve in state legislatures come at it from a noble purpose.
But when they're getting information on one side and they quit listening to what's going on back home, that's problematic.
That's not me, though.
I'm listening to what's happening at kitchen tables.
I'm seeing folks who are literally saying we're having an issue right now on how we're going to pay for our child care and also pay for groceries.
And the best way we can answer that in Georgia, again, is by putting people first.
And so I know we're here to talk about debanking, but the bill we're using to put people first the most in Georgia, just to sort of segue you for a second, and we'll come back.
I'm not trying to get off the debanking issue, is the bill that we have in Georgia that literally takes and exempts the first $100,000 of income for family from being taxed.
We realized in Georgia that if you reduce the state income tax and put money back in people's pockets, turns out they spend it better than the government.
We've been walking down our state income tax for a while.
We're chasing some other states.
You got Tennessee to our north that's at zero.
Florida to our south is also at zero.
North Carolina and South Carolina, they're on their way to 2.99%.
Alabama's not doing anything with income tax, but our country just go one state over further to the west and Mississippi's got a 14-year plan to go to zero.
What we did here in Georgia is said, hey, how can we get money into the pockets of families the fastest?
And the way we found out we could do that and target it towards families making $50,000 to about $150,000 was to reduce the income tax or actually eliminate it on the first $50,000 of income.
It costs us about $3 billion, but it gives back Georgia families.
If you're making $50,000 and single, that's $2,500 in your pocket.
If you're married, filing jointly, you make $100,000.
Maybe you're a teacher.
Maybe your husband's a police officer.
About $100,000 or more in income.
That's $5,190.
Turns out that pays for childcare for about three months.
It pays for rent for three to six months, depending on where you live.
It puts gas in your car for a year.
We're focused on that here as well.
I don't want to steal you away from debanking.
I think that's important.
But if you're wanting to win in the midterms, we need to be talking to the middle class and explain to them we think they're more important than the corporate backers who seem right now to at least dominate a lot of the thought process.
I mean, that's kind of the point we're at with the way that elections work is you really have to sort of run up the numbers with who you can.
And it's like sometimes there's these sort of like they're making these bids for these groups.
They're probably just not going to be interested in what you have to say.
It's like the middle class.
That is the United States.
That's the economy is driven by them.
That's where the money's being spent.
This sort of thing.
That's why I love hearing that because you see some of these tax cuts that come across the desks of some of these governors.
And it's so convoluted.
Like no one can possibly understand what any of it means.
They're like, all right, so if you make $65,000, we're going to mail you a golden brick and then you take that to your DMV and then you exchange that and they're going to give you a tax coupon.
And you're like, what is going on?
Where you're just presenting something very straightforward.
It's like, nope, if you make between this and this, we're cutting it by this much.
It's like, I want to make sure that I explain this to your viewers too.
While that plan eliminates the state income tax on two-thirds of Georgians, everyone making $100,000 unless who's married, $50,000 unless if you're single, it doesn't just say, oh, if you make over $100,000, you're shafted.
No, it doesn't do that at all.
What it says is we're only going to tax, we're going to not tax the first $100,000.
You make $200,000?
We're only taxing $100,000.
You make $1,000,000?
We're only taxing 900.
So that's a $5,190 savings at our current income tax rates for those families too.
In regards to, I guess, kind of sort of at the debanking, I imagine it plays into things with this as well.
What has been the reaction from these corporations?
I guess specifically in Georgia, because there's this accusation for the longest time that the GOB is like in bed with these corporations and everything.
And it's like, I don't know, maybe 30, 20 years ago.
You're seeing now, especially in the Trump era, a lot of these politicians that are willing to go at it with a lot of these major corporations.
And it's really showing like, you know, that they're not on the same page a lot of times when it comes to putting Georgians first, putting Americans first.
Well, I expect we're going to hear an American first message from the president.
He's going to talk about what he's done at a national level to benefit the American people, how he's used things like America's strength with its military to stop other wars.
Think about that.
We've actually used the threat.
I mean, you got to give the president credit.
He is an incredibly skilled negotiator.
And for the first time, we're seeing someone who's willing to take America's strengths and use them from a negotiating standpoint.
While he's fighting for America first, I'm fighting for Georgia first.
More importantly, I think, and probably more nuanced, I'm fighting for Georgians first.
Why are we giving out corporate welfare when we instead should be able to try and make their food, groceries, gas more affordable?
And so I expect to see the American first message on display from the president and watch us continue to push Georgia first.
And I hope that means that we're in line with him.
