Greg Abbott takes his Texas-honed immigration message on the road with a visit to New York

Maybe Texas Gov. Greg Abbott was channeling his inner Frank Sinatra.

He paid a visit to New York City on Thursday, and if the news accounts from the Big Apple are any indication, he appeared to have a good time trading barbs with Mayor Eric Adams, appearing on Fox News for some friendly interviews and promising to keep the buses running that so far have shipped thousands of migrants from Texas to NYC.

The visit, during which the three-term GOP governor helped raise money for the New York Republican Party, was another in a string of examples of Abbott raising his national profile during an election year when his name is not on the statewide ballot in Texas.

New York City is a Democratic stronghold, which by the sheer strength of its population of 8 million makes New York State a Democratic stronghold. But any notion that Texas' top official would be playing defense during an away game was swiftly dispelled.

Adams, NYC's Democratic mayor, at a news conference, was asked about Abbott's visit to the city, which has been on the receiving end of the much-publicized bus trips that have sent it more than 41,000 migrants since August 2022. The mayor said that he'd invite the governor to spend the night "so he can see what he has created and understand how we are treating people with the dignity and respect that he should have shown."

On Fox, the conservative cable outlet that has become something of second home for Abbott since he emerged as the leading critic of the President Joe Biden's immigration and border policies, he returned fire in kind. He dismissed it as "nothing more than a gimmick."

More: Texas Gov. Abbott warns that unlawful immigration increases risks of terrorist attacks

In another Fox interview, Abbott offered a more ominous version of what the future might hold in the ongoing border crisis.

"Let me foreshadow also another concern we're gonna have really soon, it's already kind of beginning right now, and that's gonna be drone wars," he said on the network. "The capability of the cartels getting things across the border through drones already is extraordinary and they're gonna be more aggressive, more sophisticated in the drone attacks."

And in a deviation from the governor's predictably playbook when talking about immigration to a receptive audience, Abbott did not confine his displeasure to Biden or to the many Democratic mayors whose cities have been sent migrants from Texas. Asked about a National Guard soldier who as part of the governor's Operation Lone Star has been accused of smuggling a migrant across the Rio Grande, Abbott said, "It makes me angry."

“I consider this person to be a traitor, a criminal fighting back against what we’re trying to do in the state of Texas,” he told the interviewer. “We are using our National Guard to repel and to stop illegal immigration. To have a member of the National Guard be involved in assisting illegal immigration is reprehensible."

More: Construction is under way on Texas' border military base camp in Eagle Pass. What we know.

The immigration issue and his ongoing clash with the Biden administration, both on the political battlefield and in the federal courts, have raised Abbott's national profile higher than former Texas Gov. Rick Perry's when in his own third term he launched what played out to be an ill-advised run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012. It might even be higher than the one former Gov. Ann Richards enjoyed when during her single term in office she was a sought-after cable news guest and a prodigious fundraiser for Democrats coast to coast.

And that raises the legitimate question of how Abbott might capitalize on his newfound status as arguably the nation's most well known Republican governor. By all accounts, he gave little to no consideration to seeking the 2024 presidential nomination and he wasted little time in embracing Donald Trump's attempted comeback.

Some of Abbott's top aides, both publicly and privately, have said the governor has no interest in being the former president's running mate in a 2024 match up against Biden. And the 66-year-old Abbott, too, is quick to point out that he plans to seek an unprecedented fourth term as governor in 2026.

Perhaps Abbott would consider a cabinet post in a second Trump administration, say Homeland Security secretary. That would make him the go-to guy for immigration policy, a topic he has become quite familiar with. Or maybe attorney general, a post he held for 12 years at the state level. That one could be dicey, considering that the two attorneys general Trump hired ended up less than friends with their one-time boss.

But the fact is Abbott doesn't need to look for work. The job he has now comes with a six-figure salary, a recently refurbished house that's guarded around the clock — and a pretty loud megaphone. And also, it would appear, leaves him with plenty of time to tour the country to raise money for his fellow Republicans and to drop in on his friends at the Fox network.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott raises money and national profile in New York