With indictments flying, Donald Trump runs to the border
With indictments flying and unable to even obtain an Alabama rally permit, Trump headed to the Texas border Wednesday for a “briefing,” courtesy of Governor Greg Abbott. Border propaganda has long been a favorite political ploy of both Trump and Abbott.
Abbott raised eyebrows recently, declaring the border a disaster area in several counties (some counties forced him to retract) in order to justify having Texas State Troopers and the National Guard start arresting migrants crossing there. This has been tried elsewhere and deemed unconstitutional, but wanna-be-tyrants don’t generally follow the law. Migrant crossings are seasonal and have already started waning as the weather heats up. Abbott thinks he is being clever by positioning himself to take credit for their continued decline over the summer.
The “briefing” started as a roundtable discussion. Abbott gave Trump a glowing introduction as being the best president ever at keeping our borders safe vs. the “disaster” created by President Biden and VP Harris. Abbott’s law enforcement sycophants were there, claiming Mexican drug cartels are the biggest threat to our nation, which would be laughable were we not facing such grave domestic threats to our democracy — Abbott and Trump being two of them.
Once Trump started talking, he rarely shut up despite being ill-prepared. Trump sang his own praises for almost eliminating criminals crossing the border, ludicrously claiming “millions” were crossing now — the worst criminals, released from the worst prisons, in the worst countries — and other tall tales. (Cons do fly in from Florida, though, periodically.) He rambled, going off topic about everything from acing a mental exam to China to Russia, and of course the “fake” election, but he must have taken some happy pills because he mostly tooted his own horn vs. airing grievances.
Trump even thumped his chest over his disastrous border wall failure, but also slid off into some nonsensical word salad. At one point he claimed Biden would end up finishing the wall. He then strangely went on and on about how the wall needed to be painted. Trump ended with hinting he might run again.
Abbott has been claiming he can finish the wall with private donations. He angered many when pulling a $250M “downpayment” from the Texas budget — already spent just to hire a program manager to negotiate for donated land.
Arizona tried this route and failed horribly. Abbott has reportedly raised less than $500,000 to build “hundreds of miles” of wall, but has no set plan. Lawmakers claim it costs $26.5M per mile, Biden’s administration says it’s $46M per mile in some areas, and Trump spent $15B, yet only built 450 miles. At the briefing, Abbott backtracked, saying Biden should finish the wall. Half of Texas doesn’t even want the wall completed. It’s been said that everything Trump touches dies. Let’s hope that includes Abbott’s political career.
