Greta the 51st attorney general of texas joins us today, republican ken paxton. Thank you, sir, for being here. Atty. Gen. Paxton thank you for having me on. Greta i appreciate it. We also have with us kevin diaz, who is with the houston chronicle, the washington correspondent for them, and josh gerstein, who is senior White House Reporter for politico. Josh, you have the first question, go ahead. Josh welcome, mr. Attorney general. I wanted to start by asking you i think one of the programs or controversies you have been associated with most recently, which is the daca program for dreamers, litigation threatened by your Office Appears to have spurred the Trump Administration into winding that program down. At a hearing just a few weeks ago in new york, a federal judge seemed very perturbed by the way the wind down was carried out. He called it, unacceptable to me as a human being and as an american, and he also called the winding down of that program heartless. How do you react when you hear those kinds of comments about a policy change that many people feel that you set in motion . Atty. Gen. Paxton daca is very similar to dapa. We had a lawsuit filed by our previous attorney general, who is now governor, governor abbott. As i was walking into office, we took that case from the District Court to the fifth circuit, and we won at both places. Then we ultimately took it to the u. S. Supreme court and got an injunction to stop it. Ultimately, that was rescinded. It was rescinded largely because it was unconstitutional. Daca was no different. Whether you like these policies or not, ultimately it is up to congress to make these decisions, not the white house or some agency. This was founded on unconstitutional principle. Whether you like policies or hate policies, ultimately, it is up to congress to make these decisions. So these always need to be made by congress. This is very similar. Josh just to make clear to people, daca was a program for people who came to the u. S. Illegally as children and gave them work permits and was a quasilegal status. It had been in effect for about five years before the Trump Administration decided to wind it down. I know you werent in office for the beginning of that time, but you came in the middle. Why didnt you take action to shut it down earlier because a lot of people now have it relied have relied upon or depended on this program for years and are seeing the rug yanked out from under them. Atty. Gen. Paxton as you know, it was in effect long before i came into office. There was nothing i could do until i got into office. We were already in the middle of dapa, which had the same legal principles as daca. Dapa was the original case that was filed as i was walking into office. We wanted to play of the legal out the legal theories and legal arguments to see how we did before we pursued another case and focused more of our resources on that. Once we knew we were successful on dapa, it made sense to also challenge daca. So that was it. Kevin you say congress is going to sort this out. In an interesting way, it was your lawsuit or threat of a lawsuit that precipitated this review by congress. I am wondering if in the end if Congress Turns out finding a legislative fix and granting some sort of legal status, can you live with the results of possibly hundreds or thousands of dreamers in texas who now suddenly would have legal status, not by virtue of the executive, but by virtue of congress, could you live with that . Atty. Gen. Paxton ultimately, it is up to congress to decide. My job is not to make law, my job is to enforce the law. That is what we did here. If congress has a policy change, and i think dick durban and Lindsey Graham are working on something in the senate that is completely up to them. We will enforce whatever law they put in place. As ag, i used to be in the legislature. I used to make policy decisions. That is not to my job anymore. My job is to focus on what the law is and to enforce it. Kevin what about on sanctuary cities . That is another issue that you have been associated with and you are leader in that debate . I think most people know where you are coming from, and the conservative side of this debate has framed in terms of a public safety. It seems like there are a lot of Law Enforcement people in texas, including the Houston Police chief, who feels there is a Community Trust issue that you need to grapple with here. How do you address that particular argument, that the police basically have more important things to do than chase people who dont have visas and they are more pressing crime problems, and that by going after these people, you are eroding the ability of police in the street to do Law Enforcement . Atty. Gen. Paxton first of all, the narrative there is wrong. The police are not required to ask about immigration status. All the law said was that if they need to or want to ask about it. There is nothing requiring them to ask about immigration status. It is a false narrative. Also, when they talk about people being afraid to come forward, victims and witnesses, specifically in the bill there an exclusion for that. So if you are a victim or a witness to a crime, you specifically cant be asked about immigration status. It is designed to protect those people so that police will still have the ability to talk to them without fear of being deported. Kevin are