Carlson Messes with Texas Gov
to Take Shine Off Police Car Wall

Capitol Inside
September 22, 2021

Governor Greg Abbott's sensational run to the far right took another wild turn on Wednesday with Fox News superstar Tucker Carlson blaming the Texas leader for a record migrant surge that he refuses to discuss as a guest on his show.

The primetime salvo threw a massive wrench into Abbott's attempts to attribute all of the problems on the southern border to Democratic President Joe Biden's administration. Carlson unloaded on the Texas governor after an appearance in Del Rio on Tuesday for a photo op that he created by stringing Department of Public Safety vehicles side by side for miles along the Rio Grande as a new "steel barrier" to stop the flood of illegal border crossings.

One of the chief sources for news and information for the new conservative GOP base, Carlson apparently wasn't impressed with the gubernatorial theatrics at a bridge where thousands of Haitian refugees have been gathered for the past week seeking asylum in the U.S.

"We've asked Texas Gov. Greg Abbott many times to come on this show to explain why he hasn't called the National Guard to seal the Texas border to protect the rest of us from this invasion," Carlson said. "Greg Abbott has refused to come on repeatedly."

Abbott has appeared to be angling for a presidential race in 2024 with illegal immigration as the showcase issue complete with a $2 billion infusion to beef up law enforcement in addition to public funding for the revival of the wall that Donald Trump began before his ouster from the White House last year.

After six years as an establishment conservative who'd been a bipartisan leader, Abbott has sought to establish himself as hard-liner amid visions of the presidency and surprising concern about a pair of Republican challengers on the far right in former Texas Senate member Don Huffines and ex-state GOP chief Allen West.

Abbott appears to perceive himself to be invincible against potential 2022 general election rivals such as Democrat Beto O'Rourke of El Paso and Austin-based actor Matthew McConaughey, who's been exploring a possible run for governor next year as an independent or Democratic primary contender.

Carlson could have been jealous because Abbott appeared on fellow Fox News celebrity Sean Hannity's show instead. But Carlson suggested that he plans to make Abbott pay for the spurning.

"We plan to invite his primary opponents onto this show to describe what they would do if they ran Texas," Carlson said. "We'd like to give Gov. Greg Abbott one more chance. Sincerely, tell us how you plan to save the rest of us from what's happening in your state."

Abbott appeared to be a few days late too late to have the kind of shock value that he'd envision when he staged a press conference in Del Rio with the Haitians encampment as a backdrop. The number of Haitians who'd congregated at the international bridge there had mushroomed from 8,000 to more than 14,000 by the start of the week based on estimates from law enforcement.

"When you have an administration that is not enforcing the law in this country, when you have an administration that has abandoned any pretense of securing the border and securing our sovereignty, you see the onrush of people like what we saw walking across this dam that is right behind me," Abbott told CNN at the bridge where he had the press conference on Tuesday.

The rhetoric appeared to out of date and off-base, however, in light of the fact that the federal government has been flying some Haitians back to their homeland while processing others with actions that had cut the number of migrants at the Del Rio bridge in half.

But the governor suggested that he'd found the key to curbing the flow of people into Texas illegally with a caravan of black DPS vehicles that were lined up on the banks of the river for miles and miles according to Abbott.

"One day there were countless people coming across the border, then that very same day the Texas Department of Public Safety put up all these DPS vehicles, and suddenly, in an instant, people stopped crossing the border in this location," Abbott explained at the media event.

more to come ...

 

 

 

 

 

Copyright 2003-2021 Capitol Inside