Republicans around the country are throwing their hats behind Texas Governor Greg Abbott amid his escalating border security tete-a-tete with the federal government, seemingly attempting to transform the dispute into a “civil war,” according to several conservative commentators.
On Wednesday, Abbott declared the influx of immigrants across the border an “invasion”—a status that Abbott claimed supersedes federal mandates—and issued a statement on the state’s constitutional right to defend itself.
That was just two days after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of President Joe Biden by declaring that Texas went outside its jurisdiction by erecting makeshift concertina wire fences along the Rio Grande section of the U.S.-Mexico border, effectively preventing the U.S. border patrol from doing their job. Texas has continued building new wire barriers since that ruling.
At least 25 Republican governors have declared their support for Abbott, including Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey, and Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon.
UPDATE – 25 Republican governors issue a joint statement in support of Texas in its border dispute with the federal government, Vermont’s governor was the lone exception. pic.twitter.com/ObXWfbyBHd
— NewsWire (@NewsWire_US) January 25, 2024
“The Biden administration has turned every state into a border state. We must stop the flow of fentanyl, save lives, and secure our southern border,” Youngkin posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
“Texas, you can count on Alabama to have your back,” Ivey said.
House Speaker Mike Johnson also chimed in, roping the U.S. House of Representatives into the conflict by announcing that “the House will do everything in its power to back [Abbott] up.”
That, however, doesn’t seem to include advancing a border security deal within his own realm of government. Republicans all but killed a bipartisan border deal this week, for fear it could be interpreted as a political win for Biden as Donald Trump ramps up to make immigration a wedge issue in the upcoming election.
“Trump wants them to kill it because he doesn’t want Biden to have a victory,” a source told HuffPost on Wednesday. “He told them he will fix the border when he is president… He said he only wants the perfect deal.”
“The border is a very important issue for Donald Trump,” Utah Senator Mitt Romney told reporters on Thursday. “And the fact that he would communicate to Republican senators and congresspeople that he doesn’t want us to solve the border problem because he wants to blame Biden for it is really appalling.”
All eyes were on Donald Trump on Thursday as the former president finally took the stand in his second trial brought by columnist E. Jean Carroll. After weeks of drama between Judge Lewis Kaplan and attorney Alina Habba, during which the managing partner of Habba, Madaio & Associates LLP painted herself as an inexperienced attorney in way over her head, Trump was heavily anticipated to deliver bombastic testimony that would rock the courtroom. But then, he didn’t.
Moments before Trump took the stand, Kaplan set severe parameters for Trump’s appearance, alerting Habba that her client would not be allowed to reject the results of Carroll’s first trial against Trump, which found him liable for sexually assaulting the writer.
“The jury found that Mr. Trump inserted his fingers into her vagina. And that Ms. Carroll did not make up her claim. And that Mr. Trump’s June 11 and June 22 statements were defamatory. Now Mr. Trump may not make any argument against this,” Kaplan warned Habba, according to Inner City Press.
Then Kaplan notified Habba that she would only be permitted to ask Trump a couple of questions: whether or not the former president stood by his deposition testimony, and whether he ever instructed anyone to hurt Carroll.
At another point, Kaplan asked Habba to outline every detail that Trump planned to say on the stand, to which Habba replied that she couldn’t testify on behalf of her client, according to Politico’s Erica Orden.
Trump spent just three minutes in total on the stand, answering questions with minute flair that Kaplan immediately ordered the jury to disregard.
When asked if he instructed anyone to hurt Carroll, Trump responded in the negative.
“No, I just wanted to defend myself, my family and frankly, the presidency,” Trump said, before Kaplan interjected that the jury should ignore everything Trump said after “no.”
And when asked if he denied the allegation in order to defend himself, Trump again tried to push the judge’s boundaries.
“Yes, I did. That’s exactly right. She said something I considered a false accusation—” Trump began, before Kaplan told the jury to disregard everything after “Yes, I did.”
The aggressive strategy to keep Trump—and the courtroom—under control was likely inspired by the GOP front-runner’s rambunctious and threatening behavior during his New York bank fraud trial under Judge Arthur Engoron and his D.C. trial with Judge Tanya Chutkan, both of which resulted in seemingly ineffective gag orders on the former president.
And despite its anticlimactic finale, Kaplan’s strategy proved surprisingly effective at trial, generally cordoning off Trump’s more disruptive tendencies to outside the courtroom—something other judges haven’t been able to achieve. That may be thanks to Kaplan’s decades behind the bench, during which he presided over some of the biggest terrorism cases in the nation’s history. Those include closing the docket on Osama bin Laden following his death at the hands of Seal Team Six and presiding over the case of Ahmed Ghailani, the only Guantánamo Bay detainee to be tried in a civilian court.
