The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup January 9 2026

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

Show off your Lone Star spirit with a free "Remember the Alamo" hat with an annual subscription to The Texan: https://thetexan.news/subscribe/The Texan’s Weekly Roundup brings you the latest news in Texas politics, breaking down the top stories of the week with our team of reporters who give you the facts so you can form your own opinion.Enjoy what you hear? Be sure to subscribe and leave a review! Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on a future podcast.Texas Elected Officials React to Nicolas Maduro's Surprise Arrest by U.S.Abbott to Lead Childcare Fraud Investigation in Texas Following Minnesota ReportsElon Musk Post on Illegal Immigrant Drivers Fuels Texas GOP Policy, Primary ConflictDallas Landmark Commission Votes Unanimously to Let Historic Church Keep Rainbow StepsTexas Man Federally Charged After Allegedly Attempting to Provide Bomb Material, Cryptocurrency to ISISHarris County Under Scrutiny for Potential Violations of Election Law Related to Voter RegistrationsHarris County Judge Denies Baytown High School Stabbing Suspect Bail Under New State AmendmentTrial of Uvalde School Police Officer Over Robb Elementary Shooting Begins in Corpus ChristiTexas Southern University Audit Finds Widespread Financial Irregularities Following Call for InvestigationNearly 600 Texas Private Schools to Participate in Upcoming ESA Program

It's fascinating to watch. And like you, Matt, how you said it, where you're like, how big of a good old boy are you? Is that how you phrase that? How big an old boy are you? That's so much better than what I said. Yeah, that could not be said more beautifully. Well, howdy folks? It's McKenzie here with Matt, Meredith, and Rob on another edition of the weekly roundup podcast. Today is the fun day because as we record, all of us, I'm sure, are checklisting. like Matt, Matt, you're not going, but the rest of us are all checklisting, what to do before we hit the road and get to a very big wedding today. Mary Elise is getting married. A lot of the Texan team is going to be together, and it's going to be awesome. I'm so excited. So first of all, congrats to Mary Lisa and Johnny. It's just going to be so special to be able to watch all of this

happen and kind of been around for all of it. And so getting to celebrate her and her marriage today is going to be so fun. And of course, a reunion of the team. And Connie's coming down. It's going to be, it's going to be a party. Meredith, if you did ask before we recorded if, you know, the crew is like the type of people who dance at weddings. And I want to dive into that quickly before we jump into the stories because the only correct answer is that is yes, that you should absolutely be a wedding dancer. So it sounds like that's, that's your MO. 100%. I actually bring tennis shoes usually that kind of go. Oh, you're my kind of girl. And it, yeah, I don't like dancing barefoot.

It's kind of gross and I just, it's not my vibe. But I don't want to dance in heels, but I want to dance from the moment it starts until it stops. Totally. As long as humanly possible. I also think that if, you know, a gift you can give to the couple is engaging on the dance floor because you don't want to be that wedding guest who's on the sidelines watching the, you know, the dance floor kind of fail. You want to be, you know, and you don't want to be, you know, and you don't want to be that. the couple to be thinking about that like all people aren't having a good time so go out there have a good time engage i'm all about it rob what's your what's your vibe when you're at a wedding um my general vibe

is that um i wouldn't say that i dance at weddings i would say that i i busted down at weddings i would say that there's nobody else is dancing compared to me when i'm at a wedding so got it yeah okay well that's i mean that's that's that's a high bar you're setting for yourself. I hope you recognize that. Yeah, well, you got to have, I think, high standards for yourself if you really want to achieve, like being that person who they said, wow, did you see how that person? I didn't say I danced well at the wedding. I said I danced at the wedding. Let me make one point clear here. No, you said you bust it down. It's about the level of energy you put in. It's not the quality of the dancing itself. That is so accurate. It's so accurate. One time I went to a wedding. I was

kind of invited. A friend was staying with me and it was like people from Hillsdale actually. And they said, oh, you're staying with Meredith. Like, just have her come to the wedding. And so these were some younger, like, there were a couple grades below me. I knew all of them, but I wasn't like best friends with them. At one point, the father of the bride was like, was like, who are you? Because I was just like out there acting as if they were busting it down. I think that's how you said it. So yeah, I definitely subscribe to that mentality. Oh, I love. I think it's a gift you can give. the couple is by, you know, engaging on the dance floor.

Matthew, where do you... I don't think you should get engaged on the dance floor at somebody else's wedding, actually. I don't think you should be engaging. That sounds like really selfish, yeah. A poor choice of words on my part. A poor choice of words. Matt, what's your wedding trend? Oh, I just wait for one of the songs that I can, like, fake it till I make it comes on,

you know, like the chicken dance or, you know, something like that. Yeah, I was going to say, what's your go-to? I feel like I'm peak millennial. Mr. Brightside is always going to get us in the dance floor. But if you don't go, you know, break it down, bust it down, as Rob said, on the dance floor when Mr. Brightson comes on, then I think you should, you know, probably get checked to a doctor. Exactly.

How can you not bust it down when, you know, the killers comes on? Well, also, just sing along to it. If you're not singing along to Mr. Brightside, are you really even listening to the song? You need to be Cameron Diaz in the holiday singing, Mr. Brightside. Oh. That's how it has to. So, such a good poll, Meredith.

Oh, my gosh. I didn't watch that movie this year. What am I doing? Seriously, we're not that far off the 12 days of Christmas. Maybe I'll go and make that still a priority. Yeah. Yeah. So true.

Well, on that note, as we've spoken about important things to start this podcast off, let's talk about perhaps more important things and jump into the news of the week. Rob, we're going to have you jump on and cover a story written by our very own Hannah Brewer. Let's talk about this is huge news over the weekend and has dominated so much at the national news cycle. What happened on Saturday, January 3rd? So we all awoke on Saturday, January 3rd to discover that United States Special Forces had extracted Venezuelan president Nicholas Maduro from Venezuela and were bringing him to the United States so that he would face criminal charges in American federal court.

This was, I mean, I don't know. I feel like that we might already have our contender for the story of the year at this point because this is a huge deal. Maduro has been thorn in the side of the U.S. for a while now. But he, he's been an interesting figure. So he became president of Venezuela after Hugo Chavez died in 2013. He claims to have won the presidential election in 2018. And then in 2019, the National Assembly of Venezuela said that he had actually usurped power and was not the rightful president.

