Hello and welcome to the Bullwark podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller. It is Friday. I need some therapy, so I brought in an old friend. He's a former

Democratic Congressman from El Paso. He runs powered by people, which registers and mobilizes voters

in Texas and also works to make long-term changes in the state's electorate. That's going to be

needed. He's also on substack now. Everybody's on substack. It's Beto O'Rourke. What's happening, Beto? Good to be with you here in El Paso. It's an absolutely

gorgeous day out there. And soon headed to Denton, Texas. We're doing these town halls all over

the state of Texas. And we're going to be at this place called Anderson's. It's a brewery on

Saturday. So I'm excited to be getting out there and to be with people right now.

We got some Dallas suburbs listeners.

Get out to Denton and, you know, have a beer hang out with Beto tomorrow.

So you say you've been doing these, the town halls?

What's the vibe like out there amongst among the people?

Man, I got to tell you, it feels so good, just on a personal level, not to be watching or waiting or hoping or praying, but to be out there with people.

And, you know, there's certainly something cathartic and therapeutic about it, right, for everyone concerned, because I'll talk for 10 or 15 minutes and then the

microphone goes around the room. And anyone, you know, we don't screen for party affiliation,

we don't check the questions ahead of time, anyone who has anything they want to say is able to

do that. And from those conversations, not only am I learning a lot about what's on the minds of people in Wichita Falls, where we just held one, or Rice University in Houston, where we just had one, but everyone else in the room is listening to their neighbors and folks in the community.

And they may find common cause.

They may understand from someone who's drawn a different conclusion

on an issue that they care about, how they got there. There's something really powerful in that.

And then we also, for our group powered by people, which does voter registration and uses relational

organizing to stay in touch with newly registered voters. We also recruit volunteers from those

meetings. We say, hey, we've had a great conversation today, and we learned a lot. If you want to

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