June 8, 2022 – Second Reading Podcast

Welcome to the second reading podcast from the university of Texas at Austin, the Republicans were in the democratic party because there was only one party. So I tell people on a regular basis, there is still a land of opportunity in America. It’s called Texas. The problem is these departures from the constitution.

They have become the norm. At what point must a female Senator raise her hand or her voice to be recognized. Over the male colleagues in the room. And welcome back to the second reading podcast. I’m Jim Henson, director of the Texas politics project at the university of Texas at Austin. I’m happy to be joined today by Molly Hennessy, Fisk, the Houston bureau, chief of the Los Angeles times.

Uh, Molly’s been a staff writer for the LA times since 2006 in Houston, uh, Los Angeles, Washington, and in the middle east it’s bureau. I’ve talked to Molly many times over the years for stories and am very pleased to have her here today. Molly. Thanks for being here. Are you on the road or coming to us from Houston?

Thanks for having me. No, I’m back home in Houston for a little while. Um, no doubt before you get out again. I suspect. Yeah, I’m trying not to jinx it. I have stories to write. Yeah. I got to get one’s kind of work done before I can do another right. Well, I invited Molly to be a guest initially because of a story she wrote a few weeks ago while I was kind of out of the loop on the activities of the Patriots for America militia.

Uh, on the Texas border, um, at stories published on May 13th and the LA times. Um, and I want to start by talking about that story, but, but Molly has also written and reported prolifically. Speaking of having work to do from Ubaldi in the aftermath of the mass shooting at Robb elementary, which of course, you know, I also want to talk about, uh, but I do want to start with, uh, with your reporting on Patriots for America.

And the dynamic of how these groups are insinuating themselves into this situation on the Texas Mexican border. One of the things that I loved about the story was the close reporting you embedded with them for a few days. Uh, tell us about how that was set up and, and give us a sense of what that was like.

Experientially. I mean, the reporting is very, you know, very vividly written, but I’m just curious what that was like to. So I had heard about the militia back in December, and I should note that they call themselves a militia. Um, so that’s not me putting that label on them. They embrace that label and, and took some time to explain to me what it means to them.

So, um, I heard about them in December and contacted them and they, um, said they’d be more than willing to have me come and cover them at, uh, uh, Um, commissioner’s court meeting, but they weren’t willing to have me in bed until they saw, you know, how, um, balanced my reporting was. So I did that initial story and they said they thought it was fair.

Um, there were other reporters there, um, uh, while I was there and they seem to think it was fair, local reporters. So, um, after that, they said I could embed with them and I had to cover some other things before that. Um, and it ended up working out that I embedded with them right before. There were news reports that title 42, the pandemic era, a rule that has prevented a lot of migrants from claiming asylum that was due to get removed.

It ended up getting tied up in the courts, but they were very concerned as, as other conservatives were concerned that that title 42 would get removed and a lot of migrants would be allowed to enter, um, uh, legally. And so it was a really interesting time to be there with them, talking to them about, um, how they were preparing what they were doing and going on patrols with.

It seems then you probably have some sense of this. Although I, it did sound like from the story they were. Not completely forthcoming, but I’m wondering how much you learned about, you know, how they organize these patrols. I mean, it strikes me as kind of an undertaking for them to do this. I mean, what are the, what were the logistics of that like?

Yeah. So Sam hall, um, is the guy who founded Patriots for America. He’s based in, uh, in the metroplex area in north. Texas. And most of the volunteers, the members of the militia come from taxes, but some come from out of state like Florida. Uh, there’s the guy from Illinois from the Chicago area. Um, they have, uh, you know, a presence online.

They get donations online. Sam used to work as a salesman, but now he just, um, pretty much runs the militia. They do these week long, what they call rotations, um, once a month. Down in the, in the you Valdez area, but they’d also been in Kenny county, which is right nearby there. So a little bit north of the border, but while I was there, they were going down to Eagle pass right on the river, on the Rio Grande.