you protected then there after from prosecution if it turns out in the run of the case, whatever criminal case may come up, that your status is revealed . Atty. Gen. Paxton if you are a victim or a witness, you are protected, specifically excluded from the purview of the statute. Kevin that sounds like amnesty. Atty. Gen. Paxton well, it is at least on that particular issue. It does not mean that ultimately if you get caught some other place in the police need to ask about your immigration status or if ice finds you, that does not mean you are protected ultimately from other possible arrests. As it relates to that particular crime, we will not ask you about your immigration status. Josh mr. Attorney general, can i ask you, both under you and your predecessor, we saw a flurry or flood of lawsuits against the Obama Administration. I think you were filing about one or two a week at one point, if i am not mistaken. Atty. Gen. Paxton it was about one a month. In 27 months, we filed 27 lawsuits. Josh ok, so they were coming at a pretty rapid clip. Since the Trump Administration has taken over, we have seen the tables turn a little bit, and we have seen a lot more liberal states, new york, washington, oregon, hawaii, stepping up with a tax on Trump Administration policies on things like the travel ban or sanctuary cities. What is your reaction when you see them adopting the same kinds of tactics and legal arguments that you folks pioneered or pursued in the last few years . Atty. Gen. Paxton they say immigration is the greatest form of flattery. Obviously, what we did was successful. We have sued five times since trump has been in office, but they were left over Obama Policies that we have had to deal with. I am not surprised. Their strategy is a little different. They try to get the most liberal court they can. We were suing the federal government asking that the president not make law. Trump is not being sued on that same ground. They are asking the court to make laws. They moved the game to a different place, and so we are having to try to defend that. Like the travel ban, we stepped in with an amicus brief because the president , in our opinion, followed statutory law, and the court made up new law, which was new constitutional right for nonresident aliens, people who dont live here to suddenly have Constitutional Rights. That is not in the law now. They are going to court now hoping the courts will make up law, just like they used to let president obama make up law. Josh one of the tactics they are pursuing is they are asking individual federal judges to join federal Government Policies like the travel ban, sanctuary cities, grant policies at the Justice Department across the entire country. One of your friends, attorney general Jeff Sessions, has complained about this. At one point, he made a comment that one judge sitting on an island in the middle of the pacific, meaning hawaii, could set the policy for the whole country. He called them a super legislators for the entire united states, and said these judges are defined the law by trying to set policy for the entire country. Do you have any objection in principle to individual judges trying to dictate federal government policy . Atty. Gen. Paxton sure, i do. We ask for injunctions across the country, so we did the same thing. From that standpoint, i dont have a problem with a judge granting a preliminary injunction if something is unconstitutional. Remember, we were challenging a president who was making up law outside of his constitutional authority. What is happening here is these ags are asking judges, outside of their constitutional authority, to make up new law, basically to be super legislators, so i agree with sessions that one, what they are doing is wrong, and so it should not even be done, let alone be expanded across the country. Kevin going back to the Trump Administration, since they have taken over, they have really put a spotlight on the issue of voter fraud, particularly those in this country illegally. How closely are you working with the Trump Commission and how far have your efforts gone to actually unearthing evidence of largescale, massive, whatever word you want to use, voter fraud in texas . Atty. Gen. Paxton we definitely had investigations going on, most of which i cannot comment on because they are ongoing investigations. We have other investigations. There is definitely some voter fraud going on, but we will have more as the investigations go on. As you know, we did prosecute one person who was illegal and had voted many times, and we offered her two years and she turned it down, and we ended up giving her eight years for voter fraud. So we know it is going on. Kevin the president said millions, probably three or 4 million. To me, especially in a state like texas, which is a very large immigrant population, that it seems to me that there ought to, by now, a year into this, and i know you cannot talk about specific cases, but there should be some evidence that this is happening on a massive scale. Has any of that evidence been turned up . Atty. Gen. Paxton the problem is we dont always get we have to be referred cases. So Dallas County may not necessarily know about fraud but not refer a case. It comes down to the referrals. That doesnt mean there isnt fraud going on in other counties, but they may be counties that dont really want to