Responding to Tragedy.

This episode is brought to you by LifeLock. Between two-factor authentication, strong passwords, and a VPN, you try to be in control of how your info is protected. But many other places also have it, and they might not be as careful. That's why LifeLock monitors hundreds of millions of data points a second for threats. If your identity is stolen, they'll fix it, guaranteed, or your money back. . .

Responding to tragedy. Welcome to The Texas Take. I'm Jeremy Wallace with the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express News. And yeah. We sound a little different today, but more on that in a minute. First, we have a lot to get through. Look, y'all, we've been through some tragedies here in Texas over the years, but this trouble in the Texas Hill Country has hit us all particularly hard, I think. We also had...

Donald Trump's visit. We have a looming special session. And then we had this huge announcement from the Paxton family. All of that since the last time we talked. So we got a lot to get through. Thankfully, I'm not going to be on this journey alone. I'm going to bring you a powerhouse of reporters and editors from around the state who have been working all of these issues. We got a lot to tackle. So let's get to it.

By now, y'all already know the news. We've lost over 100 Texans, and there's still so many missing that we are looking for. We couldn't do much. The water was coming so fast. Everything was gone. And then we started seeing the cabins floating from the other RV parks, floating down the river. We started seeing cars with lights on and people honking. inside their cars and they just were floating away and it was peach black. We had 28 RVs parked in here and they're all gone.

That was Lorena Guillen. She's one of the owners of an RV park right along the Guadalupe there. Here's John Flores. He's one of the campers who was trapped in those floodwaters and what he had to do to get out. I just when I woke up the water was up to my two foot into my RV and I grabbed my dog in my wallet and I I tried to get out of my RV and a truck had me trapped so i finally got out and i just hear screaming kids and kids and the family and

Yeah, thanks to Michael Fortier and his team at the San Antonio Express News. They were amazing about the kind of video and photography that they took on the scene there. And it's not just that. The Austin American Statesman, the Houston Chronicle, they have all been all over this issue from the...

very start. They've been asking a lot of hard questions and trying to get to understand why these camps are so close to the river, why there isn't a better warning system, and what can be done in the future. Today, I really want to focus on where we go from here with all of those questions. Like we want to look at the recovery and what we're supposed to do next. But it's really important to kind of put into context what the politicians don't seem to be very interested in talking about.

Listen to Governor Greg Abbott after he was asked by reporters if an investigation into the entire disaster will include assigning blame to those who deserve blame for not getting warnings to these campers. You ask, I'm going to use your words. Who's to blame? Know this. That's the word choice of losers. He had a lot more to say about it, too. Let me explain one thing about Texas. And that is Texas.

Every square inch of our state cares about football. You could be in Hunt, Texas, Huntsville, Texas, Houston, Texas, any size community, they care about football. High school, Friday Night Lights, college football. or pro and know this every football team makes mistakes the losing teams are the ones that try to point out who's to blame the championship teams are the ones that say don't worry about it man we got this

We're going to make sure that we go score again, that we're going to win this game. The way winners talk is not to point fingers. They talk about solutions. What Texas is all about is solutions. But it wasn't just him. When I was with Donald Trump in Kerrville on Friday, check out his reaction to a reporter who asked a very similar question about why emergency alerts didn't get to the campers along the Guadalupe and if he's looking into it.

Only a bad person would ask a question like that, to be honest with you. I don't know who you are, but only a very evil person would ask a question like that. I think this has been heroism. This has been incredible, really, the job you've all done. It's easy to sit back and say, oh, what could have happened here or there, you know? Maybe we could have done something differently. This was a thing that has never happened before.

And nobody's ever seen anything. I've never seen anything like this. Let me bring in John Moritz on this. He's been a staple of the political coverage here in Texas for a long time. The guy knows every corner of the state capitol. You just had a column. on this whole

question of when can we talk about blame versus accountability? And I was so interested to get your take on when you heard Governor Abbott getting mad at the reporters, you heard Donald Trump getting mad at the reporters. Give me your take. What did you think about in this and what made you want to write that column?

