Crackdown on Teacher Sexual Misconduct Following KQED Investigation, Trump Lacks Evidence for Claims of Noncitizens Voting in CA

From KQED. This episode is brought to you by Facebook. So you were scrolling on Marketplace, and there it was, the bike you'd been searching for. You sent a message, and it turned out the seller was super chatty, kind of funny, and an avid cyclist. The next thing you know, you're in a cycling crew, well, a community cycling group. The thing about Facebook, you might find more than what you're looking for. From a browse to a bike ride, this summer find more on Facebook. I'm Archmanning. I'm Madison Skinner. I'm Eva Jovich. I'm Decorian Moore. Want to train like a Red Bull athlete? Tell us your fitness goals this summer to enter the Red Bull Athlete Challenge. You'll get to try each of our workouts for a chance to win an ultimate Red Bull experience. Think you have what it takes. So good. So good, so good. New markdowns, up to 70% off are at Nordstrom rack stores now. Stock up and stay big on shoes, tops, dresses, accessories, and more must-haves for summer. Join the Nordi Club to unlock exclusive discounts, shop new arrivals first, and more. Plus, buy online and pick up at your favorite rack store for free. Great brands, great prices. That's why you rack. Good evening. From KQED, this is the latest, a podcast that updates throughout the day, bringing you local news when you want it. I'm Dana Cronin. It's Friday, July 17th. Here are this hour's headlines from the KQED Newsroom. Live from KQED News, I'm Brian Watt. The city manager of Sausalito and former head of the port of San Francisco was arrested over the weekend under suspicion of burglary. Marin County Jail records show Elaine Forbes still currently in custody this morning following her arrest early Saturday. The county sheriff told the Marin Independent Journal that deputies found Forbes at the Sausalito Yacht Harbor in a vessel belonging to someone else. spokesperson issued a statement on behalf of Forbes family, saying she is experiencing a mental health crisis. After her arrest, the city of Sausalito revealed that city council members met in closed session Thursday and placed Forbes on a leave of absence. She started the position as city manager on July 1st. She left the port of San Francisco in late 2025 after serving nine years as executive director. Bay Area Democrats in Congress are pushing back against a Republican budget bill that's set for a vote this week in the House of Representatives. South Bay Congressman Jimmy Panetta criticized the plan in a budget hearing last week. And it fails to address an issue that we're hearing over and over and over from many, many constituents across the country, and that's affordability.

Politico reports some House Democrats may try to halt the stopgap spending measure unless Republicans add guardrails to immigration enforcement. And some House Republicans have pushed for the measure to include President Trump's Save America Act, which would require voter ID and limit vote by mail. I'm Brian Watt. Kiki. Here's a deeper dive into the local stories we've been following. The Trump administration has launched a national crackdown on how school districts handle accusations of sexual misconduct by teachers. That's after an investigation by KQED and ProPublica's local reporting network looked into California's system for disciplining educators. KQED's Holly McDade is one of the reporters who covered this development, and she joins me now. So, Holly, what prompted this action from the federal government? The U.S. Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon, sent this letter to state school chiefs that the Department of Education has observed what she calls a pattern of schools. failing to address sexual misconduct by educators. In her letter, she highlights this practice known as, quote, passing the trash, which is where teachers leave one school, after findings or allegations to misconduct, then they go on to teach elsewhere. I understand that the Department of Education also cited your reporting in this, right? That's correct. We published a piece in May, and we reported that California has not revoked the credentials of at least 67 educators who school districts determined had sexually harassed students or committed sexual misconduct. At least 14 of those educators were hired by other schools. A spokesperson for the state teacher licensing agency said in a statement that schools in California have the tools they need to assess whether a teacher is fit to be in the classroom. So what exactly is the action the Trump administration is now taking? The U.S. Department of Education is threatening to withhold federal funding from public schools. They are already investigating 20 school districts over how they collect data and handle allegations of sexual harassment of students by school staff. Two of those schools are in California, Tulare in San Joaquin Valley and Bolsona in Southern California. Do you know why these specific school districts were targeted? The Trump administration said that their list was based on recent civil rights data, but it's not exactly clear how these particular districts were chosen. The Tulare's superintendent didn't respond to requests for common, and the Bolsona superintendent said their district will cooperate fully with... the Federal Review. Were those two California districts involved in the hiring or rehiring of those educators that you found in your reporting? Those districts were not a part of our reporting son. The letter also calls out teachers unions. Why is that? So Linda McMahon singled out teachers unions for what she says is objecting to propose legislative reform to protect kids from adults and positions of authority. She said, quote,

