The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - September 12, 2025

Episode Date: September 12, 2025

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.Conservative Charlie Kirk, Turning Point USA Founder, Assassinated at University Event in UtahJames Talarico Launches Democratic Bid for U.S. SenateAbbott Executive Order Creates 21-Year Age Minimum for Purchasing THC ProductsState Rep. Sam Harless Announces Retirement from Texas House After Four TermsTexas Education Agency Updates First Aid Guidelines After Controversy Over Withheld Medical CareOver 800 Alleged Criminal Illegal Aliens Arrested in Houston in Week-Long ICE OperationState Fair of Texas Continues No Firearms Policy for 2025

Good morning, everybody. This is Brad Johnson, senior reporter at the Texan here for this week's weekly roundup podcast. I am joined by Cameron Abrams and Maryleese Cosgrave. We're just going to get right into it. Yesterday, Wednesday was a very terrible day for this country. And, of course, talking about the assassination of Charlie Kirk, conservative, commentators, founder of Turning Point USA, a very influential guy, especially on the political right. First, Cameron, let's talk about the story with the details.

What laid out for us, what happened, what do we know? It was a chaotic scene yesterday. It started off with some tweets we were seeing. And people saying there was shots fired at this turning point event at Utah Valley University. And it only got more chaotic after that as video started to circulate of what had happened. And it was Charlie Kirk sitting underneath a tent doing his normal debate style back and forth. Something he's done hundreds of times. Hundreds of times.

Dozens of universities? Yeah, hundreds of universities. This is something that Charlie Kirk and a lot of people have done over the past 10 years. And the video started circulating and we just started scrambling trying to figure out what was going on. And we didn't know what was happening initially. there was reports of him at the hospital and hopefully people were praying that he was going to be stabilized and he ended up passing away and just horrific videos coming out and it was just the news that reported at around 3 p.m. that he had died and then President Donald Trump confirmed that on

truth social, saying the great and legendary, Charlie Kirk is dead. No one understood or had the heart of the youth in the United States of America better than Charlie. He was loved and admired by all, especially me, and now he is no longer with us. Melania, and my sympathies go out to his beautiful wife, Erica and family. Charlie, we love you. And I think that's an important thing to emphasize is he leaves behind a wife and two young children who are parents, who are apparently at the event with them. And just a terrible, terrible thing that happened yesterday. And there was reports, again, initially, that there was a suspect that was in the custody.

The FBI director, Cash Patel said initially a subject was in custody. then they put out another release saying that after interrogation they let that person go. Then there was another report that they had someone else. And then that person they released. So it seems the killer is still at large. And there's been images released of alleged suspect by Salt Lake City FBI. There's been news reports about. the type of rifle that was used in this assassination.

From what I understand, it's a bolt action rifle. Yeah, and then there was a report, this is from the Wall Street Journal, that ammunition and the shooting was engraved with transgender and anti-fascist ideology, something reminiscent of shootings we've seen in the past few weeks. It brings to mind the Annunciation Church shooting. just two weeks ago, similar sort of ideas there. And so we saw immediately after everyone in the Republican sphere, conservative sphere, pouring out prayers for Charlie and his family

and just mourning his passing here and his death because he was such an important figure on the right. He was someone who went into college universities, which are normally breeding grounds of progressive ideology, and said, no, there's an opportunity here for conservative ideas. And he didn't do it in an attacking way. He didn't do it where he was putting people down. he used words and he used debate and he welcomed talking to people with him disagreed

everyone and anyone could ask him anything and he wasn't preaching any sort of radical ideologies or anything of that nature it was faith family and free markets it was very straight-laced conservative ideas it wasn't anything radical anything that would be considered fringe. This was he was a major voice, the major voice for young people in this country. And his impact on not just the Trump election in 2016, but his get-out-to-vote campaign across college campuses in 2024, I've said multiple times I think really swung the election in Trump's direction. If, you know, you just looked at the post-election polling.

