MAGA media figures are lining up to defend Bo French, the GOP nominee for Texas railroad commissioner, for his September 13 social media post complaining about footage that showed nonwhite students cheering during Saturday’s University of Texas football game. 

French, who is running to head the powerful state agency that regulates Texas' oil and gas industry, wrote, “I heard UT graduation this year looked like this. I didn’t believe it. The problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined.” According to The New York Times, French “later posted a complaint about the admission of foreign students at the University of Texas, seeming to assume they could not have been born in the state because of their skin color.”

Right-wing podcasters Benny Johnson and Jack Posobiec were quick to jump to French’s defense. 

On September 14, Johnson declared that “there’s absolutely nothing wrong with what Bo French says here. There’s nothing wrong with wanting Texas to stay Texas.” Johnson said it is “honorable to wish to preserve your people” and called out the “weakness” of Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) for condemning the post, claiming that “we are being colonized” and French’s comments are “not racist, dude. It’s literally love for your own people.” 

On his show the day before, Johnson complained that “Texas has changed demographically forever and will in no way, shape, or form resemble the Texas that you might think about when you're thinking cowboys and Indians — well, a very different type of Indians these days.” Claiming that footage of the UT game “shows a student section that is absolutely predominantly young Indian men,” Johnson said that “Indians have abused the H-1B visa system in order to change America forever, in order to effectively create an indentured servitude caste system” and “effectively colonize the West for the good of India.”

Discussing French’s post on Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast, Posobiec claimed the state university’s admission system is “inherently discriminatory to Texans — specifically, white Texans,” and he said Cornyn and others are “demanding that Texas be … forced to accept infinity migrants into their country and specifically into the university system.”  

“Why shouldn't he bring up these issues that are affecting Texans?” asked Posobiec, adding, “I went and read his tweet many, many times and I don't see anything hateful about it, I don’t see anything bigoted about it.” Posobiec then lashed out at “Texas RINOs” who criticized French’s post, calling them an “invasive species.”