Governor Abbott Tells Us What’s Really Going On in Texas

BUCK: Governor Greg Abbott is with us now. Governor, thank you so much.

ABBOTT: Hey, it’s my pleasure. Great to visit with you guys.

BUCK: All right. So just tell us, everyone listening all across the country, Texas is at the very forefront right now of this debate from the Democrats, Jim Crow 2.0. You’ve had dozens of state lawmakers in Texas flee on planes. Now they’re taking selfies with their soy lattes telling us how they’re defending freedom. Governor, what happened here? What’s going on?

ABBOTT: This is much ado about absolutely nothing. You know, they’re talking about, oh, they’re losing the right to vote. There couldn’t be a bigger lie in the entire world ’cause get this: What Texas is actually doing, we have 12 days of early voting and during those 12 days of early voting we are adding more hours of early voting, not fewer hours, and so we’re making it easier to vote. And let’s compare that with the state of Delaware. The reason I picked Delaware is because that’s where the vice president — I’m sorry — the current president voted when he ran for the president of the United States, and in Delaware they have exactly zero days of early voting. So, if there’s anyplace we need to be looking at for voter suppression, should be Delaware, not the state of Texas.

But that aside, the one thing that we are trying to crack down on a bit, and that is mail-in ballots. This is something that both Democrats and Republicans agree is a problem. But I’ll tell you who else agrees there’s a problem with this, and that is Barack Obama and Joe Biden, because Barack Obama appointed a federal district judge in Corpus Christi who made a ruling in a voter fraud case, and that is this Obama judge wrote that voter fraud occurs, quote, “in abundance” with regard to the absentee balloting process. So, anyone who thinks this is no big deal, nothing to be solved, this federal judge said it happens in abundance, and then on top of that, the Obama administration sent a team to investigate and prosecute voter fraud taking place in south Texas where cocaine was being used to buy votes. Before I was governor, I was the attorney general, I prosecuted voter fraud across this state. Voter fraud is real. It must be stopped. We’re trying to make sure that we will make voting easier but making cheating harder. And that’s all this law does.

CLAY: Governor, do you have any indication — thanks for coming on — do you have any indication when these Democrats may return to the state of Texas? And did you know they were leaving? And if you had, could you have stopped them from leaving? How does this process play out, in your mind?

ABBOTT: Sure. I’ll tell you about how the entire process works and what is likely to happen. The way the process works is, the entity that has the power to do something about it either in advance or in the aftermath is the chamber that Democrats break quorum from, and this is the Texas House of Representatives. And by constitution, the House of Representatives here, they have the authority to do one of several things.

One, they can close the doors to the House chamber and not let anybody out unless they get a pass from the Speaker of the House. So the only thing that could have been done in advance had this been known is they could have closed and locked the doors to the House chamber and not let them out in the first place. What they can also do, which is what they’ve already donC, and that is they can issue what’s called a Call on the House. And what that means is that now that that Call on the House has been issued, the sergeant at arms for the House of Representatives is working with the Texas Department of Public Safety. Once any of these House members who absconded off to Washington, D.C., once they come back into the state of Texas, they can be apprehended by the Texas Department of Public Safety and brought to the capitol where they will be required to stay through the entirety of the special session.

But, going back to the first part of your question, how long will this go on, how long will they stay in Washington, D.C.? The indications that we have received just from public comments by them, and that is they want to stay Washington, D.C., for the entirety of this special session. A special session lasts 30 days. The governor can call successfully special sessions, and that’s exactly what I will do. And they say for 30 days. Well, guess what, on the 31st day I’m gonna call another special session, and I will continue calling special sessions month after month after month all the way until the election next year until they show up and do the job that voters elected them to do, which is to go to the capitol and vote on laws. And they cannot stay away from their districts for a year at a time. And so one thing we know is they’re gonna come back. And when they do come back, we’ll have a special session, at which point if they don’t show up, the Texas Department of Public Safety will provide them an escort to the capitol and require them to show up.

BUCK: So, Governor, two things. One is, it’s fair to say that they’re breaking the law? And, two, I just want to know, if it was it your authority — a friend of mine who follows Texas politics very closely told me this — is it within your authority to call a special election because they’re absent their posts?

ABBOTT: Well, this is an issue that we’re looking at. Right now, as we’re speaking right now, that would not be the case. So this is not the first time the Democrats have done this. They did it during redistricting about ten years ago when they wanted to leave the state, and there wasn’t the authority by then-Governor Perry to vacate their seat. There could come a point in time when they are gone from the state so long that we may have the opportunity to say that they have vacated their seat because, you know, we have to have legislation, and they can’t prevent legislation for the entirety of the two-year process. And so we are looking into the law of how long they would have to be gone that I could call that they have vacated their seats and call for special elections for their seat. I do not yet have the answer to that question.

BUCK: Is it illegal, though, governor what they’re doing right now? Is it fair to say — ’cause that’s not how it’s reported. Are they breaking the law by doing this?

ABBOTT: There is no state law in the state of Texas they are breaking. They have before this time and currently they can leave the state if they want to. It’s just a fact that once they return to the state they can be apprehended, however you want to use the word, by the Texas Department of Public Safety and brought back to the capitol for the purpose of reinstating a quorum. But there is no law on the books that they are violating for which they could get some type of criminal arrest.

CLAY: Texas Governor Greg Abbott with us here on the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show. Governor, Joe Biden has really kind of come after some of the decisions that you guys have made in Texas. When you opened up the state, he said that it was Neanderthal thinking, and yesterday he gave a speech where effectively he doubled down on his claim of Jim Crow 2.0. How much of that attack from your perspective is unfair from Joe Biden upon the state of Texas and some of the decisions that you’re making there?

ABBOTT: Look. It just looks goofy by Joe Biden saying stuff like that. For one, it showed that he was absolutely wrong when he called us a Neanderthal, although I guess what it means is Neanderthals are pretty good thinkers, because what you’re talking about for your audience today is back something like four months ago, I opened up Texas 100 percent, no mask mandates, no requirements whatsoever, everybody can return to normal, live their lives. And that day President Biden said that I was involved in Neanderthal thinking about what I was doing. Well, guess what? From very day after I opened Texas 100 percent, all the covid numbers went down, and the state of covid improved in the state of Texas.

And, once again, Joe Biden is engaging in name-calling and making false statements. And so what he’s showing his fellow Americans is whenever Joe Biden goes on to the attack against anybody, no one in the entire country should believe what he has to say because there’s no credibility behind him. Anybody who thinks this is Jim Crow don’t know what Jim Crow is. Jim Crow was preventing people from voting, people all types of barriers from people voting. In Texas, it is easier to vote now than it has ever been to vote, and actually nobody is being denied the ability to vote in the state of Texas. We are making it easier to vote but harder to cheat. And anybody who wants to make it easier to the cheat in voting in the state of Texas, they’re just flat wrong. That, candidly, is what that H.R. 1 in Washington, D.C., is all about. They’re trying to make it easier to cheat in the voting process, and that is exactly why what Congress is trying to achieve must be prevented.

BUCK: Governor Greg Abbott of Texas, Governor, thank you so much for joining us and telling the details of what is really happening there. Great to have you.

ABBOTT: Thank you guys. Take care.