Well, it's kind of like we hear this after almost every tragedy, be it a mass shooting, a major weather event. Let's not talk about politics. Let's not do finger pointing. And basically what it is, and I mentioned this in the piece, it's almost like you get out of jail.

Don't ask me about this now because we're still mourning those who were lost. We're still honoring those who are heroic. But the real question is not about assigning blame. Let's talk about accountability. And it's always fair to ask, you know, who's... job was it to do this, that, or the other? Was that person or those people, that entity, were they asleep at the switch and bad things happened? Or...

Is it just that they could not possibly anticipate an event so strange as hundreds dead in a flood? But the thing is, is like you don't deflect. That question, you face it head on and you say, OK, that's what we're trying to find out. It's up to those people who. who put themselves up to be elected, to be our leaders, to take that accountability. It doesn't mean they're at fault, but it does mean that they are charged with anticipating what should happen next.

begin to formulate solutions. You heard that in Donald Trump's answer, even where he tried to make it sound like, hey, nobody could have seen this coming to this level. And look, there's some truth in that, right? Like this is a disaster at a proportion that like I don't think people.

understand how much worse it was than everybody anticipated. We knew ahead of the storm that there was need to be ready. Texas Department of Emergency Management, NIMKID, they had sent crews out being ready for it, but clearly they couldn't even.

even foresee this, right? This is just a level beyond everything. And I want to kind of get back at what you were just, you know, go back to what Governor Abbott was saying. It's like after a disaster like this, yes, you want us to be supportive of the rescue crews.

Making sure everybody's safe, find the missing, you know, all that is still going on. But you can also ask questions like, you know, he brought up football, right? Even the winning teams that he's talking about do go back, look at the tape. They do look to see. if the left tackle blew his assignment and can we fix that going forward? Right. And it's like, so like, there's a way to still kind of go to both, do both. Right. Like these guys.

are going to go back and look at what we've done before, right? Absolutely. And we've seen this in other instances. Let's go back to the horrific winter storm of 2021. There were a lot of questions asked, a lot of them raised by the media. a lot of them raised by the governor and his people themselves, and people were held accountable. The managers of ERCOT were pretty much sacked wholesale, and nobody shed a tear about that, including the governor of Texas.

He says, I welcome these resignations.

Yeah. And so what we know at this point, right, is that the governor has added this to the special session call. He wants the legislature to start looking at these issues. He hasn't been super specific on exactly what we're talking about, but it sounds like.

There's going to be certainly some discussion on whether or not the state should be funding warning systems along the riverbank, right? Yeah, there are already a handful of bills filed in anticipation of the special session that's coming up on the. 21st to do just that. Let's look at the early warning systems. Let's see if we have the communication in place where all entities can talk to everybody. Let's see if the alert systems are going out in language.

not English or Spanish, but in verbiage that ordinary people can both understand and use, put that information to use, not just go to higher ground, you know. Maybe be a little bit more specific about where it is they can go, what sort of things they can do. A lot of this isn't already nailed down. We expect this to come out in public hearings and the crafting of legislation, which is always a messy thing. That's kind of where we're going to see how it is they propose to go forward on this.

Yeah. And one of the things I want to point out, it's like when I was with the president out in Kerrville, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick was out there. He, of course, runs the Texas Senate. And he had said to the crowd at the time and to the president announcing to them that he and Speaker Burroughs have.

both agreed to have one of the hearings out in Kerrville, you know, when the special session gets underway. It might be the second weekend, but they're going to have one hearing at least out there so the people on the ground there can testify without having to drive all the way.

out to austin so that'll be kind of worth paying attention to well and the one question i kind of wanted to kind of get to is like will this now overshadow the rest of the special session obviously there's a lot of other things going on uh how big of a of a lift is this going to be? And could this ultimately be the star of the entire show? And as long as you get something done on that, you know, the governor can see this as a victory.

I would imagine you're probably on the right track here. Let's just wind the clock back two weeks ago before the horrible flooding that took place. What was the big story? THC, CBD oil, all of that stuff. Lieutenant Governor Patrick all on a lather. He and the governor looked like they were on opposite pages. But events outside the control of anyone often swoop in.

take over the agenda. And, I mean, that's kind of where the public tunes into its government. Probably, I'm guessing, probably most people are in visiting THC shops.