Um, most of the, the folks bring their own equipment, their own like long guns, AR 15 style rifles, but then also like pistols. They wear tactical gear, like vests have radios with earpieces, communicate a little bit in code for security. They say, um, Their main focus is trafficking victims, children and women.

Um, and also cartels and working hand in hand is the way they, they see it with law enforcement, supporting government, not opposed to government, like there are some militias that are opposed to the government. They, I felt like it to your question about how forthcoming they were. I thought they were pretty forthcoming, especially.

I mean, I stayed with them and so we’d be out patrolling until like two, three in the morning sometimes. Or we would patrol during the day and then be back at this ranch where they were staying. Um, and we would talk just to have conversations about all sorts of things. Um, and I would ask questions, like, do you believe in Q Anon?

Um, and Sam said, when he said, no, I said, well, but do you believe in Pizzagate? And then he said, yes. And we talked about the differences between that. Um, he doesn’t believe in Q Anon, but he does like, um, Marjorie Taylor green, who is a lawmaker who has embraced Cunanan. And then, so we talked about how he sort of rationalizes though, those two things.

So I felt like we had some pretty interesting conversations and then I also got to just see them in action. And in addition to the story, I recorded a lot of audio. And so we did a podcast as well. So people could just hear, um, them presenting themselves in their own words. And people can find that podcast on the LA times website.

Right. Okay. Well, you know, I, I’m glad that you went directly there because you went to two things I really want to ask you about, and I want to start with probably the tougher thing since, you know, the, you got credit from them for being, even handed. I mean, I thought one of the great things about the story was the way you do present.

That being yet have that conversation about, you know, Q Anon versus pizza gate and the distinctions there in, you know, from the outside, those probably seem like kind of minor distinctions. Right. But I’m also, you know, you know, you also included them saying that, you know, they are not white supremacists.

They are not anti-government. How do you sort that out? I mean, how do you evaluate those claims? In terms of their own self-understanding in terms of what you came away with. Yeah. I mean, they feel very strongly about that. And I actually, when I went back to the area to cover the, you validate shooting the shooting at the elementary school and they happened to be on patrol, um, for their may week long patrol.

And I went and revisited them and we talked about their thoughts on the story. And that was one thing that was one of the members had had taken issue with was including allegations from the ACLU and, and as Southern poverty law. You know, saying that they’re racist white supremacist, um, that they were posing as law enforcement, that they were questioning migrants when they, when the migrants, you know, maybe assumed that they were law enforcement and didn’t have a right to say, no, I don’t want to talk to you.

Um, especially children, um, who law enforcement have special training and questioning and so forth. Um, I mean, I feel. My job there was really just to observe and report to try to ask informed questions that, um, push them on things like the Q Anon point, but at the same time, I talked to the ACLU. I talked to SPLC and then I went back to Sam hall and said, well, you know, they’re saying this stuff about you.

This is what the complaints say, that the ACLU submitted to the justice department. And I sent him copies of the complaints and said, can you tell me what you think of that? And I included that as well. So I like to leave it up to the reader to decide, okay. I think it’s also interesting that if you look at the, the complaints ACLA submitted to the justice department, they cite a number of media reports as evidence.

So I also feel like going out with them and documenting is just, you know, creating something that can be judged by the larger world or can be interpreted by the larger world. Yeah. And I thought you did a good job of, you know, that there’s a lot of description of what they’re doing in the, in the dialogue you capture without drawing that conclusion.

You know, the other thing that came up in your first, you know, that in your first response to this is also kind of the, uh, you know, what I, and maybe this is too stark, a contrast, but the issue of policy versus reality on the ground, When it comes to law enforcement interactions with these groups, you mentioned in the story that DPS has a kind of, you know, I’m not sure exactly how to describe it, a kind of a morphous, you know, keep your distance strategy.

But it seems to me, the, the descriptions, you have show a much, a much more complex set of interactions between official law enforcement and at least. Well, you know, talk about that. What did you see that in a hand, you know, what, what is happening there? Part of the reason I really wanted to go out there and be with them.

And, and I was glad that I was able to do that, that they let me do that. Is those interactions with law enforcement? I mean, I’ve been covering stuff on the border doing ride alongs with border patrol, as well as other agencies like constables and sheriffs in different parts of the border. For more than a decade.