This comes from the U.S. State Department website talking about Maduro. You know, it's great. It says like wanted Nicholas Maduro. And then it says in parentheses now, captioning. on the website because he had been indicted an American court for narco-terrorism, among other things, or he'd been charged in the Southern District of New York in March 2020, an auspicious time, if there ever was one, for narco-terrorism, conspiracy to import cocaine, possession of machine guns and other destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and other destructive devices.

The U.S. government claims that Maduro actually is a leader of a Venezuelan drug cartel, along with other high-ranking members of the Venezuelan government, that they're importing drugs into the United States that are killing Americans. And, you know, in other words, the Trump administration, you know, in the past few months at the end of 2025, everybody remembers, you know, they were striking these Venezuelan ships that they claimed were carrying drugs in to the U.S. This became a whole political brouhaha for a while. And then on Saturday, we all woke up and the administration had announced that it had covertly struck Caracas and got in and got Maduro and got out and with no loss of American life, which is just crazy. But yeah, that's what's wild to me.

This like when you hear about these stories, and I mean, Netflix, I'm sure already has the rights to this, right? Let's like, let's wait for the special. There's going to be an HBO documentary. Literally. But that's what I think is fascinating about this is like you said no American. I mean, there are so many fascinating parts. The fact that no American lives were lost in this effort is. I think Venezuela said that about 100 Venezuelans have died in the attack. But at the yeah, no Americans, if I recall correctly, the government said that no Americans were killed. Some of them were injured, but not killed. So that's it's just it's just crazy to see like, you know, you wake up and it's just, you know, everybody found out. Congress is well found out, and a lot of congressional officials were not very happy about this. The, of course, Republicans who favor the current administration were more happy about it, but a lot of the Democratic officials were very unhappy about it, saying that Trump had usurped the authority of the Congress to declare war. And then with defenders of the action saying that, in fact, the U.S. had not started a war, they had just, you know, extracted Maduro to face charges in New York. For example, Ted Cruz, John Cornyn, Wesley Hunt, Ken Paxton, all came out and praised it. For example, U.S. Senate candidates Jasmine Crockett and James Tala Rico, who are running for U.S. Senate for John Corny's seat this year as Democrats, you know, were much more critical of the action saying that they both suggested that this was actually not about removing a dictator from power, but about securing oil.

because Venezuela, if I recall correctly, has the world's largest known oil reserves. It's an extremely oil-rich country. And there's a whole debate right now as to whether or not the administration did this capture just for the sake of being able to get that oil and give it to American contractors to process it and get it for the U.S. But there are also earlier things, I believe, during the Chavez administration, the government now. nationalized a lot of, what is it, they nationalized, I believe, oil refineries that were owned by the United States. So, or they nationalized equipment or something like that. So it was, you know, Trump made this during his address to the nation on January 3rd.

He said that the U.S. was more so like taking back what he claimed that the Venezuelan government had taken from the U.S. So, you know, this is one of those things where the foreign policy establishment of the U.S. as a whole has kind of, you know, there's a lot of loss of goodwill over the last 20 years of the war on terror. And now you have elements of the left and right who are critical of this action saying, you know, we don't want a new war. We're afraid of the U.S. destabilizing another country to gain oil, which was a main, like, criticism that a lot of people made of the war in Iraq. So in general, just a crazy situation, how quickly it happened, and how apparently successful the operation was. But it remains to be seen who exactly. Trump said that the U.S. is going to help run Venezuela now going forward for at least a period of time. But it remains to be seen exactly, you know, what that's going to look like.

I mean, of course. Oh, go ahead, Rob. I was going to say the other interesting thing is that Maduro pleaded not guilty in federal court. So that's also, that's just a fun little thing to throw in. Maduro and his wife, Celia Flores, both of them were captured in are facing charges. Well, the fact that we're going to have these legal proceedings happening here in the state. I mean, that in and of itself is a very interesting part of all of this, right? This is like he was arrested, right? But this is not the end of the story. There's a lot more that has to happen going forward. Yeah, Matt. Well, I'm just going to be fascinated to watch the legal proceedings. It's just kind of from a nerdy perspective. Well, several different angles of this, like the legality of the actions in Venezuela, the ensuing criminal

charges, and now what to do with the oil that's being seized. I read an interesting article today by a conservative legal scholar who said, you know, there's a statutory hurdle on what the administration has to do with the oil that it's seizing. and the revenue that it might get from it, because there's a law that says that that has to be turned over to the treasury, and Congress gets to decide what to do with it. So there's that. With regard to like the action in Venezuela,

you know, there's voices on both sides of the aisle who will say it was legal, it was illegal. Most probably wouldn't disagree with the fact that at the end of the day, it comes down to sort of the principle of, just how big an old boy are you? You know, it might not, maybe it wasn't legal to do that, but who's going to tell the President of the United States and the United States military, no, unless you're big enough to.

But where it gets interesting is bringing Maduro back to the United States and trying to secure a conviction. So it'll be interesting to see what all motions and whatnot that it has to go through. And actually, I had a great slack discussion with Kim the other day about this because it actually had kind of tied into some cases that we read in the law school. I love it.

The two legal minds with the Texan. Yeah, yeah. And so I got to discuss this old Spanish-American war about international law called the Picat Hibana. That was a fishing vessel that the U.S. seized and seized the fishermen, arrested the fishermen, seized the boat and the fish and everything like that. Supreme Court issued this landmark decision that's still good law today that's about, you know, the nature of international law and how international law is part of our law. And because the seizure and the arrest was a violation of international law, everything had to be dismissed and the fishermen, you know, paid back the value of their fish. And so it'll be interesting, you know, if the courts,

you know, they might find that the arrest was unlawful. And, and, and, I'm, you know, I'm, you know, I don't know. We'll see. It'll be interesting to see how it unfold. I'm sure we'll be pinging you and Kim a lot to get your thoughts on this because there's a lot that you could, there's a lot to consider here and a lot to delve into. Sorry, Rob, go ahead. I was going to say, did you also see this? I mean, I think it was maybe a rumor floating around on Twitter, but maybe it's true, maybe it's not, that Maduro, it was being explained to him that he had a lot of rights under the U.S. legal system. They're like, oh, no, you can plead guilty if you want. He was like, really? Okay, yeah, I'll plead not guilty.