Most people aren't all that tuned into even the congressional redistricting out there. But the loss of life and the property damage and just those heartbreaking videos and audio that – you played and then we've all seen, that's what's going to basically galvanize the public regardless of whether they live in Kerrville or Brownsville or Dalhart or Texark.

Canna. Everybody's going to want to know about this because we can all relate. There's a lot of there, but for the grace of God go I in these sort of things. And this isn't an expression that I made, but I've repeated it a lot. should not let crises go to waste. And if you've got the public's attention and you need to change policy, if it's going to cost some money, this is where the public says, yes, this is something that we need to do. Put aside red team.

aside blue team and uh you know let's focus on on the task at hand And I like what you talked about there, but how much attention this whole state is paying attention to. Look, there are times where we've had other crises that happen, whether it be in El Paso or, you know, think about Hurricane Harvey on very coastal and Houston oriented.

But it didn't necessarily affect the people in Amarillo in the same way. Or people in Texarkana may have been like, oh, OK, yeah, I understand. But this is a weird issue in that there were like, you know, kids and families from all over the state who were in the hill country. It's like you're seeing stories.

We're seeing stories in our friends out at Beaumont writing stories about, you know, children who have been lost. We're seeing, you know, stories out of Laredo about people who were lost. We're seeing stories in El Paso. It's like it feels like this has like a potential to be something statewide. bring attention to all you know so basically all the politicians have a reason to participate this and not to say okay this is a houston problem we'll just let them deal with it

Yeah, that's exactly right. Weather is by nature parochial, but the types of weather that hits, I mean, obviously, if you're in the panhandle, the hurricane is not a big deal to you. Flooding. ice extreme cold extreme hot drought That hits home and everybody can say, oh, that could happen here or something like that could happen here. And, you know, especially when, you know.

You know, these children, these families are affected. We all relate to that. We can all put ourselves in the shoes of the parents, the friends, and the neighbors. Well, and so, look, I appreciate you being on, John. Again, remember, the special session starts on the 21st. Yeah, this is a 30-day session. So you're going to be hearing a lot from John and from other members of our team. So, you know, thanks again for joining me. And now let's get...

into a little bit more of the rest of the special session with my friend Isaac Yu. Isaac has been all over this issue. He's been covering THC and hemp issues for us all this last session. He knows exactly why we are where we are. So, Isaac... Catch us up to speed. Where are we at this point? And why is this part of a special session? What is the basics of this argument right now?

I mean, it's hard to remember now, but THC was once the main issue of this session, right? That special session was the first whisper we got of it was right after Abbott vetoed SB 3, Senate Bill 3. THC ban that Patrick had pushed so hard for and he tacked on all these other issues and then now of course the redistricting issue and the flood

preparation and awareness issue, both of them have become kind of much more prominent, even though THC was what kicked off the special session to start with. At this point, it's almost a distraction to the kind of meatier issues lawmakers are focusing their attention on.

Yeah. And to catch people up, remember, Dan Patrick wants to ban all THC products in the state of Texas, right? That was what he wanted to do. And there was all this pressure on the governor. You know, is he going to agree to that ban or does he want something? more tailor-made. He obviously vetoed that. And first, I want to play a tape of what Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick had to say after that veto. Here's a couple of clips of what he had to say.

It puzzles me why my friend, Greg Abbott, Governor Abbott, would at the last minute, at about 22 minutes after 11, decide to veto this bill. I know he gave the reasons in his proclamation, but our team simply doesn't agree with those reasons. The governor of the state of Texas wants to legalize recreational marijuana in Texas. That's the headline, folks.

Because that's what his proclamation does. Now, whether it's unintentional, and he didn't think through it, or whether it's intentional, that's the result of the veto. Now, Isaac, I want to come back to you on this because, like, did Abbott say anything specific about what he wants out of THC legislation? In his veto, if you read.

um his justification for that move he lists out all these sorts of options for relations that can go on the hemp industry that could come in any form like age restrictions or restrictions on the potency or the specific types of compounds whether they're synthetic or natural it could come as restrictions on where you can sell it you know if it's available at drugstores grocery stores, convenience stores, gas stations, or just at specialty hemp shops.

