M.O. Oluwagbemi, FNSE (TMZ)

Erin Burnett: “texas republicans are making a last-ditch effort to limit the power of the governorship, and of course they're trying to do it really fast because they want to do it before the democrat, gina hinojosa, is sworn in. she will be the first democrat to win governor there in 36 years before she and a democratic state house is sworn into office. so hinojosa responding with this message to republicans.” Gina Hinojosa: “the people of texas have spoken, and i think it's important that as elected leaders we respect what the people of texas have said. they want change.” Erin Burnett: “okay, that comes after democrats scored the seismic political victory in texas, winning major races up and down the ballot, three-decade losing streak over. harry enten out front with me at the magic wall. harry, i was in texas that night when the results started, they couldn't even process it. it was kind of like a little cheer, and then like a holy, and then there literally were people screaming that and dancing around, and that was when tallarico was called. then hinojosa was called right after, and then it didn't even sink in that, oh my, my, you know what, it's this, and it's this, and it's this, and it's every statewide race, and it's the state house, and it's, oh my gosh.” Harry Enten: “mind blown. i mean, everyone was coming in before the election, oh, we don't believe the polling, you know, every few cycles were promised a blue texas, you know, finally coming true. well, this time it came true up and down the ballot. you know, there was all this attention to the senate race, and look at that, james tallarico, an absolute blah, winning by 12 points, beating every poll expectation, but it wasn't just the senate race, right? it was the gov race, and hinojosa, look at that, seven point margin, blah, but it wasn't just the gov race. why don't we go to the ag race, the attorney general race? look at this, another, what is that, seven point margin, six and a half point margin. it wasn't just the ag race. why don't we go down? why don't we look at the lieutenant governor's race? vicki goodwin, who, someone on their staff, they've been emailing me for months. i was like, who the heck is this? well, i'll tell you who it is. it's the next lieutenant governor of the great state of texas, a state that had not elected a democrat statewide since bob bullock in 1994, and now up and down the ballot, you are seeing a blue texas.” Erin Burnett: “i mean, so then, you know what happened after? they started to realize it. okay, this was around one o'clock in the morning. i'm still up. i don't, you know, kind of maybe took a little hour long nap at some point, and the horns started beeping. it was like we were somewhere else on the planet, and there was a celebration going on overnight, and everyone's coming out in their horns, and they were beeping their horn. that was austin, texas, obviously democratic. they were happy with how things went, but it was up and down the ballot. this is, again, before they realized that it was not just a few big races.” Harry Enten: “it wasn't just a few big races. how about this? we don't even have these in the wall, so we pop it out here. ag commissioner, land commissioner, railroad commissioner, state comptroller, state house, as you mentioned, up and down the ballot, texas, the dream for generations for democrats. it came true. lucy did not take the football away this time from charlie brown.” Erin Burnett: “okay, so railroad commissioner. it may sound esoteric if you don't live in texas, but it's not for anyone in this country because railroad commissioner controls oil and gas in texas, which is at the heart of america's energy industry, and we spoke to the democrat who won the railroad commissioner job. we're going to hear more from him in just a moment, and he's important because he is the first democrat to win railroad commissioner in 36 years, and he got national attention after bo french. does anyone remember bo french? bo french is the man who drew widespread condemnation from his own party, from people like karl rove, his own state, who at that point started to say, i'm not going to vote for the republicans in my state for a racist social media set of posts decrying south asian students. so they went to university of texas football game. someone took a picture. there were a lot of kids whose skin was brown, and bo french tweets it and says, i heard ut graduation this year looked like this. i didn't believe it. the problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined. he gets slammed. he doubles down, calling the students foreigners. so tell me something i don't know about the railroad commissioner race.” Harry Enten: “i'll tell you something you don't know about the railroad commissioner race. how about this? look at the university of texas main campus precinct. bo french not very well liked here. these were the kids in the picture. these were the kids in the picture. yeah. 95% to 4%. it turns out that words have consequences. bo french got absolutely annihilated in the university of texas main campus precinct. rosenthal swept them there, swept them statewide.” Erin Burnett: “i mean, that is incredible.” Harry Enten: “91-point margin. i think it's pretty clear.” Erin Burnett: “yeah. yes, it is. and one of texas's most famous republican political operas, karl rove, i just mentioned him, he blames the extent of the losses in texas on one guy. it's not actually bo french. it's ken paxton. here he is.” Ken Paxton: “we lost every statewide office. we lost the texas house. we kept the texas senate. you know, people turned out in traditionally republican counties like collin county in north of dallas, suburban county, and voted straight democrat. and it was because our ticket