It was young people that moved to the right. And a lot of that had to do with Charlie Kirk. And he's someone that broke through the barriers in the confines of the online political sphere. He is someone who transcended that by really, like you said, engaging with all sides of the argument and if you were left, right or center, you knew who Charlie Kirk was. And his voice was so important, and it's going to be missed. It is. You know, there's so many people we talk to that knew Charlie Kirk personally

or have been to turning point events or maybe we're even part of a college chapter, right? that's just the nature of being in conservative politics is you knew Charlie Kirk one way or another I didn't know Charlie Kirk at all I never met him I never been to a turning point event I wasn't even involved in politics in college wasn't until I was in I graduated college and started grad school is when I started really encountering these progressive ideas in my university campus I was in a college of education so that's a lot where a lot of them begin and so when I started pushing back I started to look for ways to articulate an argument properly and I would always go to charlie kirk's videos

and when I was encountering people trying to show them that there's another way of thinking about issues, I would send them Charlie Kirk videos and say, look at what he's saying. And I emphasize, again, he was not doing it in a combative way. He was articulating a viewpoint of conservatism that was easily digestible, easily understandable. And, you know, just talking with friends and family yesterday, you know, my family is not political. at all. We didn't talk about politics growing up, and we hardly do now, but they knew what had happened yesterday, and they were heartbroken by what had happened. And I think we're all feeling that way right now. Mary Lisa, anything you want to add about this? Yeah, I mean, of course everybody's

processing it, but something that I personally took away from his from his life and his work that he dedicated his life to was his focus on the young people and how we saw that young people were the future of America and how he really treated them with a lot of dignity as his intellectual equals, you know, sitting down in a lawn chair in a college campus across the country, being willing to hear their ideas and debate them. I think that really displays a respect and an understanding of young people's dignity that he had. That's pretty unique to recognize, okay, there are a future,

and they have ideas, some of which I strongly disagree with, but I'm willing to dialogue with them and see if we can come to a solution or if maybe I can share some truth with them that they haven't heard of before. And I think that's a pretty impressive aspect of his life, of his legacy that he's left behind. Yeah.

You know, I've been racking my brain since yesterday about what the heck I'm going to say here. And, you know, this is a niche podcast. We talk about Texas politics, right? But stories happen that are way bigger than that and totally enveloped the world in which we operate. And we saw that happen yesterday for ill. every Republican in the state commented on this and

you know when I was in school turning point was really booming I could see the the impact every day and it had an effect on a lot of people and

that is all of those thousands hundreds of thousands of kids that went through his organization, that are now, you know, a lot of them staffers for elected officials. Some of them are probably elected officials themselves. This has such a big impact on the political right because he was so formidable as an organizer. and it cannot be understated the effect this has had being a political assassination

and obviously there are a lot of opinions about Kirk a lot of people disagree with his opinions and he as we talked about knew that embraced it and made it his schick right his thing going to these campuses and talking to people yesterday was a horrible day for this country

and we saw we've seen political tensions get worse and worse a former president and now current president was almost assassinated last year this is atrocious an atrocious state of things and there are horrible takes

being thrown all over the place about this don't look at Twitter if you can avoid it because it is it has been a dumpster fire as it often is after these things he first and foremost is a husband and a father

and now a wife and two kids are going to be without. When I was thinking about what to say, I kept going back to the world we cover and how it's made of real people, and it gets heated. We saw two special sessions that were very heated, and I get it. From all sides, people have very strong opinions about this stuff, and rightfully so because this is politics, and it does affect people's lives. And people have entirely different worldviews that are increasingly becoming mutually exclusive from one another.

They can't operate in the same realm. people for a living. And we have to remember that they are humans with lives and families they care about. You know, Greg Abbott is first and foremost a husband and a father. Dan Patrick is first and foremost, a husband and a father. Dustin Burroughs, a husband and a father. Raphael and Chia, a husband and a father. Brian Harrison, a husband and a father. father go on and on about everybody when I'm in the house chamber I like to stand in the back and watch people watch it's the most interesting spot I've ever known the things I see the interactions I see I can imagine if we get to

place where this becomes more frequent, and God forbid, it ever affects any of these people that we cover or that relate to us on a day-to-day basis in this way. So, you know, there's going to be, who knows where the investigation goes, things are going to get heated again, I'm sure, and they're heated right now, a lot of reactions, and we've all struggled with how to respond to these kinds of tragedies. And this one is being especially political. It's hard to remove that from the equation here. But these are people, and we have to remember that. Politics is the business of people. And it's just so heartbreaking to see it come to this.