Well, I mean, because that's what's interesting is, you know, the mood around Republicans right now.
I mean, a lot of this has to do with the state of the commentariat, which would be my end of the spectrum.
There kind of seems to be a little bit of among the base, among Trump supporters of the Republican Party at large, there is kind of a feeling of like things aren't going to look so hot for the midterms.
The outlook isn't going to look so hot.
But then I do see like stuff like this, very encouraging stuff.
Again, everything coming out of the Trump administration, especially on the immigration front, very positive, actually.
We're making drastic changes.
I mean, this isn't just like, well, we've tweaked a few things and whatnot.
Like these are drastic changes that are like delivering on what he promised.
And so I see stuff like that.
I don't know.
Maybe if you could try to assess where do you think the disconnect is happening?
Or I guess a better question is there's obviously a disconnect online.
Is that what you're seeing when you go and meet a lot of your constituents in person?
Because obviously online is so much different from in person.
And we're not willing to simply claim every falsity just to say that the president's losing.
And it feels like some in, you mentioned your class, the commentariat class, sometimes feels that that's the way they want to serve.
And I don't think that that's the best for our country.
And while some folks may feel that way right now, there's an overreach.
And I'm afraid we're getting really close to that overreach where Americans say, hey, listen, I don't want to hear why America is not the greatest country in the world.
I don't want to hear why my sons and daughters should be subservient to some other country or some other type of Sharia law.
I don't want to hear that.
I want America to win and I'm going to fight for it.
And those folks, they're going to be the folks joining the Republican and the Conservative Party.
I mean, because that's where the incentive structures on the left bend towards, is it bends towards hating yourself and by extension, hating the country that you belong to.
And this is the United States in this case.
And that's what you did because you asked the question, who wasn't celebrating the gold medal?
I was like, there was a few people, these like, you know, these leftists, these, that are so enamored with this hatred for Trump specifically, because if Joe Biden was president, it'd probably be a different story, where their patriotism is actually conditional on who's president, which is insane to me.
How can you claim that you really care about this country when your actual love for the country is contingent on who's in office?
That's insane to me.
And you saw a few of those people coming out after the election of saying, I can't celebrate this because of what's going on in the White House.
It's like, then how dare you claim to be a patriot?
Well, we saw it with the figure skater, Alyssa Lua, I'm talking about on the show yesterday, is, you know, they are coming out and they're saying, well, you know, she has these different, you know, left-wing positions or whatever.
How you conservatives are so stupid cheering for a woman that has these politics that are different from yours.
And we're all saying, we don't really care what her politics is.
She's proud to be American.
She's holding the flag up.
She's clearly happy to be there.
We're patriots.
Like, that's why we like her.
It's not, we don't care what her politics are.
But that just kind of exposed a lot of these leftists is that everything for them has to be ran through this filter of politics.
Everything is conditional on that.
And it's so disturbing to see compared to the right where it's like, look at how do we deliver on, you know, in your instance, how do we deliver on some common sense victories for Georgians, regardless if it's a Republican or Democrat?
Like, let's just get some, you know, action.
Let's move the football down the field, this sort of thing.
And that's why I think you saw President Trump win so much with different classes of Americans that we had not won with before.
And I think if Republicans realize that the topic of the day is affordability and the topic of the day is the middle class, that we're going to be just fine.
And I hope that my friends around the state, around the country even, are hearing this.
Well, listen, I'm going to keep fighting for the folks who are on Main Street, not on Wall Street.
And I'm going to keep fighting for kitchen table issues like this debanking issue.
Conservatives don't need to be afraid that their voices are going to get silenced simply because a boardroom made a decision that was against their constitutional rights.
We were seeing some high-profile debankings during the Biden era.
That's not going to stop.
And I think that's why, I mean, to Blake's point, I mean, okay, it starts with the gun manufacturers, obviously, but you're seeing it expand.
You're seeing sort of their auspices expand, I guess, for lack of a better word.
And it's really some petrifying stuff.
So again, this is why these red states, this is why if you have Republicans in office, you've got to start making moves.
You got to start making plays to shore up power because it's not guaranteed.
I mean, I do think things are moving the right direction as far as, you know, nationally to some degree.
But yeah, again, if we get walloped in the midterms, Trump's a sitting duck, you're going to start looking at your state governments to get some action, some decisions made, some movement.
So a lot going on, folks.
But we love it.
We love it.
Obviously, we got tonight the State of the Union.
Also, Kelly pointed out today is hashtag Thick Trunk Tuesday, according to Twitter, which is quite something.
How are you guys celebrating Thick Trunk Tuesdays?