Or, you know, yeah, you don't have to speak to convict yourself or something. He's like, really? Because, you know, they don't want this to have the appearance of a complete show trial or something. You know, so he is being afforded legal rights. Well, and he's lawyered up. There's a high-profile Texas lawyer, I believe, that's representing him. I can't remember the details on that. I do believe it was in our article.

So there's a Texas connection in the ensuing. trial of the century. Mark Donnelly, yeah. So a pretty big angle there, actually. No, absolutely. It's fascinating to watch. And like you, Matt, how you said it, where you're like, how big of a good old boy are you? Is that how you phrase that? How big an old boy are you? That's so much better than what I said. Yeah, that could not be said more beautifully. And I think that, I mean, watching the reactions, that's exactly what we're watching. you know,

unfold, right? And I am curious to see how this goes, you know, as the proceedings continue. And certainly there are criticisms of the move from little portions of their Republican Party and, you know, large swaths of the Democratic Party. But, you know, by and large, this was a partisan reaction. And Hannah details all of that in her piece, kind of walking through the reaction specifically from Texas officials. So encourage folks to go check that out and read it.

It's a great compilation of everyone's, reactions and statements on it. So one more thing. I just want to say in case I made a mistake earlier, I'm not sure if the Venezuelan government nationalized any American owned refineries in Venezuela, but they did nationalize assets that the Trump administration claims was a theft of American property. So I don't know if it was refinery specifically.

I just wanted to clarify that. Good clarification. Rob, thanks for covering that, Boris. We appreciate it. Meredith, let's come to you here. There is very viral. story about Minnesota child care fraud, a huge story out of Minnesota. And the governor here in Texas, Governor Abbott directed state agencies to investigate Texas child care providers. So walk us through

this story. Yes, so Governor Abbott has directed the Texas Workforce Commission and the Health and Human Services Commission to investigate potential child care fraud in Texas. This is also another large federal tie-in, or I feel like the whole nation is starting to, it's discussing this, watching it, looking for it. I've seen multiple states that have started their own investigations as well. And it did come from the independent journalist Nick Shirley, who posted a video that has now garnered at time of reporting over 138 million views on X, was reposted by Elon Musk and J.D. Vance. And in the video, Shirley goes in one day to multiple different child care or health care sites that were run in the Somali immigrant-run

child care and health care facilities and alleges that there is more than $110 million of fraud he found just in one day. So this got the discussion going of people doing similar things. I know that Maine and Ohio, Washington that have larger Somali communities are also doing the same thing. But in general, the discussion of fraud is everywhere. And so also the Trump, the Trump administration announced on December 31st that they would pause federal child care funding until the states are able to prove that this money is legitimate. So Abbott points out that Texas's improper payment rate is 0.43%, comparing it to 11% in Minnesota using federal data. He just was pretty general, but directing agencies to conduct site visits, verify enrollment numbers, strengthen fraud detection,

public reporting tools so that Texans can report easier if they find, have some findings. Some of the, some Texas legislators took to social media to make comments about it. Ted Cruz and Chip Roy defended Shirley, specifically putting blame on Minnesota governor. Chip Roy was blaming Minnesota governor Tim Walz, who since then actually has announced that he is stepping away from the 2026 governor's race. And he had a very interesting post that was very critical multiple times of Trump and Republicans, but also still. stating that he welcomes other parties and the federal government's input. So there was a lot of, it was four different pages on X, a lot in there. So yeah, this is just something that started

at the right at the end of the year and is just going to carry it all the way, probably be one of the larger stories this year. Absolutely. And watching the Texas governor jump in on this, happening states away is always fascinating to kind of see how those national stories or stories in other States trickle in Texas, or really parachute into Texas. But regardless, it's fascinating. So, Marina, thank you for recovering that for us. Let's chat through another story of yours. The Dallas Landmark Commission this week unanimously voted to allow a historic church to keep its rainbow steps. Give us those details. Yeah, so the Dallas Historic Preservation and Landmark Commission, that's their long name, voted unanimously to allow Oakland United Methodist Church

in Dallas to keep rainbow painted steps for three more years as a temporary art installation. So this church has been a Dallas landmark for since 1984 and the commission said that the paint qualifies as temporary and reversible. Church leaders posted that they specifically had painted these in response to Governor Abbott's directive in October to remove rainbow crosswalks and they called an expression of faith and solidarity with LGBTQ plus community, not an active defiance. So in that October 8th press release, Abbott directed Texas Department of Transportation to remove political ideologies from state roads and warn cities that they could lose funding for noncompliance. So the Daleks Landmarks Commission staff approved the church request, though there was a tax

force that recommended denial, citing Dallas Developmental Code restrictions on. painting existing materials. The, I believe it's, she's the Dallas, I believe city manager, Kimberly Tolbert, requested exceptions for 30 Dallas crosswalks that did not fully comply with state traffic standards. It didn't say specifically if they were all for the exact types of reasons, but she, she also said that like as they await response from the city, if they can be in compliance or not, city leaders said that they're exploring art-based options that allow.

neighbors to express community identity. So when this October 8th directive came out, Austin, Houston, and San Antonio already had to remove Rainbow Crosswalks who comply without the story. Wild. These local stories get lots of attention. But, Mary, I thank you so much for covering that for us. Matthew, we're going to come to you here and talk through a story from the bride herself, Mary Elise. So we'll do our best to do her story justice. But a Texas man was charged with international terrorism in connection with his alleged attempts to provide bomb-making material and financial resources to the Islamic State of Iran and ISIS. Wow, that is quite the, quite the intro here. Walk us through the story. Yeah, I'll tell you what, McKenzie. Mary Elise has had some pretty intense coverage

leading up into her big day. No kidding. So according to the story, John Michael Garza, who was just 21 years old and from Midlothian, of all places, was arrested on December 22nd, after a successful undercover operation by both state and federal law enforcement led to his arrest. During the investigation, the report says that Garza bought explosive materials. In addition, he was planning on providing other types of assistance like financial assistance to who he thought was an ISIS, quote, brother. Instead, he was an undercover police officer or agent. Law enforcement had been monitoring Garza for a number of months,

beginning with New York, with the New York Police Department actually engaging with him in an undercover capacity on social media back, they said, as far as October of last year. and according to the FBI, Garza was in a grander scheme of trying to supply terrorist organizations with bomb-making components. As a matter of fact, if you look at the story, there's a still shot of a creepy video he made of himself, basically at the kitchen counter giving a tutorial on how to make bombs for his ISIS and our Iranian colleagues. So yeah, check out Mary Lisa's story. More details on that on a rather alarming catch and good on law enforcement for keeping this guy off the streets.