address it or dont have the resources to address it. Even for us, we dont have significant resources to focus on voter fraud. That is just not something we have a lot of money to deal with. We deal with as much as we can. Greta mr. Attorney general, kevins question was, to qualify it as a massive, you use the word some voter fraud. Atty. Gen. Paxton i dont think anyone knows really what those numbers are. What are the numbers in california . As the law gets more loose for instance, we have a very , whichvoter fraud law makes it a a lot harder to commit fraud. That doesnt mean there are other states that dont have the same laws. I dont know what the laws are in california, but my guess is they are a lot looser, and voter fraud is easier. There are some places that you can vote online. That makes it easier to commit fraud. There are just different laws in different states. It would not surprise me if there was massive voter fraud across the country. Kevin if we dont know what the numbers are, then was the president off base when he decided some specific numbers, i think three or 4 million . Atty. Gen. Paxton i do not know where his numbers come from. He is typically solid on his numbers. I trust that he knows the background of what he is relying on. Kevin how do you take this agenda forward then . I mean, if it relies on local officials cooperating and coming forward to you with cases, this sounds like a pretty top down effort from the administration coming into texas. How do you get anywhere on this . Atty. Gen. Paxton all we can do is what we are authorized to do under state law. I am not authorized to move unless i get some kind of referrals. Every state is going to operate differently and maybe states need to address this by passing more laws that allow for more investigation and provide more resources as we become more aware of it. It really doesnt matter. We passed voter id in texas to deal with this voter integrity issue. It is really important. President carter and james baker had a commission on voter integrity and voter fraud, and they considered it an issue. Josh can i ask you a question, at the intersection of immigration and controversial abortion issue came up recently. Your office, i think, filed an amicus brief in connection with a fight that one on over a 17 Year Old Girl that had come across the border illegally and then sought an abortion and was basically being blocked by getting one by the Trump Administration. Can you tell us why you decided to get into that case, and what why you thought it mattered to the state of texas what happened between this girl and the Trump Administration . Atty. Gen. Paxton once you start filing Constitutional Rights for people who cross the border and, ultimately, my state becomes like a sanctuary state for abortions, we end up having to pay for it and it creates a pandoras box of opening up other Constitutional Rights. If we did not stand in the way of this one, then it would just create an incentive to come and get their abortions free in texas. We dont feel like people who are coming here illegally have a constitutional right to have an abortion, and they dont have a constitutional right to anything. They are not citizens. Constitutional right dont apply to people who dont have a substantial connection to our country. And we decided we needed to stop it here. Josh and after the d. C. Circuit ruled against the Trump Administration and allowed this teenage girl to get an abortion, the administration had a chance to take the issue to the Supreme Court. You were encouraging them to do so. They didnt, and then you issued a statement saying they had failed to do it and you were profoundly disappointed. Have you looked in further as to what exactly happened there and why the administration let the issue drop . Atty. Gen. Paxton we were disappointed. We felt like we had a very good shot at getting a stay and getting a review by the Supreme Court and maybe a ruling in our favor. My understanding is there was an agreement and the aclu had agreed not to proceed with the abortion while the department of justice was working on their filing with the Supreme Court. There was lack of good faith, and the aclu went forward with the abortion while the department of justice was working on their filing be at the Supreme Court. We will see what happens. They make move forward on some kind of sanctions or a review. Kevin you have been an outspoken advocate of constructing the wall along the southwest border, even to the point of using Eminent Domain in property situations in the state of texas. I am curious what you think what happened to the economy of texas if you succeed in your agenda of chasing out everybody who is in that state working without a visa. Atty. Gen. Paxton the goal is not to necessarily chase everybody out. The goal is to secure the border. What i have said is, i dont know if the wall is something that goes around the entire border, but i want them to have the most effective means of preventing illegal immigration, largely first from a safety standpoint because i dont want terrorists coming into our country. Two, people ought to come here legally. So a wall is probably a good idea in certain places. El paso has a fence, and as you know el paso borders juarez, mexico, and before they put that fence up in the bush administration, el paso had one of the highest crime rates in