Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott may endorse former President Donald Trump for the 2024 GOP nomination when the two teams meet Sunday near the U.S.-Mexico border.
The former president will join the governor on Sunday in Edinburg, Texas, for Abbott’s annual pre-Thanksgiving tradition of offering tamales to Texas Department of Public Safety troops and Texas National Guardsmen deployed along the southern border under the governor’s Operation Lone Star program, the former president said. Multiple sources. He confirmed to Fox News.
These sources also say that Abbott’s endorsement of Trump this weekend for the Republican presidential nomination is possible.
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Texas Governor Greg Abbott and former President Donald Trump attend a briefing with state officials and law enforcement at the Weslaco Department of Public Safety (DPS) headquarters before touring the US-Mexico border wall on Wednesday, June 30, 2021 in Weslaco, Texas. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via AP, Pool) (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via AP, Pool)
Trump endorsed Abbott in 2021, as the conservative governor was up for re-election and facing multiple primary challenges from the right. Abbott overwhelmingly won renomination in March last year before comfortably defeating his Democratic rival, former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, last November to secure a third term in Texas.
Abbott was grateful for Trump’s early endorsement last cycle, according to those in the governor’s political orbit, and will likely return the favor.
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Trump, who is running for the White House for the third time in a row, is the front-runner for the 2024 Republican nomination, with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former ambassador to the United Nations and former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley currently competing for second place by a wide margin. A place at the polls.
Trump’s lead expanded over the spring and summer as he made history as the first former or sitting president in American history to be charged with a crime. Trump’s four indictments — including in federal court in Washington, D.C., and Fulton District Court in Georgia on charges he tried to overturn his loss in the 2020 presidential election — have only increased his support among Republican voters.
Former President Donald Trump leaves the stage at a campaign rally on Saturday, Nov. 11, 2023, in Claremont, New Hampshire. (AP Photo/Reba Saldanha) (AP Photo/Reba Saldanha)
The former president’s trip to Texas to meet with Abbott near the border will highlight the combustible issue of illegal immigration and border security. The issue has long been top of mind for Republican voters, and for two and a half years GOP leaders and politicians have sharply criticized President Biden’s administration over the surge in migrants crossing the border.
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Trump, if he wins the White House, has vowed to launch the largest mass deportation effort in American history, reimposing the travel ban in addition to his 2019 “Remain in Mexico” program, which forced out non-Mexican asylum seekers aiming to enter the United States. On the southern border to wait in Mexico to resolve their cases. Trump also said he would seek to end automatic citizenship for children born in the United States to immigrants who entered the country illegally, an idea he proposed during his administration.
Biden’s 2024 re-election campaign has criticized Trump’s “scary” proposals, arguing that they violate the US Constitution, the nation’s values and immigrants’ rights.
President Joe Biden shakes hands with Texas Governor Greg Abbott after Abbott delivered a message about the border at El Paso International Airport in El Paso Texas, Sunday, January 8, 2023. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnick)
Border security has also been a key issue for Abbott, who has repeatedly sparred with the Biden administration.
The Texas Legislature, during a special session called by the governor, this week passed a controversial measure allowing state law enforcement officials to arrest suspected illegal immigrants. Democrats mocked the tough immigration bill.
News of Trump’s trip to Texas and Abbott’s potential endorsement was first reported earlier Wednesday evening by The Messenger.
Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more in the Fox News Digital Election Center.
