From the New York Times, I'm Michael Babaro. This is The Daily.

Today, Texas has become the latest hotspot in the pandemic, forcing its governor to pause the

state's reopening process after a surge of infections and hospitalizations.

My colleague, Manny Fernandez, on the state's dilemma.

It's Friday, June 26.

Manny, what is the story of how Texas has handled the pandemic and how it is we got to this point?

So, really, there's a couple of things to know about Texas and that is that historically,

Texas has been mistrustful of government. This is a state where the state legislature meets

once every two years. This is a state where most people who ride a motorcycle don't have to wear a helmet

and the government doesn't necessarily force them to wear a helmet. It's this idea that you're on your

own. You want to wear a helmet? Go for it. You don't and you get hurt? Well, okay, it's on you.

And especially, you know, during the Obama years, this was happening where Texas

sued the government for overreach several times on several different issues.

Join now by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott. You've brought suits against the administration

some 30 times, correct? This is the 31st lawsuit that I've brought against the Obama administration

having one more than half of them, but Martha, this may be the most serious one because

it's the most... And the Attorney General at the time had this famous line where the Attorney General

says, you know what? My job is very simple. I wake up in the morning, I go to the office,

I sue the Obama administration, then I go home. If a president can get away with extending his powers

to do things like this, there could be no constitutional limitation on what the president could do.

That is why... And so all of that sort of changes or looks a little bit different after Trump

takes office. Now the Republicans in Texas no longer have that big enemy and they don't have

...