Special Session with Bryan Schott

>> Mr. Moore: Foreign.

>> Bryan Schott: Welcome to Special Session. I'm your host Bryan Schott.

The show where we not only talk about the big

political news from the last week, but help you understand

what's really going on and why it matters. We

don't have a lobbyist as a co host like some of the other

shows about Utah politics that might be in your

podcast feed. We don't try to pretend that they're

not a lobbyist. So there's nobody trying to

push an agenda here. No turf to protect

cuz you might upset policymakers. Just

political news and analysis. Now before we get to this

week's news, I've got a little bit of an update that I'd like to

weigh in on. You know, I've been talking on this podcast and in

my newsletter about how Republicans

look to be angling to overturn SB54

get rid of the signature path for candidates before

the 2026 election. Now, it was

obviously take a special session of the

legislature to do. And at the Republican

State Convention a couple of weeks ago, Senator Mike Lee

urged Governor Spencer Cox to take that

step, call a special session for the purpose of

overturning repealing SB54.

Well, Governor Spencer Cox was asked about that and he said

he's not going to call a special session

to get rid of the signature path.

But that does not put the issue to

bed because the Legislature can

call itself into special

session if 2/3 of the members in the

House and the Senate determine that there is

an emergency in the affairs of the state.

And that's part of the reason why at

that same convention lease asked

delegates to start putting pressure on

lawmakers. Republican Party Chairman Rob

Axon says they have the votes to repeal

SB 54 in the House but not

in the Senate. And if they can get two thirds

of the house and 2/3 of the Republicans in the Senate

on board, that's all they need to call

themselves into a special session. They'd have enough

votes to override a veto by Governor Cox

if they took that step. And

there's really not much anybody could do to stop

them. We've still got six months left in the

year, so this issue is not dead. Watch

this space.

Now that that's over, let's get to the week in Utah

Political News

Dateline Utah's Capitol Hill.

I present to you a study. In contrast, recently,

Utah House Speaker Mike Schultz Traveled to

Washington, D.C. he was representing the state

at the release of what he called a

landmark report from Health

and Human Services Secretary Robert F.

Kennedy's Make America Healthy Again,

commission. This was a report on childhood

health. And he hailed the results of

the report, said it was bold action and just

the kind of thing that Utah needed to be doing.

Well, the funny thing about reports from

the government is that people are going to

read it and look at some of the

sources that you cite to support your

arguments. And the first outlet to do

that was notice. And they found that at

least seven of the studies

that were cited in this Make America Healthy Again

report were made up. They didn't exist. They

reached out to the purported authors of these studies,

who said, I, I never wrote anything like that. I

never worked on that article. I

never published anything like that. So these

studies were made up. It looks like the report's

authors used artificial intelligence, which just

hallucinated these studies, which is one of the problems

of using artificial intelligence, because sometimes it

just makes stuff up. There was one

example where the report cited

an article linking the rise of

ADHD medication use by children

to increased advertising. Advertising, uh, that's

one of Secretary Kennedy's

hobby horses. That's one of the things that he likes to

complain about, is how the

increase in advertising from Big

Pharma has led to a higher use of these

drugs. Anyway, there was a report linking the rise

of ADHD medication in children, the use in

children, to increased advertising. But

that article does not appear in the journal where it was published.

The author does not even appear to be

a real ADHD researcher.

Now, Speaker Schultz and the Utah legislature, they have

really leaned into this Make America

Healthy Again agenda. As you might

remember, during the 2025 session, they completely

ignored the advice of dental health

experts and passed legislation,

uh, making Utah the first state in the union to ban

fluoride in drinking water, despite

pleas from dental health experts who said, this is not

a good idea and it's going to lead to

more dental problems for children. And we'll get

back to that in a second. They also pass

bills prohibiting food containing

certain dyes and chemicals from being served in school

lunches. And they also prevented Utahns on

who. Who are on food assistance, um, on state

assistance for food, the SNAP program, from

using those benefits to purchase soda.

