Texas Gov. Greg Abbott sat down with TMZ in a newly released video shot at the Governor’s Mansion in Austin, where the conversation ranged from Shiner Bock beer to the July 1984 accident that left him paralyzed from the waist down. Breitbart reported on the clip, which was filmed during a University of Texas pre-game gathering at the historic residence.
The interview was conducted by TMZ DC’s Jacob Wasserman, who arrived as an entertainment reporter and left having been talked into a beer by the governor.
A beer, a hesitation, and a bit of Texas pressure
Abbott opened the visit by offering Wasserman a “brewski” — specifically a Shiner Bock, the Texas brand he keeps on hand. Wasserman said he normally sticks to a strict gluten-free diet and hesitated at the offer. According to the account of the exchange, Abbott kept at it with good-natured persistence until the reporter drank it down.
“History was made,” Abbott quipped afterward, drawing laughter from the crowd gathered in the mansion’s front yard.
The moment served as an icebreaker before the conversation turned to weightier ground: how Abbott came to be a paraplegic and how he handles the physical reality of governing from a wheelchair.
The afternoon in Houston that changed everything
Abbott walked Wasserman through the accident itself. In July 1984, at age 26, he was out for an afternoon jog in Houston during a break from studying for the bar exam. A large oak tree suddenly snapped and crashed onto his back.
The impact crushed his vertebrae, broke his ribs and damaged vital organs, leaving him permanently paralyzed from the waist down. Surgeons fused two steel rods into his spine.
Rather than frame the episode as a tragedy that defined him, Abbott described it as a test he refused to fail.
“It shows that even an accident like that does not slow you down,” he said. “It was after that I went on to become governor of the great state of Texas.”
‘Either you stay stuck or you move forward’
Wasserman pressed him on the mental side of it, asking how he got past the injury and went on to build an ambitious career.
Abbott did not sugarcoat the difficulty. He called it “an enormous mental challenge” and acknowledged being “stuck in a quagmire for a while.” The way out, as he described it, came down to a choice: remain where he was, or keep going.
“I chose to move forward,” Abbott said. “Every step of the way, I met with success.”
He credited hard work as the common thread. “One thing I did: I worked hard,” he said. “If you work hard in life, it often leads to good results.”
Abbott also discussed the physical demands of the job, describing an intense upper-body workout routine that he said traces back to his background as a competitive athlete.
A resume built after the wheelchair
The arc Abbott describes is borne out by his public record. After the accident he passed the bar, served as a trial judge, sat on the Texas Supreme Court and won statewide office as attorney general. He was elected governor in November 2014 and is now serving his third term, overseeing the nation’s second-largest state.
The TMZ segment leans into a version of Abbott his supporters say gets lost in national coverage — the personal warmth, the humor and the relentless forward motion rather than the partisan caricature. Whether the clip changes any minds is another question, but it does put the governor’s own account of 1984 on the record in his own words, from the mansion lawn where he now hosts guests and hands out beer.
Source: www.breitbart.com — https://www.breitbart.com/border/2026/10/18/watch-texas-governor-gets-gluten-free-reporter-to-chug-beer-talks-faith-grit-after-paralyzing-accident/