CLAY: He is the governor of the state of Texas, Greg Abbott. And, Governor, appreciate you making the time for us. And I’ll go right to the news of the day to hear from you the absolute latest on the border deaths. What are the numbers, what do you know about the latest as it pertains to that awful story that took over basically everything last night in terms of people reacting to it?

GOV. ABBOTT: Well, Clay, great to visit with you again. And listen, what happened is absolutely devastating but also absolutely predictable because of Joe Biden’s open-border policies where he’s doing absolutely nothing to enforce the immigration laws of the United States. And when the president refuses to enforce the immigration laws, that empowers the cartels. And nobody comes across the border without the assistance of the cartels. The cartels assisted these people to get across the border.

And then they get picked up on the Texas side by either a cartel member or someone working in conjunction with the smuggling operation, and they put people into a truck like this and drove it where it was eventually located. With regard to the numbers of people involved and things like that, I just got through talking before I talked to you with the head of the Texas Department of Public Safety, and they are still working to finalize some factual details, and so I’m not gonna give you something that would be guesswork.

All I can tell you is this: What happened is a crime in the state of Texas, and we are working to make sure that we can locate anybody and everybody who deserves to be prosecuted for this crime. But also, what I can tell you is that these deaths are on Joe Biden, because of Joe Biden’s policies that attract people to come across the border signaling that the border is open. And people make this very dangerous trek, come across the border having no idea that they’re gonna be going into a situation where they could lose their lives like this. This tragedy occurred because of Joe Biden’s reckless policies. Americans need to understand that.

BUCK: Governor Abbott, it’s Buck. Thanks for being with us. The Biden administration doesn’t seem to want to do anything to change the reality at the border for the better, meaning law and order, security, and orderly process for legal admission into the country. What would it look like…? Let’s just assume — I was talking to Clay before about this — that Democrats are so beaten down after the midterm elections that they’re finally willing to try at least a little bit of an increase in border security. What could be done, Governor? If you had a willing partner on the federal side, what would it look like to secure the border for your state and all the border states?

Texas National Guard Launches Border River Mission.

The purpose of the river boats is to “prevent, deter, and interdict” illegal immigration.

This includes attempts to turn back migrants preparing or attempting to cross the river.

⁦@TexasGuard⁩ https://t.co/PUZWyjcysv

— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) June 28, 2022

GOV. ABBOTT: So, Buck, we don’t have to guess or postulate about this. We know exactly what could be done, because it was literally as recent as a year and a half ago that we did have a president of the United States who was securing the border more than any other president ever has, and it led to multidecade lows in the number of people coming across our border and what Trump did, he did four or five things that can be replicated by any president.

One, he built a wall. Two, he implemented Title 42. Three, he implemented the Remain in Mexico policy. Four, he ended catch-and-release. But maybe most prolifically, he sent a message that we’re not going to accept illegal immigration anymore. And that is what led to the multidecade lows. And so, Buck, listen. It’s not hard to do this, and we experienced this in the state of Texas with these record lows in the number of people coming across our border.

We need, once again, a president of the United States who will do that. But I will tell you this. You know, some of us can start, if not now, pretty soon with regard to changing and corralling what the Biden administration is doing because, either now or if Republicans take control of the United States Congress, they can, I think, begin by impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas. Last night, he said that this has nothing to do with the Biden administration and because the borders are not open.

This is insanity, and he’s doing nothing more than lying to the American people, and he needs to be impeached. But there need to be investigations every single day about the Biden administration’s failure and pushing them into it. But let me go back and make a point, Buck, that you kind of also brought up. There are political consequences for this, for the Biden administration, and you’ve already seen those political consequences because you saw Mayra Flores get elected as Republican to congressional seat in South Texas that’s always been held by a Democrat.

And she won because Democrats, Republicans, Hispanics, everybody that lives along the border, they are anger about the Biden administration’s approach to ope- border policies and they want people in office to step up and do that about it. We now have another member of the United States Congress who is going to be holding Biden’s feet to the fire with regard to the immigration policies in the United States of America.

CLAY: We’re talking to governor of Texas Greg Abbott. I want to ask you, you’re talking all about Biden’s failures and certainly we spent a lot of time discussing all of them here on the program, but also energy policy. Oil and gas in Texas is massively important not only to your economy but to the national economy. You’ve got a letter that you wrote to the EPA about the impact that Joe Biden is having that you say could jeopardize a quarter of the nation’s gas supply based on Permian Basin policies he’s putting in place. What should our audience know about what’s going on there?