Donald Trump testified for just three minutes on Thursday during his defamation trial against E. Jean Carroll—and he still managed to lie nonstop.
Trump had not attended his first trial against Carroll, so his testimony Thursday was highly anticipated. But his attorney Alina Habba ended up asking him just three questions, after presiding Judge Lewis Kaplan significantly limited what Trump’s legal team could discuss in the courtroom.
Before Trump took the stand, Kaplan reminded the jury that Trump has already been found liable of sexually assaulting Carroll and then defaming her when he denied the attack.
“There are no do-overs,” Kaplan said.
Habba proceeded to ask Trump if he stood by his video deposition, in which he claimed he never met Carroll and that she was lying when she said he had assaulted her.
“One hundred percent, yes,” Trump said.
Habba asked Trump if he denied the accusation in self-defense.
“That’s exactly right,” Trump said.
Habba: Did you deny the allegation to defend yourself?
Trump: “Yes, I did. That’s exactly right. She said something i considered a false accusation…”
Kaplan instructed to jury to disregard everything after “Yes, I did.”
— erica orden (@eorden) January 25, 2024
Finally, Habba asked Trump if he had instructed anyone to hurt Carroll, which he denied.
Habba: Did you instruct anyone to hurt Ms. Carroll?
Trump: “No, I just wanted to defend myself, my family and franky, the presidency…”
Kaplan instructed the jury to disregard everything after “No.”
— erica orden (@eorden) January 25, 2024
Kaplan had to cut Trump off during his second and third answers and instruct the jury to disregard the majority of what the former president said.
This trial is just to set damages. In May, a jury unanimously found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll and then defaming her when denying her accusations. Kaplan ruled in September that since it was already proven Trump assaulted Carroll, the comments for which he is on trial this time are by default defamatory.
Carroll is seeking at least $10 million in damages. Trump had one chance to make a case for the jury to award her a smaller amount, and instead he wasted everyone’s time by making claims that have already been proven false. Trump already owes Carroll $5 million in damages from the first trial.
Even a ruling from the nation’s highest court doesn’t seem to be enough to deter Texas’s governor from fooling around at the border.
On Wednesday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott amped the situation up a notch, declaring the influx of immigrants over the border an “invasion”—a status that Abbott claimed supersedes federal mandates—while shipping more members of the Texas National Guard to erect more concertina wire along the Rio Grande section of the U.S.-Mexico border.
That move appeared to openly defy a Supreme Court ruling made on Monday, which sided with the Biden administration that Texas had overstepped its authority by placing the wire in such a way that federal agents could no longer access the border.
“Texas’ razor wire is an effective deterrent against the illegal border crossings encouraged by Biden’s open border policies,” Abbott said in a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “We continue to deploy this razor wire to repel illegal immigration.”
Texas’ razor wire is an effective deterrent against the illegal border crossings encouraged by Biden’s open border policies.
We continue to deploy this razor wire to repel illegal immigration. pic.twitter.com/PE8wiMYaYI
— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) January 24, 2024
The online defiance came part and parcel with an eyebrow-raising interview on Fox News on Thursday, in which Abbott dodged a point-blank question about the state’s standoff with federal agents.
“Will you instruct your officers to physically prevent federal officers from accessing that part of the border?” asked host Bill Hemmer.
“So, what Texas is doing is just very simple. And that is because the Biden administration has really, truly, abdicated this responsibility to secure the border and enforce the laws, Texas very simply is securing the border,” Abbott responded, remarkably not saying no. “So we put up the razor wire that you were talking about, Bill, and put up all these barricades that have denied illegal entry.”
But then Abbott seemed to imply that his state wasn’t done attempting to litigate its case, suggesting that it would return in new form to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
“The case that was presented to the United States Supreme Court actually did not have very much of a record upon which an appellate could make a decision,” Abbott continued. “So, those who may not have voted in favor of Texas, or those who voted to send it back to the Fifth Circuit, they may have thought in their mind that there’s not enough record to make a decision.”
“There were no sentences or paragraphs or pages of an opinion written by the Supreme Court. So no one knows at all what they were thinking. All we know is they wanted to send it back to the Fifth Circuit,” he added.
FOX NEWS: So if you could get this case on the merits to SCOTUS, you could win?
ABBOTT: Now I think maybe we will get it to the 5th Circuit on its merits pic.twitter.com/8cyuKE7jJt
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 25, 2024
“Texas has a constitutional right to defend and protect itself,” Abbott posted on X after the interview. “We will continue to hold the line.”
The 5–4 decision, which was issued on Monday without an opinion, as is the norm in cases of emergency