And those are all things that Secretary Kennedy

has pushed. So I reached out to Speaker Schultz and

asked him if he was reconsidering his support

for this commission report based

on the fact that it made a bunch of

stuff up that these studies that it relied

on for many of the conclusions just don't exist.

And unsurprisingly, I didn't hear anything back.

Okay, so let's contrast that with another

story from the last week. We got to rewind

back to 2023 when the legislature

passed a ban on gender for affirmin

care for minors in the state. When

they passed this legislation, they said, well, it's not a

ban, it's just a moratorium. We're going to put a pause

on minors accessing this

kind of care, gender affirming care, hormone

therapy, until we can study the

impacts, the long term impacts of

this kind of medical care. As

part of this bill, they tasked the Utah Department of Health and Human

Services with studying the

impacts, the long term impacts of gender

affirming, affirming care. They said there was a lack of

research on the topic and that's why they just wanted to press pause a

moratorium. They just wanted to press pause on this issue

until they had a chance to study it. We got the results of that

study back last week and its conclusion was

that there are positive mental health

benefits outcomes as a result

of gender affirming care. Now, it did

find that the, that hormone treatments can increase

the risk of some types of benign

brain tumors, but it had mostly

positive concoctions conclusions about those

treatments. So this is a real

study done by real

researchers who actually exist. They're

not imagined. So how do you think Utah

lawmakers receive this report? Nope, they're

gonna ignore it. If you thought anything else, you haven't been paying

attention, they're going to ignore it. They said the

moratorium stays in place because

they need to protect children from these

treatments because children may be making

life altering decisions. In some cases, these are

perman, because they need to protect children

from making these, what can be permanent

decisions. So you've got a report from the federal

government that uses made up research

and they're all in on that. But then they've got

a report from their own government that they paid for, the

taxpayers paid for, that concludes

gender affirming care leads to some positive

outcomes. And they're like, nah, don't think so. We're not

gonna listen to it. The difference one of those

reports aligns, uh, with their political

ideology, their preconceived

notions, their political agenda, and the other

one doesn't. And that's why they're not gonna

lift this ban on gender affirming care,

because they've spent the last couple of

sessions beating up on transgender people

because that's what the Republican party has been doing at

a national level. They've done it to whip up their voters.

And so to retreat from that would be

A huge problem for them. They would get attacked

by libs of TikTok, you know, noted scientific

expert herself. And they just don't want to deal with that. So

they're going to completely discount this

scientific study that by the way Utah taxpayers paid

for. But they're going to go all in on this

other study that uses made up research

because it's where their party's politics

are right now.

And let's talk a little bit about that legislation to

ban fluoride and drinking water here in Utah.

Utah and Florida are the first two

states to do that. Well, there was a study

done trying to predict what would happen if

that ban went nationwide. That's one of the things that

Secretary Kennedy wants to do, is ban fluoride

in drinking water. When researchers tried to predict what would happen

if that ban went nationwide, they

found that about 7 1/2% more children

in the country between the ages of 0 and 19

would get cavities. And, and that would cost the

country around $9.8 billion,

uh, in dental care. You know who's cheering? The results

of this move by Utah and Florida dentists.

They're going to make bank off of this because

you're going to see dental health decline

in the state. But that's another case where

Utah policymakers, Utah lawmakers

ignore the advice of experts and

instead do what aligns with their political

agenda.

D Line Ogden, Utah

Utah Democrats held their state convention in Ogden this

weekend. They selected former representative Bryan

King to be their chairman over the next two

years. He's got a big task in front of him. These

party has struggled to even be

relevant here in the state. Uh,

Republicans control all of the statewide

offices. They hold every seat in Congress.

