Governor Greg Abbott sparked cheers and chanting at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday night when he falsely claimed that Donald Trump eliminated illegal immigration in the U.S. as the president despite the highest spike in border crossings in a decade or more on his watch.
Abbott focused almost exclusively on border security on the stage in Milwaukee - wowing delegates in a span of almost seven minutes with a mix of facts and statements that were dramatically exaggerated, deceptive or flat out wrong in some cases.
Abbott's speech arguably was better than most if not all of those he's delivered in a long career in politics. The relatively enthusiastic reception he received at the RNC had to be a relief after being booed by Trump supporters at a rally in Conroe in early 2022.
But Abbott failed to score the national exposure that he'd anticipated on his largest stage when Fox News and CNN both ignored his speech during live convention broadcasts on the third night of the event. Fox News devoted the time that Abbott was speaking to an interview with U.S. Senator Ted Cruz on Secret Service lapses during the attempted Trump assassination last week.
The Texas leader had a tough act to follow after Trump ally and adviser Peter Navarro electrified the audience at the convention with a speech there after being released from prison in Miami hours earlier on the same day. Navarro spent four months behind bars for refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena in the investigation into the riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6 in 2021.
Navarro received a hero's welcome at the RNC - and he brought back memories of Al and Tipper Gore when he had his wife stroll on to the stage so they could kiss for the cameras. Gore and his wife kissed on the stage of the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles after accepting the presidential nomination in 2020.
Navarro claimed that President Joe Biden and the Democrats got people killed by allowing murderers, rapists and terrorists to enter the country across the southern border. Abbott sought to one-up his fellow Republican who just got out of jail with a variation on the same claim.
"Biden has welcomed into our country rapists, murderers, even terrorists," Abbott said. "And the price that we have paid has been deadly."
Abbott took credit for Texas building "hundreds of miles" of razor wire barriers - a remark that appeared to be a wild exaggeration. The governor said that he'd ordered the National Guard to install three times more razor wire fences on the Rio Grande after Biden instructed the Border Patrol to start ripping it down.
The governor continued to ignore Biden-imposed restrictions that brought illegal border crossings down here substantially before Abbott's tactics began to have a discernible effect. Abbott, who'd promised to eliminate rape in the Lone Star State, appeared to be having trouble with the teleprompter before the most outlandish claim of all in the RNC speech.
"The president's most sacred duty is to secure our country," Abbott declared. "Donald Trump fulfilled that duty by eliminating illegal immigration."
Abbott incorrectly stated that the number of migrants who entered the U.S. illegally was lower under Trump than it had been in four decades. Migrant encounters skyrocketed in 2019 when Trump was president to the highest point in more than 10 years. But Abbott remained mum at the time.
Abbott's comments on the elimination of illegal border crossing conjured visions of his promise to eliminate rape in the Lone Star State.
more to come ...
