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Trump Sabotages Trump Agenda

Explore episode Jun 26, 2026
Government
Texas Screwworm Crisis: A DOGE Failure Abbott Won't Criticize

Trump Sabotages Trump Agenda · Jun 26, 2026 Government

The New World screwworm, a flesh-eating parasite eradicated from the US 60 years ago, is back in Texas cattle and spreading. Reporting indicates DOGE cuts slowed the federal response. Abbott has not criticized the administration despite Texas having a Secretary of Agriculture in the Trump cabinet. Hinojosa calls it a failure of Abbott's leadership and juice with Washington.

2m 20s

Where this was said

Texas Education in Crisis: Vouchers, Closing Schools, and the Back-to-Basics Fix

At 1:27:20 · chapter starts 1:20:30

Jon Favreau asks what is actually happening to Texas public schools, and Hinojosa's answer is a precise political autopsy. She and James Salazar co-chaired the fight against vouchers in 2023, successfully recruiting rural Republicans to vote with them. Abbott's response was to spend $1 million per race to primary those Republicans out of office. With the rural opposition gone, vouchers passed. The voucher money, she argues, isn't flowing to better education — it's flowing to vendors connected to Abbott donors, exemplified by the $12 million contribution from out-of-state billionaire Jeff Yaz, the largest in Texas history. Abbott's takeover of Houston ISD and push to replace teachers with 'education guides' in 100 AI schools is another front in the same war: extract money from public education, deliver it to connected interests. Hinojosa's positive vision is deliberately unglamorous: back to basics, pay teachers their worth, certify teachers properly — Texas is now hiring more uncertified teachers than certified ones, and one neighboring district's top source of new hires is foreign countries. She argues that Democrats have lost touch with this simple truth because nobody gets rich from paying teachers.

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