Texas Take

On Thursday, July 12 at 2PM, join the Texas Take hosts Mike Ward of the Houston Chronicle, Scott Braddock, editor of the Quorum Report and Texas Public Radio's Ryan Poppe for a Facebook Live Q&A followed by the recording of Ep100. Get your...

This week's hodgepodge of Texas political news includes Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's legal troubles and his fight with the Fort Worth School District over sex ed curriculum. There are also special elections playing out across the state to...

The Texas Democratic Party met in Fort Worth this weekend to hammer out their platform and celebrate their slate of candidates for the fall. The crowd in the convention hall was on their feet for big Democratic stars like Beto O'Rourke and Julian...

A fight over party chair, saluting President Trump; The inside skinny, direct from the GOP state convention in San Antonio Two years ago, nobody wanted to talk about The Donald, even as he was winning his takeover bid of the Republican Party. At this...

President Trump thinks Texas sightseers were the reason that thousands of Coast Guard rescues, but chagrined Houston officials have another thought: Next storm, we’ll push Trump out into Galveston Bay in a small boat to watch the storm blow in....

In a week dominated by school safety concerns, a basketball challenge lightens things up

As state officials began looking for solutions to curb school shootings like the tragedy at Santa Fe High School that left 10 people dead and 13 people wounded, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick blamed the "culture of violence" prevalent in the United States as a...

The school shooting in Santa Fe that left 10 dead and 10 injured has state officials lining up to offer possible solutions to prevent another such tragedy, so Texas students can be safe in their classes. Gov. Greg Abbott says he will be leading a...

The Democratic runoff for governor is a week away, but incumbent Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has already declared war on the candidate he wants to run against.

In a new website, Greg The Guv is blasting away at Lupe Valdez for being "too liberal for Texas."

Forget that Valdez still has to win the May 22 runoff with Houston entrepreneur Andrew White, in a race that both candidates seem to believe has tightened in recent weeks, if their intensified campaigning is any clue.

Remember that Abbott jumped the shark several weeks ago by picking Valdez to win the runoff, a move that quickly drew cries from White that the guv was short-circuiting the upcoming vote.

Valdez quickly responded to Abbott's latest blast: "I'm right for the new Texas."

Just as Abbott and Valdez aren't playing well together, even before the governor's race for November officially begins, neither are an array of other Texas politicians who are fighting over DACA and getting nasty and personal in congressional runoffs.

Aside from that, a new question has arisen in Austin: Where's Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, an outgoing high-profile guy who's been missing from the public eye in recent weeks. Call in, Dan, and let us know what's up.

Our sponsors this week: Texas Association of Counties and Lone Star Targeting.

With Scott Braddock, editor of the Quorum Report, and Mike Ward, Austin Bureau chief for the Houston Chronicle, with special guest Ryan Poppe, Texas Public Radio's Capitol reporter.

Texas politics are entertaining but never boring, as this edition of the state's leading political podcast, produced in collaboration with partner Texas Public Radio, clearly shows.

As the National Rifle Association opened its annual meeting in Dallas, the former CIA director says that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott got trolled by the Russians in his Jade Helm response three years ago.

Say what?

According to Michael Hayden, a former CIA chief and head of the National Security Agency, said in an interview on MSNBC's Morning Joe show that the Jade Helm controversy in 2015 was stirred by the Russians as a test to see how much influence they could exert through online means.

After Gov. Greg Abbott put the state guard on call to monitor the federal training exercises, Hayden speculated that the Russians decided to expand their disinformation campaign.

Here's how Hayden explained it: "They took their game to North America in 2015, and I won't belabor it here but there was an exercise in Texas called Jade Helm 15 that Russian bots and the American alt-right media convinced most — many — Texans was an Obama plan to round up political dissidents."

"It got so much traction that the governor of Texas had to call out the National Guard to observe the federal exercise to keep the population calm. At that point, I'm figuring the Russians are saying 'We can go big time' and at that point I think they made the decision, 'We're going to play in the electoral process."

No comment from Abbott. But Democrats quickly blasted him for being "a Russian pawn and a useful idiot for Russian efforts to instill fear and distrust in our American institutions" and insisted he was "duped by Russian bots."

Well, now, isn't that special, as the Church Lady would say.

Back to the NRA: With President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, Abbott and other big-name Texas Republican officials slated to be on stage for the festivities in Dallas along with social media personalities Lynnette Hardaway and Rochelle Richardson -- better known as Diamond and Silk -- the breaking news just keeps on coming.

Add to the week's list a just-agreed debate between the two Democrats running for governor, new controversy over DACA and disgraced former U.S. Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Corpus Christi, telling Abbott to go pound salt on the governor's request that pick up the tab for a special election to pick his replacement.

Our sponsors this week: Texas Association of Counties and Lone Star Targeting.

With Scott Braddock, editor of the Quorum Report, and Mike Ward, Austin Bureau chief for the Houston Chronicle, with special guest Ryan Poppe, Texas Public Radio's Capitol reporter.

Texas politics are entertaining but never boring, as this edition of the state's leading political podcast, produced in collaboration with partner Texas Public Radio, clearly shows.