the nation. Since the fence went up, they are one of the safest cities. So there is no reason not to put up a fence or a wall in some places if it provides that kind of safety to our citizens. Greta what is the status of self americans, mexicans, trying to cross the border illegally into texas. We saw an uptick under the Obama Administration. What has been happening recently, and what kind of situation is it putting customs . Commission questio i saw one report where they are having to catch and release because the detention beds are full. Atty. Gen. Paxton illegal immigration is significantly down. I think it is largely because of the message from the president which has been very strong and good. I have had the opportunity to meet with border security, border patrol, customs and enforcement, local Police Departments numerous times, and they are all very excited to be able to do their job. Under the Obama Administration, they were basically not allowed to enforce the law. They were just letting people in. I think that is the reason you are seeing the numbers come down. One is the message, and people know now that if you come you will be arrested and sent back. If you let these people do their jobs. If you let Border Control and Customs Enforcement and our local people do their jobs, we are actually successful in preventing illegal immigration and protecting our citizens. Greta so you are not seeing more migration . Atty. Gen. Paxton no, it is way down. It is significantly down since trump came into office. He has done more for illegal immigration then any president i know of that we have ever had. Greta with whats, his rhetoric . Atty. Gen. Paxton yes, i think it makes a difference. The leadership of one, talking about it in the right way. It makes a difference and people get the message. It has an incentive if you say, hey, we are not going to enforce the law. The incentive is people will come in whenever they want to. And that is the Obama Administrations incentive that they created. He has created the opposite incentive that if you come here, we are going to catch you and enforce it. The actual enforcement and letting people do their jobs that they are being paid for, and they are actually excited about doing their jobs and they are good at their jobs. Josh can i ask you as some he who has spent a fair amount of time in the court system, how important do you think it is for someone who is nominated for a judicial post to have actually tried a case or multiple cases before they get a lifetime appointment to a job like that . Atty. Gen. Paxton there are different skill sets. I dont think it is critical. It certainly is helpful in judging trials. I think people have other abilities that they are very bright and they will figure it out. Josh so you dont think it should be a per se qualification, and what do you make of the fact that in the federal system there are fewer and fewer trials. Lawyers are in court every day, but there are some judges that handle maybe one trial a year at this point. Atty. Gen. Paxton it is what it is. I dont think that should be the litmus test. That is obviously a skill set that could be important in making a determination as to whether someone should sit on a bench. I dont think that should be the only qualification. Kevin one of the question that comes up in the judicial nominations and clashes here and washington, which you just saw yesterday with two prominent texas jurists before Senate Judiciary committee answering pointed questions from democrats about their views on a number of cultural social issues, marriage, onegay of the people who is going to be coming up is your colleague, who has gotten himself into some trouble with some Public Comments he made comparing gay marriage to bestiality and things of that sort. He has gotten himself in trouble with even some republicans in the senate. You have, i believe, and correct me if i am wrong, you have lent your moral support, if not legal support, to these county clerks such as the one in kentucky who refused on religious grounds to hand out marriage licenses to gay couples. I am wondering as a lawyer, how do you frame the legal argument for these people, not as individuals, but as government agents to basically impose their moral beliefs on their fellow citizens . Atty. Gen. Paxton i didnt have anything to do with kentucky. Kevin regardless of where the Supreme Court ruled. Atty. Gen. Paxton dont say that regardless of the law, that is not accurate. I didnt have anything to do with kentucky. I dealt with the issue in texas, which is my job. I was asked by the Lieutenant Governor to responded to how do we deal with these county clerks who have their own religious views that are in opposition to marriage of samesex couples. Believe it or not, we do still have a First Amendment, even though we have this newly minted 14th amendment right to samesex marriage. That is a new constitutional right, and it did not exist until now. Now, we have to figure out a way to make those two Constitutional Rights work together. So what we said when we were asked was that these clerks still have a First Amendment right. So if you can to find somebody else in the office who can do the marriage, you still have to do it. But if you can find somebody in the office that can do it, dont impose that on somebody who has their own First Amendment right to not do