I’ve never seen this before. I’ve never seen. Armed civilians out. Number one out on the border in places where law enforcement is patrolling and then talking to law enforcement conferring with them about where to go kind of coordinating. I mean, not kind of, they work, coordinate, they coordinate with Sheriff’s offices, but then when we were in Eagle pass, they were passing, um, national guard, border patrol agents, Constable sheriff, uh, local police.

And they would talk to them. The people with law enforcement would come up and say, oh, you’re that militia? Or where they already would know them. So that was really different for me. And I like to be there when new things are happening to see, like, how is this, how is this working in some of the times we’re out there.

Like I said, late at night and absolute darkness. Um, a lot of these stretches of the river, there is no light unless it’s like a full moon or something. And. And so these encounters were not, um, they weren’t tense. They, they would show up where border patrol had, um, detained a group of migrants with kids and families and let them question the migrants.

And I’ve got that recordings of that, and they post videos of themselves doing it as well. So you can go on there on their website or their Facebook page and see. Yeah, I think that is a very striking aspect of this. And I, I mean, were you surprised when you saw that at first? Well, I had seen the videos they posted, so it was more that I really wanted to be there and witness myself and then also ask questions of the people who were there.

I speak, um, I’m not fluent, but I speak conversational Spanish. I was able to, as I usually do, when I go on ride alongs, talk to the migrants, talk to the kids, talk to the parents, figure things out a little bit. You know, again, I’m not law enforcement either. So I always identify myself who I am. You know, that I’m a reporter with the LA times and ask if they’re willing to talk to me and that if they are then I, you know, so while for instance, there was one interaction where Sam was questioning and unaccompanied, uh, or a couple of unaccompanied children, girls, and then questioning, um, Adults in the group, there was another member of the militia who spoke a little Spanish and another person who was fluent and they were questioning.

And I tried to sort of hang back a little bit and just listened to what they were all saying and, and document that and record it. And then I asked my own questions in Spanish to follow up and see what more I could. Uh, another aspect of this that I thought was really interesting, given your kind of ground up approach on this was, you know, impressions of the kind of state local dynamic.

Obviously governor rabbit has put a lot of resources and a lot of financial resources from the state and a lot of. I should say governor Abbott and the legislature to be fair. Although governor Abbott has also done this with a lot of his own discretion on the spending, but, uh, they put a lot of financial resources.

And also, uh, what would you say a lot of rhetorical resources called a lot of attention to state efforts on the border. I’m wondering what kind of reactions you got to that, you know, being embedded at the local level, but from the militia and from the local authority. Right. That was very interesting too.

And I think it’s an important point to make. Um, it’s governor Abbott has dubbed it operation lone star, um, this, uh, Uh, influx of, uh, department of public safety, state troopers of, um, of money. They lined up container shipping containers along the river in Eagle pass and built their own, um, quote unquote wall or fencing with Barb wire on top of it and members of the militia, as well as, um, some of the local officials I talked to like the valley mayor were very skeptical of all of this.

They said it’s a drop in the bucket. The Sam was pointing out the spaces between the shipping containers, how sh you know, short, he thought the fence was it wasn’t like the big steel bollard fence that border patrol has built and other stretches of the border. Um, the fact that. That the militia members or Sam feel like, um, law enforcement is, is overtaxed.

That there still aren’t enough people there given the size of the groups or the number of migrants or how regularly they’re showing up. You mentioned, uh, the sheriff and the sheriff has sadly enough become a bit more well-known since you initially I’m sorry, the mayor. Yes. The Marriott of all the Don McGlaughlin.

Um, I’m wondering what your impressions were of him in the initial reporting. I mean, you, you know, you very efficiently paint a vivid portrait of him in the malicious story. And if you have thoughts on his reaction since the shooting. Yeah. So I actually had talked to him by phone a couple of times before, um, I was embedded with the militia and they just happened to mention to me while I was there.