I think the last thing I'll say about this is just quoting something Charlie Kirk tweeted, that when I saw it was very impactful. And as a reminder to me, following this so closely, that sometimes you just got to take a breather, he said back in June when things are moving very fast and people are losing their minds it's important to stay grounded turn off your phone

read scripture spend time with friends and remember internet fury is not real life it's going to be okay and the heat of the moment it's hard to keep that present in your mind but

I pray to God this doesn't develop further and one of the first send me some stuff episodes we did Cameron we talked about how political assassinations had in the 60s and 70s there were a lot more common well we are on the verge of another

era where they become a lot more common And I think we all need to take a beat and calm down. Otherwise, what is there? And this is going to get worse. So I don't know what else to say on it. just that I pray that everyone

tensions can calm down and that in whatever world we're covering in whatever institution that we focus on we remember that it's people that make it up

real people with real families so let's let's move on from that and talk about the rest of the news that happened this week because there were some other notable things you know first of all one of the big piece of the news was James Tilarico finally jumped in the U.S. Senate race and it was it was expected it It was long rumored. We saw Politico reported last week that he was going to jump in. And sure enough, he did.

And it's a very interesting candidacy. You know, he has, I was speaking to a group of college kids the other day at UT, and they were all very intrigued about this, asking my thoughts. You know, if he does jump in, where does that put the race? It makes it a lot more interesting, that's for sure. And we have Colin Allred in the race, of course. Now we have Tala Rico. Those are clearly the two front runners here.

There are other candidates. Terry Vert's former astronaut is in the race. But this is a two-horse race, I think. And what I told the college kids was, you know, Tala RICO has the, he's very well-spoken. He has the potential to catch lightning in a bottle. He could also flame out. I think it's going to go one or two ways.

And, you know, his willingness to go on Joe Rogan, take his message to people that don't typically agree with him or aren't his typical audience, you know, that's going to be an asset in this race. And we'll see if he continues to do that. But he raised right off the bat a million dollars, in 12 hours, which is quite a haul. He's going to need to keep that up,

especially given Colin Allred's fundraising prowess. You know, there's a lot of criticism, particularly in the Democratic ranks, of Allred in his campaign against Cruz and how well he ran a race. But he did absolutely raise a lot of money. And it'll be interesting to see if that is maintained, but he's got the track record.

So Tala Rico is going to need to it's going to need to really raise quite a lot of money, I think, in this. Well, I don't feel like, is there a lot of daylight on policy positions

between Allred and Tallinn. Or is it just a personality difference? Certainly a personality difference where Tala Rico is very well-spoken, very affable. Colin Allred is not horrible at that, but that's just he's not super great at

you know grabbing the attention of listeners like Tala Rico is that's certainly a competitive advantage for for Tala Rico in this race it was interesting seeing his opening messaging which focused heavily

on you know the regular people versus the billionaires that's the way he was messaging this he's flat out said you know the biggest divide in our country is not Right versus left. It's top versus bottom. Billionaire mega donors and their puppet politicians have taken over our state in our country rigging the system for themselves. That's going to be a frequent theme of this. And, you know, Allred is very much, I mean, I'm sure he would say the same thing. Right. But he hasn't packaged the message into a slogan like that.

Right. And this is going to be the centerpiece of Talarico's campaign. And I don't know, it's going to be interesting to see how he does and where he goes from here. Yeah, and even though we've continued to see Texas get redder over the past decade, Tala RICO is a force on social media. He has the ability to generate attention on TikTok, you know, most of the time, you know, when we talk about Tala RICO, it's, you know, a clip of him going viral. And that propelled him into an interview with Joe Rogan, like he mentioned, because of his popularity online. He has millions of followers.

Millions of followers. And he's routinely someone who speaks up for the Democratic point of view on many of the more cultural war issues in the Texas House. He's always prepared with the speech. So he has his talking points down. He knows how to defend them. it'll be interesting to see if we get an opportunity to have all red and Tala Rico face off in a debate of some kind to see the differencing in messaging because I don't think there's going to be much daylight between them on

policy positions maybe one tries to trend towards the middle on something especially on the men and women sports issue which was such a big thing during 2024, is that going to, their positions on that going to be something that comes to the forefront in the midterms? I'm not sure. It wasn't the biggest issue, which was the economy, but it was a very effective wedge issue that the cruise campaign used against all red, right? Right, right.