Well, and I want to go back. I've actually talked about your reporting before on the show. But like one of the things that y'all had been able to really track is just how explosive this industry has been over the last couple of years. Like if you don't know what THC is. Don't worry, you're not the only one. It was just a few years ago, you couldn't have found these products anywhere. But this really started the last few years, right? What happened that made this proliferate so much?

Right. I mean, if you think back to 2018, which is when THC and hemp as this agricultural product became federally legal, the state has seen just this explosion in the number and types of businesses that are selling. the derivatives of that plant hemp from drinks to gummies to vapes and we have this reporting we took

data from our state health agency to show thousands and thousands of these businesses that Patrick has talked about selling and hawking these products, you know, in his eyes, potentially to children. A lot of them are your HEB, your CVS that are licensed to sell these products because. There is a whole range of potential options. This industry is very fast moving. Even within the last couple of years, you've seen them innovate and find new products and find new ways to market and create.

whole new categories of products, including THC beverages, which again, you're seeing at high-end cocktail bars, liquor stores. And that has really caught all these lawmakers off guard. And they're kind of playing catch up here, both with SB3 and with whatever they pass out of the special session.

Well, it's interesting. During the session, regular session that ended back in June, this was coupled with expanding medical marijuana, right? To get that program to be expanded, you could see. the advocates for expanding medical marijuana use this THC issue as kind of a component to it. Like Patrick pushed for this aggressive ban, but.

in order to make the ban less terrible, you know, at least to some populations. It's like, okay, we're going to give people a chance to get into the medical metronome program, which has really been irrelevant at this point. Very few people are able to use that program, right? Right. It's heavily restricted. And a lot of the people in that market, which is the medical side.

really see you know the way the hemp industry is regulated is unfair because it is the same plant right hemp and marijuana are the same plant the distinction is just in the potency of the intoxicating compounds if you look at A state like Florida, which has also had a medical marijuana program for the same amount of time as Texas, their program has, I think, somewhere in the neighborhood of...

10 times more patients than Texas, just because the types of conditions you can have and the products that you can access under Texas's program are so much more restricted. And so Texas has already voted to expand the medical marijuana program. It's going to include more people with more conditions, particularly with PTSD and veterans. They're going to have access to this program that they probably don't.

didn't really have before. But that whole part of the equation now is off the table. Politically speaking, as we go into the special session, that seems to leave... patrick without a very valuable bargaining chip as we go forward that's true definitely these two pieces of legislation were tied together and seen as one package during the session and

A lot of people in the medical marijuana industry were kind of caught off guard with the THC veto because they had been told, you know, you're going to get this expansion and a clampdown on this other industry at the same time. There was a point a few weeks ago, maybe a month ago, when it looked like THC might be one of the very few issues to be tackled during the session. We weren't expecting this long laundry list, a whole host of issues.

people were talking about, hey, how is Patrick going to continue to bargain since he has less chips in his hands? And he... You know, he can't hold as many hostages as he was before. Now with many, many more issues, you know, again, redistricting, flooding, even ones where he is in agreement with the governor, I think he does have more options than he did three or four weeks ago.

Yeah, this is definitely going to be an interesting drama within this whole special session, right? Like, where does this all go when much of the state is focused on, you know, this disaster, this tragedy that has affected so many people?

in so many places in Texas, not just the Hill Country, as we talked about, but way beyond that. So listen, y'all, definitely check out Isaac's coverage. Follow us. I'll have a lot in the Texas Take throughout this special session on this THC issue, and we'll keep you posted.

in all of this. Thanks again for joining us, Isaac, and we'll talk soon. Thanks for having me. Amid all of this news this last week, in the middle of it, we had State Senator Angela Paxton announce that she's getting a divorce from Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Now, they've been married for 38 years. You know, people know this couple for a long time in Texas politics. And I want to turn to somebody who knows Ken Paxton, has been covering Ken Paxton closely for years now. That's Taylor Goldenstein. She's joining me to talk. a little bit about what happened here. Why did Angela Paxson say she was seeking a divorce from Ken Paxson?