There's a super majority of Republicans in both the

Utah House and the Senate. Registered

Democrats make up just 14% of the

active voters in the state. They're outnumbered by

Republicans by nearly 4 to 1. The

party has not won a statewide race

since 1996 when Jan

Graham was reelected as Attorney

General. That'll be three decades when the next election

cycle rolls around. When he made his pitch to

about 1400 delegates who were on hand at Ogden High School,

King signaled he was ready to be more

aggressive when standing up to the Republican supermajority.

>> Bryan: Because something is happening here in Utah. People

can feel it. You can feel it. People are paying attention and

they're so sick of the far right circus, both the

local clowns and the national ringleader.

And you know what? Unlike an actual circus,

nobody's having any fun and this isn't just some

abstract policy debate. What we're talking about here is real, and

it's happening right now. It's parents losing their

Medicaid coverage. It's students being told what they

can't study. It's immigrants being detained

without due process and deported.

It's workers picking up the tab while

billionaires cash in.

Republicans are serious about hurting people,

and we need to be just as serious about protecting them.

Utahns are fed up and they're looking for a change,

and that's where we come in. I'm

running for chair because I believe Utah's ready for a

Democratic Party to. That doesn't whisper

our values, but that stands up for them

loudly and proudly

every single day.

We stand for reproductive freedom. We fight for

clean air and affordable homes. We care about our

neighbors. We care about the Constitution.

There's an idea, and we're going to

make sure that Utahns know it. We've

got too much talent and too many ideas to be losing

to a party that thinks libraries are public

enemy number one. Some people will tell you that Utah's

too far gone, that we'll never turn it blue. We shouldn't even try.

That's garbage.

That's cowardice. Regular

Utahns are protesting and speaking out, and students

are organizing. Teachers and public, uh, workers

are fighting back. And people are standing up,

up, and we need to stand up with them.

>> Bryan Schott: A couple of things struck me on Saturday when I was sitting there in the

convention hall. Utah Democrats are

angry about the way things are going here in the state.

Republican policies that they say are

hurting people, focusing too much on

culture war issues rather than solving actual

problems. And they're also desperate.

They are desperate for someone on the national

level to stand up to the Republicans on the state level

to stand up to Republicans. And they're desperate to

win elections. During his opening address,

Weber County Democratic Party Chair Jeremy

Thompson took a shot at Senate Minority

Leader Chuck Schumer for sending a letter

to Donald Trump expressing his displeasure

with some of those policies. Leaders who don't show

deference to an old guard. That has brought us to our

reality today. Nationally, leaders who

will do more than send a strongly worded letter with eight

questions to a president who can't read.

You have to admit, that's a pretty good line. In fact, I think the

Democrats mentioned Donald Trump at their

convention more than Utah Republicans did.

I can only remember Republicans

mentioning Trump a handful

of times during their long convention a couple of

weekends ago. But the Democrats

in Utah at their convention, they took direct aim

at the president. Another expression of that

anger came from Oscar Mata, who

ran for vice chair. He didn't win his race, but in his

speech to delegate, he came out swinging.

>> Oscar Mata: Our fight is not amongst each other here in this

auditorium. Our fight is not amongst

Democrats in our county parties. Our fight

is with the Utah Republican

legislature. Our fight is

with the Utah gop. And you know what?

We have something to fight for.

The reason that I am here today running and why I

am fighting is because, I'll be honest,

I'm pissed.

I am pissed that my daughter that was born

two months ago was born with less rights than her

mother that was born 30 years ago.

I'm pissed that there are folks getting

rounded up that look like me and have a name like

mine in broad daylight and being sent to, uh,

uh, detention camps in Central America.

And I'm pissed that people like

my mom, who is married to her wife,

are one Supreme Court decision away from losing

their ability to love who they love.

