Sign up for The Brief, our daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.
During former President Donald Trump’s announcement on Tuesday evening to again run for the country’s highest office, he falsely claimed that every community along Texas’ southern border supported him in his last bid for presidency in 2020.
Trump added that Gov. Greg Abbott called him to congratulate him for his success along the Texas-Mexico border, despite the fact that the former president did not actually receive the support of all of the border communities.
In neither 2020 nor 2016 did Trump win all the southern border counties in Texas. The majority of residents in seven of the 14 counties in Texas that touch the southern border voted for President Joe Biden in 2020. In 2016, nine of those 14 counties went for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
In recounting the call between himself and the Texas governor, Trump said that Abbott told him, “You’ve done something that nobody else has done. You’ve won every single area along the border — it’s the longest since Reconstruction.”
Abbott’s office did not immediately return a request for comment about the alleged call between him and Trump or his support for the former president.
Among other false claims, Trump said he won the most votes in the 2020 election. Biden won over 7 million more votes than Trump, who tried to overthrow the results of the 2020 election by inspiring a deadly riot at the Capitol. He is currently the subject of several investigations.
