The President's Daily Brief - PDB Afternoon Bulletin | January 25th, 2024: Texas Defies SCOTUS & North Korea's Nuclear Provocations

Episode Date: January 25, 2024

In this episode of The PDB Afternoon Bulletin:     Governor Greg Abbott responded to the recent Supreme Court ruling undercutting Texas’s efforts to address the worsening border crisis, accusing the Biden administration of deliberately violating the law and vowing to use his authority to continuing defending the state from “invasion.” In a concerning development on the Korean Peninsula, North Korea has conducted a test flight for a new nuclear-capable cruise missile. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The PDB Afternoon Bulletin.     Email: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Start your day off with a delicious cup of American-made Blackout Coffee, family-owned, premium coffee, fresh-roasted, and shipped out within 48 hours of roasting. Go to blackout coffee.com, promo code PDB, for 20% off your first purchase. It's Thursday, 25 January. Welcome to the PDB afternoon bulletin. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. Let's get briefed. First up, Texas Governor Greg Abbott has responded to a controversial Supreme Court ruling

regarding his state's border, vowing to defy the Biden administration and continue defending Texas against, quote, the invasion. Also, in the latest escalation on the Korean Peninsula, North Korea has conducted a test flight for a new nuclear-capable cruise missile. But first, our afternoon spotlight. Governor Greg Abbott responded to the recent Supreme Court ruling, undercutting Texas's efforts to address the worsening border crisis, accusing the Biden administration of deliberately violating the law and vowing to use his authority to continue defending the state from, quote, invasion. It was Abbott's first official response to a Supreme Court decision on Monday that granted U.S. Border Patrol agents,

the authority to cut down or remove razor-wire fencing that Texas erected along the Rio Grande River to stem the alarming surge in illegal migrant crossings. In a comprehensive statement addressing the ruling, Governor Abbott said that President Biden had broken the compact between the U.S. government and the individual states by refusing to enforce immigration laws and in some cases outright violating them. Abbott said, quote, President Biden has violated his oath to faithfully execute immigration laws enacted by Congress. Instead of prosecuting immigrants for the federal crime of illegal entry, President Biden has sent his lawyers into federal courts to sue Texas for taking action to secure the border. President Biden has instructed his agencies to ignore federal statutes that mandate the detention

of illegal immigrants. The effect is to illegally allow their on-mass parole into the United States, end quote. Abbott argues that the U.S. founders left provisions in the Constitution protecting their sovereign rights in the event that the federal government negligently or purposefully refuses to stop external threats to the states. He cites both Article 4, Section 4 of the Constitution, which states the federal government, quote, shall protect each state against invasion, as well as Article 1, Section 10, clause 3, which acknowledges, quote, the state's, quote, the state's sovereign interest in protecting their borders.

It's under the latter provision that Governor Abbott said he declared an invasion in the state of Texas in order to invoke Texas's constitutional authority to police and defend its own border. Abbott said Wednesday, quote, that authority is the supreme law of the land and supersedes any federal statutes to the contrary. The Texas National Guard, the Texas Department of Public Safety, and other Texas personnel are acting on that authority, as well as state law, to secure the Texas border." The move will likely lead to a direct confrontation between Texas and the Biden administration. Several Democrat lawmakers called on President Biden to seize control of the Texas National Guard.

Abbott, however, received strong support from fellow Republican governors across the country, including Ron DeSantis, Glenn Yonkin, Kevin Stead, and Christy Noem. As a reminder, Texas has been aggressively pursuing their own solutions to the migrant crisis at the border in the absence of federal action, and this has led to a back-and-forth in federal courts between Texas and the Biden administration. The situation escalated when Abbott mobilized the Texas National Guard on January 10th, directing them to install razor fencing and take full control of Shelby Park, a 47-acre area in Eagle Pass, Texas that's been a hotspot for each of. illegal migrant crossings. The Biden administration had complained that U.S. Border Patrol agents were blocked from accessing the area of Shelby Park and asked the Supreme Court to intervene on January 12. We should note that the Supreme Court ruling, while allowing the fencing to be cut down, says nothing about putting up more fencing in its place. Governor Abbott posted a photo on X