something that is in direct violation of their own personal religious views. We still care about the First Amendment. I still care about the First Amendment, and you do too. Kevin i am a journalist. I care about the First Amendment. It seems odd to ascribe First Amendment rights to a government agent. You are talking about individuals have First Amendment rights against the government. But here, you are talking about the government. You are granting First Amendment rights to the government against citizens. Atty. Gen. Paxton no, certainly we said the government had to perform this function. We just said individuals still have a First Amendment right to their own religious views. Why do you need to force somebody in an office who their view is that is something in violation of their own personal religious views, why do you need to force them . That is, in my mind, purely unconstitutional. We tried to work out a solution that allowed both Constitutional Rights to stand, the newly minted one we just created a year ago and the one that has existed since our foundation. I do not want to eliminate the one that the founders put in place. I think you, as a journalist, should really care about that more than anybody. Here we are. We did our best to put those two together, and a lot of those sort of stand together. Kevin so you are standing on the proposition that as individuals they have a right to follow their religious believes but not as government actors . Atty. Gen. Paxton i have said that the office has to perform the function. They have to find somebody else to perform the function, but dont make somebody against their own religious beliefs be the one who does it. That to me is unconstitutional. Kevin that seems like an important classification. Josh i wanted to ask you, you are in the course of running for reelection as attorney general, correct . You also have this criminal case that is pending against you in texas relating to securities fraud and so forth. As i understand is, it is now expected that will go to trial in the spring, is that correct . Atty. Gen. Paxton i have been asking for it for a long time. Josh no earlier than that, it sounds like at the moment from the way i am understanding it. Why should Republican Voters go ahead and vote for you for reelection or be the standard bearer knowing that is a lingering out there that it could be a distraction or more than a distraction, especially since i understand you have a democratic challenger from austin by the name of justin nelson, who is now saying he is going to challenge you for this post . Atty. Gen. Paxton as you know, i cannot talk about the specifics of the case, but what is great about our country is there is a presumption of innocence, and that is hopefully still the case in our country. Youre not presumed guilty until you are proven guilty. As you know, the federal government brought a very similar case against me. An obama appointed judge had four charges and all of them were dismissed, on a motion to dismiss, which means i had to accept everything they said about me as true and still went on the law that the federal government came back twice and we won twice. These charges on the state side are very similar. I expect to be proven innocent very soon. Greta we have time for one more question. Kevin do you disagree with mitt romney who said last week, i think in a different context and it may apply to you, that the presumption of innocence applies in a court of law and not in elections. Atty. Gen. Paxton i dont agree with him. I think just because somebody can throw a charge at you using probable cause, which is a very low standard, there are obviously politics involved in my state and other states and other places. I think presumption of innocence is really important. I totally agree with mitt romney on that matter. Greta josh, go ahead. We can get in one more. Josh even in the political context, it seems to me Political Parties are entitled to use a different standard of evidence and that everything doesnt have to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt if there is a reasonable suspicion. For example, someone being named to the federal bench, you are going to go ahead and make that decision and subject it to a reasonable doubt. Atty. Gen. Paxton voters can do what they want to do. What i love about voters, is they are very smart and they tend to figure out if the reports are accurate. Over time, there is a reason i have stayed in office and continued to work for things that matter to people in my state. Let the voters decide. They can decide in this election what they want. If there is a republican wants to run, they can run. If there is a democrat that wants to run, god bless them. Come join the opportunity that we have in this country and in our state. I am happy to debate anybody on the issues and look forward to it. Greta we will have to leave it there. Attorney general paxton, thank you for being this weeks newsmaker. Atty. Gen. Paxton thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Two. We are back with our reporters greta were back with our reporters. Lets start with you can paxton is. Outside of texas, white should people be watching for him and following his career . s statements are all over u. S. Jurisprudence. They have made it their business to challenge liberalism on a , suing the Obama Administration repeatedly. Now