Bette Midler's fake tweet about Texas Governor Greg Abbott receives 7.7 million views

An image shared online purports to show a tweet from Texas Governor Greg Abbott about busing migrants across the US amid frigid Christmas Eve weather. But while more than 100 migrants from Texas were dropped off in the US capital on December 24, 2022, the post is fabricated; it does not appear on live and archived versions of Abbott's Twitter feed.

"We celebrated Christmas Eve by putting migrants on a bus and kicking them out into the freezing cold," says what appears to be a tweet from Abbott's personal account. "May the joy of Christ's birth fill your heart as it did ours. Merry Christmas from the Abbott family."

Posts sharing the supposed message -- which features a photo of Abbott with his wife and daughter -- popped up across platforms, including Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

One December 26, 2022 tweet from American actress and singer Bette Midler received more than 7.7 million views.

Some social media users commented on the purported message that Abbott lacked "Christian values." Another post garnering thousands of views on Reddit was shared as "satire."

The posts spread after busloads of migrants from Texas arrived near Vice President Kamala Harris's residence in Washington on December 24, one of the coldest Christmas Eve nights on record in the US capital. After the White House criticized the move as "cruel, dangerous and shameful," Abbott spokeswoman Renae Eze claimed in a statement to various news outlets that the migrants signed consent waivers and "willingly chose to go.".