>> Bryan Schott: The keynote speaker on Saturday was supposed to be Illinois

Governor J.B. pritzker, who is said to be

getting ready to run for president, the Democratic

nomination in 2028. He wasn't able to

attend in person because the Illinois legislature was still in

session and it was their final day. Had he shown

up, it would have been one of the biggest gets for the

Democratic Party in recent memory. I can't remember them

even getting someone with that kind

of profile to come and speak at their

convention. The only comparable thing I can think of is when

Utah Republicans got Florida Governor Ron

DeSantis to keynote their convention a

couple of years ago as he was getting ready to run for president,

given how DeSantis's presidential aspirations

ended up in the toilet. And maybe it

wasn't all bad for Pritzker to not show up in person

on Saturday. He did send a video message to

Utah Democrats, and it took a pretty aggressive

tone, pushing back against Republicans.

>> J.B. Pritzker: The purpose of government is to improve

people's lives. And when the separation of

powers gives way to autocracy,

when everyday Americans are ignored,

when the wealthiest and most powerful are engaged

in kleptocracy, our

constitutional republic is at risk.

At Donald Trump's direction,

Republicans in Congress are stripping away health care by

cutting Medicaid and threatening Medicare.

They're attacking nutrition programs for children

and eliminating cancer treatment for everyone.

When working families pay more for eggs and

tomatoes and beer so that the wealthiest

Americans get the biggest tax cut in US History,

it will be because Donald Trump and congressional

Republicans put their interests over

yours we will lose if

we fail to speak up, if we fail to protest,

if we fail to show up. It's true

that Democrats have become too captive to

institutional norms and rules of engagement.

And those rules only ever seem to apply to one side of

the aisle. That's not on them,

that's on us. Voters didn't turn out

for Democrats last November, not because

they don't want us to fight for our values, but because they

think we don't want to fight for our values.

Let's stop playing by those old institutional norms.

Instead, it's time to fight

everywhere and all the time. And it's going

to look a little different in Utah than it does in Illinois,

different in New York than in Florida

in Donald Trump's Republican Party. Those

are all just different heads of their hydra.

The question isn't which subset of those

cowards that we fight against, it's how

hard are we willing to fight for the future of our

country? This is a full court

press, and in the months ahead,

remember who we're fighting for. Everything

that we care about is under siege by a racist,

misogynist, homophobic, xenophobic

Donald Trump, the purveyor of chaos

and confusion, who cares not at all about

everyday people. I'm done with the

same old tired platitudes, aren't you?

That's why I got to ask you, are

you ready for the fight? I mean, are you ready for

the fight?

>> Bryan Schott: As I said, Democrats are also

frustrated and desperate. They're desperate to

start winning elections in Utah.

And that was articulated by, by

Salt Lake County Council member Natalie Pinkney when

she introduced another one of the chair

candidates, uh, Ben Peck. Here's what she said.

>> Natalie Pinkney: There's a tragedy in our party, and it's a tragedy

of losing. Every year, the same party

leaders elected and consultants say we're going to

flip this state. Yet every year nothing

happens. And that tragedy grows,

grows so much that our loss means diversity is

illegal. The flag we want to fly is illegal.

Our unions are illegal. Are we

going to sit here and let this tragedy grow?

Are we going to continue to be defeated, or are we

going to win.

>> Bryan Schott: Utah Democrats, on that subject of

desperation to win elections, there were a couple of other stories

here in Utah this week that I want to bring into the

discussion. Democratic National Committee

chair Ken Martin came to the state and in an

interview, he said that there's a long shot

strategy to turn Utah blue. They're going to

start, start spending money here, and they need to reach out to religious

voters. I've covered Politics in the state long

enough that this is probably the fifth or sixth

time I've heard that national Democrats were

launching their strategy to turn Utah

blue. That's ambitious, but I'll believe it

when I see it. They've tried this before.

They've spent money here in the state, they've given

money to state parties to try and

help build that infrastructure. And it just

has not worked here in the state for a number of

reasons. There's a reason why Republicans outnumber

Democrats by almost 4 to 1.

It's going to take a sustained effort and it's.

And, and if they commit to it, it's probably

not going to pay off for a number

of years. It is a long term game. It's not something you can

just wave a bunch of money at and flip

Utah blue. It's going to take a

years long effort. Look at what happened in Florida.

