Fox News "Hannity" - Transcript Interview with Greg Abbott

Interview

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Here with reaction, Governor Abbott.

Governor, good to see you.

Let me just ask first a COVID question. I understand the pattern seems to be holding. You get -- you got a hot spot, you've had it in Texas, then the curve flattens. That goes toll goes up a little bit, then you get a drop off and now we're having a dramatic drop-off I understand. Is that correct?

TEXAS GOV. GREG ABBOTT: So, Sean, we are seeing good numbers in the state of Texas. Most importantly, the numbers that we're looking at are the hospitalization numbers. And both the number of people hospitalized, as well as those in intensive care units are on the decline. So this is good news for the state of Texas, we need to keep it going so we can begin to open up even more in the -- in the Lone Star State.

HANNITY: And, by the way, that's happened in California, Arizona and Florida now seeing the same thing, lowest infection rate I saw, according to Johns Hopkins on Monday this week since June.

All right, let's get to this issue of these cities in Texas that plan to defund the police. Kamala Harris, she supported defunding the LAPD. Joe Biden, he said he's for reallocating funds away and police become the enemy, he said.

So, it's -- this is a scary proposition. We see what's happening in cities run by liberal Democrats for decades, most of them blue states run by liberal Democrats for decades. Tell me how this would work in Texas.

ABBOTT: Well, first, you've seen and you have documented what's happened in Portland, in Seattle, in Chicago, in New York, in St. Louis, and cities across the country. Now, Austin, Texas, has defunded law enforcement, police in Austin, Texas, despite the fact, Sean, that over the first six months of this year, the city ranked number one in the United States for the highest percentage increase in murders was Austin, Texas.

And so, we proposed a law yesterday that would apply to all cities in the state of Texas. If a city defunds law enforcement, they will lose the lifeblood of the revenue they receive from property taxes in Texas. What this does in English is going to defund cities and cities' ability to operate at all if they try to defund law enforcement.

We, Sean, believe in law enforcement in Texas, and we are not going to allow a replication of the types of policies that we've seen destroy cities like Seattle and Portland and others.

HANNITY: How do you -- how do you rationalize -- what is your interpretation of this effort? I mean, you have a Democratic presidential candidate supporting the defund effort or reallocated and in the case of Kamala Harris, totally defunding which he supported and said publicly. And then you see the violence out of control in all of these cities, 80, whatever days in Portland, in Seattle.

We saw what happened in the summer of love zone. We see every weekend, last weekend, 64 people shot in Chicago, including three teenagers and a 12- year-old. This is like -- these are war zones, and that they reject the help -- that they need to ask the president for help, he's begging them to take it, to restore order. But they refuse.

I can't comprehend that. I don't understand that, makes no sense to me.

ABBOTT: They're caving to the forces of socialism -- either blind or maybe even knowing -- that it turns that force of socialism over to other people who will hijack the city, like what you saw in the autonomous zone in Seattle.

And so, Texas is laying down a marker, and that is whether it'd be the city of Austin or any other city. Such actions are not going to be tolerated in Texas. We embrace law enforcement. We will not accept turning power over to these socialistic forces that seek to abandon the rule of law and abandon the law enforcement officers who put their lives on the line, Sean, to keep our communities safe.

HANNITY: Well, all right, Governor, so now if we look at this, and we look at the stated plans, do you think a presidential campaign that's hiding -- 34 questions since March by our count -- versus Donald Trump answering a million questions every day, 1,800 plus in the same time period, do you think adopting Bolshevik Bernie's economic plan, this new radical Green New Deal, defunding the police, radically higher taxes, trillions of dollars in new taxes no more fossil fuels, we'll be energy dependent -- independent and amnesty and the united sanctuary states of America, free health care for illegal immigrants.

Do you think America, as they get informed, the mob won't inform them, will they vote for that?

ABBOTT: So what you will be seeing here in the next two months, the remainder of August and then September and October, is you're going to see people in Pennsylvania, in Ohio and Wisconsin and Michigan, in all of the so-called flyover states -- the people who really care about public safety, the people who really care about the Second Amendment rights, the people who really care about all the things that has made America so great, now, they are going to coalesce around exactly the principles that Donald Trump has been supporting as he has been president as opposed to these ideas that Biden is promoting.

HANNITY: All right. Governor Abbott, thank you for being with us as always. We appreciate it.

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