Do you want to stay an extra half a day because we’re going to meet with the mayor and you can come if you want. And I said, of course, I said, sure, I want to see this interaction and how it plays out because we’re trying to get. Yeah, they were trying to get buy in from him. And it ended up being a very interesting scene because you had McLaughlin in his office.

He runs sort of like an industrial business. So he’s there in his office with, you know, deer and other kinds of exotic game heads on the walls and Fox news on the flat screen TV. Of where they’re sitting and he’s, um, chewing tobacco. And it feels like a very kind of like old school, Texas scene. Um, and like I said, he was, um, he was, had been kind of skeptical of what the governor was doing, although he appreciated the resources and he had been in touch with the governor’s office and with the Texas attorney.

General’s office ahead of this concern about the title 42 getting lifted. And he ended up being really receptive to the militia and doing like a handshake agreement with them. Literally. Uh, I, that didn’t surprise me. Um, I did. I was a little bit surprised, uh, with you valley that he didn’t, he wasn’t more vocal upfront, but I think it was just, you know, with the shooting.

I mean, but I think it was, you know, the politics at play all the different personalities and the fact that it was all these children, um, who had been killed and. He was probably hearing a lot from all different members of the community. And that was the main need was like helping his community. Well, that that’s a good point of transition.

You’ve been on the ground there a bit. We were talking before we came on the air. I, you know, I’m just kind of wondering, you know, obviously there’s been a ton of reporting from there. Get the sense that, you know, obviously on a, on a community that size, this is going to just have a huge impact. I’m just wondering, you know, like give us some of your impressions about the overall situation in the town, right?

Well, and another thing, um, that’s newsy today is they’re having a congressional hearing, um, which included, um, video or recorded testimony from, um, some of the children who survived, which I was looking at earlier today and is, um, really, um, striking and scary, uh, So it’s, the story is ongoing there’s reports that the families may Sue the gun manufacturer or have, um, sued the, the late gunman and his family.

Um, so I think we’re going to be seeing a lot more news coming out of you’ve already in the, in the weeks to come. Um, I got there the, the evening of the shooting. And it was this very strange time because I was outside of the civic center there. And, uh, that’s where all these families and relatives and friends were waiting to find out, um, whether their children had survived and going inside and submitting DNA tests like cheek swabs.

And I had never seen that before. I’ve covered a lot. Of mass shootings. How am I covered Sandy hook, the pulse shooting in Florida, the Santa Fe shooting here in Santa Fe, high school shooting, um, the Parkland shooting, um, the El Paso shooting. And I’d never seen anything like that. And families being just like left in suspense like that.

Um, and then of course they started finding out, uh, the news about their kids and, and them being so young. And like you said, a small community, um, It was, it was hard both for them. And then also the families of the kids who have survived some of the families, it was the same family. They lost one child and then another child survived.

So, um, I stayed for a couple of days and talk to some of the families. Um, and then, uh, went back to Houston and cover the NRA convention, which was my third NRA convention to cover, uh, here in Texas. Certainly the largest protests outside of. Convention I’d covered. Um, but I also was credentialed to cover the convention itself.

So I was inside talking to participants as well. And then, um, and then I went back to Valdez and covered the first funeral, which was for one of the little girls that 10 year old little girl. And you and others have written stories about survivors reaction to. Seem to have been obvious problems in the police response and use talked about some of the already some of the movement on legal action.

I’m curious in, in having been around people in the town, so, so much, you know, how close to the surface and how prevalent is, is that is the, you know, the feeling that the, you know, the police handled this poorly. Uh, a lot of people were talking about it once it began to come out that the, the. Um, I think a lot of us that reporters, but then also people in town were very surprised because, um, I think there’s like an implicit trust in the narrative that initially gets released by, by and law enforcement.

And we’re learning, um, to question, you know, to be a lot more skeptical. And, and I think, I mean, a lot of us reporters were asking questions. I remember asking the, the DPS spokesman, um, just, you know, standing outside of the perimeter around the school, asking about particular details of the response when they were breaking windows, when they were actually entering the school and he was giving the information.