President Donald Trump used a primetime speech Thursday to raise doubts about the integrity of America's election system. He claimed that hundreds of thousands of non-citizens are registered to vote in California and other Democratic-led states. On today's political breakdown, host Marisa Lagos and KQED politics correspondent Guy Marzorati discussed Trump's claims and the lack of evidence for them. First, this speech... You know, it was really a recitation of a lot of the debunk claims that we've heard the president recite since 2020. He talked a lot about the election system being exposed to foreign hacking, claimed that hundreds of thousands of non-citizens are registered to vote in California and other blue states. And it seems like he really is trying to cast doubt in order to. Maybe said something up for this fall. I mean, what did you hear in this speech? Yeah, I think it was a speech meant to be consumed without context and without scope. That's really the only way you could take what he's saying at face value and we can get into some of the specific claims that he made. As far as the motive, I would throw a few things out there. Yes, there's the 2020 recriminations. He's just, he consistently goes back to that defeat in 2020. I do think you're right. He's looking at the House math. Democrats still have to be favored to take the House, possibly trying to sow doubt for that. I think there's also two other things. One, this kind of desperate push he's making for the Save America Act, this bill that's languishing in the Senate that would require voter ID, limit vote by mail, doesn't appear like it's going to pass. And then also I think we have to say for this November, not just sowing doubts in a potential Republican laws, but also maybe providing the pretext. for getting the federal government more involved in election administration efforts with so far through things like the post office have failed, been blocked in court. It's not to say that's the end of those efforts, though. Yeah. And I mean, it's fascinating to me that in order to. potentially set up, you know, doubts about this fall. He keeps returning to 2021. Let's not forget he was in power. And so all these documents that were declassified last night or re-released were not new. They've been out there. And they show a lot of them sort of contradict what he's saying, right? He didn't mention Russia at all. Talked about China a lot. And You know, in some cases, what those documents show is that Russia was trying to help his campaign. But there's also then the gutting of the election security apparatus at the national level, right? He just fired all the remaining members of a bipartisan commission that is aimed at helping states sort of shore up their systems. We've seen the gutting at the cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency, also at FBI and DNI. So it does seem like if you talk to folks. In local election systems, like they're saying we are getting less help than ever from the federal government. Right, right. And at the same time, you're seeing a consistent targeting of California, of blue states. I mean, you heard that right with both when he's talking about non-citizen voters and just our election counting process. We are releasing the results of a stunning investigation by the Department of Homeland Security.

According to the DHS review, state voter rolls and public records, they identified approximately 278,000 non-citizens who are registered to vote in federal elections. So it's a little confusing when you listen to that because essentially about 30 states have refused to hand over their voter rolls, including these four that he's calling out California, New Jersey, Nevada, and Pennsylvania. And because of that, what we know is that they're relying on, you know, public records, which are notoriously not specific in terms of people's, you know, voter identification information. to protect people's identities. So you wouldn't, if you don't have the voter rolls, you don't have, you know, their driver's license number, their immigration status. So I think a lot of what we've heard from Democrats and election experts is like there's no way these numbers will stand up, right? And also any extrapolation just falls on its face, right? You can say, look, there have been cases. I go back to 2018. There were six non-citizens who voted in California elections. There were 20 million people who voted in California elections. So once he starts to extrapolate to, oh, and this is affecting the results and the outcomes of elections, the evidence just falls apart there. And yes, I think with California, it's, you know, the state has resisted turning all these voter rolls. And I think you hear Trump go again and again to this idea of voter information. He brought that up a lot last night in the context of China. That's very different than votes. Voter information is your name, your address. the party you're registered with, which, by the way, political parties are accessing all the time in order to target you. And what the intelligence community had released in 2021 was China is interested in this information, possibly just to try to figure out which way the winds are blowing in the election. So that's a very, very, very different thing than actually taking action to change results. Yeah, to your point, even if this 278,000 figure were true, which it seems very unlikely that it. that will, you know, bear out. 154 million people voted in 2024, right? I mean, so like the idea that things are affecting the outcome are kind of hard to believe in that way as well. The other thing that we've seen Trump do and a lot of national dialogue about this is California's specific voting process here. It does take us a wild account votes. And the president referred to that last night as well. As one example of the Insanity California's recent election for mayor of L.A. and governor was held on June 2nd, a long time ago, but it was just completed a few days ago in July 10th. Think of that much more than one month. Took a month to count the votes. I wonder what they were doing. And just, I mean, to clarify, well, he's talking about the certification of the election. That's when the local officials are sending their results to the state. The actual accounting has been done. So again, this is just all an effort to kind of sow doubt and throw shade at California. We've seen some response, though, from state officials trying to put more money and speed up the count. But I think this is, I mean, you've been looking into this on the show through a series, just this broader.

conversation around misinformation and kind of voting rights. Yeah, I mean, we've had, you know, we're doing this series really looking at the history of election integrity. And, you know, the first two, we looked back through history at the Jim Crow era. And we talked this week to a journalist about the kind of last six years and everything Trump and his allies have done to undermine confidence. I mean, in addition to what we've also talked about, like how nonsensical a lot of the allegations from the president. I think what is interesting is that we to this day are seeing some of the same playbook, especially in southern states, that we saw back in the Jim Crow era in like the late 1800s, which is laws, policies that are making it harder for specific communities to vote. I mean, just today, the New York Times has a story about North Carolina trying to move places where you can vote election centers off of college campuses, right? And so none of this is new, but I do think that in this era, of hyper-partisanship, the danger really is just this undermining of public confidence. And like if you say a lie enough times, it can become sort of gospel to at least part of the population. And so that's something, you know, we're going to keep talking about. And hopefully, you know, in a nonpartisan way, this is not about Republicans or Democrats. This is about our democracy. That was KQVD's Marisa Lagos and Guy Marzorati. You can hear the rest of their conversation on the political breakdown podcast. I'm Natalia Navarro, KQVD News.

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