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Texas Gov. Abbott on Future of Border Security, Data Centers, School Vouchers, and Ending Foreign Infiltration
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By Jan Jekielek
10/16/2026Updated: 10/16/2026

In this episode, I sit down with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. He’s the longest-serving sitting governor, having spent 11 years in office, and is running for reelection this November.

Abbott has made some major policy bets in America’s second-most-populous state. Last year, he signed a large-scale $1 billion school voucher program after years of effort pushing it through the legislature. Now he wants to eliminate school district property taxes for homeowners by covering the costs with the state’s surplus.

Abbott has also made countering foreign infiltration a priority, from effectively barring individuals and companies linked to China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea from buying Texas land to setting up a state cyber command to guard critical infrastructure.

We discuss: How can Texas eliminate school property taxes sustainably? What are the plans for the $7.5 billion reimbursement from the Department of Homeland Security for border security costs? And why did Abbott recently put a pause on data center development in Texas?

Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

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Jan Jekielek is a senior editor with The Epoch Times, host of the show “American Thought Leaders.” Jan’s career has spanned academia, international human rights work, and now for almost two decades, media. He has interviewed nearly a thousand thought leaders on camera, and specializes in long-form discussions challenging the grand narratives of our time. He’s also an award-winning documentary filmmaker, producing “The Unseen Crisis,” “DeSantis: Florida vs. Lockdowns,” and “Finding Manny.”