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Greg Abbott discussed his campaign for governor with Jim Lago on KKTX.

*Transcription may not be exact.

JIM LAGO: Mr. Abbott, good morning. Welcome to Lago in the Morning.

ATTORNEY GENERAL GREG ABBOTT: Great to be back with you again. How are you doing?

LAGO: I’m just great and pretty excited about your trip down. You’re going to be at Nickle’s Guns and Drugs today.

GENERAL ABBOTT: Well what better place can there be? We’re going to be there rolling out our policy about protecting individual liberties, and one of those liberties is guns itself. So it’s a perfect match.

LAGO: I was reading some of the things you’ve been talking about as you’ve traversed the state. It’s family, freedom, and faith. And you would have loved Dr. Ben Carson’s at Veteran’s Day ceremony yesterday, because he pretty much reminded us who we are as a people, and that faith very important to that.

GENERAL ABBOTT: The man is filled with wisdom. I wish so many people in the country could listen to him and follow him. I’ve got to tell you, he’s such a role model for the African-American community. He is a man full of an uplifting vision, but full of the kinds of ideals and values that if we the people could connect with where he stands, it would get us back to the core of where we need to be, and that would solve most of the challenges that we have in the country today.

LAGO: Are you confident that, because you’re saying much the same thing, are you confident that we can get back to our faith, our family, our freedoms?

GENERAL ABBOTT: I am. Let me give you a different approach why. It’s different than what you’ve heard before. A lot of the talk, especially when you watch national TV, a lot of the talk is on Washington, D.C. and trying to change Washington, D.C. Listen, that is a tall task, and I don’t know how easily it can be done or if it can be done. What I do believe is what I have seen take place around the country in the past five to ten years, and that is that Texas has been the leader on setting the pathway for those individual liberties and our commitment to faith, and fighting for it, and for the fundamental values and that have made America great. What we’ve seen, and this is the key part, is that other states have been now trying to copy the Texas model. One reason is because of good, old-fashioned competition. Texas is taking jobs away from other states, so other states are trying to copy what Texas is doing. And when we see the Great Lakes states, for example, imposed right-to-work laws like what we have in the state of Texas. And when we see our next-door neighbors like Oklahoma and Louisiana, and even New Mexico, try to cut taxes or make other kinds of reforms to keep up with Texas. When we see states like South Carolina and Florida, and the list goes on and on, again make modifications to their structures and to their taxing schemes in order to compete with Texas. It gives you an example of the broader model. The broader model is one where the states are going to lead a reform and reformation in this country, and return our country back on its intended path.

LAGO: Are you seeing a… I know that people who believe that way show up and listen to you speak, but how do you reach the people that have managed to ignore that and buy into this secular manifestation that we see so prevalent today?

GENERAL ABBOTT: We have some people like that even here in Texas, but here’s what we find, and that is that there are some transcendent ideas, and basically they’re more ideas focusing on people’s self-interest… it’s the idea of a job. There’s no equivocating, there’s no quibbling, the state of Texas is the leader in creating jobs. So when you have been successful, when you constantly win the battle of creating jobs, you have more and more people go along on your side. Let me try and help you understand the reason why that’s important. And that is, you know one argument we hear a whole lot of these days is people on the Democrat side saying, “Well, the future of Texas is going to be Democrat because we have this growing Hispanic population.” And I say hogwash to that because look, on the Hispanic population, and I need to tell you up front that I’m married to a Latina. That doesn’t make me a Hispanic but it gives me insight to the Hispanic community. And my wife mainly is the same as every other Hispanic community member that I’ve encountered in the state of Texas, and that is, the first thing that you see when you walk into their house is a cross. The first thing that they emphasize in their life is their connection to God. The second thing they emphasize is their connection to family. And the third thing, though, is working hard to make a living. Well, because we do a good job of creating jobs, the Hispanic community more and more is realizing that the party they need to go with is the party label I’m running under, which is the Republican Party. When you have, on the Democrat party, at the Democratic National Convention, people in the audience who are booing, booing when the word God is mentioned, and when they try to include God in the agenda on the Democrat National Convention, the Hispanic community realized that you know what? The Democratic Party is not for them. And, I can go on and on with the list but all of these examples point out to one factor. And that is, you’re talking about those that may be pushing more of a secular society. And those are people who are leaders of a party continuing on the decline in the state of Texas. And what that means is that the policies and principles that stand for the party I’m under, the Republican Party, are going to be able to continue to expand, not just here in Texas, but also expand the footprint of the appropriate form of government across the rest of the country.

LAGO: All right. You’re going to be at Nickel’s Guns on Leopard Street at, what? 2 o’clock this afternoon? Or 3-5, is that right?

GENERAL ABBOTT: You’re exactly right. From 3-5, I look forward to being there and visiting with people there in Corpus Christi talking about my new policy initiative that I’m rolling out today which focuses on “We the People,” and that’s you! And your rights, and your individual liberties, that we want to be able to protect, and to protect you from big brother-type tactics.

LAGO: All right. I very much appreciate the time and I look forward to talking to you again in the future. Thank you.

GENERAL ABBOTT: Thank you so much. Take care.