Absolutely. I want to quickly clarify at the beginning. I said the Islamic State, it should be the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. So let me just clarify my statement there. But yes, definitely go check out Mary Lisa's story and that thanks for covering it for the bride in her absence here. She gets ready. There's so much happening. I think I'm thinking about her all day because it is what a whirlwind. I'm just praying it all goes smoothly on her end. But it's exciting. So Matt, thanks for covering that for us. Okay, I'm going to quickly try my best to give as thorough and warranted a run-through of a very complicated story from our very own Holly Hansen. And this has to do with a New Year's social media post from Elon Musk, of course, the tech billionaire, and big political donor here in Texas that really touched on a feud from last year, 2025, between Texas Republicans, that has kind of dovetailed into one of the most contentious house races, this primary cycle.

And this really deals with tort reform, illegal immigrants driving trucks. There's a lot going on here, lots of buzzwords, so let's dive into this. But this all started with Mark LaHood responding to Elon Musk's assertion that a friend's wife had been, quote, killed by any legal immigrant driving a truck. And LaHood then took aim, this is a Republican from San Antonio, took aim at Musk's donations to TLR. He said that Texas Senate Bill 39, quote, attempted to remove trucking companies from financial liability for accidents in almost all cases, pushing 100% of that liability onto their drivers. So this is the bill that did not pass, but caused a lot of discussion and consternation,

specifically among Republicans in the state legislature, this last legislative session. And as soon as that was published on ex-representative Jeff Leach, or booking from North Texas, responded, and he sponsored the bill in the House in question here and said, I appreciate the passion and understand the frustration, but truth is paramount and fact. matter and the fact is that TLR never proposed such an outrageous measure not to me as the house author nor to any other GOP legislator on our committee so SB 39 the Senate bill was certainly like I said a big deal this last legislative session and Texas philosophy reform TLR is an organization founded in Texas at the height and really they not even at the height they kind of started the whole tort

reform movement here in the state of Texas and have been heavily involved in one of the biggest players biggest players politically for decades now. And so when we talk about this kind of bill, making its way through the legislature and TLR, this is a huge mover and shaker in legislative circles. In this bill, before by Senator Brian Burwell passed a Senate, like I said, not taken up by the House, but it sought to adjust civil liability law dealing with accidents involving 18 wheelers and remove an amendment from a 2021 trucking bill, which is also a big deal during the 21 legislative session. The bill did not directly mention illegal immigrants. It would have limited the admission of some evidence, like whether a driver could speak or read English during the first part of a kind of a two-phase trial against a company employing a driver if the driver had been accused, alleged to have caused the incident, the accident. And since 2024, this is where LeHood's criticisms come in of Elon Musk. Musk has donated about $3 million to TLR's PAC, the Justice and Fairness PAC.

This is certainly, like I said, a huge mover and shaker donating hundreds of thousands of dollars to different candidates and different races. This is a huge war chest that has a huge hand in how primaries play out in the state and must be a big donor. And this PAC specifically had a very big hand in helping fund successful Republican candidates for Texas appeals courts last year. This was a big, big story. An appeals course may not be the most, you know, flashy office to run for in the state, but this was a huge point of contention and huge story last cycle. And, you know, Musk has also donated another $2 million directly to TLR,

so not just the fact, but directly to the organization. LeHood told the Texan, told us, told Holly, that his characterization of the bill was a realistic result, his words of what the legislation would have done. There's a huge contention here. LaHood, of course, was the deciding vote in ensuring that this bill did not make it through the legislative process. And so that is where all of this primary challenge and this money funneled in to unseat him has kind of come from. There's this big fight over this bill and over these issues.

He speaks as a primary challenge from David Dwell. Definitely worth following that race and we'll have coverage up at the Texan to ensure folks are up to speed. But go read Holly's coverage. on our site because this is this fight's not going anywhere this um you know we have so many different angles in this story from Elon Musk to illegal immigration to tort reform big primary definitely worth going and checking out all the details at the text and reading her coverage it is absolutely phenomenal as usual rob let's talk about another holly hanson story the secretary of state launched an investigation into harris county over its voter rolls allegedly in violation of texas and law

what's happening since. Well, so let's go back, actually. Let's wind the clock back a few months. Go back to November when state Senator Paul Betancourt filed an administrative complaint based on a limited sample of voter registrations claiming that people in Harris County were registering to vote from a PO box. They were listing a PO box as a residential address, which is against the law. So he filed that complaint.

Secretary of State Jay Nelson launched her investigation that saying, month and Bettencourt found that there were 65 registrations listing the same location on Westheimer Road that there were 59 lit people living in one location on Waugh Drive and these the only two he said that they in bedin court said these are the only two that his office investigated but he said there are likely hundreds more people who are registered in violation of the law to vote by a PO box which you're you're not allowed to do So it's interesting, especially because, as Holly has reported in the past, there were several elections in recent years that have been determined by like a very small number of votes.