was led by a guy who was plagued by scandals and surrounded by controversy.” Erin Burnett: “all right. everyone is back with me now. so it started obviously that bo french post was there, but ken paxton already existed. trump had already gotten behind him instead of john cornyn. it was texas as what it is. so big in the american mind, something so deep in terms of this wave. if ken paxton wasn't on the ballot, would it have looked like this?” A person: “i don't think it would have looked exactly like this, but again, ken paxton is a product of donald trump. and i traded notes on tuesday before the polls closed with a longtime texas political gop operative. and i said, you know, the same thing we always say on election day, what are you hearing? what are you thinking? and he responded, burn it all down. and this was, this was against trump, against paxton, against all of it. and it all stems from the same thing. so we can talk about pete hegseth. we can talk about ken paxton. we can talk about anybody. the two words that matter are donald trump.” A person: “i agree with ken paxton. it was a terrible choice. i still think these two win and the outcome looks like this in texas because of a couple of things. i was just in houston this morning and i was in houston twice before in san antonio and i was talking to voters and the coalition that they were able to build latino voters, only about 53% of latino voters, latino men voted for gina hinojosa and james talarico. but that was about a 20 point swing. black voters. when i was in houston or san antonio, a couple of weeks before the election, a black woman told me she had never voted. she only, the last time she voted was 2008. so you're talking about one of the most reliable democratic base. and i said, well, how many more of you out there? like, you know, like there, and she said, there's a lot of us, which is why you see this increase in black voter turnout, public schools. so then you get moms who are outraged that their kids are only going to school four times. if you remember the redistricting fight before the kalei decision started in texas, they tried to strip away aggravated latino voters, aggregated black voters. how dare you come in and overreach. and i'll say that was one of my final examples that i actually forgot about this before the election. i was with a young woman before the election and i was with her today. and she told me the story of her miscarriage today, but she didn't talk about it before because now they think that the abortion ban that is in texas might go away and people forget about that. but when you think about just general reproductive care and you have to leave and doctors, you get that even without ken paxton, people were pissed. you know, it is, it is incredible.” Erin Burnett: “and i will say, now you look at it and you say, well, gosh, james tallarico won it on the early vote. the tallarico campaign had their suspicions early in the day. they were telling me, we think you can maybe call it at nine o'clock, nine o'clock. now that would be 10 o'clock eastern, but even so an unprecedented situation. and it really, they were not far off. so they, they were pretty close. texas railroad commissioner. when we spoke to the commissioner elect, mr. rosenthal, the one who won 95% vote at the university of texas, he talked about bo french and the racist post, and here's what he said about it.” Rosenthal: “and my opponent was pretty bad and, and actually an albatross for the rest of the republican slate. so anybody who refused to disavow his really blatant racism, that just became a kind of a litmus test. so the republicans ended up putting forward a slate of really terrible candidates. i mean, ken paxton, definitely the most corrupt politician in texas and impeached by his own party, used his office to enrich himself and definitely violated the law as far as i can tell. and then you have bo french who said, move over ken paxton, hold my beer because i'm going to add a blatant racism on top of all that kind of corruption stuff.” Erin Burnett: “okay. there was a lot in there. i liked, i liked the understatement. my opponent was pretty bad. but, but you know, this isn't pat hold my beer, ken paxton. hold my beer.” A person: “look, i do think that ken paxton set the tone though, right? i mean, you know, you'll know a tree by its fruit and, and this was just rotten fruit, but donald trump picked him, right? cornyn could have won that seat, i believe, because people will just rally around. but paxton symbolized that corruption and cruelty, chaos and rising costs that sunk republicans. and then bo french was sort of the, you know, doubled down on that. and so republicans, they overreached, they got the backlash. it's just, we haven't seen anything like this after so many years of people talking about texas and republicans acting like, you know, the demographic changes in the state don't matter at all. and we should say also it was also laredo flipped. you know, a lot of those folks who, you know, hispanic voters who've been in our country for centuries, who voted for donald trump last time, cause they were angry about the border this time said, well, wait, they're not going after the criminals and the worst of us. they're going after my neighbors. and what do you hear from them from republicans today in texas? now they've had a day. they're shell shocked because so many people lost and so many republican house members lost as well. but you know, you still are dealing with maga world and everything that sort of goes around that. and the finger pointing is massive. so i'd predict to you that come thanksgiving mar-a-lago the gop is jonestown. it's going to be a much smaller place.” Erin Burnett: “all right. i appreciate all of you very much. and thank you.”