That's why I brought it up. But it'll be interesting to see. He is a young candidate, a young voice on the left. And we, I think a good comparison is someone like Greg Kassar, who is very much a fire brand, who is willing to step in front of the microphone and speak directly to people. Tala Rico is sort of trying to fill that lane here. So it'll be interesting. It actually, it really does spice up the race.

And, you know, I see the comparison to Kassar, certainly in profile, but I think it is interesting that Talarico is always very calm and measured in these very, can be very tense floor of debates, right? He's always composed. Can he make the firebrand persona work with how he is naturally, which is calm under pressure? I don't know, it would be interesting to see. His slogan has been And he said it and is actually very well done from a production standpoint, launch video. It's time to start flipping tables, referencing, you know, the Bible and Jesus going into the temple and flipping the table. Well, and I think that's an interesting aspect of his political positioning as well is that he very much leans on that theological training that he has to support his arguments. will that add leverage to his message on the Democratic side when he's facing all red here?

Is that sort of progressive theological message going to land with the base, especially here in Texas? Is that what people want to hear? Is that going to bring more people to his side rather than all reds in this race? It's an interesting setup here. Yeah, and of course, Democratic. are kind of banking on Ken Paxton being the nominee because they believe he is beatable. As we've talked about, though, the state has gotten redder. I don't think this is going to be a 2018 cycle.

Now, it's also not going to be a 24 cycle. It's going to be somewhere in the middle. And Tala Rico wrote in on the Beto wave, flipped a house seat when he won in 2018. If he is the nominee, can he have? have the same effect down ballot that Beto O'Rourke did? No idea. It's a giant question mark. And Beto is much more combative in how he butts up against conservatives and Republicans.

We've seen that. And Tala Rico is on the other end of that. Like you mentioned, he's much more calm, measured in his statements. and I think tell me if I'm wrong on this but it the beta wave was sort of energized through that combativeness in terms of how he was approaching issues would you say that's a correct assessment like being able to generate clips and videos and things but then also is will that is Is that what people are craving right now as well?

It's going to set up an interesting situation here with the two different personalities. The Beto Wave and his personality versus could potentially something happened similar with Tala Rico, since he does have such a big social media following. But he's very different in how he approaches issues. Yeah. I mean, I would say Tala RICO is combative, but he's less bombastic about it. And there's the difference, and, you know, we'll see how far that different style takes him. First, he's got to win the Democratic primary, and, you know, there's been talk about other candidates jumping in.

Beto himself was mentioned a lot. I don't think that's going to happen now, but Joaquin Castro are waiting to hear what he does, whether it's Senate or I heard running for Gov. I've heard a bunch of other stuff. You know, I saw a URL, a domain was registered by this tracker thing I follow that was Gina for Texas governor, Gina Hinojosa. Her name, she's definitely considering a statewide run, whether it's the one I heard office for that I heard was comptroller, but, you know, maybe she had changed, and there's no Democrat running in the, there's no Democratic challenger to Greg Abbott right now, so somebody has to do that. So it's a big question mark, who does it, where they go. But we do have one answer in terms of, was Talarico going to jump into the Senate race?

And he has. And it will be very interesting to follow, that's for sure. All right. Moving on from that. Cameron, the other big Texas ledge news that happened this week was we finally got some sort of answer on THC. Maybe. Sort of. Walk us through that, the executive order that Governor Abbott put out.

Yeah, so this executive order comes after a regular session that saw SB3 pass, which was a total ban. Abbott vetoed that at the midnight deadline, placed it on the special session call for both the first and second special session. The legislators were not able to come to come to some sort of resolution on that issue. So it sort of left things standing as they were before the regular. session. Everything was status quo. But there was an idea that the status quo wasn't the correct position. Something needed to happen. And Abbott has said on multiple occasions he wants to see an age limit, even at the end of the special session. We saw rumors swirling that Charlie Garen's Agegate bill was potentially going to be something that could be brought up, or Briscoe,

Keynes, 175-page bill that apparently, you know, sources I talked to that Abbott's team and Briscoe Keynes team worked on together. Yeah. And it was a massive bill, tried to make everyone happy. Neither of those got across the finish line. So we were sort of waiting. What's going to happen? We finally got that.

