Daily Archives: June 24, 2021

UPDATE, 10:15 p.m., June 24:

Former Vice President Mike Pence hit back at former President Donald Trump Thursday night, cautioning that no single person should be given the power to decide the presidency and firmly rebutted the former president's continued attacks on him.

"Now there are those in our party who believe that in my position as presiding officer over the joint session that I possessed the authority to reject or return electoral votes certified by the states. But the Constitution provides the vice president with no such authority before the joint session of Congress," Pence told the crowd assembled at the Reagan Library in California. "And the truth is there is almost no idea more un-American than the idea that one person could choose the president. The presidency belongs to the American people, and the American people alone."

Pence never mentioned Trump by name, but the remarks were clearly directed at Trump and his supporters, who continue to spread an election lie claiming that Pence could have helped them overturn the results of the 2020 election.

"I understand the disappointment many feel about the last election, I can relate, I was on the ballot," Pence said. "But you know there's more at stake than our party and our political fortunes in this moment. If we lose faith in the Constitution, we won't just lose elections, we'll lose our country. So now more than ever America needs the Republcian Party to be the party of the Constitution of the United States.

Original analysis continues below:

Thursday night might finally be the night former Vice President Mike Pence a man with his own 2024 presidential ambitions starts striking back at Donald Trump, who almost got him killed six months ago.

Pence has been Trump's quintessentially loyal lieutenant. He stood by Trump through the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, after Trump directed a riotous mob, shouting "Hang Mike Pence!", to stop the Pence-led certification of the 2020 election. Pence remained quiet when Trump considered dumping Pence from the ticket in 2020. He skillfully defended Trump's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, foreign policy philosophy, and health care record.

But hecklers at a recent Christian conservative conference in Florida may have provided just the impetus for Pence to finally break from Trump, after five years of stunning obedience.

The jeers shook Pence and his team to the core, said one Republican close to Pence. "They got stung last week when the crowd booed him. It showed the difficulty of this path."

As if to hammer that point, Trump himself stoked the fires of MAGA rage and torched Pence earlier this week, as Trump repeated his false claim that Pence could have overturned the election results on January 6.

Pence's speech on Thursday night at the Ronald Reagan Library is about the future of the Republican Party and aptly named, "A Time for Choosing".

And Pence choosing this moment to stand apart from Trump, who faces significant legal peril and a hint of softening popularity among hardcore conservatives, may mark his best shot to unofficially launch his own quest for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

Neither Pence nor Trump have formally declared their 2024 presidential ambitions. But Pence is already been playing the part of candidate, with the former vice president reemerging on the national stage with campaign-like speeches, a new podcast, and a regular column published by friends and allies at the Heritage Foundation.

Pence in April picked a Christian Right group in South Carolina an early primary state for his first address since leaving office.

Then, earlier this month in New Hampshire, which traditionally conducts the nation's first presidential primary, Pence toyed with distancing himself from Trump by telling local Republicans that he and Trump may never see "eye-to-eye" about the events of January 6.

It's clear the hardcore Trump loyalists in the Republican base are unlikely to ever support Pence so long as Trump considers running in 2024.

But it's also clear that this group is steadily shrinking. The longer Trump is out of sight deplatformed from Twitter and Facebook, an infrequent presence on cable TV the more he's out of mind. Perhaps sensing this, Trump is scheduled to headline a campaign-style rally Saturday in Ohio.

Pence must eventually end his ride on the Trump train if he ever expects to build a movement of his own.

For now, Pence remains in "purgatory," said longtime Republican strategist Doug Heye.

"If you want to play Trump's game, you've got to back him up. Pence's certifying the electoral college vote the obviously right thing to do is viewed by Trump as an unforgivable sin," Heye said. "So it's not clear that there's any right way to move forward."

Some Republicans familiar with both Trump and Pence are skeptical he will ever fully break from Trump.

"Because of his religious beliefs and his idea of character, he may get angry, but he's the guy who will go pray on it and wake up the next day with a different demeanor," said one former Trump advisor.

