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Rise and shine, fever dreamers. Look alive, my friends. I'm V Spear. And I'm Sammy Sage. And this is American Fever Dream presented by Betches News, where we explore the absurdities and oddities of our uniquely American experience. And today we have a very special guest. The future senator of Texas, if we're lucky, is here to talk to us about his vision for a more equitable Texas. Welcome to the show, Representative Colin Allred. Yeah, thanks for having me. I appreciate y'all.
Thank you for coming. We are very excited about your campaign. You have been such an awesome candidate so far, and we're very excited to get your message out there to the American fever dreamers. First, I was wondering, what has it been like running for the seat currently held by Ted Trump called my wife ugly and I licked his boots anyway, Cruz?
- Oh man, well, you know, listen, I'm a fourth generation Texan, so it's personal for me. It really is. I think he's been misrepresenting my state. And this is something that's been happening for some time now. But when folks are coming up to me and saying, "What's happening in Texas?" And I think they look at us differently when they hear these stories about what's happening, particularly to Texas women.
Because we've been experiencing what a near total ban on abortion looks like for some time now. And we have these horrific stories that come out. And then we have these extreme politicians who make us, you know, cast us in that light. And that's not my Texas. That's not who we are. And so it's on the one hand, I think it's incredibly cathartic for folks to have now an opportunity to show that by getting rid of Ted Cruz. But on the other hand, you know, I feel like I'm constantly when I talk to folks who aren't Texans.
and explain who we really are and that we're going to stand up and show that on November 5th. I'm really grateful to hear you say that because as a person who didn't know much about Texas other than Ted Cruz and Greg Abbott and what's been going on, every time I get to visit your state, I'm always so surprised by how incredible the people are, how vibrant the food scene is, the music. And it just feels like, you know, to your point, what we see on the news is not at all what Texas is about. That's right. No, we're an incredibly diverse, dynamic
rapidly growing, disproportionately young state. We've got all these emerging industries and we've got Beyonce and we've got a lot to offer. And I think the story of Texas has been, at least politically, that we haven't been as engaged and we've been a non-voting state.
And so I think that's allowed these extremists to hijack our state in a lot of ways. And there's no one more representative of that than Ted Cruz, somebody who I think has very little interest, really, in representing 30 million Texans. I mean, I think we all kind of know that. And even some folks who are supporting him and probably going to vote for him know that, that he's looking out for himself and that, you know, his most interested in what's good for Ted Cruz, not what's good for Texans.
It is pretty remarkable how a man who could be so widely disliked by everyone who knows him can garner so many votes against very likable individuals like Beto O'Rourke.
But you have such deep roots in Texas. You were a NFL linebacker for the Tennessee Titans. You've been a lawyer and now you are a representative of Texas. So what ultimately drew you away from sports and into the political space? You could have had an easier life. I just want to know. Yeah, that's right. I mean, OK, so it's I'll tell you the full story because I think it's it's it's worth telling.
I was raised in Dallas by a single mom who was a public school teacher. And it was a big deal for us when I got a scholarship to play football at Baylor. And I ended up being captain of the football team. I was all ready to go to law school. That was the plan. I was taking my LSAT, knew I was going to go to a pretty good law school. And then I started getting contacted by these NFL agents saying they wanted to represent me. And
I honestly thought they had the wrong guy. I tried to pass them off on my teammates. They stuck at it and they convinced me to give it a shot. And so for me, the NFL was the surprise. And so I went to the Titans. I was undrafted, but I made the team and I played there five years. And in my fifth year, I hurt my neck playing against the Cowboys in Dallas. I'd been dealing with some neck issues, but I had a real bad injury on the field there. And that was that was the end of my career.
And I went to law school and I knew I was going to do civil rights, but I didn't know what I was going to do within civil rights. And I chose to do voting rights because a line in a Supreme Court case that said that the right to vote was preservative of other rights. You know that if you could vote, you could defend yourself, protect yourself. And so I love doing voting rights. I never asked anybody who they were going to vote for when I was registering them to vote or trying to help them vote. I just wanted them to vote.