It took Florida Republicans almost 20

years to rest that state state from

Democratic control. And now the Republican Party

is dominant in Florida and the Democrats

are completely ineffectual. And to

do something like that, it takes a long term strategy and it

takes money. I'm not saying it can't be

done, but you have to wonder if Utah Democrats have the patience

and discipline to pull something like this off.

It's gonna take a messaging strategy that actually

connects with Utahns and, and that's one

of the reasons why selecting King as party

chair is intriguing to me.

During his eight terms in the legislature,

he was very good at getting

under the skin of the

Republican super majority. He's a

lawyer, he's able to poke holes in their arguments

fairly effectively. And there were times when

he really made the Republicans on the Hill

upset. I don't know how that translates to

reaching out to everyday Utahns who

don't pay attention to what's happening up on the Hill, who aren't

as focused on politics as

you or I may be. I think it'd be hard

to find someone in the state who's as focused on politics

as I am. There's probably only a couple

dozen people who fit that bill. It'll be

interesting to see how he tries to make that leap, leap

from the legislature to communicating to

a wider group of Utahns trying to convince

them that the Democratic Party is not

evil, that you can cast a ballot for the

Democratic Party. And even then, if he is able to make

gains, it's likely that those will be

minimal at best. Maybe

winning a few more seats in the legislature, that would be a good

start. The biggest thing that could happen to the Democratic

Party in this state is if they were able to

to break the Republican super majority

in the legislature. If they did

that, then

Republicans would have to govern

differently because it would be hard for

them to come up with a veto proof

majority automatically and just ram

through things that they want to do that are

unpopular. Think about the voucher program they passed a couple of

years ago. If there had not been a Republican

supermajority in place in either the House or the Senate,

that would have probably changed the way that

they approach that legislation.

But since Republicans have such large

majorities in both the House and the Senate and can do

whatever they want, you've seen their politics

get more and more extreme

over the years because there's really no one

who can stop them. Governor Spencer Cox has

given very little indication that he has the appetite to

stand up up against Republicans in the

legislature for what he sees as some of their

excesses. Think about the pride flag ban

bill. He just let that go into effect without

his signature rather than picking a fight

on a veto. If there were enough Democrats

in the House or the Senate

to prevent Republicans from get

from automatically having a veto proof

majority on some of these things, that would

be a major change in how this state is

governed because. Because it would force Republicans to

moderate a little bit on some of this legislation. Right

now they don't have to. 61 seats in the House,

22 seats in the Senate. That's more than

enough to override any veto and

ram through any piece of legislation

that they want to. Like I said, King has

got a huge hill to climb taking

over the Democratic Party in

Utah. It will be interesting to watch what he does over the next

two years.

Dateline Washington D.C.

oh, Doge Caucus, how we

hardly knew ye. You remember when

Elon Musk was coming to Washington

and he got Republicans in Congress really excited

because he promised to take a chainsaw, uh,

to government spending and slash spending by

a trillion dollars. And in response,

Republicans formed the Doge

Caucus because they really wanted to help his

efforts. A few months later, Elon Musk is

leaving Washington. His efforts at

Doge actually might end up

costing more than whatever spending

that they reduce. And the

Doge Caucus, it hasn't met in

months. Utah Republican Representative Blake Moore

was one of those people who jumped up

when the Doge Caucus was announced. He was

named as a co chairman of that group. One of the leaders

even he is trying to distance himself from

Elon Musk. Here's what he said on Fox News

earlier this week.

>> Mr. Moore: So I think Mr. Musk M. Was very aggressive.

Um, we got to meet with him back in

December. And, you know, this was.

There was a lot of excitement and there was a lot of

anticipation at. Federal

government is not Twitter. And, um,

I think what. What he. What he ultimately saw was,

hey, this is a very dynamic, very complex organization.