Tonight, expect Pence to play some of his greatest hits, touting work on Coronavirus vaccines (despite deep opposition to getting vaccinated from the Republican base), his work moving the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, and curbing protections for the LGBTQ+ community.

Watch to see if he leans into his applause lines, literally, gripping the podium and ducking ever closer to the mic with each new zinger, as he did last week in Florida.

And, most importantly, wait to learn if Pence makes the riskiest but most politically necessary move of all: coming at Trump, the still-reigning king of the Republican Party.

Tom LoBianco is a Washington correspondent for Insider and author of the Mike Pence biography, "Piety & Power: Mike Pence and the Taking of the White House."

Read more:

Pence May Finally Be Ready to Strike Back Against Trump - Business Insider

This article is adapted from Nightmare Scenario: Inside the Trump Administrations Response to the Pandemic That Changed History, which will be published June 29 by HarperCollins.

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azars phone rang with an urgent request: Could he help someone at the White House obtain an experimental coronavirus treatment, known as a monoclonal antibody?

If Azar could get the drug, what would the White House need to do to make that happen? Azar thought for a moment. It was Oct. 1, 2020, and the drug was still in clinical trials. The Food and Drug Administration would have to make a compassionate use exception for its use since it was not yet available to the public. Only about 10 people so far had used it outside of those trials. Azar said of course he would help.

Azar wasnt told who the drug was for but would later connect the dots. The patient was one of President Donald Trumps closest advisers: Hope Hicks.

A short time later, FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn received a request from a top White House official for a separate case, this time with even greater urgency: Could he get the FDA to sign off on a compassionate-use authorization for a monoclonal antibody right away? There is a standard process that doctors use to apply to the FDA for unapproved drugs on behalf of patients dealing with life-threatening illnesses who have exhausted all other options, and agency scientists review it. The difference was that most people dont call the commissioner directly.

The White House wanted Hahn to say yes within hours. Hahn, who still did not know who the application was for, consulted career officials. The FDA needs to go by the book, the officials insisted. Hahn relayed the message back to the White House. They kept pressing him to effectively cut corners. No, we cant do that, Hahn told them several times. Were talking about someones life. We have to actually examine the application to make sure were doing it safely.

When Hahn later learned the effort was on behalf of the president, he was stunned. For Gods sake, he thought, its the president whos sick, and you want us to bend the rules? Trump was in the highest-risk category for severe disease from COVID-19 - at 74, he rarely exercised and was considered medically obese. He was the type of patient with whom you would want to take every possible precaution. As it did with all compassionate-use applications, the FDA made a decision within 24 hours. Agency officials scrambled to figure out which companys monoclonal antibody would be most appropriate given the clinical information they had, and selected the one from Regeneron, known simply as Regen-Cov.

A five-day stretch in October 2020 - from the moment White House officials began an extraordinary effort to get Trump lifesaving drugs to the day the president returned to the White House from the hospital - marked a dramatic turning point in the nations flailing coronavirus response. Trumps brush with severe illness and the prospect of death caught the White House so unprepared that they had not even briefed Vice President Mike Pences team on a plan to swear him in if Trump became incapacitated.

For months, the president had taunted and dodged the virus, flouting safety protocols by holding big rallies and packing the White House with maskless guests. But just one month before the election, the virus that had already killed more than 200,000 Americans had sickened the most powerful person on the planet.

Trumps medical advisers hoped his bout with the coronavirus, which was far more serious than acknowledged at the time, would inspire him to take the virus seriously. Perhaps now, they thought, he would encourage Americans to wear masks and put his health and medical officials front and center in the response. Instead, Trump emerged from the experience triumphant and ever more defiant. He urged people not to be afraid of the virus or let it dominate their lives, disregarding that he had had access to health care and treatments unavailable to other Americans.

It was, several advisers said, the last chance to turn the response around. And once the opportunity passed, it was the point of no return.