You know, I joke that now I do care who they're going to vote for, but I didn't then. Right. Because I think it just appealed to me as an athlete that, you know, you win some, you lose some, but you don't try to stop somebody from playing. And in our democracy, that's what we're seeing in Texas. And I served in the Obama administration. And then just I'm sure like some of y'all, you know, the election in 2016, you know, of course, my wife and I kind of look at ourselves and see how we could better serve and
kind of naively decided to run against this guy in Dallas who represented the district I was born and raised in. The problem was he was a 22-year incumbent. He'd been unopposed in the previous election. He was the chairman of the rules committee, and nobody thought he could be beaten, you know. But we did. And so that's kind of how I ended up here. It's always been trying to find a way to serve, and it's always been personal. I didn't just run anywhere. I ran in the district, literally where the hospital I was born in, where my high school is, where my family lives.
And now I'm running in the state where my family has such deep roots. Talking about that election where you beat Pete Sessions, the longtime representative from Texas, you picked up quite a few right-wing votes to do it as well. What do you think Republicans find compelling about voting for you? Yeah, well, I think there has been kind of a change.
where there are folks out there, and I think our coalition, the one that I try and build, is a broad one, where we talk about values, tell a story that I think can be inclusive to folks and they can see themselves in it, even if they're not someone who's traditionally voted for a Democrat. But also I think that there are folks out there who are tired of being embarrassed, who don't see themselves as bigoted, and who want to find a way
to try and heal some of the divisions in our communities and our country, as opposed to trying to pull at some of those seams. And I think those folks, you know, are folks who now, you know, we want to, I want to welcome them into my coalition in this campaign, but also certainly
in that campaign, I think that they were part of it. And also then I was running on bipartisanship. Now I've had a record of bipartisanship. That's pretty hard to refute where that's what you're looking for. If you hope that there are folks out there who are actually trying to work across the aisle, even in this atmosphere. I've been the most bipartisan member of the Texas delegation. Got a lot of awards for that, but also actual accomplishments to show from it. And so I think that's helped me.
We'd love to hear more about some of your bipartisan work, because right now you are simultaneously working as a full-time representative while running for Congress, which we'd love to know how that's been. You've got something that you're working on with a GOP megadonor to fast pass work permits for people who are seeking to enter the U.S.
Can you talk about sort of walking the line between voting with President Biden, which you have voted with him 100 percent of the time, but also how you've pushed back against some of his border policies? And what else do you think needs to change there? Yeah, I mean, I think some of these, especially when you have narrow majorities in the House like we did last term, some of these stats could be a little misleading. But I think what I try to do is show that I'm going to look out for Texas first, for my community first.
And that's going to be a little different, you know, than a national democratic approach. And so for me, what's best for us might be, might conflict, you know, with what
some folks in the party want to do or what the president wants to do. That's fine. I think that's what people expect from their representatives. In fact, that's one of the issues I have with Ted Cruz is that even when Donald Trump or someone like that is doing something that is harmful to Texas, he won't say anything about it because he's such kind of a follower. And I think we have a long tradition of actually producing leaders in Texas who are authentic, who are independent voices and who look out for us first.
And when it comes to the border, you know, my family's from Brownsville. It's where my mom and my aunt grew up. And folks who don't know where Brownsville is, it's the very tip of Texas, right at the U.S.-Mexico border. And my grandfather was a customs officer there after fighting in the Navy in the Pacific in World War II. And I spent a lot of my childhood visiting my grandma down there. And, you know, when we have
record surges of migrants. It's our border communities that bear the brunt of that first and foremost. And we've seen that now in some other cities around the country. Some folks have started to experience some of what I think our border communities experience on a daily basis, which is some of the chaos that comes with it, some of the
your local charities being fully maxed out, your local municipal resources being maxed out, having a lot of folks who are passing through your community so you might not know who they are. And so that for us requires a response. And so that's what I've always pushed for is let's be aggressive on this. Let's do it consistent with our values. I don't think the border security should be barbed wire.
We can do this as we're Americans. We are fully capable of having a secure and stable border while also, I think, doing it in a way that better allows us to handle what is happening in Central and South America, which is driving a lot of this, or in Africa, which is driving some of this, or in Haiti or in some of the places, Venezuela, that are driving so much of this migration.
But on that op-ed that you're mentioning, what we're talking about there is basically that we need to work together to solve this issue. This is in working with someone who's a well-known Republican voice here in Texas to help us expand work permits, but also keep families together and to provide our economy with more workers. I'd love to see us do this in a comprehensive way. And I'm sure you all know this, but we haven't done anything comprehensively to our immigration system since the Reagan era.
