President Donald Trump’s administration has turned Republican Texans against the entire political party by threatening to seize their land for a border wall, they told MS NOW in a new video report.
MS NOW host Antonia Hylton traveled to Big Bend this summer for a deep-dive investigation into how law enforcement officers, business owners and nature lovers have responded to an initiative that threatens to change their lives forever.
“I’m mad, I’m disgusted, and I’m disappointed,” said Trump supporter Bill Ivey, “At everybody in Washington.”
Hylton’s report focused on Senate candidate Ken Paxton’s race against James Talarico, the Democrat who has publicly come out against building a border wall in Big Bend.
The issue has united Republicans who say they feel invaded by the federal government as they “sneak around” to community meetings to try and push the wall.
“The truth is, none of this makes sense from a law enforcement standpoint,” said local Michael Ryan. “I did 23 years as a law enforcement ranger in Big Bend National Park. The best way to do it is with border patrol agents — they can learn, they can adapt, they can move, be moved around.”
Hurt and anger entered Ryan’s voice when he explained why he thought Trump’s administration was forcing the wall on Big Bend communities.
“It seems like it’s about money and greed and corruption,” he said.
Hylton told viewers she traveled 1100 miles of Texas land and, for the first time in a decade of trips, did not see a single MAGA hat, Trump sign or painted car.
Terrell County Sheriff Thaddeus Cleveland told Hylton he used to go on networks like Newsmax and Fox to praise Trump — but now he’s frustrated.
“Senate candidate Ken Paxton and Gov. Greg Abbott… they’re all afraid of President Trump because they know that if they go against him, that he’ll lash out at them,” he said. “They’d rather have a vote than save the national park.”
Cleveland argued technology already in place does the work of the four-foot vehicle barrier Trump wants to build right on the border of the Rio Grande, which is impossible to drive over.
“[Trump is] ceding, you know, sovereign American-owned land owned by Americans, basically giving it to Mexico,” he said. “And I find it kind of ironic that, you know, we wanted to take Greenland and Iceland, but yet we’re willing to give up part of the continental United States.”
Cleveland still remembers Trump’s promise that Mexico would pay for a wall.
“Not only did they not have to pay for it,” he said. “Now they’re getting free land as well.”
Hylton then traveled to the small town of Terlingua to talk to locals about what Trump’s wall would do to their tourism-based economy.
Nothing good, they told her.
“I’d say on a scale of 1 to 10, like 13,” resident Billy Miller rated his anger. “I think it’s the dumbest idea in the history of humanity.”
Resident Lara Stage told MS NOW she was an independent who leaned Libertarian until Trump started pushing for the wall in Big Bend.
Said Stage, “This has convinced me to vote Democratic across the board.”
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