Greg Abbott discussed his campaign for governor on the Sam Malone Show.
SAM MALONE: Greg, welcome back to the Sam Malone Show in Houston.
ATTORNEY GENERAL GREG ABBOTT: Sam, it’s great to be back again. Thank you so much.
MALONE: Are you in Houston today or are you just on the road somewhere?
GENERAL ABBOTT: I am on the road elsewhere. I was in Houston last night. I was actually in Tomball last night for a huge event, but yesterday is a kind of classic example of what I’ve been doing lately because I left Austin and went to Amarillo for multiple events in Amarillo then closed it out with some events in Tomball then got back to Austin and getting ready to hit the road again, so this has been nonstop. We cover about two to three cities or towns a day, and I got to tell you, turnout for these events is overwhelming. We’re seeing something rise up across the state of Texas because I think there’re a lot of people who are very concerned the Obama-style government is going to threaten the state of Texas. I was, last week, in a town called Yoakum, Texas, which is not too far away from Houston by Victoria, and there were about 630 people in a room for an event, and you know why? Because that’s all the room would hold. And there are a lot of people concerned out there, making sure we continue to fight back against this overreaching Obama administration.
MALONE: Greg Abbott joining us on the show. David Dewhurst was on, I think, yesterday, and we were talking about the governor’s race. He said, “Sam, please, make no mistake, Greg will be the governor.” And I said, “Well, let me ask Greg that.” It seems like a shoe-in, but then again, you’re also burning it. You’re working it on both ends to make sure.
GENERAL ABBOTT: Well, I got to tell you two things. One is I find that one of my opponents is complacency, and complacency kills. And as soon as people take our democracy, our freedom, our liberty, and our laws for granted, that’s when they begin to get eroded. You know, some people kind of fell asleep, and over the past few decades, have awakened to the reality that our nation is socked with $17 trillion in debt. And now we’re fighting to try to fix that problem. We cannot allow those kinds of problems to happen in Texas, and people need to awaken to the fact that I’m not just running against a Democratic opponent, I’m running against the Barack Obama team who has sent his national field operations manager to the state of Texas for the focus of trying to turn Texas into Washington, DC, California-style government. And they’re putting millions of dollars behind it, and it’s something that is inconsistent with the fabric of Texas, inconsistent with our values. And, so, I go to work everyday, really, not so much for my campaign, but I go to work everyday for the values that have made Texas great, to make sure we preserve them.
MALONE: Greg Abbott joining us on the show, our lieutenant governor…I’m sorry, I’m attorney general and next governor. There’s a lot of concern, so, he came on the show, I think, last week, and we had wonderful discussions. Here’s a concern of people of Houston, Texas and those listening in our great state. They say, “Sam, we’re concerned about the influx of this liberal money coming in from California and how it’s going to affect the race.” What kind of concern do you have of California money, New York money coming in? People who have no stake in this state. They don’t live here, they hate us. What’s going through your mind when you hear that?
GENERAL ABBOTT: To be honest, your listeners should be concerned about that because there’s truth behind it. My democrat opponent, actually when I was in Tomball last night and when I was in Amarillo yesterday, my opponent was in New York City, raising money in New York City, and she’s going to be in Washington, D.C. raising money there, and has been out to California a couple of times already. I think she was in Nancy Pelosi’s district in California. She raised, for example, about 17 times as much money from Washington, D.C. as she has from the valley of the state of Texas. So there’s some truth to the fact that the Democrats are bringing a ton of money from outside of the state, and that means that they are trying to turn Texas into New York style government and California style government and Washington, D.C. style government. That is exactly why I am crisscrossing the state, talking to people, campaigning, letting people know that we in Texas have the greatest state, but we are the last line in the sand. We cannot allow Texas to go down the big government pathway. We can not allow the free enterprise system that has worked so well to be shackled by these kinds of heavy-handed regulations coming out of the Obama administration, that is why I’m fighting every single day.
MALONE: Greg Abbott, our Attorney general, joining us on the show, our next governor. Yeah, exactly. If you’re there, and listen you’re 99 percent in, but I get it, you’ve still got to work hard. If an Obama democrat were to get in, imagine what the EPA would do in our great state, this being the energy hub. I mean, businesses would be shutting down left and right. It would be punish these industries as soon as possible.
