Trump says Texas governor Greg Abbott ‘absolutely’ on vice-president short list

Greg Abbott, the hard-right governor of Texas, is “absolutely” on Donald Trump’s short list for vice-president should Trump as expected win the Republican nomination to face Joe Biden.

Calling Abbott a “spectacular man”, Trump told Sean Hannity of Fox News the three-term governor, an anti-immigration extremist, had “done a great job”, adding: “Yeah, certainly he would be somebody that I would very much consider.”

“So he’s on the list?” Hannity said.

“Absolutely, he is,” Trump said, as Abbott listened.

Abbott has engineered showdowns with Democratic authorities, sending undocumented migrants to Democratic-run cities, and with the federal government, blocking border patrol access to the Rio Grande river at a common crossing point for migrants, then refusing to comply with orders to back off.

“He really stepped it up,” Trump said of Abbott on Thursday, during a visit to the spot in question, a park in Eagle Pass, part of a Texas trip the same day Biden visited the border elsewhere.

Abbott, Trump said, had “been amazing”.

Abbott, however, told CNN last week “there’s so many people other than myself who are best situated” to be Trump’s running mate, adding that he would help Trump pick. On Wednesday, Abbott told CBS he intended to run for a fourth term in Texas.

At Trump’s direction, Republicans are attempting to use conditions at the southern border for political gain in an election year, to the extent of the congressional GOP blocking a hardline, bipartisan deal negotiated in the Senate.

In his own border trip, Biden said Trump should “join me” in addressing the problem.

Trump’s dominance of his party is near-complete. This week he enjoyed a major victory when Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Republican Senate leader since 2006 but at