President Donald Trump and then-Supreme Court Justice nominee Amy Coney Barrett greeted scores of mostly maskless guests Sept. 26 in a White House gathering called a superspreader event by infectious-disease expert Anthony Fauci because so many became infected. (Washington Post photo by Jabin Botsford)

The week leading up to Trumps infection was frenzied, even by his standards. On Saturday, Sept. 26, he had hosted a party with scores of maskless attendees to announce Amy Coney Barrett as his pick for Supreme Court justice. The celebrations had continued indoors, where most people remained maskless. By that time, the virus was surging again, but Trumps contempt for face coverings had turned into unofficial White House policy. He actually asked aides who wore them in his presence to take them off. If someone was going to do a news conference with him, he made clear that he or she was not to wear a mask by his side.

The day after the Supreme Court celebration, Trump had also hosted military families at the White House. At Trumps insistence, few were wearing masks, but they were packed in a little too tight for his comfort. He wasnt worried about others getting sick, but he did fret about his own vulnerability and complained to his staff afterward. Why were they letting people get so close to him? Meeting with the Gold Star families was sad and moving, he said, but added, If these guys had COVID, Im going to get it because they were all over me. He told his staff that they needed to do a better job of protecting him.

Two days after that, he flew to Cleveland for the first presidential debate against his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden. Trump was erratic that whole evening, and he seemed to deteriorate as the night went on. The pundits verdicts were brutal.

Almost 48 hours later, Trump became terribly ill. Hours after his tweet announcing he and first lady Melania Trump had coronavirus infections, the president began a rapid spiral downward. His fever spiked, and his blood oxygen level fell below 94 percent, at one point dipping into the 80s. Sean Conley, the White House physician, attended the president at his bedside. Trump was given oxygen in an effort to stabilize him.

The doctors gave Trump an eight-gram dose of two monoclonal antibodies through an intravenous tube. That experimental treatment was what had required the FDAs sign-off. He was also given a first dose of the antiviral drug remdesivir, also by IV. That drug was authorized for use but still hard to get for many patients because it was in short supply.

Typically, doctors space out treatments to measure a patients response. Some drugs, such as monoclonal antibodies, are most effective if theyre administered early in the course of an infection. Others, such as remdesivir, are most effective when theyre given later, after a patient has become critically ill. But Trumps doctors threw everything they could at the virus all at once. His condition appeared to stabilize somewhat as the day wore on, but his doctors, still fearing he might need to go on a ventilator, decided to move him to the hospital. It was too risky at that point to stay at the White House.

Many White House officials and even his closest aides were kept in the dark about his condition. But after they woke up to the news - many of them were asleep when Trump tweeted at nearly 1 a.m. on Friday that he had the virus - Cabinet officials and aides lined up at the White House to get tested. A large number had met with him the previous week to brief him about various issues or had traveled with him to the debate.

It was unclear even to Trumps closest aides just how sick he was. Was he mildly ill, as he and Conley were saying, or was he sicker than they all knew? Trump was supposed to join a call with nursing home representatives later that day as part of his official calendar. Officials had been scheduled to do it in person from the White House, but that morning they were informed the call would be done remotely. Trumps aides insisted that he would still be on it.

As one aide waited in line for a coronavirus test, she saw Conley sprint out of his office with a panicked look. Thats strange, the aide thought. An hour or two later, officials were informed that Pence would be joining the nursing homes call. Trump couldnt make it.

Aides say President Donald Trump was much sicker than they acknowledged when he was transported to Walter Reed Military Medical Center on Oct. 2, 2020. (Photo for The Washington Post by Amanda Voisard)

Trumps condition worsened early Saturday. His blood oxygen level dropped to 93 percent, and he was given the powerful steroid dexamethasone, which is usually administered if someone is extremely ill (the normal blood oxygen level is between 95 and 100 percent). The drug was believed to improve survival in coronavirus patients receiving supplemental oxygen. The president was on a dizzying array of emergency medicines by now - all at once.

Throughout Trumps time in the hospital, his doctors consulted with the medical experts on the White House coronavirus task force whom the president had long ago discarded. They talked to Hahn, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield, seeking input about his treatment.

