ABC’s This Week Host Martha Raddatz went uncharacteristically tough on Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and the GOP. She made it clear that he, DeSantis, & the GOP are telling migrants that the U.S. has open borders.

Martha Raddatz did journalism today.

Martha Raddatz likely shocked many today when she challenged Texas Governor Greg Abbott with an inconvenient truth.

She first points out that President Joe Biden never sanctioned open borders.

”You talk about the border wall; you talk about open borders,” Martha Raddatz said. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard President Biden say we have an open border. Come on over.”

That was just the setup. She knew that Abbott would make it sound implicit. Her following statement neutered any subsequent answer he would give.

“The people I have heard that chant, are you, or former President Trump or Ron DeSantis,” Raddatz said. “That message reverberates in Mexico and beyond. So they do get the message that it is an open border. And smugglers use all those kinds of statements.”

Understand what Raddatz did there. In that one exchange, she made any subsequent responses from Abbott moot. More importantly, that statement put the crisis of human bodies in the hands of the GOP. And even more profoundly, she made it clear that both people and drug smuggling result from Republican misinformation.

This is journalism. Now it is incumbent on truth-tellers to include that angle in our messaging.