For example, one of those was, let's see here, she wrote about it. If I recall correctly, it was Republican Tammy Pierce against Democratic Judge Deshaun Jones in which I believe the election itself was eventually. voided by a visiting judge because he determined that there had been in, I believe it was the 2022 election, there had been a sufficient number of electoral issues with enough of these ballots to rule that the election could not actually be determined. So, I mean, that's the thing is you think, oh, you know, in a county of, you know, millions of people, you have only a few hundred example of this well that could turn the tide of several elections so this is a big deal and it could have you know this is not something that we're we're talking about um a number of votes that could not sway

a result this is something that could absolutely affect who sits in office that um in harris county so worth checking out and i'd say also that this is like you said rob nothing new there's something new here that's going on either just um revised issues and um different angles to the same story over over and over again that we see in Harris County. And of course, the story always results in the state trying to step in and do something to combat these issues. The locals saying, hey, stay out of our business. We're handling it.

We've got what we need and lots there going on. But let's talk about specifically the law here that's been violated Rob. I want to get into the details here about why this is being, why this is contended to be illegal. Right. So there are two laws here that we're dealing with. The first one is Texas Senate Bill 1113, which was approved in 2021, that allows the Secretary of

State to withhold state funding for a county's voter registration operations if the county's voter registrar does not remove ineligible voters from the rolls. So if the investigation goes forward and they find that there's like a lot of people who are registered improperly and the county's not going to do anything about it, the Secretary of State can then say like, well, we're not going to give you any money to help register. voters. So that would be obviously a big blow, even for as big of a county as Harris County. But the next big law, speaking of big counties, the second law, SB 1933 passed in 2023, is what creates a civil administrative review process that lets candidates and certain

elected and party officials to take complaints of election irregularities to the Secretary of State, which can also assign a conservatory to take over county elections. So this is how Bettencourt filed his complaint in the first place was under SB 30 SB 133 excuse me now the interesting thing about SB 1933 is that it only applies to counties with four million people or more and there is only one county in Texas with over four million people and that is Harris County which has like 4.7 million if I recall correctly Dallas County the second biggest in the state has fewer than three million people so there's also a claim that though from the Harris County voter registrar Annette Ramirez that Betancourt actually does not

have administrative standing to file this complaint because the area that he is, you know, that this area that he's alleging that this, this, the improper registrations happened is not in his Texas Senate district. Benton court told the Texan that in fact the SOS might have to expand its investigation to other counties and that lawmakers might even expand SB 1933 to include other counties, you know, might not just apply to Harris County. So there's definitely a longstanding disagreement between the state's Republican leaders and the leaders of Harris County over, you know, what's going on in Harris County elections. So this is a story that Holly will always have more content to write about because the fight

between the state's biggest city and the state government is definitely, it's just going to keep on going. So with that, definitely check out Holly's candidacy. Sorry, not Holly's candidacy. Definitely check out all these articles going forward on this story because they are worth reading in all of her previous articles. So with that, speaking of Harris County, let's go to Meredith and talk about a recent story of a Baytown High School stabbing, Meredith. Tell us what's going on with that. Yeah, so I was actually in the courtroom yesterday in Houston. This is a really sad case just because one fact we do know is that a student has passed away. And so losing a high school student and with an incident that happened on campus is just devastating. So Sterling High School student

Andre Matthews was denied bail yesterday after being charged with the murder of his classroom. mate Andrew Meismar. So what's an interesting tie-in for this is that the judge denied bail under Proposition 3, which is specifically Article 1, Section 11D of the Texas Constitution, which allows judges to deny bail for certain violent crimes. This is something that Holly also covered with the election in November. It was many years in the making, and this is one of the first cases that is implementing this new constitutional amendment, state constitutional amendment. So Harris County DA, Sean Tier, was there and spoke to reporters about how this is kind of a monumental case that his office has had pursued. And just he cited concerns specifically about this case, about escalation community safety, the idea that this, there was just cause to deny bail in this case.

The prosecutors presented testimony from one witness who was the Goose Creek Consolidated Independent School District Investigator Corey Scott. So he was relaying information from his investigation. And so there were some objections of hearsay just because the other individuals that he was quoting or relaying were not there, but those were blocked. And so he was able to keep going and give his full investigation of what they had discovered at the school after the incident. So he had some pictures of the incident of the crime scene, which he specifically multiple times said that there were copious amounts of blood and described arriving at the scene, walking in, seeing signs of a struggle, a table overturned, broken glasses in the corner, blood spattered on the walls, blood under a table, a stool. It was just in multiple parts of the room. So he also describes Mismers injury as a carotid, as a puncture to the carotid artery. And that that was what the significant blood loss was from. We also saw a surveillance video that showed that the students had exited their classroom.

The story and what Scott testified to was that the victim, the deceased, asked to, go to the bathroom and then the defendant, Matthews, asked the same question following him. We see that they enter a classroom after that. There's an empty classroom that they enter, and then we see a female student alerting teachers and staff that there is a fight happening students gather around. And eventually the fight is broken up and Matthews is removed and walked away by a teacher's aide that recognizes him. Some of the details that we got from the prosecution were pretty intense. One was that the teacher allegedly entered the classroom,

found Matthews holding Mismorna chokehold, and struggled for about a minute to separate them. He specifically talked about grabbing his nose and using that as a way to make him finally remove his, let him out of the chokehold. Multiple students discussed as Matthews walked away that he was licking blood from his fingers and smiling and joking as he was escorted away,

which is a very chisel. chilling image. And the teacher's aide that walked him away told the investigators that he heard Matthews say that the deceased owed him money and so he stabbed him. Oh, this is important. Sorry, he was stabbed with scissors in the neck. So this was, and there is allegations of that he got them from, sorry, I realize I left out a little apart here. When they left the classroom, the alleged thing that happened was they were fighting over a vape pen and tried to find the vape pen on him, found the scissors, and eventually they ended up in the classroom in the struggle, and that's where he is stabbed with scissors.