GOV. ABBOTT: So to be clear, the letter that I sent yesterday was to President Biden, and what I did is I I called out President Biden for his duplicity. You know, President Biden is trying to tell people, Americans who are angry about inflation, who are angry about the price at the pump — he’s trying to tell them — he’s doing everything he can to reduce the price at the pump. But Americans do not know what I’m the bottom your audience right now.

President Biden’s EPA seeks to stop gas production in the Permian Basin.

This will raise gas prices EVEN MORE.

This action is completely discretionary.

Biden has the power to stop it.

Read my full letter: pic.twitter.com/o788QPGYdj

— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) June 27, 2022

And that is recently, like last week, the EPA, under the Biden administration issued a discretionary act where they’re gonna be seeking to impose greater regulations in the Permian Basin. The Permian Basin is the largest oil field in the United States of America. It’s mostly in West Texas and partly in New Mexico. And if the Environmental Protection Agency follows through with this discretionary act, it will cause either a reduction in the production of oil and gas or it will cause the oil and gas companies producing it to implement measures that will increase the price of the oil that they’re selling and that in turn will increase the price of gasoline.

So my point is this that Americans need to understand, and that is: Joe Biden on the one side of his mouth is saying he wants to lower the price of gasoline; on the other side of his mouth — through his EPA — they’re taking action that’s going to skyrocket the price of gasoline, all while Biden is going over to Saudi Arabia begging them for more oil. What Biden is doing makes no sense whatsoever.

BUCK: We’re speaking to the governor of Texas, Greg Abbott. Governor, the Uvalde shooting law enforcement response and looking at that in the aftermath of this, what that response involved, the law enforcement tactics. Texas Department of Public Safety has an ongoing investigation, as we know. What can you tell us about the ability and the desire to get answers here about how it seems this went so very wrong from a law enforcement response perspective?

GOV. ABBOTT: Well, there’s both the ability, the desire, and the certainty that, for one, w will get to the bottom of every nuanced detail about exactly what happened and the public will know — but most importantly, the people of Uvalde will know, the victims and the families of victims, they are going to know because they deserve answers. But listen. We as a state, we as a country, we need to know exactly what happened and what went wrong, why it when wrong, and what we need to do to make sure that it gets corrected.

The good news is this, and that is, much of the details have already been pieced together, and I can tell you why. And that’s because there have been a lot of videos that have been taken as well as bodycams — aand some of the body cams have audio on them as well — and so there’s real-time gathering of information about exactly what was said and done in real time. And all of that information is gonna be coming out, and we want to make sure the public gets to know this.

The Texas Rangers are the lead investigator of this. They are working with the FBI, and you may know that Department of Justice is also conducting an investigation. We want all of these investigations, and we want all of them to come together as quickly as possible, and we want to make sure that whenever anything is released to the public, it will not contain any conflict of information or any erroneous information because people have no more latitude, no more acceptance of any more inaccurate information. We gotta get it and we gotta get it right and we gotta get it out to the public as quickly as possible.

CLAY: Governor, I thought you handled your briefing about as well as you could have when Beto O’Rourke interrupted it, and I know his moment interrupting you went viral, but your response to that was really impressive that you kept your cool, in my opinion. What are you hearing from people on the campaign trail about that incident, the way that Beto handled it and his behavior there?

GOV. ABBOTT: Well, listen. The people I talk to, they say that it was an embarrassing moment for Beto, and it’s the kind of thing that shows the lack of class that he’s repeatedly demonstrated in the past. And it shows his own duplicity. And so it’s typical Beto. You know, there was a phrase he used against Ted Cruz in a debate when he ran for the Senate, and it was true to form. And this is true to form for Beto O’Rourke.

BUCK: Governor of Texas Greg Abbott. Governor, appreciate you being with us today, sir. Thank you so much.

GOV. ABBOTT: You too. You guys take care.
Texas National Guard Launches Border River Mission.

The purpose of the river boats is to “prevent, deter, and interdict” illegal immigration.

This includes attempts to turn back migrants preparing or attempting to cross the river.

CLAY: That is pretty interesting, Buck. We got a lot of information there from the governor. He said Mayorkas should be impeached. The tragedy at the border occurred because of Joe Biden’s reckless policies and, direct quote, “These deaths are on Joe Biden.” We’ll see whether the media is willing to cover those deaths.