Why Texas Students Are Being Tackled and Tasered, and Trump’s Latest Target for Retribution

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Headlines (NYT)

Episode Title: Why Texas Students Are Being Tackled and Tasered, and Trump’s Latest Target for Retribution
Host: Tracey Mumford
Date: May 28, 2026

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Overview

This episode delivers a rapid-fire rundown of top news stories with in-depth reporting and first-hand accounts. The main focus is a Times investigation into the heightened use of police force against students in Texas schools—a consequence of a law passed in response to the Uvalde shooting. Additional segments explore escalating U.S.-Iran tensions, President Trump’s campaign of political retribution, fallout from reactions to the assassination of Charlie Kirk, and a quirky look at bargain hunting for gas in California.
The tone is urgent, factual, and sometimes deeply personal, as reporters and subjects recount the real-life impact behind the headlines.

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Key Segments & Takeaways

1. Police in Texas Schools: Crime, Discipline, and Excessive Force

(00:45 – 04:30)

• Background: After the 2022 Robb Elementary school shooting, Texas mandated at least one licensed police officer on every public school campus—the most ambitious effort of its kind in the U.S.
• Findings:
  • Texas now leads the nation in school district police forces.
  • Over 2,600 reported cases of police using force on students in recent years.
  • The force used includes tackling, Tasers, pepper spray, punching, kneeing, and handcuffing—even of young children.
  • Many incidents involved behavior traditionally handled as routine school discipline.
• Student Experience:
  • Quote (Honor Student): “Everything kind of like blurred out once I hit the ground and I just remember that there was like a lot of tugging and pushing and I had somebody like my head was against the ground and at one point my head had hit the desk too.” (02:54)
  • Mugshots of students have been released publicly, causing further stigma and distress.
  • Notably, one 17-year-old honor student was tackled and arrested over what she described as accidentally breaking a $13 classroom doorbell; she completed high school remotely due to trauma.
• Expert/Report Insights:
  • Reporter summary: “While state law says that districts should not assign officers to handle, quote, routine student discipline, there were many incidents where police were responding to conduct that appeared to be minor. The kind of thing that once would have just landed kids in the principal's office.” (03:36)
  • Policing experts warn Texas lawmakers went “all in” on school policing without sufficient safeguards.
  • The ongoing investigation is covered in depth at nytimes.com.

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2. Escalation between the U.S. and Iran

(04:31 – 05:19)

• Incidents:
  • The U.S. shot down four Iranian drones over the Strait of Hormuz, described as self-defense.
  • Iran retaliated by targeting an American military base.
  • These skirmishes threaten the fragile ceasefire between the two.
• Political Context:
  • President Trump continues to promise a peace deal “just around the corner,” despite growing skepticism.
  • Rising tensions are impacting global oil prices.

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3. Trump’s Campaign of Retribution: The E. Jean Carroll Case

(05:20 – 06:46)

• New Developments:
  • The Department of Justice, under Trump’s administration, has opened a criminal perjury investigation into author E. Jean Carroll, who had previously won civil suits against Trump for sexual assault and defamation.
  • This move follows a trend of Trump leveraging governmental power to pursue personal adversaries.
  • The traditional independence of the DOJ is being repeatedly called into question.
• Memorable Quote:
  • Reporter: “The department, which has traditionally tried to stay independent of the White House, appears to be increasingly controlled by Trump, who has faced little pushback as he pursues his campaign of revenge.” (06:36)

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4. Repercussions for Public Reaction to Charlie Kirk’s Assassination

(06:47 – 08:49)

• Context:
  • After the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, people celebrating or criticizing him online found themselves fired or reprimanded after backlash campaigns.
  • Vice President J.D. Vance and others called for “naming and shaming” of those seen celebrating the murder.
• Consequences:
  • Multiple cases of people losing jobs, including healthcare and university workers.
  • Large financial settlements have been awarded to some dismissed workers—up to half a million dollars per case.
  • Free speech advocates are tracking over a dozen related federal lawsuits.
• Memorable Quote:
  • Host: “Scores of people were fired or faced other repercussions, including healthcare workers, lawyers, restaurant workers. Now some people who lost their jobs are getting bigger. Big payouts.” (07:29)

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5. Cheap Gas in California: The Horizon Fuel Center Phenomenon

(08:50 – 10:01)

• Story:
  • Reporter Karina Knoll visits Horizon Fuel Center, a gas station on tribal land near San Diego, selling fuel almost $1/gallon below competitors thanks to tax exemptions.
  • Truckers and locals drive out of their way, guided by the GasBuddy app, to save money.
  • For truckers, the savings can amount to hundreds of dollars per fill-up.
• Memorable Quote:
  • Big rig driver: “All he could do was cross his fingers and just hope he had enough fuel to make it all the way to Horizon.” (10:01)