Trump and his aides had ignored numerous warnings from the task force doctors that they were putting themselves and everyone in the West Wing at risk by their cavalier behavior. Over the past eight months, Trump had come dangerously close to the virus a number of times. Those repeated escapes had made the White House more careless, constantly tempting fate. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus task force coordinator, and Redfield wrote to top aides after every White House outbreak, warning them that 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue was not safe. Birx took her concerns to Pence directly. This is dangerous, she told him. If White House staff cant or wont wear masks, they need to be more than 10 feet away from one another. This is just too risky.

Their warnings had gone unheeded, and now some would pay a price. Trump hadnt wanted to go to the hospital, but his aides had spelled out the choice: He could go to the hospital Friday, while he could still walk on his own, or he could wait until later, when the cameras could capture him in a wheelchair or gurney. There would be no hiding his condition then.

At least two of those who were briefed on Trumps medical condition that weekend said he was gravely ill and feared that he wouldnt make it out of Walter Reed. People close to Trumps chief of staff, Mark Meadows, said he was consumed with fear that Trump might die.

It was unclear if one of the medications, or their combination, helped, but by Saturday afternoon Trumps condition began improving. One of the people familiar with Trumps medical information was convinced the monoclonal antibodies were responsible for the presidents quick recovery.

Throughout the day Saturday, Oct. 3, the restless Trump made a series of phone calls to gauge how his hospitalization was being received by the public. In all likelihood, the steroid he was taking had given him a burst of energy, though no one knew how long it would last. Perhaps buoyed by that, Trump continued to post on Twitter from the hospital, anxious to convey that he was upright and busy. At one point Trump even called Fauci to discuss his condition and share his personal assessment of the monoclonal antibodies he had received. He said it was miraculous how quickly they made him feel much better.

This is like a miracle, Trump told his campaign adviser Jason Miller in another one of his calls from the hospital. Im not going to lie. I wasnt feeling that great.

In this Sept. 29, 2020, photo, President Donald Trump holds up his face mask during the first presidential debate at Case Western University and Cleveland Clinic, in Cleveland, Ohio.(AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File)

Redfield spent the weekend Trump was sick praying. He prayed the president would recover. He prayed that he would emerge from the experience with a newfound appreciation for the seriousness of the threat. And he prayed that Trump would tell Americans they should listen to public health advisers before it was too late. The virus had begun a violent resurgence. Redfield, Fauci, Birx and others felt they had limited time to persuade people to behave differently if they were going to avoid a massive wave of death.

There were few signs that weekend that Trump would have a change of heart. It had already been a battle to get him to agree to go to Walter Reed in the first place. Now, he was badgering Conley and others to let him go home early. Redfield heard Trump was insisting on being discharged and called Conley on the phone. The president cant go home this early, Redfield advised the doctor. He was a high-risk patient, and there were no guarantees that he wouldnt backslide or experience some complication. (Many COVID-19 patients seemed to be on an upswing and then quickly deteriorated.) Trump needed to stay in the hospital until that risk had passed. Conley agreed but said the president had made up his mind and couldnt be convinced otherwise.

If they couldnt keep him in the hospital, the advisers hoped that Trump would at least emerge from Walter Reed a changed man. Some even began mentally preparing to finally speak their minds. It would surely be the inflection point, they all thought. Theres nothing like a near-death experience to serve as a wake-up call. It was, at the end of the day, a national security failure. The president had not been protected. If this fiasco wasnt the turning point, what would be?

Just as the country had been watching a few days before, many people tuned in again as Trump took Marine One back to the White Houses South Lawn on Monday night. They saw him step out in a navy suit, white shirt and blue-striped tie, with a medical mask on his face. He walked along the grass before climbing the steps to the Truman Balcony.

But Trump didnt go inside. It was a moment of political theater too good to pass up - as suffused with triumph as his trip Friday had been humbling. He turned from the center of the balcony and looked back toward Marine One and the television cameras. It was clear that he was breathing heavily from the long walk and the climb up the flight of stairs.

Redfield was watching on television from home. He was praying as Trump went up the steps. Praying that he would reach the Truman Balcony and show some humility. That he would remind people that anyone could be susceptible to the coronavirus - even the president, the first lady and their son. That he would tell them how they could protect themselves and their loved ones.