And it's because of people like Ted Cruz that we have. And I really want to stress that. It's when you see a bipartisan deal emerge in the Senate to try and address what's been happening at the border. And Ted Cruz and these folks say, no, we're not going to do that. What they're saying is we want to have the problem so we can run on it in November. We don't actually solve it. And that's one of the things that I look forward to doing. One thing I was wondering, Ted,
What has Ted Cruz really done? Right. And I'm not even being like sassy on this. I was genuinely preparing for this interview, trying to look up what Ted Cruz's accomplishments were, how many bills he had passed. And all I came up with was that he led the government shutdown of 2023. He grew a kind of weird beard and started a podcast. Right. So.
But in the last 10 years, because this man has held the seat since 2012, Cruz has sponsored 844 bills, co-sponsored 1,718 bills, given congressional remarks on the record 526 times. All of that body of work
He has passed four bills, one to rename a post office, one to not give visas to spies, one to renumber parts of a highway in Texas, and one to reauthorize NASA for the year of 2017. Honestly, like the people of Texas are smart, educated people. You've got some of the best universities in the country down in Texas. And aside from that, just like clever folks who love to chit chat live in the South. They must know that Ted Cruz is...
drafting all this legislation, passing four very silly bills that he was personally responsible for. How are we letting the people of Texas know that? You know, there's like the way that we hate Ted Cruz because he is an awful person who says mean things. But then there's the like genuine proven lack of efficiency. Yeah, I think it's such a good point because, you know, there's so much the United States senator can do.
And legislation is part of it, certainly. But also being an advocate for your state, being somebody who people need help with constituent services, if companies need help, individuals need help. And Ted Cruz has a very well-earned reputation in Texas of not doing any of those things either.
And so he was he was headed to Cancun the last time that the constituents were in need. Well, that's how you end up being able to go to. I really mean this. That's how if there is a storm like we had that knocks out a lot of our energy and 30 million Texans are freezing in the dark and you decide that's a good time to go on vacation. The only way you can do that.
is if there's no structure set up for you to dive in and get to work, right? That's not what you do. No, it's like, no, no, that's for someone else to do, right? At the same time, you know, I was a member of Congress when that happened.
I was so busy. That was one of the busiest periods that I've had in my time in Congress, because there was a ton to do, to get on the phone with FEMA, to work with our county to try and find... We were finding buildings that had power on, big buildings, and we called them warming centers where people could just go to get warm. I was handing out food at a food bank because when the power goes out, everyone's food in their fridge, it goes bad. And for families,
you know, like I grew up with and, you know, you can't just afford to refill that real quickly. Right. And so there was a lot to do. And you're right. I mean, I think legislatively as well. I mean, you know, every single piece of important legislation that comes in front of the Congress that would help our state, that would help our country, and he votes against it, whether it's the infrastructure bill, Mitch McConnell's helping
vote for that. $35 billion, if that's coming to Texas, he votes against it. The Chips and Science Act, we're actually benefiting probably more than any other state from that piece of legislation. And John Cornyn, to his credit, helped us pass that. Ted Cruz votes against it. After the tragedy in Uvalde, for the first time in 30 years, we passed federal legislation to do something about gun violence. Not everything I wanted, but something. And John Cornyn, again, helped us pass that. Ted Cruz voted against it.
I'm not really sure what he's for except for himself and culture wars. And that doesn't help anybody. And when you grow up in a family like I did, where you're a single mom who's working as a public school teacher who's not paid very well, you know, you need your, and you hope, I think, that your elected officials are working as hard as you are. And that's one of the reasons why I think he's going to be rejected.
With climate change obviously being a major hazard and Texas having its own standalone power grid, do you have any proposals or anything on the table for how you would solve the issues with the Texas power grid?