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• “In these videos, we've seen police officers knee one student in the face, slam another student into a metal lunch cart, and pin other students to the ground.” (Student Witness, 02:27)
• “While state law says that districts should not assign officers to handle, quote, routine student discipline, there were many incidents where police were responding to conduct that appeared to be minor.” (Host, 03:36)
• “The department, which has traditionally tried to stay independent of the White House, appears to be increasingly controlled by Trump, who has faced little pushback as he pursues his campaign of revenge.” (Host, 06:36)
• “Scores of people were fired or faced other repercussions, including healthcare workers, lawyers, restaurant workers. Now some people who lost their jobs are getting bigger. Big payouts.” (Host, 07:29)

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Episode Flow (Timestamps)

• 00:45 – 04:30: Texas school police and force against students
• 04:31 – 05:19: U.S.-Iran military tensions and oil market response
• 05:20 – 06:46: DOJ investigating E. Jean Carroll; Trump’s retribution efforts
• 06:47 – 08:49: Firings and lawsuits after reactions to Charlie Kirk’s killing
• 08:50 – 10:01: California’s viral cheap gas station and economic realities

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This episode offers a sobering look at how policy changes and political battles play out in everyday lives, emphasizing the complexity—and often the unintended consequences—behind the headlines.

Transcript

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[Tracey Mumford]

from the new York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracey Mumford. Today's Thursday, May 28th. Here's what we're covering.

[Student Witness]

Let's go back to when the officers were called. When the deputies came, I was trying

[Student Interviewee]

to text my mom, be like, just to tell her, like, what was going on. And so that's when the sheriff was like, okay, I'm gonna. You're under arrest for theft.

[Tracey Mumford]

A new investigation from the Times looks at what has happened as more police officers have been hired at schools to keep students safe.

[Student Interviewee]

They had released my mug shot and other teachers started getting a hold of it. Everyone started screenshotting it.

[Tracey Mumford]

My colleagues, in partnership with the San Antonio Express News, looked at Texas specifically. Back in 2022, the state was rocked by one of the deadliest school shootings in US History when a gunman opened fire at Robb elementary in Uvalde, killing 21 people. The next year, lawmakers passed legislation requiring one licensed police officer at every public school, the most ambitious effort of its kind. Now Texas has more school district police departments than all other states police.

[Student Witness]

The law that Texas passed was largely cast as a way to protect students from school shooters. But we have found that the way officers use force on students raises questions about whether something that was meant to help them is actually harming some students instead.

[Tracey Mumford]

Claire Amari is part of the team who dug through thousands of pages of police records and did hundreds of interviews with students, parents, teachers, and law enforcement officials in Texas to see how the influx of officers has played out. The team found that while many people welcomed the police presence on campus, there were also many incidents where officers grabbed, tackled, or even used Tasers on students, leading to injuries. In extreme instances, some of these were captured on camera.

[Student Witness]

In these videos, we've seen police officers knee one student in the face, slam another student into a metal lunch cart, and pin other students to the ground. We have also seen videos of officers punching students, of officers using pepper spray on students, and officers handcuffing young children.

[Tracey Mumford]

In all the Times documented more than 2,600 individual cases in which school police officers in Texas used force in the last few years.

[Student Interviewee]

Everything kind of like blurred out once. Like I hit the ground and I just remember that there was like a lot of tugging and pushing and I had somebody like my head was against the ground and at one point my head had hit the desk too.

[Tracey Mumford]

In one case, a 17 year old honor student was accused of stealing a little classroom doorbell worth 13 bucks, which she says she accidentally knocked off the wall. Still, an assistant principal called in the police and when she pulled away, they wrestled her to the ground. Video footage shows her gasping for air for three minutes. Her mugshot was later posted online. And she was so upset by the whole experience that she finished the school year online and skipped her graduation ceremony. Overall, the investigation found that the constant presence of police has transformed how many Texas schools manage discipline. While state law says that districts should not assign officers to handle, quote, routine student discipline, there were many incidents where police were responding to conduct that appeared to be minor. The kind of thing that once would have just landed kids in the principal's office. Policing experts say that what's happened in Texas is that lawmakers went all in on school policing without putting in place adequate safeguards to protect students. You can find the full investigation into police in schools in the Times app [e-mail]. In the Middle east over the past 24 hours, both Iran and the US say they've carried out a fresh flight flurry of attacks. Yesterday, American troops shot down four drones over the Strait of Hormuz in what a U. S. Official described as self defense strikes. And this morning, Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps said it retaliated by targeting an American military base. The scattered exchanges are threatening the fragile ceasefire between the two countries.

[Political Commentator]

The Navy is gone, their air force is gone. Everything's gone and they're negotiating on fumes.

