TX Gov. Abbott: Biden Engaging in ‘Neanderthal’ Thinking by Releasing COVID-Positive Illegal Immigrants Into Texas

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) on Thursday responded to President Joe Biden slamming states lifting coronavirus restrictions such as mask mandates. Biden said those lifting such restrictions are engaging in “Neanderthal thinking.”

Abbott, who announced this week his state would be removing restrictions put in place to mitigate the spread of the virus, said on FNC’s “Fox & Friends” that Biden is engaging in a “Neanderthal-type approach” by releasing COVID-positive illegal immigrants into Texas with his open border policy.

“First, obviously it is not the type of thing a president should be saying, but second, he said it on the worst day he could have because the same day he said that, in Texas, the Biden administration was releasing illegal immigrants into our communities who had COVID,” Abbott stated. “The Biden administration was spreading COVID in South Texas yesterday because of their lack of constraint of testing and quarantining, people who had come across the border illegally. The Biden administration was exposing Texans to COVID — that is a Neanderthal-type approach to dealing with the COVID situation.”

He continued, “But more importantly … with regard to masks, the change in Texas really wasn’t all that much different from what we were before for a couple of reasons. First, we are still strongly advocating every Texan follow best practices. Where we are today is completely different from where we were this time last year when Texans and Americans didn’t know how to deal with this. For an entire year, Texans have learned the best practice, and that is to wear a mask. And we still strongly recommend that people do wear a mask, but … I know you folks know when we saw spikes in cases after Christmas and New Year’s, we saw that most of those spikes didn’t occur in businesses or in schools or in other locations like that like retail centers. Most of those transmissions occurred in the home setting where people were not wearing a mask in the first place, and so the mask requirement being eliminated isn’t going to make a change in the state of Texas. Also, people in Texas will continue to wear masks, even though there is not a state mandate. We are just in a situation now where government mandates are not needed because Texans do know the best practices.”

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