Yeah, yeah. I mean, listen, Texas is an energy state, OK? But we're an energy state that's number one in multiple fields. We're number one in solar energy. We're number one in wind energy. We're number one in oil and gas, which is an incredibly important part still of our economy. But we have this issue, of course, where
we have not connected ourselves to the national grid. And then if you don't properly regulate the production of power in your state when you do that, then if you have something come along like a statewide storm and the natural gas lines freeze and you lose a lot of your thermal capacity, then you end up in a place where the energy capital of the world can't keep the lights on. And it's outrageous. It's unacceptable. A lot of that is
a state decision. Federally, we can't say that Texas has to join the national grid, but we in the infrastructure bill and another legislation that we passed, the Inflation Reduction Act, we have money that can be brought down to try and improve both efficiency, but also to address some of these things that caused the power to go out. And so we need to have a
at the state and federal level leaders who understand and create a plan for us as texans that this doesn't happen anymore because this summer is going to be a summer where every single day we'll set another record for power usage and that happened last summer as well because we have more people and it's going to be 105 106 107 in dallas some days and everybody's gonna be turning on
their AC to the max. And, you know, my wife and I will get an email just like every Texan will saying, please turn down your, turn up your thermostat because, you know, we might have to have rolling brownouts if you don't. I mean, that's outrageous to Texans, right? And so we have to address this and make sure that in the energy capital of the world, you know, we can keep the lights on. And as you said, that's part of dealing with climate change as well. I remember last year's heat wave was just outrageous. My wife is a traveling cellist. The
The Hadestown Broadway musical was in town last year and their instruments were failing because it was so incredibly hot and there's only so much air conditioning you can get into these theaters. So it's like, you know, we think about the everyday implications of humanitarian reasons why we need power, but there's also recreation and entertainment in just like
Loss of revenue if these musical tours and different stuff feel like, hey, we got to take a summer off from Texas. I can't imagine the economic devastation that would be from folks tourism not coming in, you know, for half the year. I want to switch gears just a little bit and talk about families. You are one of the you were the first sitting member of Congress to go on paternity leave.
That's nuts, pal. It's been almost all men in elected office until fairly recently. And you are the first to take paternity leave. One, can you talk to me just a little bit about why that was so important to you? And two, how will that drive you to reinstate safe reproductive health care and the abortion access options in Texas, Texas home of
the greatest villain, Matthew Kazmarek, the judge who is trying to get rid of abortion, Mifeprestone, everything. Can you just talk to me like as a father and a person who obviously values children and your time with them, how does that drive you when you're talking about reproductive health? Yeah, I'm smiling because, you know, it was in 2019 when I took paternity leave and I did not have any intention of being the first. In fact, I didn't really think it was that big of a deal.
And then reporters actually informed me that I was the first that they could find who would officially take maternity leave. And I was shocked because to me, it was like a normal thing to do. Well, think of how many thousands of men have served in Congress. Not one of them. Right. Yeah. I mean, and, you know.
I was raised by a single mom and so I always knew that when we had kids that I was going to do it right. And so it was a focus for me from the very beginning. And we did something that I hope was helpful in that we didn't just talk about my paternity leave. We talked about and wrote an op-ed and put out information about how important paternity leave is for our entire society. That when men take leave, that it has benefits for the entire family.
for their spouses, for their children, and for the men themselves in terms of how they feel about their children and about the change that's happening in their life. And I've been advocating for six years now for a national paid leave policy. We're the only major developed country in the world that doesn't have one. But even within that, that men have to take that leave and that it has to be a
an expectation and as as you all know in any workplace uh if there is an expectation so that everyone is going to be taking this leave then it's easier for women to do so as well and for them not to be you know negative repercussions in terms of career advancement and things like that
And it makes for a fair workplace too, as well as a more productive one. There's really no downside to us doing what is obvious, which is making sure that when you're having a big change to your family life, you have some time to adjust to that and to get your feet under you and to also connect with this wonderful new bundle of joy that's going to keep you up all night.
And so I've taken maternity leave twice, and it's really important to me that we have a national paid leave policy, and we're going to get that done. I think post-pandemic, we're all used to seeing each other's living rooms and cats in the background and dogs and kids and everything. We recognize that we have to be a little more flexible with one another, and I think the time has come for a paid leave policy. But you touched on probably the biggest issue that's impacting us in Texas, which is our near total ban on abortion.
and my wife and i have been blessed with two routine pregnancies in texas in the last five years you know thank god it went that way um but for so many texas women uh if they get the the news that kate cox got or dr austin dinard is a friend of mine god both of them in dallas both of them mothers of two had much one and third pregnancies uh and they got the news that the pregnancy wasn't viable in kate cox's case she had to go to the emergency room four times
Our doctor said she needed a medically necessary abortion. And she asked her state if she could have it close to the home. And they said, no. And they said, not just no. If you do this, we're going to prosecute you and your doctor and your hospital. And she had to flee our state.
