EL PASO, Texas — The battle of the border was an epic desert showdown between two gifted politicians, each marshaling around 10,000 people, one blessed with the truth, the other peddling lies. And yet, to Donald Trump’s mystifying credit, the lie survived to fight another day. We tell some tall tales here in Texas. But no Texan is a match for this president.

As day broke here in my hometown yesterday, it looked like after years, Mr. Trump’s lies about the border had finally run out. Amid his showdown with Democrats over his proposed border wall — which had already led to an unpopular 35-day-long government shutdown — Mr. Trump was coming to El Paso to make his case once again : “Build the wall.” The people of El Paso, with the local hero and presidential Hamlet Beto O’Rourke as their public face, had a response: “We’re safe not because of walls but in spite of walls. We’re safe not in spite of immigrants but because of immigrants.”

Ahead of the president’s visit, normally taciturn local politicians turned on Mr. Trump for falsely claiming in recent weeks that El Paso, the second-largest border city in America, was swamped by an immigrant crime wave until a fence went up. The English-language daily, El Paso Times, proclaimed: “Local leaders ready to tell El Paso’s story.” The Spanish-language daily, El Diario, more startlingly heralded, “El Paso, National Battleground.” The officially nonpartisan mayor, Dee Margo, laid into Mr. Trump on Twitter, outraged : “El Paso was never one of the most dangerous cities in the U.S.”

As Air Force One approached, winds whipped up to 50 miles per hour as people streamed toward the County Coliseum, formerly a site for livestock shows and rodeos, where Mr. Trump held what amounted to his kickoff rally for the 2020 election.