Greg Abbott issued this executive order. Initially, we, in a first glance reading, you can think, oh, this place is an age gate. But once you did. into the actual language in the executive order it says it's going to task two different agencies the Texas Alcohol Beverage Commission and the Department of State Health Services with prohibiting the sale of hemp derived THC to minors but it does not explicitly state a specific age which is interesting so he's allowing these two different agencies and we we looked at

this you know there's two different ages that define a minor in statute one for alcohol is 21 and then for the Department of State Health Services is 18 and so they're going to have to come up with a age gate provision for hemp drive THC because right now in Texas there is no age limit also in the EEO it's tasking DHS or dishes I said that this week I've never heard that with reviewing existing rules agency rules they deal with total THC content and products, labeling, requirements, and record keeping. And so this is really a big development. Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, he has been consistent.

It's either an outright ban or we're not passing the bill. And that's what really put a big hold on this entire thing, is the state senators and lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, we're not going to pass anything other than a ban. We'll see if that energy remains in the 90th session, if they try and address this issue again, or if these agencies that are tasked with reviewing the current regulations come up with a new set of rules. That's something we're going to have to continue to follow, and we'll get more updates on that. but again it's still a very fluid situation because we saw Charles Perry put out a long thread about how there needs to be more regulations this was prior to the EO so it's the leader and the

individual senators who are wanting more oversight more regulation essentially an outright ban so if these agencies don't come up with an outright ban then are they going to try and address that in legislation in the next session we'll have to see and so you know when this was put out the general idea was that it's a they want to regulate regulatively rule through rulemaking process establish a 21 year old age gate correct is that but that 21 wasn't said in the executive order no it's not set in the order um abbott has publicly said that he wants to see 21 year old age gate but he doesn't have the lawmaking authority as the governor to do that it needs to be done legislatively but through this action by tasking the agencies that are in

charge of overseeing the manufacturing and sale not the manufacturing but the sale of these products it's sort of a way to get to that end point without outright stating it in the executive order. Okay, gotcha. And then, you know, you probably saw, but I think I saw the hemp coalition put out a statement and they actually were applauding it, right? Yeah, much of the, a lot of the hemp industry

has been asking for an age gate. You know, they, when you go to their website, this was during the special sessions and regular sessions, you know, as I've been writing all these stories. They'll say many of their retailers are already self-imposed, a 21-year-old or an 18-year-old age limit on sales. So they were doing this voluntarily already, and they were asking for some sort of regulations just so they can be seen as a legitimately operating business trying to help protect the public in the same way we do for alcohol sales. And so they were lauding this.

executive order so those other agency rules in terms of packaging and the type types of products that are being sold we'll see what sort of recommendations for upcoming rules for new rules these agencies come up with yeah this is certainly not the last it's not over yeah not the last chapter of this THC hemp fight and sounds like we won't will not be back for a third special session, at least on this. Right. Because of this executive order.

So the next step we'll see after this rulemaking process is whatever the legislature decides to do in 27 when they come back after the midterms next year. Right. Thank you, Cameron. Thanks for following this. Mary Lees, over to you. There was a retirement announcement in the Texas House. Give us details. Yeah. Earlier this week, State Representative Sam Harliss announced that he won't be returning to the Texas House. Once he finishes up, his current term, which is his fourth term, and that ends in 2027. He shared this first when he was at a luncheon hosted by the Northwest Forest Republican Women, and he shared it in a Facebook post saying, I've served my community as your state representative for House District 126 with great pride and honor,

respecting your confidence in me for four terms. And so his district 126, it's a made up of both the north and northwest parts of Harris County, including 4% of Harris County and then parts of the city of Houston. He talked about his roles in different legislation throughout his four terms. He said the unprecedented $34 million in flood appropriation. He talked about legislation. He had a hand in redefining and improving. He said the George R. Brown Convention Center. He talked about laws that protect our own local law enforcement services and guarantee that they have paid parity. And he talked about it. He said, you know, I've worked to make our community and state a better

place to live. Something we highlighted in the piece from Harless's time in the House where he kind of broke party lines with one other Republican member and joined House Democrats in a vote was to pass a bill through a House committee committee that raised the age to purchase. certain semi-automatic rifles from the age 18 and raised it to 21. And this was kind of, this bill was being pushed. There was a lot of pressure from parents of Yuvaldi school victims. And although there was this general consensus conclusion that this bill would die in House Calendar's Committee, it would never be brought to the floor and it was not.