But Trump didnt waver. Facing the cameras from the balcony, he used his right hand to unhook the mask loop from his right ear, then raised his left hand to pull the mask off his face. He was heavily made up, his face more orange tinted than in the photos from the hospital. The helicopters rotors were still spinning. He put the mask into his right pocket, as if he was discarding it once and for all, then raised both hands in a thumbs-up. He was still probably contagious, standing there for all the world to see. He made a military salute as the helicopter departed the South Lawn, and then strode into the White House, passing staffers on his way and failing to protect them from the virus particles emitted from his nose and mouth.

Right then, Redfield knew it was over. Trump showed in that moment that he hadnt changed at all. The pandemic response wasnt going to change, either.

Excerpt from:

Inside the extraordinary effort to save Trump from COVID-19 - Anchorage Daily News

The Facebookoversight board's decision this month to extend the suspension offormer President Donald Trump's account raised the ire of some on the right. Trump's account has been frozen since Jan. 7, after he praised supporters who launched a deadly attack on the Capitol, but Facebook said it would consult experts to determine when "therisk to public safetyhas receded."

"If Big Tech can ban a former president, whats to stop them from silencing the American people next?" saidRepublican National Committee chairRonna McDaniel.

Conservatives' reactions reflect a new push to expand First Amendment free speech protections to privately ownedforums. Dozens ofstates many of them run by Republicans have proposed legislation targeting private companies' policies. And conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas recently questioned the constitutionality of private company control over user content.

Facebook Oversight Board upholds ban on Donald Trump, but opens door to possible return

Former President Donald Trump was banned from Facebook after his comments on the Capitol riots in January.

Staff video, USA TODAY

However, the First Amendment, whichstates that "Congress shall makeno law...abridging the freedom of speech," applies to government entities, not private domains.

"The First Amendment only restrains government;it does not restrain a private company. In fact, those companies have their own First Amendment right to determine, as would a newspaper, for example, what will appear on their sites," saidGene Policinski, senior fellow for the First Amendment at the Freedom Forum.

A discrepancy persists between what some politicians want from big tech and companies' rights under the First Amendment, according to Ken Paulson, director of the Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University and former editor-in-chief of USA TODAY.

"The bottom line remains that Facebook is a private company, and it has its own First Amendment rights to decide what it wants to put on its service," Paulson said.

Some conservative Republicans have long criticized tech companies'ability to regulate speech on their platforms, claiming infringement offree speechwhen someoneis banned or suspended for violating usage policies.

"There are a host of people who, for example, find that when they make a statement that Facebook or Twitter or someone deems to be threatening...and they're banned or suspended, that it somehow is a violation of free speech rights," said Policinski. "Terms of service are a contract between me and the company, and they lay those out, and they have a right to enforce those. It is not a free speech matter."

Twitter and Snapchat permanentlybanned Trump after the Jan. 6 attackon the Capitol,andYouTube, a Google service, suspended his accounts.

Jennifer Lambe, aUniversity of Delaware communication professor who specializes in First Amendment rights, says an argument that social media platforms have become public forums meritingcongressional oversightis picking up steam.

Trump's allies within the Republican Party blasted Facebook's May 5 decision to maintain the ban on Trump, repeatedly invoking the phrase "free speech."Colin Smith/USA TODAY Network, and AP

The Congressional Research Service states that "state action doctrine provides that constitutional free speech protections generally apply only when a person is harmed by an action of the government, rather than a private party." In other words, government cannot limit free speech, but private industry can.

Lambe said colleagues have presented the idea of expanding the state action doctrine "so that the First Amendment applies to private companies in particular circumstances, like the ones that social media have today."

Some legal experts saythe Supreme Court has expanded the doctrine before. InMarsh v. Alabama(1946) the courtruled that a town privatelyowned by a company was subject to First Amendment principles.

Paul Domer inthe Notre Dame Law Review argued social media companies fall under the special expansion established in the Marsh case.

"Therefore, those companies, though private, could be subject to First and Fourteenth Amendment claims of violating the right of free speech," Domer wrote.