Yeah, well, thanks for having me. I think the phrase that sticks out in everyone's mind from this week was biblical grounds was a phrasing that was used in the statement by her office saying, you know, that that was. a reason for separation specifically mentioned adultery in the divorce filing itself.

Well, and that's interesting, too, because, you know, normally we wouldn't be talking too much about a political politician's personal life. Right. This normally is a public thing. But we've talked about we've heard about this. potential adultery before during the impeachment trial just two years ago with Ken Paxton, right? This was pretty public already to some degree. Right. This is not news, I think, to most.

Texas readers, Texas, you know, politics followers. You know, I don't know if anyone knew the extent of whether it was still happening or anything like that, but we know that, you know, from... impeachment proceedings, like you said, and, you know, reports that there has been a history of infidelity to the point of whether it's continuing, Senator Paxson mentioned in her statement, you know,

This was as a result of, quote, recent discoveries. So it does raise some question about whether there are more recent events that have transpired. But yes, definitely in terms of this being, you know, new information to the public, I would say no. But yeah, this has obviously come to a head in some way. When I heard biblical grounds, the first thing I thought of, like, could this be a coffee brand?

I unfortunately did see someone make an AI version of biblical grounds coffee. So that's probably going to work somewhere. So what does this mean going forward? Obviously, Ken Paxson has announced he's running against U.S. Senator John Cornyn in that primary. Does any of this affect that race, you think?

Right. I think Cornyn would like to say it well. It's definitely a big part of his campaign strategy is painting packs. And as someone who has a ton of legal and ethical baggage and, you know, this is kind of a win for him to be able to campaign. paint on the possibility of infidelity and just, you know.

His family life kind of not being what typical politician would want it to be going into a big race like this. I don't know the stats on how many Senate candidates were divorced, but it's probably not a big number. Yeah, it feels like we're in such a different era, right? And I can see how Wycorn would like to make this a bigger, you know.

issue during this whole campaign. But I'm saying we're in an era now where, you know, divorces and even infidelity might not sink a politician's career as it might have like in the 80s and the 90s. It feels like as a culture. Voters aren't holding politicians to that same level or standard.

Right. Agreed. Yeah. I mean, I think especially in this case when it's been something known for a while. So if it was going to move anyone, you might think it would have already. Paxton's won, you know, a primary, you know, against George P. Bush. also tried to make issues of his ethical problems. And that was before even we learned more detail. So, you know, it's hard to say it's... It's hard to say whether this will move the needle, but if I had to guess based on history, it seems like no.

Well, and we found out on Friday night, relatively late, we found out that they were going to seal the court records up in Collin County. The divorce records aren't going to be public. They're not going to be. This isn't going to be a show for the entire public to be kind of watching. as it turns out after all, right? So this stuff, we're not going to have access to these documents and what the charges are going forward.

It doesn't seem like as of now. Yeah, it doesn't seem like. Yeah, I definitely saw some talk about, you know, between lawyers and other folks, whether Senator Paxton had to mention adultery in the filing, if there was some legal purpose for that.

Or, you know, it's interesting to kind of speculate about what certain things in the statement might have meant or what inclusion of certain details meant. But I did ask her office if she would be making an endorsement in the Senate race. I did not hear back.

That would have been great to hear, right? I'm interested to find out, too. I think she's in a really interesting spot going forward. Let's not forget she's a state senator. She's going to be in the special session that's starting later on this month.

So she's going to be in the public eye immediately after all this happened. And one of the things that was I looked at, you know, boy, you should never look at the comments on Twitter or on X. But like it was interesting when she posted what she posted as like the response. from people underneath it was wow, very strong stuff. It was surprising.

Yeah, there was a lot of criticism of her from Christian conservatives saying, I can't believe you're doing this. Like, you don't have grounds to do that. Or even just, I don't think it's appropriate that you made this public or you shouldn't be putting your business out here.

Yeah, even in spite of the fact that it was already dragged out into the public by men two years ago. That's the part that was kind of throwing me off. It was one thing when the men were driving out to public. But when Paxton puts it out herself, she gets. It felt a little awkward to me. Yeah, it was a little bit surprising, the ratio of comments that were more that than the support. That might be the nature of X these days.

