The Big Ben Show: Os Guinness on America at 250
Plus China vs. faith, Texas' gamble on Ken Paxton, WH on AI
The Big Ben Show this week features Os Guinness and Sam Brownback — watch and listen here:
A Texas-Sized Gamble
My take on the Senate primary in the Daily Wire:
Republican voters made a Texas-sized gamble last night in the Lone Star state, betting that even with the baggage he carries into a general election, Trump loyalist Attorney General Ken Paxton will be able to handle the threat from a strongly backed Democratic effort behind State Rep. James Talarico. We’ve heard the left’s dreams of turning Texas blue for decades, but even with his defects as a candidate and fundraiser, Paxton still enters the final contest as the favored candidate. The larger question is whether that gamble will cost Texans and Republicans in other races around the country.
As successful as he’s been politically — with a knack for surviving challenges, lawsuits, and even an impeachment — Paxton has never been an effective individual fundraiser. The biggest gap between him and incumbent Senator John Cornyn isn’t ideology or even loyalty to the president — it’s their capability to raise money in a state marketplace that demands it.
Cornyn’s campaign doomed his effort to hold on this cycle by squandering that money on television ads, poor staffing choices, and adopting a general Washington insider tone in a cycle of voter frustration — but they had plenty of money to dump into the effort. National Republicans are pissed off about the whole situation, understanding that they may now have to push money into a contest that wouldn’t have needed it if voters had decided differently. If their reluctance to spend big on yet another contest in a critical cycle holds and Paxton’s past is prologue, he’ll have to get a leg up from Texas donors called upon to grin and bear it about a candidate they’ve been reluctant to fund.
The concern among Texas Republican politicos is less about Talarico’s potential for victory, given his lengthy history of far-Left comments about everything under the sun, and more about the newly drawn redistricted map potentially netting fewer GOP victories than hoped for, given Paxton’s electoral appeal. While Cornyn and fellow Senator Ted Cruz have consistently held the line among Hispanic voters (in his Senate race, Cruz won Hispanic voters by 6 points over Colin Allred two years ago), Paxton has lagged. The latest polling has Talarico winning Hispanics in the state by almost 30 points, and such turnout from those voters in November could be a major drag on Republican congressional candidates down-ticket.
The fear in Washington is that Texas will now draw resources necessary to hold seats in Maine, North Carolina, and Ohio — potentially detracting from the strong GOP hopes of taking Senate seats in Michigan and Georgia. If Senate Majority Leader John Thune and National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Tim Scott decide to keep their focus on those five contests, Texas may be left on its own to get Paxton across the finish line.
The unpredictable element here is how much the national media will play in this contest. In the past, we’ve seen the national glow-ups for candidates like Beto O’Rourke totally backfire, turning a fairly middle-of-the-road El Paso Democrat into a progressive wet dream, the skateboard-riding bass player that made Austin swoon but who ultimately had no path to victory statewide. Will Talarico get the same treatment? He already is, though every interview he does betrays that his version of non-binary six gender abortion-loving Christianity is anathema in the Valley.
Paxton is still the odds-on favorite. To a certain extent, the lengthy catalog of his failings is largely known to voters, while Talarico is still a fresh face who hasn’t confronted the scrutiny of running statewide in an old-school Texas knife fight. For Republicans who care about holding the Senate against a blue wave, they have hope that Paxton’s sins are already baked in, and that Talarico’s approach to running continues to look more like prep for his ideal next job — co-hosting a religion podcast for The New York Times.
Midterms? Who Cares?
President Donald Trump made a startling admission on Wednesday as he met with his Cabinet.
“I don’t care about the midterms,” Trump told reporters when asked about the Iran war and the slow-moving negotiations to end the conflict.
“Look what happened last night. That was a preview of the midterms,” Trump added, pointing to the overwhelming defeat of incumbent GOP Sen. John Cornyn of Texas by scandal-plagued Attorney General Ken Paxton in the Senate Republican runoff. GOP leaders fear Paxton’s victory puts Texas in play this November, at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Yet what Trump doesn’t seem focused on enough is restoring Americans’ faith in the U.S. economy. And that’s a huge political problem for both GOP congressional leaders and vulnerable Republicans as they try to save their endangered majorities. Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune don’t say it publicly. But privately, it alarms the Republican leadership.