Don’t worry me, but it turned out the information he was providing was flat out wrong. So, um, I think we’ve all learned that we need to be, at least I have that I need to be also doing, I mean, I was chasing a lot of things at the same time, but, you know, chasing more witness accounts and, and trusting more when people are saying there was a delay.

Um, the other thing I noticed was. When I went back to cover the funerals the week after I went over to the school and they had removed the perimeter on Memorial day in L like hundreds of people had come from, um, some even from out of state, but certainly from San Antonio, from Houston, from Dallas, just people who didn’t even know any of the families who just wanted to pay their respects and be there.

And. And some of the neighbors had brought out like water to give to people, cold water and snacks. And I went over to talk to some of them and it turned out the ladies I talked to worked at the school and the cafeteria. And as we’re sitting there in their yard on lawn chairs talking, one of their nephews walks up and he hears we’re talking about the shooting.

And he says, well, you know, it wasn’t the gun that did it. It was the person. And the aunt says, oh, I don’t want to hear about it. You know, it was the gun and we need gun control. I know your position on this. And then he starts talking about gun rights and they’re having this whole debate and I’m not even asking any questions.

And some other news outlets had said this, that the town has become really visibly divided on, uh, gun rights or gun control. And I was seeing it with my own eyes. I mean, I written a story about guns and gun laws, but to see people just spontaneously within a family debating, it was. I mean, that was something new for me.

And, um, and it’s certainly something that’s going on there. Well, that’s, you know, that’s interesting. That was going to be my next question, which is just how evident the politics of the situation are there. And, you know, I don’t want to, you know, get too much into the weeds here, you know, I’m wondering like, What your sense was of how heated that discussion was and, you know, what, what, what the, you know, how much that is entering into the obvious mourning process and the other things that are going on?

Well, it struck me because, um, as soon as the news broke, Or soon after the news broke, um, I was talking to editors who were saying, you know, do you think this is gonna, is this gonna create a big gun control movement? Like this is Texas, you know, south Texas. And I was reflecting on the fact that, you know, like I mentioned, I covered Parkland and Santa Fe high school shootings, which were both school shootings, which happened, you know, not too far apart from each other and Parkland.

Um, obviously there was a very big reaction. I remember. Uh, press conference in the middle of the street, like after it happened. And David Hogg, one of the students ended up becoming quite high profile, was sitting next to me and he just started going off to me about how we needed gun control. And this had to be a decisive motive, but this was like a day after the shooting.

And I had never heard that. We’d never heard students say that before. And I thought this is something really different. But then I covered Santa Fe and my, I think editors and some in the public were expecting a similar reaction. And I was just saying, no, I’m not seeing that at all. And I wasn’t. And so with you valley, I thought, well, it’ll probably be more like Santa Fe and it really wasn’t.

It was, it was more of a mix because you did have conversations. Like the one I described where, where people even within families were debating it like openly, not within their house, not away from the eyes of a reporter, but right out on the lawn. But there was a nuance to it that you didn’t have in places like Parkland or Sandy hook, which is a lot of these people are going owners, even the ones who are talking about gun control, often prefaced what they were saying by saying, well, I own a gun.

Um, and some of the protestors at the NRA convention would, would say that to me too, you know? Well, I’m a gun owner and I don’t want to take guns away, but. You know, I support red flag laws or I support safe storage laws or, um, no one should be able to purchase an AR 15 style rifle or there should be age limits.

Yeah. I mean, I think that’s been one of the. You know, one of the really complicated, I mean, so, you know, I keep calling it complicated in some ways it’s complicated in some ways it’s not, but I mean, I think it, you know, one of the factors in this, you know, that we’ve seen in, you know, tons of polling that we’ve done on this issue.

I mean, you know, unfortunately we’ve done a lot of polling on it because of the mass shootings that have happened in Texas, but is that, you know, there is a lot of. Tolerance at least, but even support for some of the measures that are on the table right now, including among people that you would assume are not inclined to favor gun regulation, you know, uh, to, to summarize that briefly Republicans and even conservatives, you know, who are, you know, show narrow.

