What Donald Trump Has Said About Texas, Sourced

Texas

Texas has backed Donald Trump three times. This is what he asked the state to do to protect his majority, what his signature law is costing Texans, and how the senators Texas sends to Washington have voted. All of it sourced, much of it in his own words and theirs.

What he asked Texas to do

He told your state to redraw the map so his party could keep the House

Texas never lets us down.

Trump, praising the Texas redistricting he called for · August 2025

Facing likely midterm losses, Trump's political operation pressed Texas Republicans in the summer of 2025 to redraw the state's congressional map mid-decade, years before the usual once-a-decade redraw, to manufacture five more Republican-leaning seats and protect his U.S. House majority. He said Republicans were "entitled to five more seats." Gov. Greg Abbott put it on a special session's agenda; the targeted districts ran through Austin, Dallas, Houston, and heavily Latino South Texas. Texas's map was already among the most gerrymandered in the country, and analysts called the new one more extreme still. Texas House Democrats fled the state for more than two weeks to deny a quorum, and a panel of federal judges later blocked the map from being used in 2026. The point was never Texas; it was the seats Texas could hand him.

Sources: Trump on the seats (ABC News) · “Texas never lets us down” (NPR) · Already the most extreme gerrymander (Harvard Kennedy School) · The map blocked in court (NPR)

What his policies are doing here

He is bulldozing a border wall through Big Bend National Park

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DHS border-barrier waivers and construction · 2026

In 2026 the Department of Homeland Security waived dozens of federal laws, the National Park Service Organic Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, the Clean Water Act and more, to fast-track border barriers and roads through Big Bend National Park. Bulldozers broke ground near Santa Elena Canyon in August. Texas's Republican land commissioner sent Customs and Border Protection a cease-and-desist for clearing state land, seven former Big Bend superintendents urged DHS to reject the waivers, and a coalition sued to stop it. The security case is thin: the park accounts for 0.045% of the nation's border apprehensions, with no documented illegal vehicle crossings, yet the contracts run to billions.

Sources: DHS waives dozens of laws for Big Bend (Houston Public Media) · Bulldozers break ground in Big Bend (Center for Biological Diversity) · Border contracts through Big Bend (San Antonio Current)

The health-care cuts landing on the state with the most to lose

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The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed July 4, 2025

Texas never expanded Medicaid, so its hospitals already run on some of the thinnest margins in the country. The "One Big Beautiful Bill," signed July 4, 2025, cuts roughly a trillion dollars from Medicaid nationally. The National Rural Health Association estimated Texas rural hospitals stand to lose about $1.2 billion over five years, and independent researchers put hundreds of rural hospitals nationwide at heightened risk of closing, with Texas among the states hit hardest. The cuts fall on the maternity wards, emergency rooms, and clinics that low-income and rural Texans depend on.

Sources: What it costs Texas hospitals (Big Bend Sentinel) · Hundreds of hospitals at risk (KFF Health News)

How the people you send to Washington have voted

And the Texans who voted to do it

I was proud to cast my vote in strong support.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), on the bill that cut Texas Medicaid · July 1, 2025

Both of Texas's senators, John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, voted for the bill, and every Republican in the state's House delegation did too. Cornyn called it putting "Texans first" and pointed to border reimbursements and moving the Space Shuttle Discovery to Houston. He did not mention that the same law cuts the Medicaid that keeps Texas's rural hospitals open. Cruz, who chairs the Senate Commerce Committee, is profiled elsewhere in this record.

Sources: Cornyn's statement (U.S. Senate) · The Texas delegation's vote (Texans Care for Children)