[Tracey Mumford]

At the same time, President Trump is continuing to insist that a peace deal to end the war is just around the corner. Though yesterday at the White House, he said he would not be rushed.

[Political Commentator]

They thought they were going to outweigh me. You know, we'll outweigh him. He's got the midterms. I don't care about the midterms. Look what happened.

[Tracey Mumford]

Trump rejected any suggestion that the looming midterm elections and soaring gas prices were putting political pressure on him to end the conflict. This morning, amid reports of the new wave of US And Iranian strikes, oil prices surged. At the Justice Department. President Trump's retribution campaign now seems to have reached E. Jean Carroll, the former magazine writer who accused him of sexual assault, according to two people with direct knowledge of the situation. The DOJ has opened a criminal investigation into Carroll that centers on whether she committed perjury in her civil lawsuits against Trump. In one suit, a federal jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll in a department store dressing room in the mid-1990s and said he defamed her by calling the case a hoax and a lie on social media. In another related defamation case, a jury ordered Trump to pay CARROLL More than $80 million in damages. TRUMP has since asked the Supreme Court to step in, and for the moment, he hasn't been forced to pay anything. While Trump has tried to demean and discredit Carroll for years, the DOJ's move now comes as the president has tried to use the full power of the federal government to target his adversaries. The department, which has traditionally tried to stay independent of the White House, appears to be increasingly controlled by Trump, who has faced little pushback as he pursues his campaign of revenge.

[Political Commentator]

Foreign.

[Tracey Mumford]

The fallout from Charlie Kirk's killing has spread to the workplace. People are getting fired for comments that seem to celebrate or glorify the assassination. Last September, after Charlie Kirk was assassinated, many people found themselves facing heat for comments they made about him online. So when you see someone celebrating Charlie's murder, call them out in hell. Call their employer. Vice President J.D. vance, along with other supporters of Kirk, encouraged people to name and shame anyone seen as criticizing the divisive conservative activist. Lucas from Wisconsin, you're fired. Shelby from North Dakota, you've been fired. Scores of people were fired or faced other repercussions, including healthcare workers, lawyers, restaurant workers. Now some people who lost their jobs are getting bigger. Big payouts. This week, Ball State University in Indiana agreed to pay $225,000 to a former administrator who was fired after she made a private Facebook post saying, quote, if you think Charlie Kirk was a wonderful person, we can't be friends. Someone took a screenshot of it and it spread everywhere. In trying to justify her firing, the university's president said the flood of angry calls and emails they got about her post were disrupting campus operations. It's only the latest case like this. Last week, Florida officials agreed to pay almost half a million dollars to a state biologist who'd been fired over a meme about Kirk that she posted on Instagram. And in Tennessee, a professor got another half a million dollar settlement from his university. There could be more payouts coming. One free speech advocacy group says it's tracking more than a dozen federal lawsuits from other workers who also say they were disciplined or fired for their comments about Kirk. And finally, I got there just before

[Karina Knoll]

8am on a Wednesday. There's still just so much traffic coming in, coming out, just a constant line of customers.

[Tracey Mumford]

My colleague Karina Knoll joined in on a quest recently in California for cheap gas. With prices ticking up and up, people are looking for any break they can get, and that has turned a rural gas station 40 miles outside San Diego into a hopping destination.

[Karina Knoll]

When you get to Horizon, it's sort of this bright, beautiful, open, clean place where there's like 25 gas pumps.

[Tracey Mumford]

Karina visited Horizon Fuel center, which has consistently been undercutting its competitors by nearly a dollar a gallon. It's on tribal land, which means it's exempt from state taxes and fees, hence the deal. A lot of people Carina talked to rolling through the station were using an app, GasBuddy, that compares prices and helped them find Horizon.

[Karina Knoll]

A lot of people talked about driving out of their way just to come to this place. Like they would pass a few gas stations just to get here or drive several more miles just to come here to save. They had diesel pumps there, too. So you see the people with the big rigs there who really are probably saving hundreds of dollars just by coming there.

[Tracey Mumford]

Karina said she talked to one big rig driver who hauls sand and gravel around. He was expecting to have to spend $1,000 that day on diesel. He told her his last delivery route had brought his tank to almost empty, and all he could do was cross his fingers and just hope he had enough fuel to make it all the way to Horizon. Those are the headlines today on the Daily Suddenly there was this machine sitting next to her on the table. It would shift toward her and say, hi, Jan, how are you this morning? Jan, do you want to hear a joke, Jan, do you want to have a conversation? A look at the push to have AI powered robots keep older Americans company as they age. You can listen to that in the New York Times app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Tracy Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow.

[Political Commentator]

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[Tracey Mumford]

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