But still clear majority’s in favor of things like red, red flag laws, but even more so in favor of background checks. On the other hand, if you look at the broader underlying attitudes about beliefs, like. You know, whether guns increase your personal safety or whether guns make society more guns to make society more safe, it’s much more complicated.

And the underlying attitudes about guns are still, you know, fairly skeptical and, you know, almost defensive of gun control, even though they will, they will favor those kinds of intermediate measures. Well, and I heard this, um, from a number of people with the NRA convention. Who I would describe as like city gun owners, you know, people who live in cities as opposed to in new valley, there were a lot of people who had guns on their, you know, family ranch, or they lived in a semi-rural area.

But the people I talked with the NRA were saying that slippery slope argument, which, you know, to your point, which is okay, a red flag law, but then where does that lead? Like once we agree to that, then are we going to have like, you know, Like just like with assault, weapon ban. Okay. Assault, weapon ban is fine, but then that’s a ban.

And that means once you have one band, you could have others. Right? I mean, I think it was Dan Crenshaw shortly after was asked about raising, you know, the, the, the age in which you can buy an assault weapon from 18 to 21 who kind of said, well, that seems reasonable, but then are you going to raise it to 22?

And I think that slippery slope argument and I, and I think. You know, frankly, defenders of gun rights or defenders have a more comprehensive, fundamental understanding of the second amendment have adopted that strategy as, as their go-to strategy. And it does help to kind of stave off and, or, you know, at least defend a, their position in these kinds of debates.

Well, and I do think, you know, living here in Texas, Um, when I talk to people or, or people are, you know, I work for California paper, so I’ll get emails from readers about, you know, guns, stories, immigration stories, other things, but gun stories in particular. Um, it, it ha I think it helps to remind people, there are a lot of guns here.

And so whatever laws you pass, it’s not necessarily going to impact the fact that there already are a lot of guns here. So, you know, I, I look at these proposals and it’s sort of like, yeah, but what is, what is that going to matter? If the guns are already out? Yeah. And I, and I think that that is one of the most difficult things about this debate.

And I, and I think that, you know, it, it poses a, uh, you know, I think you’re right at post is a very vaccine policy problem, but it also kind of stymies a discussion. You know, what can happen, you know, what you can do given those fundamentals. Right. And I also remember after the El Paso Walmart shooting, um, the governor convened this group and there were Texans for gun safety, put forward a bunch of proposals on, um, what they call, you know, responsible gun ownership or responsible, you know, um, limitations.

And none of that happened right. Then I think, you know, My own sense of that explanation is about when that all happened in political time. You know, I think that, you know, those. The Midland shooting and the El Paso shootings happen in all what August of 2019, that was when the governor and the Lieutenant governor, you know, got some national attention for seeming to be open to gun control measures of, uh, you know, Relatively mild manner, but still something that was a departure for both of them.

Um, but then I think is the political cycle unfolded in 2020 and 2021. It’s hard to ignore the fact that you went from seeming to consider these measures in the fall of, uh, late summer and fall of, of 20, 19 to a 2021 session after the 2020 election in which they basically moved in the opposite direction.

And then. Yeah, well, and I don’t know how much, I mean, in the longterm, the changing demographics of Texas are going to have an impact on this. I don’t know because, um, I was thinking about it. You know, what you were saying about the election cycles? I just, I think about the past reporting I’ve done on gun rights and remember the big debate about campus carry and how much backlash there was, especially at UT, um, or in Austin, um, but also in the cities, um, and also to open carry.

Um, but you know, the gun laws still pass. And when I saw, um, Uh, Beto O’Rourke get up, um, at that press conference that the governor was having a new valley and, and talk about, you know, this is your responsibility and this is on you and then go outside and rail against, um, air fifteens and, and guns, the way that he did after the El Paso shooting.

I mean, that clearly does represent some tax in some of what people in this red state believe, but it’s. I wouldn’t say, like you said, the polling shows, that’s not the way most people feel well. I mean, I think because there are crosscurrents that it gives a lot of leverage to the political leadership and in this state, the political leadership has a lot of incumbent advantages and a lot of opportunity, you know, to, you know, to put it bluntly, to wait this.