He said in his announcement, his retirement announcement, I went to Austin, not for politics, but for purpose. and recent sessions have been both physically and mentally challenging. It is with great sadness that I announced today that I will not be seeking another term. And then he said that he thinks that it's time for him to focus on both his family and his own health and enjoy time with his granddaughter. Something notable, of course, about his seat is that his wife, former representative Patricia Harless, held his seat for a decade, preceding his time in the House.

So she held it for about a decade before he was elected to serve House District 126. House Speaker Dustin Burroughs acknowledged his time in the House, thanked him for his service, described him as a man of great integrity who's never been afraid to stand firm in his convictions, said he's a stalwart statesman. He has faithfully represented his district with honor and distinction, always putting Texans first. So I think, Brad, I think you might have the latest on folks who are rumored to be running for his seat. But when we wrote this piece, it was just an empty GOP field.

Yeah, and I'll say about Harless, you know, he's a lower profile member. You know, his style wasn't getting on the mics and, you know, talking, whether it was in debates or backing. Bills verbally, but he's very well respected in the house and, you know, rightfully so. And he's going to, I think, enjoy retirement away from this chaotic world that we operate in. And, you know, there's another example of the toll that the last three cycles have taken on members being in Austin for multiple specials. sessions, each biennium, in addition to the usual grueling five-month session. So, you know, I hope he enjoys retirement and gets to take a break and do what he wants, travel. I think he's going to want to travel with his wife.

He made the announcement at a Republican club meeting in Houston in the Houston area on Monday. And yes, Mary Lisa, the Kelly Peterson. Sam Harless's district director did file a CTA to run in the seats. I'm not sure. I haven't heard any whispers of other people jumping in, but I think that's a pretty good sign that she will have probably Harle's endorsement. Just a guess. I don't know that for sure.

But, like, you know, it seems to be a pretty good sign, I would say. Right. But, yeah, we'll see if anybody else jumps in. You know, when these seats open, if you want it, you've got to take a shot at it. Yep. And so we shall see on that end. Thank you, Mary Elise. Where are we going next?

Cameron, something about the Texas education. Oh, yeah, this is. You and Meredith wrote a good piece on Friday about the application of these, the parental bill of rights, right? That's correct. and how that either it is being ignored in schools or confused in its implementation. And we saw a lot of uproar about that on social media. You wrote a piece about it, and there was a follow-up this week as well with the TEA and them updating these policies.

Give us the whole rundown of this situation. Yeah, this is something that came out on Friday. It started off with a letter from Representative Jeff Leach, who said that some of these schools were using an all-or-nothing approach with implementing aspects of SB 12. And SB 12 was a bill that was passed during this past session called the Parent Bill Rights. And among a number of things, one of the things it's tasking school districts in the TEA would doing is developing a form so that parents can consent to mental health and physical

health services at the school providing in essence it's trying to provide greater transparency from these parents and what we began to see is an outpouring of responses after this letter was put up because one of the things that at least talked about was there was students not being treated with simply treated with ice packs and band-aids and at first we're like this can't be real and then we started to see parents and people involved say this is absolutely happening we saw posts of what these forms were looking like personal stories we cataloged that after doing some research reaching out to a number of different school districts and we were able to get eyes on a lot of these different forms hearing from parents themselves about what's happening and the

issues they've been encountering with these forms and it really did seem this all or nothing approach was preventing just common sense simple services to be provided and that was being said explicitly by some of these school districts on their on their school websites and on social media as well so there was a big uproar about this and shortly after that letter the TEA said okay we're going to be reviewing what is what the issues are with the implementation of these consent forms and we got that new guidance on Monday where they put out a brand new draft rule text they even put out a FAQ frequently asked questions and they updated language for for this guidance and so one of