No SUGARCOATING it: Republicans got SPANKED. Here's WHY.

History was made last night. For months, we were saying that 2026 was the most consequential midterm election of our lifetimes. Unfortunately, we were right. Sometimes history is to be celebrated; other times, it is to be mourned. Always, it must be reckoned with. 2026 was not simply a blue wave; it was a blue tsunami. It was an ass kicking. It was not simply a bad 2006 midterm election. It was a Watergate-level repudiation. What happened, and why? What are the consequences, and where on earth do we go from here? When all the votes were counted, the problem wasn’t turnout. Instead, our voters, Republicans, Libertarians, Independents, showed up and voted, and rejected our candidates, voting Democrat instead. We’ve lost the House. We’ve lost the Senate. When all is said and done, we will have lost eight to 10 Senate seats. We lost in historically red states, like South Carolina and North Carolina, Kansas and Iowa. We lost in purple states, like Michigan, and New Hampshire, and Georgia. And we just barely won by just a single point in bright red states like Florida and Louisiana, and then there’s Texas. Nowhere are the consequences of this election greater than Texas. In the Lone Star State, we lost every single statewide election. For weeks, I had been publicly warning on this podcast that we were in very real danger of losing everything in Texas. Far too few believed that was possible. I am very, very sorry that it came to pass. Texas has not had a Democrat governor since 1994. We haven’t had a Democrat senator since 1993. Now we’ll have both. Why were the results so overwhelming? Pundits and analysts will break down the results for weeks or months or even years to come, but several things are already evident today. Years ago, the very best political advice I ever got was from Heidi. She said, “It’s not about you. It’s about them. It’s about their kids, their families, their hopes, their dreams, their futures.” Too many politicians forget that. Take the state of Kansas, for example, a state that has not elected a Democrat senator since 1932. It just did. Here’s what exit polling showed were the top issues in Kansas. Number one, cost of living, energy, and groceries. That was listed as number one by 30.6 percent of voters. Corruption. Number two, 18.5%. The cost of the Iran war, 10.1%. The candidates are terrible, 7.9%. The Canada trade war, 7.6%. The GOP didn’t do enough to support Trump, 6.6%. Republicans didn’t pass the Save America Act, 5.6%. Trump’s focus on monuments, 5.5%, and data centers and AI, 3.8%. The top issue, cost of living, is very real. Too many in politics dismissed it. They didn’t understand. They pointed to the macro numbers showing the stock markets soaring, median income at record highs, and poverty at record lows. Those data are true, but they don’t tell all of the story. Here are some stats that are a lot more real and personal. Spam, Hormel’s processed meat substitute, broke record sales, selling 113 million cans last year. That is nearly as much spam as was sold during the entirety of World War II. 29 percent of Americans have used buy now, pay later for groceries this year. That’s double the share just two years ago. In August, banks repossessed 42% more homes than they did last year. In 2024, car repossessions topped 2.3 million, above the 2009 peak in the middle of the Great Financial Crisis. In 2025, 6% of 401k holders took hardship withdrawals, paying penalties. That is a record, and triple the norm. And here’s one that’s really stunning. Americans made more than 75 million paid plasma donations in 2026. That’s another record. That means 200,000 Americans every single day, with a needle in their arm, just to pay for groceries. That is very real pain from real Americans, and too many Republican politicians seem like they didn’t understand or they didn’t care. Food is too high, gas is too high, diesel is too high, insurance is too high, life is too high. Tariffs have made everything too expensive, and the Iran war has dragged on too long. It should have been brief, decisive, and over. It needs to end, and we should never, under any circumstances, give the Ayatollah billions of dollars. There’s a very real economic disconnect. Our K-shaped economy is a yawning divide. Last year, we saw the world’s very first trillionaire, a modern-day Thomas Edison, at the very same time that millions were struggling to feed their families. Data centers being constructed were turning billionaires into centibillionaires, while simultaneously the average American’s electricity bill went up 30% in the last five years. Understandably, people were pissed off, and elected Republicans didn’t do enough to address their very real pain. So, what do we do now? We need to listen and respond. We need to champion economic policies that make a real difference in working people’s lives, and we need to deal with the consequences. Texas is blue. That is a hard sentence to utter. But Texas, today at least, is blue. As we sit here today, I am the only statewide elected Republican who remains in Texas. That’s not