AUSTIN, Texas — They’ve traded insults, embraced dueling policies and accused the other of mishandling a surge of migrants at the southern border.
And yet, for President Joe Biden and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, their acrimonious relationship might only be starting.
In the two months since Biden took office, top White House officials and the Republican governor have already engaged in a series of ongoing and contentious disputes, a rare public back-and-forth for an administration that has been highly selective about responding to criticism.
Political veterans say for two leaders with far different ideological views, it’s an antagonism that will likely only deepen in the coming months and years.
The rift continued this week, after Abbott held a news conference Tuesday near the border to criticize the president for encouraging an increase in the number of migrants trying to gain access to the United States.
“He does not care about Americans,” Abbott said during a visit to Mission, Texas. “He cares more about people who are not from this country.”
The governor’s criticism drew a point-by-point rebuttal Thursday from White House press secretary Jen Psaki, who mentioned Abbott by name during a news briefing to say he was spreading falsehoods about the administration’s border policy.
“I know Governor Abbott down in Texas has expressed some of his concerns, and many of those have not been based in facts,” Psaki said. “So let me go through a few of those because I know we’re all interested in facts around here.”
The disagreement follows Biden’s criticism last week that Abbott’s decision to revoke a statewide mask mandate to combat the coronavirus pandemic amounted to “Neanderthal thinking.” That remark drew a rebuke from the governor, who said the administration’s immigration policy was encouraging the spread of the virus.
Disagreements between presidents and governors of the opposing party are nothing new in American politics. Democratic governors clashed often with former President Donald Trump, most notably last year during the pandemic. And Abbott had a contentious relationship with former Democratic President Barack Obama, when Biden was vice president.
“This is part of muscle memory” for Republican governors, said Texas-based Republican consultant Brendan Steinhauser.
But the recent public disputes are conspicuous because of how soon they are happening after Biden’s inauguration, and how otherwise the White House has been reluctant to engage with its critics.
Top administration officials have generally avoided responding to Trump, for instance, and have declined repeatedly to discuss Republican lawmakers like Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
But Abbott’s lifting of Texas’ mask mandate and criticism of the politically sensitive issue of immigration have been exceptions.
“It’s not just weighing in on somebody saying something controversial,” said Josh Schwerin, a national Democratic strategist. “It is weighing in on legitimate policy differences that will impact the lives of lots of Americans. That’s true whether it’s immigration policy or public health masking policies, which Abbott is trying to tie together.”
Biden has made the pandemic and immigration policy two of the early priorities of his administration, encouraging everyone to wear a mask while trying to accelerate production and distribution of the coronavirus vaccine.
He is also, according to White House officials, trying to rebuild an immigration system he said was dismantled by the Trump administration, allowing a limited number of people who had previously applied for asylum into the country and doing away with a program that forced migrants to stay in Mexico while they awaited processing at the border.
Psaki and other White House officials have also repeatedly encouraged migrants not to travel to the border, saying the “vast majority” have been turned away. And on Thursday, Psaki said that Abbott himself has refused aid to help test some migrants for coronavirus.
Abbott has accused the Biden administration of allowing migrants with COVID-19 to enter the state illegally. He has also said coronavirus vaccinations are lacking for the Border Patrol. The Department of Homeland Security is opening a clinic in the coming week to vaccinate Border Patrol agents in the Rio Grande Valley.
Abbott and Biden haven’t been antagonistic toward each other at every turn of their relationship. They cooperated amicably after last month’s deep freeze in Texas knocked out power to millions of residents, with Abbott joining the president for a visit to Houston in late February to survey disaster relief efforts.
Harold Cook, a former executive director of the Texas Democratic Party, pointed out that following the February storm that left millions in Texas without power, the two elected officials appeared “to be getting along just fine.”
But it’s Biden’s focus on the pandemic pitted against Abbott’s relaxing of COVID-19 orders that has led to the public airing of differences, the Democratic analyst said.
“I would imagine that he (Biden) has been so laser focused on science and medicine of getting beyond this pandemic, that he is going to call out anybody who he believes isn’t following the science,” Cook said.
He said he was surprised to hear Biden criticize Abbott in such strong terms as “Neanderthal thinking,” which was a sign that Abbott lifting the mask mandate was probably “deeply, deeply frustrating” to the White House.
For Abbott, clashing with a Democratic president can be politically beneficial and raise his national profile. Abbott is up for reelection in 2022 and there’s been speculation he has presidential ambitions.
Asked how Abbott being up for reelection in 2022 has factored into the tension between him and Biden, Steinhauser pointed out that the Texas governor has received criticism from Democrats and members of his own party.
“He’s listening. He’s observing,” Steinhauser said. “He’s analyzing how much of that criticism is landing and how much of it is noise.”
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