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Former Uvalde school police chief’s court appearance postponed due to Texas flooding

A memorial dedicated to the 19 children and two adults murdered on May 24,2022 during a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School is seen on January 05, 2026 in Uvalde, Texas. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

(UVALDE, Texas) — Former Uvalde, Texas, school police chief Pete Arredondo was due to appear in federal court Tuesday, but the hearing was abruptly postponed due to heavy rain and flooding in parts of Texas, and a new date has not yet been scheduled.

Tuesday’s hearing was to be part of Arredondo’s push to compel federal agents to testify at his trial for allegedly endangering students during the response to the Robb Elementary School mass shooting.

Arredondo is charged with 10 counts of endangering students for allegedly failing to quickly respond to the May 24, 2022, shooting, in which 19 students and two teachers were killed.

Arredondo filed a civil lawsuit this year to compel 19 U.S. Customs and Border Protection employees to testify during his criminal trial, which is set to begin on Feb. 22, 2027. 

Arredondo’s attorneys have argued the testimony is vital for him to have a fair trial.

“The testimony will not only be material to determining whether he alone is responsible for the delay, it will also be helpful to show that Mr. Arredondo is not personally responsible for many shortcomings or any delay of CBP agents as part of the law enforcement response,” defense attorney Paul Looney wrote in a court filing.

This year, Looney filed a formal request to make the agents available to testify at trial, arguing that the accounts of the agents who stormed the classroom where the shooter was barricaded is necessary to prove Arredondo was not responsible for the botched response. Uvalde District Attorney Christina Mitchell has sued to compel similar testimony, but CBP declined the requests to facilitate the testimony. 

CBP Chief Counsel Andrew Block said in court filings that the testimony is not necessary for Arredondo’s defense, could be sought through other means, could impact CBP operations, and may result in the disclosure of “confidential law enforcement techniques and procedures.”

“You seek testimony from 19 CBP employees, which would require CBP to make all 19 officers available before and during the trial, pulling them off duty, incurring travel costs, and lost work hours, which negatively impacts CBP operations and national security,” Block wrote. 

Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Trump has a Carter-style Iran problem as the economy drags before the midterms