something I ever thought I would say. We can be certain that the Democrats in Austin and in Washington will overshoot. In Texas, they will try to raise taxes dramatically. They may even try to adopt a state income tax, or even a California wealth tax. They will try to shut down the energy industry, destroying jobs across our state. They will embrace the radical transgender agenda. They will persecute those they perceive to be enemies, especially Elon Musk. And in Washington, they will attack Trump every single day, constantly. Impeachment hearings, subpoenas, his family, cabinet members, business leaders, open persecution, and nonstop retaliation. Make no mistake. Nationally, the radicals are in charge. The communists and the Islamists who have taken over the Democrat Party have now taken over the United States Congress. They will be unleashed. Sadly, that means many Americans will be hurt. Texans will be hurt. Their assault on business will make Texas a much less attractive place to start or grow a small business. Texas will become more like California if they succeed in halting all new investment into AI. The economic results will be dramatic. Over $700 billion in new projects are scheduled to start in the next year. If the Democrats shut them all down, our country will very likely go into a recession. That will suit the Democrats just fine. They’ll just blame it all on Donald Trump. In the next two years, we need to do two things. One, fight the madness. I will work with Democrats when they’re willing to be reasonable. Last night, I called James Talarico. I congratulated him on his very impressive victory. It was a pleasant conversation, and I told him that I looked forward to working with him to try to benefit Texas. So, if there are things like flood relief for the Hill Country, or trying to get the space academy to Texas, he and I will work together. But if the newly elected radicals push policies that hurt Texas, raising taxes, destroying jobs, opening the border, releasing violent criminals, threatening our children, undermining our constitutional rights, I will fight with all of my strength to defend Texas and to defend the Constitution. And number two, we need to rebuild, getting behind policies that directly benefit the constituents we lost. There’s a complicated story, no doubt, of what happened on Election Day, but as I see it, the key constituencies we lost were blue-collar voters, what had rightly become the core base of our party, Evangelical Christians, who didn’t show up with the same numbers and fervor as prior elections, farmers and ranchers. Tragically, we alienated rural America. Young people, who excitedly had voted Republican in 2024, and who shifted hard blue this cycle. And of course, Hispanics. For Hispanics, there’s a strong overlap with young people and blue-collar workers. In 2024, just two years ago, I was proud to carry Hispanics statewide in Texas by six points, and we swung the Rio Grande Valley red for the first time in a century. It can be done, but in this election, those Hispanic voters overwhelmingly went back Democrat. We have got to turn that around. And for young people, we need to be the party of the future. We need to champion policies that expand their future. Our two single biggest legislative accomplishments of the past two years, Trump Accounts and the school choice tax credit, which will unleash tens of billions of dollars in new scholarships for kids, are generationally powerful. I was proud to author both of those transformational policies, and yet too few candidates all across the country ran on that record. Too few voters were even aware of what we’d accomplished for their kids and their future. But we need to build. We need to expand to continue creating a new investor class for hundreds of millions of Americans, help everyone, every American, become an owner, to have real skin in the game, to create new generations of capitalists ready to reject socialism. People voted as they did because they were angry. Ironically, the Democrats that they elected are going to advance policies that will make affordability worse. The Democrats want gas prices higher. They want to ban gasoline engines altogether. Their extreme environmental mandates will drive up food prices and the prices of everything else. But hear me now: we will bring Texas back. I am filled with hope and optimism. Texas will be red again. We have not suddenly become a bunch of tofu-eating, gun-banning, tutu-wearing pinko commie liberals. That ain’t us. Texas is still Texas. We will rebuild as a true blue-collar party, not by embracing socialism, but by being real free-market conservatives. The way we built the Texas economic miracle in the first place, and we will build and rebuild America as well. When the zealots overreach, and they will, we will stand ready to lead in the direction of freedom, of prosperity, of safety, and security, and common sense. We will return to a new dawn of freedom in America. It is dark right now, but it is always darkest before the dawn, and morning is coming. That is my fervent prayer, and that is my commitment to you.