The defense, after listening to the testimony, emphasizes multiple times that Matthews is a special education student, that he has no prior criminal charges, argues that this incident does not prove pose an ongoing threat to the community because that's one of the reasons to deny bail. And so they focused in on the fact that the community members, students have been upset with and told investigators and also been, it's been reported and it's been in protests and different things around the school that they're upset with the communication that the school, the lack of communication that the school has had with them about this incident. The students were put on like a 30 minute hold where they just stayed in place. And then it seems, it appears as if things went back to

normal with students taking tests and wasn't fully communicated to them everything that happened. So parents are very upset about that. So the defense was saying that they weren't upset as much about the incident that happened, but they were more upset about the communication. So it doesn't pose a threat to them, they claimed. Judge Emily de Toto denied bail and said that she found this alleged incident very particularly disturbing, saying that having tried a number of murder cases herself, these photos showed, and this is a quote, what seemed to be a horrible struggle, not to mention the fact that this allegation occurred in broad daylight where there were hundreds of children around. So the superintendent from Goose Creek, CISD, Randall O'Brien,

released a couple, and they released two statements from the district. One was a letter from the superintendent where he said that the stabbing was an isolated incident between two students who knew each other very well. And he urged caution as people have been discussing Matthew's disciplinary record, which was also presented to the judge as evidence. And the prosecution highlighted that things like he, the prosecution claim that in his record that he had had fights and also brought a kitchen knife to school in the past.

State rep Briscoe Cain posted to social media about this and pointed to HB6, which he says empowers educators to immediately remove disruptive or dangerous students from the classroom and appeal any return if needed. So this went into effect this school year. And he discusses that the post-incident reviews will appropriately examine whether all available tools, policies, and procedures were effectively implemented to protect students and staff. This is just part of a broader ongoing discussion about school discipline. It's the worst-case scenario that teachers, parents, and students could ever see.

But it is something that has a lot of reporting and social media discussion in the education community about school discipline. are we doing enough to protect students at school and how can we make sure that situations like this don't happen in the future? And Meredith, thank you for being there in person. The in person reporting, especially in a story like this, is so important. So we're grateful you're able to make it and be there for it, especially just to do justice to a story as tragic and important as this one. So we appreciate that so much.

Matt, we're going to come to you here and walk through a story from our very own Kim Roberts. So again, doing diligence to a story that none of us here wrote. So Kim, well done. But the first trial of its kind has begun in Corpus Christi, where a police officer is facing felony charges over his actions relating to the Uvaldi school shooting from years ago to give us all the rundown of this. Former Uvaldi School District Police Officer Adrian Gonzalez is charged with 29 counts of child abandonment, which is a state. jail felony criminal offense. He is the first officer charged in connection with the emergency response to the Uvaldi mass shooting at Rob Elementary where 19 children and two teachers were murdered. To give you a little bit of background into probably the motive and reasoning

behind bringing these charges against one of the responding officers, we reported on an investigation into the emergency response by the Department of Justice under former Attorney General Merrick Garland. And the investigation revealed that there was a 77-minute gap from the time when officers arrived to when they actually ended up confronting the killer. The report found all kinds of problems with the response from lack of training. conflict of command, etc., etc. But at the end of the day, there were two officers

who prosecutors say criminally negligently failed to execute their duties resulting in the continued resulting in the continued deaths of students at Rob Elementary. This is the first of its kind in that this is the first we've actually seen an officer be charged in connection

with their failed or botched response to a mass shooting. The trial, however, was moved to Corpus Christie as opposed to being held in Yuvaldi based on a motion from Gonzales' legal team. And in addition to that, a larger jewelry pool was used to ensure he receives a fair trial. trial. In addition to Gonzalez, the former Uvaldi CISD police chief, Pete Arundo, has also been indicted on 10 charges relating to his role in failing to protect the children at Rob Elementary. However, those charges remain active and he is still awaiting trial. So it'll probably depending on how this trial goes for former officer Gonzales will probably have a significant impact on how prosecutors move forward with these second round of indictments on on the police chief himself if convicted either officer would face up to two years in jail on a state jail felony level offense and pay up to a $10,000 fine per offense. big story there Matt thank you so much for covering that for us and Kim will continue to have updates as the story develops

um maranette let's come to you here um the results of a texas southern university tsu audit were released we've been waiting for this for a little while even following the story after a call from the lieutenant governor um to investigate the school's financial status but what were some of the findings in this audit So the overall message of the findings were just widespread systematic financial mismanagement, which we had gotten a little bit of a peek into in November. Mary Elise had written a story about that where Dan Patrick had checked in on the audit and Lisa Coley or the state auditor had provided some information about just millions of dollars of invoices that were either paid to expire, had expired contracts that were did not

receive appropriate approval and just the fact that they had, the university had submitted the 2023 and 24 financial audits 10 and four months late, which had just caused a lot of communication and financial management issues with the state. So the audit cited significant weaknesses in procurement, asset management, and financial reporting, noting that most of the internal policies had not been reviewed since 2010. So overall, like I said, the large picture of it is just that things have gone on for a long time and just exacerbated the situation with their management. So one of the major findings was the breakdown in their procurement process and finding that they overrode a lot of purchasing safeguards and would make purchases without

approval. And so they would do things like take 60 invoices as a sample that were over $100,000 worth and find that these purchases, that they had not made the appropriate approvals for them. I believe that one was maybe 50 out of the 60. Also, under their policies, purchases over $25,000 were supposed to have a valid contract. And so they would take, like, they'd find like 46 out of the 60 had valid contracts, but the other remaining ones didn't. They would find, they found that 743 invoices were paid to vendors who had expired contracts. And they just found that there were oftentimes situations where the contract records did not match the actual documentation. So trying to make sense of all of that was pretty challenging.

Asset management, they had also found that they had not done a complete inventory of their assets since 2019. And so there would be times they would be able to locate maybe like 50 out of 60 assets that they tested, totaling over $3 million. They wouldn't be able to locate where they were. They also found that a lot of their assets didn't have custodians or individuals that were in charge of managing them or former employees were listed in many of those situations. So one of the situations was there was like a $560,000 bus that had already been reimbursed by insurance. This wasn't correctly documented. And so it's not that in every case there was like

every case doesn't show that they like didn't pay something or that there was, they talk about their bonds as well, that they misstated their bond statements. It was just more the idea that. that the communication between the university and the state is so broken and there's so many places where there was mismanagement that the confusion that there is, it leaves a lot of mistrust and confusion about what's going on financially with them. And so TSU cited staffing shortages as a reason for a lot of their missed reconciliations and financial reviews. Overall, the auditors recommended that they, a lot of general recommendations enforcing purchasing approvals, verifying valid contracts and improving staff training.