Trump’s poll numbers on the economy — by far the top issue this year — have collapsed. Some recent polls had him under 30%, an absolute disaster for Republicans.
A White House Divided on A.I.
There are three main camps in the West Wing, per two senior White House officials, granted anonymity to discuss sensitive internal dynamics. The first, which includes former AI czar David Sacks, favors less regulation to help the industry compete against China. It was Sacks who called the president last week and derailed the EO at the last minute due to industry concerns that the order could be too onerous for the relatively nascent industry.
On the go-slow side: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and his undersecretary Emil Michael, a former Silicon Valley executive. They are pushing for greater barriers to Mythos-type models, according to the senior White House officials, over concerns that the technology could be used by rivals such as China.
Hegseth and Michael are among the “AI hawks who are afraid of it, who think that it could be exploited for nefarious purposes, who want to make sure that we do everything we can to make sure it [doesn’t] go to China,” the first senior White House official said.
Then, according to the White House officials, there’s the middle ground camp involving chief of staff Susie Wiles and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who have pushed for a regulatory framework in which AI companies voluntarily provide the U.S. government first glance at its new models.
These disparate camps underscore the degree to which Trump administration policy is being shaped in real time, trying to respond to a rapidly-developing technology.
Despite the chaos of Trump’s last-minute decision, the order doesn’t appear dead – at least not yet. Now administration officials have another chance to make the case that their viewpoint should win the day.
The executive order that Trump almost signed called for a voluntary oversight system for AI companies to consult with the U.S. government on their latest models. It offered a framework for the federal government to preview the products before they are released to the public without the burden of a mandate.
“It wasn’t government telling these companies what they could and couldn’t do, but it requested that the U.S. government get a first look at any new models, just to be sure that they couldn’t be exploited by bad actors,” the first senior White House official said. “It wasn’t mandatory, but we did get an agreement from all of them that they would abide by it.”
✍️ Feature
🌍 Foreign
Semafor: U.S.-Iran Trade New Strikes as Hopes of Peace Deal Dim
Semafor: Central Banks Warn of Long-Term Inflation Impact of Iran War
Axios: Iran Missile Defense Lessons Ripple to Ukraine and Taiwan
Wall Street Journal: U.S. Military Conducts New Strikes on Iran
Wall Street Journal: How Long Can Iran Withstand the Economic Pain of the U.S. Blockade?
National Interest: China’s Broad Foreign Influence Operations Need a Broad Counterstrategy
Wall Street Journal: Christopher Laneve Picked as Army Chief
Washington Examiner: Trump Isn’t Abandoning NATO — He’s Rebalancing
Politico Europe: Tony Blair’s Screed Uncorks Angst Over Labour’s Future
Telegraph: Blair Only Has Himself To Blame for Cataclysm Hitting Labour
🏛️ Domestic
Daily Wire: Trump Set To Officially Launch App For Millions Of Trump Accounts
Daily Wire: Jill Biden’s Latest ‘Stroke’ Claim Runs Into One Big Problem
New York Times: Can Democrats Win Back Young Men Who Soured on Trump?
New York Times: Ken Paxton and James Talarico Set Up Texas Showdown
Washington Examiner: Janeese Lewis George Leads Kenyan McDuffie in D.C. Mayor Race
Wall Street Journal: Justice Department Opens Probe Into Trump Accuser E. Jean Carroll
🗳️ 2028
The Hill: Pete Buttigieg Leads Early Democratic Presidential Primary Poll
Washington Examiner: JD Vance’s Mission Impossible White House Bid
📰 Media
💻 Tech
🧬 Health
✝️ Religion
🏈 Sports
🎭 Culture & Hollywood
Variety: ‘Disclosure Day’ First Reactions Praise Spielberg Film
Hollywood Reporter: ‘Obsession’ Scores Second-Weekend Box Office Spike
Daily Wire: Bringing The Everyman Comedy Back To The Big Screen
Daily Wire: ‘Toy Story 5’ Plot Twist Set To Disappoint Parents
🪶 Quote
“In a society in which the dream of success has been drained of any meaning beyond itself, men have nothing against which to measure their achievements except the achievements of others.”
— Christopher Lasch