the main things was providing a definition for what, quote, general caretaking is. And within that, they make sure to state that services, such as applying band-aids or treating a nose blade, or simply feeling a student's forehead for their temperature, can be done without parental consent. Additionally, whether these types of caretaking can be completed by school districts without the need for parental consent in their, if a cue it explicitly answers yes so really clears up that problem which was the main concern we were hearing on social media and when we reached out to people me and meredith on friday so hopefully this way there is an ability for these sort of simple physical treatments to be applied to students without the need to get parental consent hopefully that's followed up on one of the other things that was addressed in these new guidelines was the all-or-nothing approach because if people would like to read in the story we detail this that the mental health aspect that was really the impetus for SB 12 counseling services and things of that nature that

dealt with really the psychology of the student, and parents didn't want that. So mental health was seen under many of the forms that we saw under both physical and mental health categories that needed to, parents needed to provide consent for. In the new guidelines, they address that, and they say the school system may not create an all opt-out or an all-in approach to parental consent to health service. So hopefully these new guidelines and FAQ and the rule text clears up some of these issues. But I think it's a good thing to see that when issues are brought up in the public sphere in this way, both from your average text in it and from lawmakers who are observing what's happening,

happening. They're working with the state agencies. State agencies are seeing this and they're working on corrective measures when there is an issue. So I think that's a positive that can be taken away from this. Yeah. Thank you, Cameron. Mary Elise, over to you. There's a story about a big criminal bust that occurred in Houston, 800 people that were arrested. in a week-long ice operation. Can you give us the details of that? Yeah, this was another one of those week-long operations in Houston, a couple of them

that have yielded the highest numbers of criminal illegal aliens arrested have been in Houston, and this one was. So this was 822 criminal illegal aliens, and this happened between August 17th and August 23rd. They were arrested. The Houston ICE field director shared that five of them are gang members. Seven were convicted of sexual assault of a child, and three had homicide-related convictions.

So there were three individuals from, there were a handful of individuals highlighted by ICE, but three of those were from Mexico, one for alien smuggling, and then sexual assault of a minor. Another had convictions of forgery, fleeing police, driving while intoxicated, and several of them, most of them had a couple of illegal re-entries or entries. Then there were four of these folks that were arrested that are from El Salvador. Their convictions included sexual indecency with a minor, as well as sexual assault of a child, aggravated homicide, armed carjacking, and illegal reentry into the country. So they kind of, you know, they went through this press release. They highlighted a couple of the individuals, but it was 822 criminal illegal aliens in total that were arrested during this week long operation in Houston. They talked about, you know,

upon the rest of these folks, they said during the past four years, transnational gang members, foreign fugitives, and other violent criminal aliens took advantage of the crisis at our southern border to illegally enter the country and then said that many of them remained in the Houston area and have gone on to wreck havoc in our local communities. And this isn't the first time we've talked about one of these operations in Houston that yielded a couple hundred arrests of criminal illegal aliens. This is probably a fourth or fifth time that we've talked about it on this podcast. And I'm sure there will be more just considering where Houston is located and the intensity with

with which ICE is moving forward right now to, I'm looking to capture criminal illegal aliens. So I'm sure there will be further operations like this done in Houston and surrounding cities, but this is the latest one. And when you say criminal illegal aliens, these are people that have committed other crimes in addition to illegal entry, correct? Yes, and that's the phrasing that ICE is choosing to use when they're referring to these folks that are illegal aliens, but have, in addition, been convicted of different offenses such as child sexual assault, and that's when they use the criminal legal alien phrase.

Okay. Thank you, Mary Elise. Cameron, the last story, it's about the state fair. They have updated their, well, they've released their firearm policy for 2025, and obviously this has been a big ordeal over the last couple of years. particularly playing out in court, what can we expect from the state fair this year? Yeah, the firearm prohibition remains as a role for the Texas State Fair for the 139th edition. Like you mentioned, this has been an ongoing struggle between the state fair and state lawmakers and elected officials. Paxen sued the fair in the city of Dallas, alleging it was in a violation of the Second Amendment rights to the state's constitutional carry law that was passed in 2021.