Um, and what we’ve seen in the past, you know, both nationally and in the state is that after a mass shooting like this, you see some, you know, a surge, obviously in attention, but also minor shifts in public opinion, but then they roll back and you, you know, if you’re a Republican in Texas in particular, you’re Republican, running for election as governor rabbit and the statewide officials are this time.

You have a lot of opportunity to shape the agenda. Um, and I think we’ve seen that in the last week. I mean, I think the governor and the legislative leadership are kind of diffusing that pressure right now. There’ll be, as you were mentioning, there are hearings in Washington today. The first house committee in Texas that was appointed to look at this as is meeting tomorrow.

I was, we recorded this song. I think it’s, it’s, it’s important to note as somebody did, when I posted that on Twitter at first, that that committee has not addressed. Guns they’re addressing school safety. And the announcement about that committee said nothing about guns in it. Yeah, there’s a, there’s a, there’s a five bullet point list that the governor put out in.

One of them is a very, you know, obtuse reference to buyer, arm safety, I think, but it’s embedded in, you know, a bunch of other stuff. And I think that’s, that’s exactly the kind of diffusion I’m talking about between that and hammering the mental health point them, and then also the school safety points.

So I think, you know, with much less. Ben bear, but in something that is going to take a lot of bureaucratic energy, the governor’s also directed tea to revisit the implementation of SB 11 and to, you know, expand consideration and rulemaking on, on school safety and all of those things, you know, don’t have to do with guns.

And I think that’s, you know, that’s part of the reframing that we’re talking. Although I, I should note too, that when you talk about school safety and guns, it could go the other way, which is after Santa Fe, I went up to our outside of Dallas to do a story about how the school there participates in that guardians program.

It’s about 10% of schools in Texas. I think that allow school staff to be armed, not just teachers, but like any staff in the school. And, um, and that was very, they let me go and just, um, The interview teachers, students, administrators was really interesting, but, um, it could go in that direction, more schools doing that.

And I did hear, um, parents in new valley saying they want that, right. W which I guess, is, is a gun based solution of another variety that, you know, the research has shown is not particularly effective, but, um, that’s a, that’s a policy discussion for later, I suppose. You know, I think another thing is, you know, In terms of where this goes forward, is that in an election year, we were talking before we started cynical, as it may sound.

I do think that, as we said earlier, the governor and his political team are waiting this out to some degree and there is another crisis brewing on the board. Yeah, that the whole title 42 issue. And even if you set title forwarded to aside, because Biden announced that that title 42 was going to be lifted or the administration announced it, and that was supposed to happen last month.

Um, a whole lot of migrants came up to the border and intestine in anticipation of that. And Homeland security has even said that that they’re, they believe they’re staging. On the other side, we’ve seen larger groups crossing recently, um, crossing illegally, um, that border patrol has been reporting. So.

It’s all. It really seems like it’s only a matter of time. I mean, those people are going to cross. No, it’s it’s yeah. I mean, that seems to be brewing and, and there was like a little bit of coverage of that. I think in early may that I kind of got right, because it was supposed to be lifted May 23rd, 10 42.

And so a lot of media went down there and we’re staging and preparing and we’re. And we’re hearing about these groups accumulating down there. I think we’re even seeing. Right. And getting detained. The Rio Grande valley sector of border patrol is putting out press releases pretty regularly. Well, um, we’re going to depend on you to go down there and report on that.

So thanks very much for being here, Molly. I’ve really enjoyed it. Thank you. Thanks for having. So thanks again to Molly and to our excellent production team and the audio studio and the liberal arts development studio at UT Austin. You can find, um, some of the data that I referred to here and some links to, to Molly’s writing, um, as well.

Much more, uh, at the Texas politics project website@texaspoliticsdotutexas.edu, uh, where this podcast will be posted, you may have found it elsewhere. Um, thank you for listening. Be well, we’ll be back next week with another second reading podcast.

The second reading podcast is a production of the Texas politics project at the university of Texas at Austin. .