And 26,000 Texas women, according to the Houston Chronicle, have been forced to give birth to their rapist child since these laws have gone into place. The downstream impacts for us are just beginning, which is that our medical schools are seeing fewer applications, fewer people wanting to be OBGYNs in our state. For our university systems, they're seeing and they're going to continue to see
a reduction or a change in who is willing to actually send their kids to Texas from out of state or in state Texans wanting to stay in state. For our business leaders, this is now a conversation they have to have when they're trying to bring in talent. You know, I come to Texas and I say, well, will I have all of my rights in Texas? So we're just beginning to feel the downstream impacts of this. And we have to end it. We have to restore freedom to Texas women, to Texas families. And the only way we can do it
It's at the federal level by codifying Roe v. Wade. We passed the Women's Health Protection Act, and I was a co-sponsor and voted for it in the House in the last Congress. We couldn't get it through the Senate. It's a filibuster. When I'm in the Senate, we will get this done, and we have to. It's truly, truly horrific what we're dealing with, and just to think of the ripple effects of how this will touch people. It's actually worse than, you know, I think the stories are almost unbelievable.
you know when just recently i was reading you know an ap report about two texas women who were turned away from emergency rooms and each had different horrific impacts from that but it basically was because they didn't want to treat them because they were pregnant and they were having difficulties with their pregnancy because they were worried about their liability you know i mean this is um horrific uh the experience that
folks were having. And we just cannot continue down this path. The weaponization of the legal system against women's bodies is just the biggest scandal that there is. Thank you so much, Representative Allred. Just to close out, is there anything else that you want people at home to know about you, your vision for Texas, your vision for America? And what can we do to help donate, help volunteer to retire Ted Cruz to the manosphere where he so desperately seeks his attention from?
That's right. Well, thank you so much for having me. Listen, this is a winnable race. This is our chance for us to take out one of the most extreme senators in the country and put in place someone who care about all 30 million Texans, but also who will be somebody who can be a productive senator for the entire country. And so I think there's a
you know, I ask folks to just get involved with us. Go to ColinAllred.com. Make sure that you, on November 5th, don't regret not being involved when we beat Ted Cruz. But the other thing is, you know, this is one of the most important elections in American history. And we're standing on, as I see it, on the knife's edge.
I was there on January 6th. I saw how close we came to losing our democracy. I have my own story about that day, about taking off my suit jacket and being ready to hold back the mob while my colleagues escaped, while Ted Cruz was hiding in the supply closet. But we can talk about that another time. And that's why you're the captain. Captain Albrecht out here. Yeah. He was really in the supply closet? Of course he was. He's a coward. He was hiding. And that's, I want to be clear. He shouldn't have to fight the mob. There shouldn't have been one, right? No.
But the other thing is, is that we have a chance, I think, as a country to go in a really positive direction, one in which, you know, early next year, we restore a woman's right to choose. We protect voting rights, LGBTQ plus rights, where we try and bring us together around our shared values and strengthen our democracy versus a vision where we go down an incredibly dark path.
in which a nationwide abortion ban will almost certainly be on the table, in which they'll try and cut Social Security and Medicare, make it hard for folks to retire with dignity, in which they'll attack our democracy itself. And this is not a spectator sport. Democracy is not a spectator sport. We are all the players and we're all the field. And so everybody needs to be as engaged as you've ever been
And previous generations of Americans have been tested, too. And we've always made the right decision. We're going to be tested in this election. And I'm confident that we're going to make the right decision again. But it doesn't happen on its own. The arc of history bends towards justice, but it takes folks bending it to make it happen. And so thank you all for being in the fight. Thank you so much for having me on. Let's beat Ted Cruz on November 5th.
Let's do it. Thank you so much again for being here with us and for what you're doing for the state of Texas, a state that deserves to be proud of the policies and people that represent it. Until next time, I'm Vida Speer. I'm Sammy Sage. And this is American Fever Dream.
American Fever Dream is hosted by Vitus Spear and Sammy Sage. The show is produced by Rebecca Sousmakat and Rebecca Steinberg. Editing by Rebecca Sousmakat. Social media by Bridget Schwartz. And be sure to follow Betches News on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. Betches.