His case was denied and rejected at multiple levels of the state judiciary with the most recent decision seeing a Dallas County district judge ruling against Paxton. There was in August 24, a group of 70 Texas Republicans issued a letter to the Farrarist Governing Board, asking them to rescind their decision. They have not. It remains. It's something that is. I carry over from the previous year, and of course, this went into effect.

They made this decision, rather, following a shooting during the 2023 State Fair where the government Cameron Turner pled guilty to aggravated assault and unlawfully carrying a weapon in a prohibited place and was sentenced to 12 years in prison. So some other things, some other rules, if people are interested here, they're going to have a clear bag policy. They're also going to be requiring people pass through a weapons detection system. system. So they're really trying to make sure the state fair is safe and orderly with these additional measures here. Just the prohibition on bringing guns into the state fair remains. Thank you, Cameron. Let's hit Twittery before we close this out. Mary Elise, I'll go to you first. Well, X is not the best place to be on right now, as Brad mentioned earlier, but something I did see is that Charlie Kirk's casket will be flown on Air Force too. And I think that's a great example of his influence on the current administration and his relationship with particularly the vice president, J.D. Vance, who wrote a long post last night talking about Charlie Kurt's influence in his life and in his career. But definitely a unique honor that you don't see being given to the average

individual. So I just wanted to highlight that. Cameron, over to you. I've been reading so many articles this morning, just the outpouring of love for Charlie Kirk and everything that he built and everything that he has done for the conservative movement. I just want to, I could shout out any number of these articles, but I want to shout out the American Mind. they published an article by Joshua Trevino from the Texas Public Policy Foundation, and the article titled Charlie Kirk, Martyr, and comparing the impact Charlie Kirk had on the conservative movement to how Socrates brought debate into the city and was killed for it. And I think Charlie Kirk's lasting impact on

how he really promoted the freedom of exchange of ideas. Hopefully that remains and things don't get worse, but I'd encourage everyone to go read this American Mind article. Thank you, Cameron. I'm going to mention a statement that was put out by Congressman Morgan Latrell. He announced that he's not seeking re-election. He said in part, over the July 4th weekend, standing in floodwaters alongside my neighbors, I had a moment of clarity. It reminded me that while the work in Washington is important, my family, my community, and my state need me here closer to home. I'm not walking away from service, and I'm certainly not walking away from the fight.

I'm choosing a different path, one that allows me to stay rooted in Texas and focus on the people and places that matter. most went on to say while I maybe stepping back from public office at the end of 26 I'm not stepping out of the arena I will continue to champion the value as a define our great state faith family and freedom Texas is where I belong and it's where I can do the most good this is an interesting decision for like the dominoes that could fall from this you know like that leaves that makes an open congressional seats in in the Houston Exurban area was interesting because they in the redraw we saw Conroe split in half between the 8th congressional district Latrell's district and the second congressional district

which is Dan Crenshaw of course there's a heated primary going on in the second congressional district with Crenshaw, Steve Toth, a couple of other candidates. You know, does that, does this vacancy influence someone to jump over to that seat and run there? Whether it's Toth or anyone else, I don't know. We'll see where the domino's fall there. Jessica Steinman, who is a conservative activist, she was mulling a run for Senate District 4, which is Creighton's seat. and of course he's now going to Texas Tech she did put out a statement and said

that she is considering a run for this eighth congressional district now you know that would be certainly someone to watch and would be a formidable candidate in whatever race she decides to run in but if this is open Conroe will

decide a lot I think in that and it's another another vacancy in this 2026 midterm that this is going to be a lot of stuff to follow and it's going to be interesting because there's going to be a lot of big fights going on and this will be one of them.

So with that I'll just say that this has been a tough episode for all of us and hopefully we handled it with the appropriate level of grace and

and judgment it's it's been a tough week and there's been a lot of really terrible things that have happened in this country over the last few years and you know tragedy after tragedy

and this is just another one and you know say a prayer for his family his wife and now his orphan children not orphaned but his children that are now without a father and hope that this stuff stops because, you know, we don't need any more tragedy in this country and in the States.

And there's been a lot of that, whether it's by nature or by human force, this has just been tough. So with that, we're going to end this week's episode of the weekly roundup. We'll talk to you next week. God bless you all. 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 us an email to Editor at the Texan. News.

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