GENERAL ABBOTT: Remember this. Because of what we have been doing in Texas, really across the state. You’ve heard of Eagleford Shale in South Texas, the Permian Basin, West Texas, other parts of the state of Texas, even very close to Houston, where oil and gas production has increased dramatically. Because of that, the United States of America is now the largest producer of oil and gas in the world. The increases have been dramatic and have led to the state of Texas budget having its coffers filled, and the bank accounts of individuals across the state being filled, and the number of jobs being high. You know, the city with the second highest median income in the United States of America is Midland, Texas. So these are good paying jobs that hit broad sectors. One of the biggest threats to all of that economic achievement is the EPA. That’s why I filed these lawsuits against the EPA. Because frankly they’re just concocting regulations that they are trying to impose on Texas that will put a lid on our job growth and because of these lawsuits, I gotta tell you, the Supreme Court has awakened to that validity of our legal claims. We have an oral argument at the United State Supreme Court in December and another one in February where the Supreme Court is reviewing these overreaching, job-killing regulations that the EPA is just making up out of whole cloth.
MALONE: Well these are appointed people, they aren’t elected people, so they aren’t accountable and you look at this, and it’s just amazing. Let me ask you on a policy issue, next governor Greg Abbott, we had a discussion on open-carry in Texas here the other day, and we found that the listeners of the show, Greg, passionate and fired up, can’t understand why we can’t have open-carry in our great state. As governor, what would you do, if anything on that topic?
GENERAL ABBOTT: Well I support open-carry. I’m a huge support of the Second Amendment, and the Second Amendment ends with this phrase “shall not be infringed.” And remember this Sam, I was the lead fighter at the United States Supreme Court working to achieve that our guaranteed individual right to keep and bear arms was guaranteed. I was involved in two cases that went to the United States Supreme Court. Cases where the liberals argued that the Second Amendment provided as a right to carry only to state militias, and I argued no that is incorrect. I argued that the Second Amendment provides individual right to keep and bear arms, and we won both of those cases. And I have continued that fight. If you interpret the Second Amendment appropriately, then you know that there are not distinctions between concealed-carry and open-carry. The last thing Sam, for all your listeners to understand and frankly to help make this argument, and that is, if you go back in time to when in Texas we debated and eventually passed the concealed handgun license, all the newspapers, all the media, all the liberals, were ringing their hands saying “we gonna have shootouts to the Okay corral, there will be crossfire on main street in Houston, Texas and unreality, of course, that has not happened. And you’re going to hear the same screams and howls when open-carry legislation comes up, saying it will be the end of the world. And just like there was not an outbreak of gunfire with concealed-carry, your not going to see an outbreak of gunfire when we have open-carry.
MALONE: Alright, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott on the show, gonna be our next governor. Real quick, how do you talk about jobs in a state that for the most part, is very healthy compared to the liberal blue states?
GENERAL ABBOTT: Two things in that regard. First the backdrop. Everyone needs to know that Texas has been the job creator in this country. Texas created more jobs than any other state for the past five and ten years. But the way I talk about it is to make sure that we don’t have the liberal agenda come in that crushes our jobs and that’s why I talk about it in the context of making sure that we keep taxes low. And frankly, I’m working in my governor’s campaign, I’m working on trying to find ways that we can reduce taxes even more. I talk about keeping regulations small, reasonable and predictable so businesses know how to make a profit. And that’s contrary to the kinds of regulations we’re seeing come out of Washington, whether it’s the Dodd-Frank banking regulation or EPA regulations, or of course, the Obamacare regulations. They’re doing as much as anything to stop hiring. I talk about maintaing the Right to Work laws that have prevented the union abuses in some places like Detroit. And so we work on making sure that we have the kinds of policy structures that really unleashes the real job creators. And those are the entrepreneurs, the businessmen and women across the state of Texas. They are the creative minds behind this growing work force. They’re the ones who have embedded in their hearts the desire to achieve and to excel and we just need to understand that we must get government out of the way, and have government stop taking their money, let them keep more of their money and turn that money right back in to their businesses.
MALONE: Excellent. One final question. Being on the road, have you found the best barbecue in Texas? Are you willing to stake out a claim?
GENERAL ABBOTT: Well, I got to tell ya. I’m loath to promote the new Texas Monthly, but I did check out some of the Top 50 Barbecue places that they have recommended. And I’ve been to some across the state of Texas. I’m going to tell ya. They were kind of right in some of their picks. I’ve been to some like Buzzy’s in Kerrville, that was very good. They have some good barbecue up in the Panhandle and always in East Texas. But one thing that we are blessed with in the great state of Texas is a tremendous number of outstanding barbecue restaurants.
MALONE: Outstanding. Don’t put on weight. You were looking good last time I saw you last week. So…I guess being on the road like that can really fatten a guy up.
GENERAL ABBOTT: More than you know, more than you know. I need to get home and start working out a little bit and watching what I eat. But I tell you what, when I run into a barbecue restaurant, it’s hard to hold me back.
MALONE: Outstanding. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, our next governor of the great state of Texas. Greg, keep up the good work, man. Good luck on the trail.
GENERAL ABBOTT: My pleasure, Sam. Always good to visit with you. Thanks.
MALONE: Thank you, sir. You got it.