GOP embraces Trump in visit to Texas, wall
PHARR, TEXAS >> Republican lawmakers traveled to Texas to cheer former President Donald Trump as he paid a visit to the southern border Wednesday and hammered the Biden administration for its immigration policies amid a decades-high spike in border crossings.
Trump, who was joined by more than two dozen House members, also continued to spread lies about the 2020 election as he participated in a border briefing and visited the wall he championed in a trip that was strikingly similar to the many he’d taken here while president.
“Biden is destroying our country. And it all started with a fake election,” Trump railed as he stood at the border, an American flag hoisted by a crane waving above him. Trump has persisted in falsely claiming he won in November, even though state and federal election officials, his own attorney general and numerous judges have said there is no evidence of the mass voter fraud he alleges.
Coming fresh off his first rally since leaving the White House, the visit underscored the extent to which Republicans, both nationally and in the states, continue to embrace Trump as the leader of their party. And it demonstrated anew how much the GOP has taken up Trump’s signature issue of immigration as the party looks to recapture control of Congress in next year’s midterm elections.
Trump was invited to South Texas by the state’s governor, Greg Abbott, who is up for reelection next year and is considered a potential 2024 presidential candidate. After facing criticism for his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, Abbott has taken up Trump’s immigration mantle, vowing to continue building the southern border wall that the Biden administration has suspended.
At the wall, Abbott heaped praise on Trump, hailing him as “the man who did more to secure the border than anybody and any president ever has.”
Pointing to the unfinished border wall rising behind him, Abbott called on Biden to resume construction. “This is Biden’s fault because President Biden is not continuing what President Trump began,” he said.
Democrats have long criticized the wall as a symbolic waste of money that does nothing to address the root causes of migration.
The trip came as Trump was facing new and unprecedented legal pressure in New York.
On Wednesday, his company and his longtime finance chief were reportedly indicted on tax-related crimes stemming from a wide-ranging investigation into the former president’s business dealings, people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.