Yeah, which maybe kind of gets back to that point, right? Like, you know, if you thought this is going to hurt Ken Paxton at the first glance, well, maybe not, because there's some conservatives who are going to rally around him. And the question are, are those? Voters in a primary. Right. And so it may just not hurt him with that base of support who was already with him. Initially.

I, you know, before this played out, I would have thought the divorce might have been maybe the only thing that would have moved folks like that, you know, because previously you could argue, well, they've had their issues, but so does everyone and they're working out and it's none of our business. So now that they've said, you know.

They're not able to work it out. That might have been a moment where, you know, folks said, this isn't, you know, our ideal of marriage. But it turns out, no. And I think. A good read for the listeners might be to check out Story Online by Hajra Ghilani about the conservative Christian reaction to the divorce.

Yeah, it's amazing how all that is playing out. On the Democratic side, we finally have some action, at least for the attorney general's race, right? We have our first candidate to officially file to get into that contest. Tell us a little bit about what happened today. Yeah. So today, Senator Nathan Johnson out of the Dallas area hopped in the race. He's the first Democrat, like you said. There's been some mumbling of potentially former Democratic.

Primary candidate for AG, Joe Jaworski jumping in, but as of yet, nothing. With Jaworski, I just happened to run into him a couple of weeks ago when Beto O'Rourke had that event in San Antonio with Joaquin Castro and James Tallarico. One of the other people in that audience that night was actually Jaworski. He was there.

He didn't have a big speaking role, but you could see he was trying to be with this group and traveling around pretty far outside of the city of Galveston to get over to San Antonio. But it just shows he's definitely interested in running for something. I just wonder when he'll pull the trigger if he's going to get in. Right. Interesting he was there, but not on the stage or hadn't announced yet.

Yeah. Well, Taylor, this has been great. I appreciate you getting on the Texas Take with me. And we'll definitely have you on a lot more, especially as we get into the special session. We're going to need to rely on the whole team to kind of really break down everything that's about to happen. Yeah, I'd love to. Thank you so much. Finally, y'all.

As you likely have noticed by now, Scott Braddock is no longer with our program. Let me just say, look, I've enjoyed working with him for all these years. He's been a great co-host to work with, and I'm certainly going to miss him. But I wish him nothing but the best in his future.

I really mean that. Best of luck, Scott. I hope everything goes well for you. But that said, the Texas take will continue. Look, it's bigger than all of us, really. We're going to have new voices on here, new faces and new elements. I'm going to experiment with some stuff.

Some of it won't work. Some of it will. And I'm absolutely open to suggestions out there. I'm thinking of putting more interviews in here and more, you know, out in the field type stuff. So certainly share with me your thoughts on all that. I'm Jeremy Wallace.

Jeremy.wallis at hearst.com. You can also find me on all the socials, of course. Grab me if you see me at a Saxon pub or rustic show or down at Floor's Country Store. Let me know what you think. You know, it's like I'm just looking to make this the best possible.

thing for not just us but for y'all the listeners like this is all about y'all in the end i want to provide you something that maybe you can't get anywhere else well look there's a lot of changes of course but i want one thing is perfectly clear We're still going to have Willie Nelson all over the show. I want to close the show actually with him. Back a couple of years ago, I was with Willie Nelson when he was talking to family members from Ubaldi after all the loss that they went through.

He actually spoke the lyrics to a song that pretty much rips my heart out every time, but is also so absolutely appropriate for this moment when we're dealing with so much pain in all parts of this state. You know, remember this, these. camps were in the Hill Country, but there were children from Beaumont to South Texas to North Texas. It was a whole statewide thing, right? We're all feeling this from El Paso to Texarkana.

But anyhow, so what he told those families then was something that like stuck with me. He said, look, this is not something you'll get over, but something you will get through. And so I want to close with that song that he was referencing. And thanks a lot for listening to this show. And I'll be talking to y'all soon.

you think your world has ended you think your world will be a waste of life without You feel there's no way to go on Life is just a sad, sad song But love is bigger than us all The end is not the end at all It's not something you get over But it's something you get through It's not ours to be taken. It's just a thing we get to do.