Governor Abbott Tells His Own Party's Biggest-City Mayor to Stop Conducting Foreign Policy and Get Back to the 'Blocking and Tackling' of Government

AUSTIN — Governor Abbott used an interview with the state's largest newspaper to advise the mayor of the state's largest city — a member of his own party — that he should spend more time on the city and less on the Middle East, an instruction the governor delivered with a football metaphor and the mayor received with the enthusiasm of a man being told to run laps.

The mayor had released a video statement last month acknowledging he could not in fact arrest a foreign head of state, despite having promised on multiple occasions to do so, and padding the concession with a list of accusations that was viewed several hundred million times and was not, by most accounts, about zoning. Local religious leaders said the remarks were putting their community at risk. The governor, asked about it, said he would like the mayor to focus on 'the blocking and tackling of city government.'

The governor named housing and child care as areas where the two agree, which is the political equivalent of handing someone a shovel and pointing at the ground. The mayor's office did not immediately respond, which aides to the governor took as proof that the mayor was, at last, busy.

Supporters of Governor Abbott called it responsible leadership from the top of the ticket. The mayor's allies called it a governor performing distance from her own party's most famous official five weeks before a general election. The Press's chain-of-command desk notes that 'keeping the coalition focused' and 'throwing a mayor under the bus' are described in the same interview and sorted afterward, by party.

"We share priorities," the governor said, listing the ones that do not involve an extradition.

At press time the globe on the mayor's desk had been moved to a far corner under a dust sheet, and a small traffic cone, a toy football and a stack of housing permits had been set where it used to be.