Daniel Miller opened this Late Night Coffee Talk fighting through an allergy-wrecked voice and a chat that scrolled, in his words, like a slot machine, feeding comments in from ten platforms at once. The week’s news set the tone. The collapse in Afghanistan was fresh, and Miller used it less as a foreign-policy lecture than as a mirror. If the federal government will abandon its own people and its own allies after twenty years, he argued, then no Texan should assume Washington is willing or able to defend the homeland. He drew the line straight from Kabul to the Rio Grande. A southern border he says is left wide open, terror networks free to regroup, and Texas bearing the risk while the decisions get made by people in other states.
He paired that with a second federal overreach. The Biden administration had directed the Department of Education to look at overriding Governor Abbott’s executive order barring mask mandates by political subdivisions of the state. Miller’s point was not about masks. It was that the federal government believes it has the legal footing to reach into Texas and override Texas officials, which is exactly the dynamic he says makes independence the only durable fix.
Most of the hour, though, was the petition. Miller was blunt that he is not happy with where the signature count sits, and he refused again to publish a number, pointing people instead to the certified petition circulator leaderboard on the website. Too few supporters have become circulators, he said, too few have connected with one to sign, and too many circulators have not collected a single signature yet. He called it halftime, the moment the coach throws chairs in the locker room. Becoming a circulator takes less than thirty minutes of training, he stressed, because this is a real petition under the Texas Election Code, not a Change.org gesture. He also previewed the November 7 gubernatorial town hall with three candidates, noting Abbott declined, plus coming livestreams with Steve Toth and Kyle Biedermann, the Take Texas Back candidate-recruitment effort, and a special stream marking his twenty-fifth year in the fight on August 24.
Questions answered in this episode
- How would Texas transition the federal military bases inside its borders after a vote to leave?
- Was the annexation of Texas actually legal, given that it was done by joint resolution rather than by treaty?
- If Texas leaves the Union, is the fear of a Chinese or Mexican invasion realistic?
- Why isn’t the TNM personally calling its roughly 400,000 supporters about the petition?
- When do Texans actually get to vote, and what will be done to prevent fraud?
- Who would serve as president in the interim until an election could be held under a new governing document?
- Why can’t someone on a fixed income be a full member, and what does membership actually pay for?
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