Trump to visit Texas-Mexico border, decries Biden trip while sticking to primary playbook

Former President Donald Trump is visiting ground zero of the border fight between Texas and the federal government with a Thursday trip to Eagle Pass, a town of about 29,000 along the state's border with Mexico.

Trump, following the example of the many Texas Republican officials who have taken trips to the border in recent weeks ahead of the March 5 primary, will spend time in the city along the Rio Grande where a legal fight has ignited over the state installing concertina wire on the riverbank and defensive buoys in the water to deter migrants from crossing into the state outside legal ports of entry.

Trump, who has visited the border multiple times and was endorsed for the GOP nomination for president by Gov. Greg Abbott during a trip to Edinburg in November, will share the spotlight Thursday with President Joe Biden who has scheduled a border appearance about 300 miles away in Brownsville the same day.

More: Biden to visit Texas-Mexico border Thursday. Will he change the vexing issue's narrative?

Trump takes interest in Texas elections, backs Paxton-endorsed candidates

Increasingly signaling his interest in races across Texas, Trump in recent days has endorsed a litany of candidates seeking election to the Legislature and Court of Criminal Appeals.

Specifically, Trump has endorsed a number of primary challengers to Republican members of the Texas House who voted last year to impeach Attorney General Ken Paxton over allegations by former top deputies in Paxton's office accusing him of using his office to assist and lend favorable legal advice to a since-indicted campaign donor.

In furthering his support of Paxton-backed candidates Monday, Trump endorsed three candidates seeking to unseat three conservative justices from the state's appeals court, all of whom are targets of Paxton after the court in 2021 handed down a ruling preventing him from prosecuting voter fraud cases.

Trump campaign calls Biden's border trip 'insincere'

After Biden announced Monday that he would be visiting the border in Texas on Thursday, Karoline Leavitt, Trump's campaign press secretary, said the Democratic president's "last-minute, insincere attempt to chase President Trump to the border won’t cut it."

Leavitt, in a statement, accused Biden of being solely responsible for the "worst immigration crisis in history."

"Now Biden’s handlers are sending him there on the same day as President Trump’s publicly reported trip, not because they actually want to solve the problem, but because they know Biden is losing terribly," Leavitt said.

When asked Monday about the Trump campaign's criticism, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to address it. Instead, she said, the president will discuss "the urgent need" to pass the border security legislation.

"He will reiterate his calls for congressional Republicans to stop playing politics and to provide the funding needed for additional U.S. Border Patrol agents, more asylum officers, fentanyl detection technology and more," Jean-Pierre said.

Abbott, Trump are big on border politics

Ahead of the competing trips Thursday, an Abbott spokesperson was similarly critical of Biden's Texas visit, pointing to Trump-era policies as part of a solution to the border crisis and chastising the president for a "last-ditch" effort to influence voters.

More: Can Texas Democrats turn immigration and border into winning issues? Ask one guy from NYC

"While President Biden will spend his time in Brownsville pressing Congress for new legislation, he doesn’t actually need any new laws to secure the border," said Andrew Mahaleris, an Abbott spokesperson.

While Abbott's office did not indicate whether the Republican governor will join Trump in Eagle Pass, the pair have previously taken the stage together to beat the drum of border security and rally support for GOP candidates.

Abbott, who has recently taken several cadres of Republican lawmakers to the border, has made clear that the state's border security work is not done. Earlier this month, Abbott announced plans to build a permanent "Forward Operating Base" in Eagle Pass that will be able to house up to 1,800 National Guard troops with the capacity to expand to accommodate 2,300 troops.

"This will increase the ability for a larger number of Texas military department personnel in Eagle Pass to operate more effectively and more efficiently," Abbott said during a Feb. 16 news conference from Eagle Pass' Shelby Park, which has served as a staging point for National Guard soldiers and Texas Department of Public Safety troopers in recent months as part of Operation Lone Star, Abbott's $11 billion state border security initiative.

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This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Donald Trump to visit US-Mexico border in Texas. Here’s what we know