A group called Empower Texas, billed as a conservative advocacy group, had two members today on a hot-mic both mocking and trashing Greg Abbott for his disability and his policies.
Listen below. You’ll hear the interview end and then comes the Abbott disability bashing:
These two don’t hold back in describing their disdain for Abbott, with one even calling him a POS. It’s pretty disgusting.
Here’s more from the Houston Chronicle:
Two members of conservative advocacy group Empower Texans were caught on tape mocking Gov. Greg Abbott’s disability as they slammed his policy allowing local governments to fine businesses that don’t require customers to wear masks.
The profanity-filled recording, first reported by political news outlet The Quorum Report on Friday, was apparently accidentally published with the organization’s Texas Scorecard Radio podcast.
In the recording, after wrapping up the podcast, Cary Cheshire, vice president of Texans for Fiscal Responsibility, a project of Empower Texans, and Empower Texans general counsel Tony McDonald express their disdain for Abbott. Chesire and McDonald did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“I said Abbott ‘wheeled himself out there,’” Cheshire said, as the two laughed.
“I was A-OK with it,” McDonald said.
“And then within seconds, you demanded that he ‘stand firm,’” Cheshire said, and the two laughed some more.
Abbott has been in a wheelchair since July 14, 1984, when as a 26-year-old law school graduate, he hit by a falling tree while jogging in Houston’s River Oaks area. The accident left him paralyzed from the waist down.
The release of the tape marks something of a turn of the tables. Empower Texans last year sparked upheaval in the Texas House when its CEO, Michael Quinn Sullivan, released a secret recording of a meeting with House Speaker Dennis Bonnen in which Bonnen offers press credentials in exchange for Sullivan’s help politically targeting 10 House Republicans. Just months later, Bonnen announced he would not seek re-election.
Sullivan said in a statement Friday that he was “heartbroken by the language and tone” used by Chesire and McDonald. Sullivan said the two have been suspended from all public activities within the organization immediately and “additional internal actions will be taken.”
“Whether it was a private conversation or not is unimportant; it was wrong and unacceptable,” Sullivan said. “I have already sent a personal apology to Gov. Abbott.”
The Tea Party-aligned group and its powerful political action committee is known for threatening primary challenges against Republican incumbents it didn’t deem conservative enough. The PAC and its affiliate groups spent a record sum of more than $4 million in 2018, though most of its candidates lost.
Abbott’s spokesman responded:
The governor’s spokesman John Wittman rebuked the group in a statement Friday.
“It reveals a lot about an organization’s character and morals that uses profanity to mock a person in a wheelchair, and this audio is disgusting and hate-filled,” Wittman said. “It is sad to think about what else this group may be saying about people behind their backs when they think they aren’t being recorded. Regardless of this despicable tape, the Governor remains keenly focused on containing the spread of COVID-19, while also unifying the state as we celebrate Juneteenth.”
Ted Cruz also emphatically condemns this:
.@GregAbbott_TX is a strong leader and a close personal friend. These comments are abhorrent & completely unacceptable, and I condemn them in the strongest possible terms. Texans are tough and we’ll get through this pandemic by working together, not by tearing each other apart.
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) June 19, 2020