on Wednesday showing officials strengthening physical barriers, including razor fencing, a long eagle pass. In the wake of the ruling, the federal government has again demanded access to Shelby Park, but it appears they remain obstructed by state authorities. Now, we've said it before here on the PDB, but I suppose it bears repeating, border security is a national security issue. Every nation around the globe protects and secures its borders. The federal government in the U.S. is responsible for the protection of its citizens. And that can't be done. unless you maintain secure borders, control the flow of migrants, and know who is crossing into your country. The U.S. can have both a logical and efficient immigration system and secure borders.

Those things aren't mutually exclusive. This border crisis, the massive surge of migrants crossing the border, the lack of insight into who and how many, and now the extensive strain on resources on cities around the country to handle the influx, well, it's a Biden administration's self-inflicted wound. Effective border policy would have prevented this problem. But the White House, and many politicians, have spent the past three years pretending that there isn't an issue. They were essentially happy to ignore it as long as it remained a border state's issue and not a political problem. Now that it's an election year, and now that Democrat mayors and governors are complaining to the White House, the administration is apparently becoming

aware that they've actually got a problem on their hands. But instead of doing some fairly basic things to assist the border states in enhancing security and control procedures, they've decided to spend their time battling with Texas and demanding that Texas not take steps to secure the border. All right, coming up after the break, we'll discuss the latest escalation on the Korean Peninsula, where North Korea has conducted a test flight for a new nuclear-capable cruise missile. I'll be right back. Kayak gets my flight, hotel, and rental car right, so I can tune out travel advice that's just plain wrong.

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North Korea has once again ratcheted up tensions. The state-run media reported that the country conducted a test flight for a new missile variant. This strategic cruise missile still under development was launched on Wednesday. The state news outlet emphasized that the test posed no threat to neighboring countries, but also highlighted the missile's potential to carry nuclear warheads in the future. This latest launch came just one day after the North fired several cruise missiles into waters off its western coast. South Korea's military said it detected the missiles and added that they caused no damage. In response to these escalations, the U.S. State Department has urged North Korea to halt further destabilizing actions and to engage in diplomatic efforts. Meanwhile,

Kim Jong-un isn't the only one testing North Korea's missile capabilities these days. The Walsh Wall Street Journal recently reported that Russian forces are using ballistic missiles in Ukraine allegedly supplied by North Korea. U.S. officials believe that Pyongyang has delivered dozens of these weapons to Moscow as part of their brand new partnership. This supply could represent the first installment of a larger weapons transfer, should these missiles prove to be effective in combat. Now, Russia's use of North Korean missiles in this conflict has implications beyond what's happening on the battlefields of Ukraine. Until now, these weapons had seen limited testing outside the Korean Peninsula. Their performance against Western defense systems remains largely untested.

But Russia's deployment of these missiles in Ukraine, well, that serves as a real-world testbed, potentially providing valuable data to Kim Jong-un's North Korea and other interested parties. You can think of this as the most significant advertisement for North Korean arms, since the Korean War. Should they prove to be effective against Western defenses, despots and rogue actors around the world might begin turning to the North Korean arms industry to satisfy their needs, rushing on down to Big Kim's missile barn for everyday low, low prices that keep the despots coming back from war. Hopefully, someone will come up with an appropriate jingle. Of course, Russia's use of these North Korean missiles violates a number of UN resolutions,

but considering they're a permanent member of the UN Security Council, well, you get the picture. And that, my friends, is the PDB afternoon bulletin for Thursday, 25 January. If you have any questions or comments, please reach out to me at PDB at thefirsttv.com. I'm Mike Baker. I'll be back tomorrow. Until then, stay informed. Stay safe. Stay cool.

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