he is with the Trump Administration and still making their presence felt as we heard on the dreamer issue. Exas is a big state it has a big footprint here in washington, a huge republican delegation. He is part of the conservative who wants from texas to steer the course of this country. Josh and also a stepping stone attorney general job in texas will often go into more prominent editions in politics and national politics. Kevin the number 2 politics was in ag. Two person in politics was an ag. Josh the conservative watering hole for legal scholar and the legal elite for the country are on the right side with the. Apital are of the fence you see a lot of interaction among those folks and a lot of people positioning for what will be the causes and crusades that will continue to push. The tactics have changed a little bit. They are going from opposition in the Obama Administration to seeing a lot of their policies carried out by the Trump Administration and seeing a lot of members of their groups and societies being named to federal jobs. Hips and prominent greta we kicked off our discussion talking about the socalled dreamers. Can paxton wanted this administration, president trump, to act on that to reverse what the Obama Administration has done. There is talk of a possible bipartisan legislative fix on capitol hill, a deal that was supposedly struck between the president and Chuck Schumer and nancy pelosi. Where do we know that stands . Kevin some deal was supposedly struck, but actually signing a legislative deal is another matter. There have been some on the left and some advocate for dreamers that have wanted to see it attached already to spending bills that have been passed a couple of months ago. They would like to see it attached to legislation. It doesnt look like either of those things is very likely to happen at this point. We have a march 5 deadline, at which point some people that have dreamer status will begin to see it expire and be unable to renew it. I think it is on the order of a couple few hundred people a week. It will eventually get to thousands and thousands of people losing their status and potentially losing jobs they currently hold legally. The sense is that there is it in congress. To question of getting house sign on it is a distinct question. Kevin i think it is a long shot. The obstacles are almost insurmountable. Like everything in congress, this gets wrapped up and tied into other issues. Side, there is refusal to even compromise in any way. They do not want to cut any deals on the backs of the dreamers very if you are and the republicans do something to go back to your their people. They need to bring back to their constituencies, you just cant sell them on the other side. I think there will be a hard deal to cut, particularly with what the right really wants is they want to limit socalled chain migration, the ability to bring your extended family along with you. Think. A dealbreaker, i this will be a tough thing. Even though there is a lot of support for the idea of fixing the dreamer problem among republicans and trump. He said he wants to deal with it from the heart are lit dealing with it from the heart is one thing, but with the heart is another. Credit what is the impact on texas . Greta what is the impact on texas . Kevin texas has a large number of immigrants. We know they dont vote in large numbers. There is still a powerful constituency. Have a more openminded toward the idea of immigration than a lot of people give them credit for. Josh while attorney general paxton is claiming victory on the daca policy, it is not entirely clear he has one this battle. The courts might step in here. More likely than that, the president has suggested that if congress doesnt reach a deal on this on march 5, he might do something to rescue the dreamers. Nce again while paxton has succeeded in getting a legal apparatus of the Trump Administration to sign onto his view of this issue, that does not mean the president in the days leading up to march 5 or immediately at the deadline might not take some step to protect them even though they are arguing essentially that the step would be illegal. Josh gerstein and kevin diaz, thank you for being here. The initials kkk were right here on his chest. Embroidered on his head were nights of the ku klux klan. He came in and was followed right behind him by mr. Kelly, the grand dragon. The the nighthawk entered room and turned the corner and saw me, he just froze. Mr. Kelly bumped into his back because the guy stopped short. They stumbled and regained their balance and looked around the room. I knew what they were thinking, they were thinking either the desk clerk give them the wrong number or this was an ambush. I want to display my hands with nothing in them, that i stood up and approached him. Kelly. Hi, mr. Come on in. Kufor years, he has embraced klux klan members to embrace their hatred and convince them they are wrong tonight on 8 00 eastern on q a on cspan. On capitol hill this past week, attorney general Jeff Sessions insisted that he told the truth at prior hearings on his contact with russia during the 2016 election. Russia, theto attorney general was asked about Justice Department operations and the Sexual Misconduct allegations against u. S. Senate candidate roy moore. This portion of the house Judiciary Committee is just over three hours