And, um, let's do what. Let's ultimately do what we can. Look,

this is. This. The things that they've been able to uncover

and find are excellent. And, um, and we

need to focus on that and build on that. And that's the. And that's the beauty of it. So,

yes, that is a significantly lower amount than was

anticipated.

>> Bryan Schott: By any measure, Doge has been an

absolute failure. Musk

promised to cut a trillion dollars, but like

almost all of his promises, it's never come to

fruition. In fact, when he left,

he's now only claiming to have saved

$175 billion in spending.

And most of that can't be backed up

with any actual information

or facts. Experts estimate the

real amount of spending that they cut is probably

less than half of that. In fact,

CNN is reporting that because of the things

Doge did, it might end up

costing taxpayers more. They reduce

staffing at the Internal Revenue Service. That means the US

Will bring in less revenue.

National parks, they cut staffing in national parks,

and national parks are a moneymaker for

the federal government. That's going to be reduced

revenue for the government. Plus there's all

sorts of litigation against the government because

Doge trying to cancel contracts. Congress

is trying to codify some of the Doge cuts,

but who knows whether or not they'll be able to get that

legislation through. And that's not the only

reason why Moore is probably distancing

himself from Elon Musk.

The House Doge caucus, when they first started,

the meetings were packed. But Democratic

Representative Jared Moskovitz of

Florida, who joined into the caucus and went to the meetings,

and Moskovitz says that over the last five

months, the Doge Caucus only met twice,

and they're not involved with Elon Musk at

all. So it's just petered out. And that's probably why

Moore is distancing himself from Musk and the Doge

Caucus. Moore has consistently defended

the big, beautiful bill that the House passed,

the reconciliation bill going through Congress.

He's consistently defended it because what it. The main

provision is that it extends the tax

cuts that were enacted in

2017, the last time that

Donald Trump was in the White House.

>> Mr. Moore: So the important part of this bill, and, um,

I think it's being missed in the conversation is in

2017, we made historic tax reform that put

American families, American businesses in a

competitive, in a competitive rate. What that did

was help grow our economy. It helped keep companies from

taking their business overseas and being able to contribute more

revenue to the U.S. government. And, um, what

we're doing is we're making that permanent. What we're doing in this bill

is making that permanent. It because if we don't address

that, massive, uh, tax increases happen in about

seven months. And that's what some of the critics, I think, are misunderstanding.

>> Bryan Schott: But those tax cuts are the reason why the

Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget

Office, says the bill is going to add more than

$3 trillion to the

deficit by 2034.

Extending those tax cuts is the primary

reason why it's going to increase the deficit.

Despite claims from Republicans that the bill actually

reduces spending. Now there are some spending

cuts in there. House Republicans have proposed cuts to

federal safety net programs like Medicare,

but this increases the deficit so much that it may trigger, um,

mandatory cuts to Medicaid as well.

And it's really interesting to hear more in this interview.

Stick to the line that Republicans are

deficit hods. They're worried about the size of the

national debt. They're worried about the threat

that poses to the country. But this bill

actually, actually raises the deficit

and more does not address that at all. Now

the bill's heading to the Senate where they're going to make changes to

it. You've heard Senator Rand Paul of

Kentucky say that the spending,

that the math doesn't add up for this

piece of legislation, that it increases

spending too much. It increases the deficit too

much. You've heard other Republicans say that there's not enough

spending cuts in this bill. Utah Senator John Curtis

is trying to save some of the cuts that the House made, like,

like some of the federal clean energy programs that are being

cut. He wants to keep those or try

to find a way to preserve those.

And you've got a group of Republicans in

the Senate who are wary about cutting

Medicare and possibly Medicaid. So

it's gonna take a while to hammer this thing out. But I

found it very striking that Moore is

doing what he can to distance himself from Elon

Musk. Ask, while still sticking to the line

that this bill does not increase

the deficit when every single

analysis says that's not the

case.

Uh, that's it for this week. Before we

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