By CNN
(CNN) — President Donald Trump is staring down two stark liabilities that threaten to damage his Republican Party in the midterms and to ruin his second term-legacy.Somehow he’s maneuvered himself into a more vulnerable spot regarding Iran than any president since Jimmy Carter. As in the 1979-80 hostage crisis, the Islamic Republic is exerting political pressure that it can dial up on the US leader ahead of a national election. A week ago, Trump’s team predicted a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz was imminent. But Tehran, now dictating terms to the US global superpower, has imposed tough new conditions.At the same time, Trump faces a separate but related problem at home. The war’s impact on energy prices is further souring voter perceptions of the economy. He’s entered the doom loop in which presidents and officials scan data for silver linings but voters see only indifference to their plights. Twists like Friday’s bad jobs report are untimely for the GOP with November fast approaching.As the political environment darkens for Republicans, their leader seems oblivious. Many of Trump’s weekend social media posts might have been scripted by his foes to portray an out-of-touch president. He posted a picture with South African golf legend Gary Player, and another of the sculpting of a new green at one of his courses. He posted about a futuristic drone port on the proposed White House ballroom, the Reflecting Pool renovation, and two statues in Washington newly coated with glistening golden paint. He also claimed to be a slayer of inflation, but he looked more like a president desperately trying to leave a physical legacy rather than one brimming with ideas for national renewal.The weekend did deliver a victory for Trump: The Senate narrowly confirmed his former personal lawyer Todd Blanche as US attorney general. But this is a win that will appeal more to the president than to voters. And Republicans left town after proving their own warnings that Trump’s top-priority voting restrictions bill can’t pass. And the president’s grim August took another rough turn abroad, when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected another supposed triumph — a plan to disarm Hamas in Gaza.Are Democrats handing Trump a lifeline?Such political challenges would typically spell trouble for incumbent presidents in midterm elections. And as CNN’s Aaron Blake pointed out Sunday, multiple polls now show that Trump has squandered the traditional GOP advantage in two areas: national security and the economy.Trump’s thwarting of convention has always been a political strength, and he’s less than two years past the greatest political comeback in US history. But the dynamics of November’s election may not favor him. He’s always been more effective politically as an outsider, as in 2016 and 2024. He is the political establishment now, and previously when he’s been forced to defend his own record, as in the 2018 and 2020 elections, he has foundered.The president is also in denial about how voters are feeling. “They are not angry at me, but they’re angry at Republicans,” Trump told Punchbowl News last week.But in recent weeks, Democrats may have given him an opening. Primary wins by progressive and democratic socialists are fueling Trump’s claims that he is resisting a tide of left-wing extremism. In a parallel to the GOP’s tea party insurgency earlier in the century, Democrats may risk winnable seats by nominating candidates who alienate more moderate, suburban voters who tend to decide elections.Progressives, however, believe that the jumbled political circumstances create the conditions for a breakthrough among voters who aren’t just down on Trump but who also disdain the moderate Democratic establishment — especially after the failed campaigns of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris allowed Trump to regain the White House.Progressive Michigan Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed on Sunday homed in on Trump’s vulnerability on the economy as he pivoted from a bitter primary in a state that could decide who runs the Senate. “Differences that we hashed out are so much smaller than the similarities that we share: a responsibility to stand up to Donald Trump and the ways that he’s used his power for his own gain, for his family’s finances, rather than to improve your family’s finances,” El-Sayed told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.”Iran digs in to defy TrumpIn 1980, Iran exerted leverage over a US election after holding 52 Americans in Tehran in a standoff that eventually lasted 444 days. Forty-six years later, it’s not people being held hostage — but the Strait of Hormuz oil exporting route. This means the regime has another election-season pressure point as US voters — as they did with Carter — turn on a president over the economy.Average national gasoline prices are back above $4 a gallon, according to AAA. Voters are angry about high prices and are struggling against longer-term affordability trends in housing and healthcare.Trump officials have repeatedly stressed that the burden will quickly ease once the strait opens. But, paradoxically, their comments may only bolster Iran’s negotiating position. Tehran has toughened its demands, including the ending of a US maritime blockade and the departure of American forces from the region; it also wants US compensation for the war and a lifting of sanctions.This not a deal Trump can accept, so Iran may be overplaying its hand. But if Trump loses patience and relaunches the war, he’ll be doubling down on a deeply unpopular conflict and inviting a worse economic backlash.The president is trying to recapture the initiative. He told Axios he’s now waiting for the economic impact of the US blockade to kick in. “We are low-keying it,” Trump said Sunday. “We are only semi-negotiating with them.”In effect, therefore, Trump — after devastating Iran’s military, setting back its nuclear program in last year’s air strikes and hammering its defense industrial base — is betting on the US economy’s greater endurance to get him out of his strategic dead end.Many analysts believe Iran is more willing to impose suffering on its people as its radical leaders pursue their existential struggle with the US. Maybe the regime will collapse. But it seems unlikely on Trump’s short political timeline.White House insists the ‘economy is booming’Republicans can’t wait for domestic relief from the war. Official data Friday showing the economy lost 23,000 jobs in July was a fresh blow to the White House and Republican reelection campaigns — and to all the Americans out of work. But the administration is not wrong to argue the economy is fundamentally resilient — even as high food and housing prices, and wages that don’t seem to keep up, mean most people don’t recognize Trump’s economic “golden age.”This gap between a White House’s perception of the economy and the experience of regular Americans is a perennial political trap that is often triggered by discordant rhetoric.“The bottom line is that, if you look at the overall economy, then things are really, really booming,” Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, told CNN’s Tapper. Hassett argued that job losses last month reflected the end of temporary work from the World Cup finals and teachers taking July off. He insisted the economy was creating high-quality jobs and that prices were moderating.But calibrating an economic message is among the trickiest tasks in politics. It defeated the Republican presidential campaign of John McCain in 2008; Democrats’ midterm campaigns under President Barack Obama in 2010; and the failed campaigns of Biden and Harris in 2024.And the economy is just one of Trump’s problems.He told Axios that that the war “will work out. It always works out. It’s like a chess game.” But on Iran and across the broader political spectrum, his endgame is impenetrable.The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
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