But one of those specific things they wanted them to do was conduct a comprehensive physical inventory of all their assets. The audit also includes a 12-page letter from TSU's president, J.W. Crawford, just laying out how they're going to work with the state and comply with these findings. Patrick went on after the audit was released to call them disturbing

and warning that legislative action would take place if TSU doesn't fix the issues, saying specifically, I will do everything with my power to be sure that not one additional taxpayer dollar goes unaccounted for ever again at TSU. Harold Dutton, state rep Harold Dutton, also posted on social media. He said, these clowns should look in the mirror. Any problem at TSU must be directed at the Board of Regents and who appointed them for the last 30 years, the clowns in the mirror.

So a couple different opinions there on what's going on at TSU. Dutton never mincing words. Certainly never mincing words there to thank you so much for your coverage. talk about another story you covered specifically dealing with the ESA program here in the state that passed this last legislative session. Give us the latest on what's happening here. So, yeah, the ESA program, which is titled Texas Education Freedom Accounts, is going to be opening up in the next month for applications for families. But in December, on December 9th, they opened up their applications for vendors in private schools to sign up for the program. And so nearly 600 private. have signed up to be a part of the program. You can see online on their website, they have an interactive map that you can kind of, you can see where these schools are located. Houston leads the way with 172 registered schools, followed by the DFW area with 154 and

Austin with 55. So a lot of schools are signing up to be a part of this. Acting State Comptroller Kelly Hancock said that 83% of the participating schools are Catholic schools. And then also more than 200 educational service providers, which are like tutors, therapists, different things like that, have also registered to be a part of the program. And so Hancock said that he is, he's concerned for knowledge that people have of the program. And then he said that he's going to be traveling the state to reach low income families and

students with disabilities to alert them of what is available to them through the program. Another interesting part of the ESA program is that Hancock asked Ken Paxson for a legal opinion. regarding schools that have ties to terrorist groups or hostile foreign governments and if they can legally participate in the ESA program. So in Texas private schools are not accredited by the state. They're accredited by the Texas private school accreditation committee. And they approve agencies that will then go and accredit individual schools. So one of these agencies is called Cognia and they're a national accreditor. And so Kelly Hancock was saying that some of these Cognea accredited schools have hosted events tied to the Council on American Islamic Relations or Care, which Greg Abbott has

designated as a foreign terrorist and transnational criminal organization. He also raised some concerns that another Cognia accredited school had possible ties to Chinese government influence. So overall, he's just asking, you know, because accreditation is required to participate in the ESA program, he's asking for a legal opinion from Ken Paxton, whether the schools with those ties are going to be legally allowed to receive ESA funds. So we'll see. see what the results are on that. Absolutely. This is a program that I think all eyes are on the implementation. And so watching these schools engage with the program is very interesting. And we'll just continue to watch it. I think after this next biennium, the money that's allotted and how the program

grows is going to be a huge story. So definitely keep an eye on that. And we'll have reporting as we find out all the deeds. Meredith, thank you so much for covering that for us and giving us step-by-step updates. Let's move on to the tweetery section of our podcast. Matt, I think we have to start with you. This is something that's taken social media by storm. What are you seen? Well, actually, this got so big CBS News had to actually do a segment on it. I think yesterday is when I saw it. So since the beginning of the Trump administration's term with Marco Rubio serving as Secretary of State. The President has seemed to just pile on duty after duty after role and position that you can think of into, in addition to his enormous duty as being Secretary

of State. I mean, let's be honest, that's not a small job by itself. But he's been acting as he's been appointed to the head of USA he's been appointed to, I don't know, numerous agencies so every time another announcement is made about Trump piling on another duty for Marco Rubio, it's kind of created this viral meme thing and it's people have created memes, they've used AI to generate these images and whatnot,

but it's all kinds of hilarious depictions of Marco Rubio and all of these new outlandish capacities. And, I mean, people on both sides of the aisle have been generating them and laughing at them. Like, the latest was with the intervention in Venezuela. There's this photo of Marco Rubio where he's kind of sitting grumpily in the couch at the White House having a meeting. And now he's dressed as the interim... czar of Venezuela. And anyway, it's taken off, and there's all sorts of different capacities. I saw one this morning.

It was Trump is making him serve as the Michelin Man and all kinds of different hilarious memes, but yeah, so much so that it's been getting covered, but especially as of late with the Venezuelan thing. and there was another one, the hilarious one, because now there's this ongoing conversation about the United States buying, is it Greenland or Iceland? I can't remember. Greenland, yeah.

And so there was this one that was where it kind of starts off with, Trump is discussing buying Greenland again, and it cuts this picture, Marco Rubio and he's got this big coat on and and and some sort of whatever their formal leadership attire is that is apparently very warmly dressed. Anyway, so I thought it was funny. I love all the memes of where somebody said it's like Marco Rubio memes and it's him dressed as like taking over the functions of like every country in the Western world.

And then Jane Vance memes and it's just him edited to look like young. chubbier with like the lollipop and the propeller hat well last year there was this edited version of JD Vance with kind of like long curly hair and this this very kind of chubby cheeks face or whatnot I don't know who did the image up but it went very viral and so much so that JD Vance just ended up owning it so he dressed up as the meme for Halloween and put it out on X and was like, I have become meme. Anyway, it was funny. It was a good way to embrace the humor.

I don't know if you saw, but J.D. Vance added under one of the, after the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the new, like, inverted food pyramid, with, you know, including like the South Park meme about turn the food pyramid upside down. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Vance responded with an image saying, well, you forgot this and it's like chocolate ice cream. And then Kennedy retweeted that with the image of like the chubby long hair JD Vance saying, don't take health advice from this guy. Well, I guess the good takeaway from this is that there's at least some humor left in government.

So, and in politics, it helps. it helps make the coverage a little bit lighter. J.D. Vance's tweet was going to be the RFK, J.D. Vance, back and forth. It's going to be my tweet to read route. But that was, J.D. Vance has provided so much fodder on social media, whether he creates it or not. There is so much around him and different Trump administration officials. So now Rubio being the latest is funny. You get in his time and the sun here for, you know, the internet to go off.