Lambe said a push to expand the doctrine to include big tech companies would come under legal scrutiny. But due to the makeup of the judiciary, which leans conservative,she believes some Republicans might try.

"I suspect that this or something like this will eventually make its way to the Supreme Court in the next few years, and I suspect that the Supreme Court will be amenable to maybe making this extension of the state action doctrine," Lambe said.

Weeks before Facebook's oversight board extended Trump's ban, Thomas advanced arguments for big tech oversightin an opinion when Twitter users blocked by Trump's public account sued the president.

Thomasquestionedthe constitutionality of private firms'control over speech on their platforms, as outlined in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of1996. The actallows social media platforms to regulate their own content and grants legal immunity for removing posts that violatecompany policies.

"Todays digital platforms provide avenues for historically unprecedented amounts of speech, including speech by government actors," Thomas wrote."Also unprecedented, however, is the concentrated control of so much speech in the hands of a few private parties. We will soon have no choice but to address how our legal doctrines apply to highly concentrated, privately owned information infrastructure such as digital platforms."

"Right now there are legislators who are interested in rewriting section 230 so that it gives Facebook and Twitter and other social media less latitude and particularly, less protection from libel suits," Paulson told USA TODAY.

Members of the Florida Legislature explicitly targeted tech companies when Republicans introducedSenate Bill 7072,a punitive billagainst social media platforms, after Trump was banned from Twitter.

Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Trump ally, signed S.B. 7072into law last month. Under the newlaw, big tech companies have to establish a method of identifying a person running for office. A platform would alsoface fines of $250,000 a day for suspending politicians' accounts for 60 days or longer. Similar legislation has been proposedin state legislatures around the country, Paulson says.

"There are a disquieting number of pieces of legislation that are being passed around state to state right now that can potentially infringe on First Amendment rights,"Paulson said.

The Florida bill was one of dozens introduced this year, nationwide, centered on how private companies moderate content,according to The New York Times.

Some conservatives claimsocial media giants Facebook, Twitter and Google collude with liberals to censor conservative speech online.

Brent Bozell, thefounder ofthe conservative Media Research Center, said more than2,200 examples of whathe considerscensorship have been compiled onFree Speech America, a branch of the center.

"The problem with Section 230 is that it allows the most powerful companies in human history to censor online speech and interfere in elections without any recourse,"he said.We are coordinating with our allies in Washington, in the states and around the world to come up with legislative, regulatory and, if necessary, legal remedies to the simple fact that Big Tech has too much control over our lives."

Some political conservatives have charged that "social media giants" Facebook, Twitter and Google collude with far-left liberals to censor conservative speech online.Colin Smith/USA TODAY Network, and AP

But ensuring conservative opinion is fairly represented on internet platforms is not the government's responsibility, saidPolicinski.

"If there's an absence of conservative voices on social media, I assume that enough conservatives who feel that way will flock to a site which offers a more conservative viewpoint," he said."That is the marketplace of ideas. There is no guarantee that under the First Amendment after it ensures the government doesn't prevent or punish you for speaking that anyone will listen. That's up to you."

Stephen Puetz, senior vice president of political consulting firm Axiom Strategies, which represents Republican clients,told USA TODAY that Republicansare tryingto expose an inherent bias in social media bans and suspensions.

"There's folks who make the argument that these are private companies and they can do what they want," he said.

Legislation like the recent Florida law, as well as other proposed regulations, are efforts to "encourage more thoughtful review before banning people," according to Puetz.

"Limiting speech too aggressively and unfairly is not good for the public discourse in our country."

ButPaul Barrett, deputy director of the New York University Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, said that complaints of censorship on social media from Republicans and conservativesare unfounded.

There is a broad campaign going on from the right to argue that theyre being silenced or cast aside, and that spirit is what is helping to feed the extremism that we are seeing in our country right now, he said. We cant just allow that to be a debating point. Its not legitimate. Its not supported by the facts.

Paulson said big tech companies reserve the right to remove content they deem harmfulaccording to their policies.

