Back in 1986, the Texas Department of Transportation launched the "Don't Mess With Texas" campaign as an effort to combat littering on the state's highways. Since then, however, the phrase has been more widely adopted as a general warning that Texas is an independent entity and outsiders should be cautious about crossing swords with the Lone Star State. If recent reports are accurate, however, it appears that the Biden administration may have been violating that unofficial rule. As Hurricane Beryl approached this week, the normally automatic process of issuing a major disaster declaration to unlock federal emergency relief aid was delayed for days. The Biden administration claims that the White House was "unable to track down" Texas Governor Greg Abbott (who has been on a trade negotiation mission to Asia) to receive an official request for relief. But both Abbott and Lt. Governor Dan Patrick claim that is nonsense and that the White House was simply stalling on authorizing the relief grant. (Associated Press)

The damage left by Hurricane Beryl in Texas and requests for federal help has opened a rift between the White House and the state’s GOP leaders following the storm that pummeled the coast and knocked out power to millions of residents this week around Houston.

President Joe Biden said he tried tracking down Republican Gov. Greg Abbott — who has been in Asia on a trade mission since last week — to get the state to formally request a major disaster declaration that unlocks federal aid. In an interview with the Houston Chronicle, Biden also said he tried reaching Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who has served as acting governor since Beryl made landfall Monday, before they eventually connected the next day.

Both Texas leaders have sharply pushed back on Biden’s version of events in the middle of a hurricane recovery that has left some coastal residents facing the possibility of days or weeks without electricity.

As I noted above, the major disaster declaration in advance of Beryl's landfall should have been automatic. The storm reached category 5 status several times during its journey and its path was accurately forecasted. It was clearly headed for the Houston area (one of the most heavily populated parts of the state) and it was packing devastating winds and torrential rains. The eventual impacts were terrible. One of our writers here at Hot Air lives in the suburbs of Houston and we still haven't heard from her since shortly after her power originally went out.

So how did the request for disaster relief manage to be delayed? The White House is claiming that Biden was unable to get in contact with Greg Abbott so they could get the ball rolling. But Abbott has his phone with him at all times and reports that the White House has reached him at that number multiple times since Biden took office. Also, even if the phone was somehow out of service (Abbott assures us it was not), Dan Patrick is serving as the acting Governor while Abbott is in Asia. He had the same authority to make the disaster declaration request and he can be reached by the White House on a moment's notice.

It clearly seems that somebody is lying here. Given the current record of this White House which has lied about everything from the security of the southern border to the President's meetings with a neurologist, who do you suppose is more likely to be fibbing? My money is on Team Biden without a doubt. But would Biden's people really be this petty? Disaster relief is probably among the least political issues in our entire governmental system. This isn't a political issue. We're talking about people's lives and property being placed in peril by the forces of Mother Nature. That's beyond anyone's control. We don't choose who will or won't have their lives saved based on whether they live in a red state or a blue one. Or at least we didn't before this.

Unfortunately, the White House has been at war with Texas for a while now. Biden has taken Texas to court repeatedly for the sin of working to close their own border with Mexico and do the job that Joe Biden has refused to do. Biden's people remain furious that Greg Abbott made the decision to begin shipping busloads of Biden's illegal migrants to blue states and cities around the nation. That choice woke up the public and led to Biden's plummeting poll numbers on the issue of immigration. Should we really be all that surprised if Biden's people saw the approach of a major hurricane as an opportunity to get a bit of payback? It's a sad state of affairs all the way around.