I still laugh about the Vanity Fair interview where, like, In the interview itself, it talks about how J.D. Vance is given the photographer a hard time. This photographer apparently did not like any of them. And so he said, kind of jokingly, I'll give you $1,000 if you make Marco look worse than any of us. So they published this photo of Marco, like standing up against the corner, slightly leaning, looking down. It's just like the most awkward, random photo you've ever seen. and J.D. Vance pops up in the comments on Vanity Fair whenever they shared it or whatnot and says, I guess I owe that guy a thousand bucks.

Wild, truly wild. That vanity fair, I think we talked about vanity fair on the podcast back when it came out. I think so, but that's a wild story in another self. It really was. Oh, my gosh. Well, Matt, thank you for running us through that. Meredith, let's go to you. This is, I think, equally important news in my mind.

So what do you got for us? Well, I'm always looking for stuff on Twitter at the end of the day. When we get to this, I'm like something light and fun because I've just usually been like, I find Twitter to be just such an overwhelming place. But little bright spots, like there is a new Girl Scout cookie flavor that's coming. It is called Explore Moors. and it is a Rocky Road flavored cookie that has like some marshmallow and toasted almond cream. I'm not sure about this, to be honest.

It's more just I like Girl Scout cookies. And I used to buy them from students. And so now I'm like, okay, this year I'm going to have to go just get some regular ones from the store, I guess. I'm a thin mince person. I like thin mints and Samoa's. But I'm looking at some of these and I'm like, I don't think I've had the lemon ones. And I love lemon stuff. So now I'm just like I didn't need to know about all these flavors.

that I have to go buy now and have to go eat, of course, to support the work. You have to. Yeah. That's like, that's the important phrase. Yeah. What are your guys' favorite Girl Scout cookies? Oh, Samoa's. Okay.

It's probably for me, it's probably the lemon ones. I mean, one of those peanut butter ones? Oh, the peanut butter patties. Is that what they're called, like the chocolate and peanut butter? Tagalog. They changed them. Team thin men over here. Isn't it like tag along or something?

I feel like it's an, I can't remember. Yeah, I think the tag along is what used to be the peanut butter. Peanut butter? Okay. Those are good. And then as Samoa's the same thing as caramel delights? I think they, so this is a good tweet I'm looking at. I think they're calling them Samoas again.

I know that I want to say there was some kind of like issue maybe a few years ago when we decided everything couldn't be named anything. So I don't know if they changed it back, but it looks like they're with the new ones. Okay. So that is the same cookie. Unless this person made their own tweet or something. But I'll tell you what, the lemonade's are still the best one. Shortbread with lemon icing, nothing better than that. I think they have a new lemon one.

It's called Lemon Ups. Lemon Ups. And they're crispy lemon flavored. They look a little different. I don't know, maybe they're just changing all of it. My favorite thing, though, is my favorite ice cream place in Seattle. Shout out Molly Moons. It has thin mint ice cream.

It's just one of my favorite things that I've had. The facts that you just shout out out. Molly Moons is like, oh, just not the reason to adore you, Meredith. It's like the best. The Texans are like, no, Seattle. Yeah, they're like gross enough. I get it, I get it. The bright spot on Capitol Hill. It's beautiful. The bright spot on Capitol Hill. Oh, my gosh. Wow. I do not expect that rush of nostalgia to wash over me. Thank you so much for that, narrative. I'm here for. Um, okay. Rob, what do you got for us? Um, well, one of of the big interesting things going on right now in foreign policy other than Venezuela is in

Iran right now, which is being absolutely racked by protests over a very severe economic crisis that's been going on there for, I believe, like, it's been a couple of months now to give some information. The Iranian currency, the Riyadh, has lost nearly half its value over the last year, which has caused like a ton of economic problems in the country. Businesses are closing. There have been a lot of demonstrations which have turned into protests. And it's become a big deal and it's become something that a lot of American commentators are talking about, especially right after the Trump administration is sort of riding its high following Venezuela. So, I mean, there have even been claims of people saying that the U.S. is going to go in and

and finally destroy the Islamic Republic of Iran or something. I would be more skeptical of claims that the U.S. is about to do that, but I don't think I would have predicted the Venezuelan extraction operation either. But something interesting is that the son of the last Shah of Iran, his name is Reza Pahlavi, is still alive, and he is constantly agitating against the Islamic Republic. So he is, he's an interesting figure who, you know, I believe after their family fled to, I can't remember where it was, but I believe it was in the West that they fled to.

And he is, he is like an activist against the Islamic Republic of Iran. And I believe wants to, doesn't want to, I think, become the Shah again, doesn't want to retake his dad's throne, but wants to support a liberal democracy, I believe. So, yeah, that's, it's a very, interesting thing going on in Iran right now because this is one of the biggest, I believe, protests that they've had in the history of the country, because this is one of the worst economic crises they've ever had. Part of this is deep sanctions by the Trump administration has definitely started to harm the Iranian economy a lot. So yes, this is the information

I found here. One U.S. dollar is currently worth about 1,250,000 Riaz. Like, that's how bad it was. So, yeah. There have been protests going on for a while in Iran. There were protests in late, yeah, 2025 that have now extended into today.

So it is, it's bad, but it'll be, this is definitely worth paying attention to. So with all the news, don't, you know, with all the news going on right now, don't, don't forget to follow what's happening. in Iran. That's my advice. Rob, you always come in with sage advice and we appreciate it. It was not sarcastic, but you can laugh at me all you want.

I'll take the laughs, but I meant it. I meant everyone. Sure, he says. Well, team, thanks for joining me on the podcast. I appreciate it. Let's get off this thing and Rob, I'll see you in T-minus one hour, and we'll get on the road to go pick up Brad. you can get on the road to Mary Lisa's wedding. But folks, thank you so much for tuning in to the pod this week. We appreciate it as always.

And we'll catch you on next week's episode. Thank you to everyone for listening. If you enjoy our show, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you want more of our stories, subscribe to the Texan at the Texan. News. Follow us on social media for the latest in Texas politics and send any questions for our team to our mailbag by DMing us on Twitter or shooting an email. to Editor at the Texan. News. We are funded entirely by readers and listeners like you, so thank you again for your support.

Tune in next week for another episode of our weekly roundup. God bless you and God bless Texas.