"Clearly there are things that Facebook is taking down that that they view as harmfuland that some conservatives believeis valuable. But that's Facebook's right," he said.

"Facebook can exercise its First Amendment rights and decide what it wants to share with the public. These principles are clear," he said. "Protecting businesses and preventing inappropriate regulation has always been a conservative value, so this is all verysurprising."

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Published11:32 am UTC Jun. 20, 2021Updated9:09 pm UTC Jun. 21, 2021

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Is banning Trump from Facebook a First Amendment issue? Clarence Thomas, other conservatives say it is - USA TODAY

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The Republican primary for governor is probably over, before it ever really started.

Greg Abbott already won the supporter who really counts, having converted his current tight focus on conservative populist issues into a Donald Trump endorsement that removes any threat from the likes of Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, Republican Party of Texas Chair Allen West, or former state Sen. Don Huffines of Dallas.

Intentional or not did you really think Abbott was ad-libbing? the governor ended a conservative legislative session by snagging the Trump golden ticket thats preemptive in the Republican primary. Now hes adopted the former presidents pet project of a wall separating the United States and Mexico, and Trump is coming to Texas next week for a border tour with Abbott.

Good news for Greg Abbott. Bummer for everybody else. Hes got the lucky charm that can ward off attacks from the right threats that were accumulating a year ago, when Abbott was issuing unpopular pandemic orders to close certain businesses, wear masks and remain at a distance to flatten COVID-19s curve.

The opponents, none of them especially formidable but most of them worthy of attention, started to line up.

Miller never said in public that he would challenge the governor, though at least one outside group, calling itself the Conservative Republicans of Texas, was encouraging him to jump in and Miller was saying Abbott cannot get reelected in the general election. And he and West were outside the Governors Mansion last October, manning the bullhorns and protesting Abbotts emergency responses to the pandemic. After some thought, and that Trump endorsement, Miller now says he will be running for reelection.

West resigned from his party post and hasnt said whether he plans to run for office or which office he might covet. But with Trump hugging the incumbent, its hard to see where West might be looking for votes; his potential audience is listening to someone else.

Huffines is still in, with some personal money but little in the way of visible political support. He needs Texas voters more than they seem to need him. Hell recognize that line, maybe, after telling WFAA-TV on Sunday that he wants to close the U.S.-Mexico border.

Im going to communicate to Mexico, and they know it, they need us a lot more than we need them, and this is a proven tactic that can work, Huffines said. Hes still pushing Trump themes, especially with his talk of an invasion on the border a word Abbott has also adopted and with his claim that Abbott is stealing some of his ideas.

Maybe, but thats how it goes in politics, and Abbott is no slacker. He wants a wall between here and Mexico. Unlike Huffines, hes got the Trump seal of approval and will, in about a week, have TV footage with the former president on the border.

Its not the only Texas GOP contest where the man from Mar-a-Lago gets to make a decisive call. Look at the race for attorney general.

Ken Paxton, the Republican incumbent, sought favor as one of the pre-insurrection speakers at a Trump event in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6. Hes been under indictment on securities fraud charges for six years through a reelection cycle in 2018 and is under investigation after several top lawyers in his state agency accused him of using that office for the benefit of a political donor. Even so, hes still the one to beat.

But Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush, whose father Jeb was emasculated by Trump in the 2016 presidential primary, sought the former presidents blessing for his challenge to Paxton.

Trump hasnt picked a favorite, which is good news for Bush. But when he does, it has a good chance of deciding the race.

Eva Guzman, who quit the Texas Supreme Court to join that race, hasnt yet made a play for Trumps favor, relying so far on the support of Texans for Lawsuit Reform, a Republican-leaning political group that signals a candidates establishment ties. That amounted to more formidable backing in Texas politics 20 years ago, before Republican tastes turned to Trump. If Paxtons troubles catch up with him, she could advance, but thats the funny thing about the 2022 Republican primaries.

They could well be decided by a non-Texan who wont be on the ballot.

Disclosure: Texans for Lawsuit Reform has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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Analysis: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott already has the one endorsement he needs - The Texas Tribune