During a stunning White House Press Briefing on Wednesday, May 22, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre (KJP) was asked about the Bidne Adminsitration’s border policy, namely why he doesn’t use his executive powers to shut it down. KJP admitted Biden could do so, but was baffled at the suggestion that he would do so.
That began with a reporter asking, “You opened the briefing by saying it’s up to Republicans to do something to solve the problem or continue to use it as a political issue.” KJP said, “Yeah.” continuing, the reporter asked, “The President has the authority to do something about this unilaterally. Congress is in a divided government right now.”
KJP, starting to respond, said, “But why —” Finishing her question and cutting KJP off, the reporter asked, “Why isn’t he doing anything?” KJP appeared to be baffled by the suggestion that he would do so, asking. “But why should he have to do it unilaterally? Why — why shouldn’t we do it in a legislative way? And let’s not forget. That negotiate- —”
The reporter noted, “He took unilateral action before to —undo some of —” KJP, cutting her off in the middle of that said, “I know. But —” KJP then said, “Wait. So, you’re right. He took many executive actions before. But in order to deal with what’s happening at the border, in order to deal with a broken immigration system, you need law, you need legislation, you need to ha- — it to happen in a bipartisan way. ”
Continuing, she said, “And there was negotia- — it was negotiated. There was an agreement in the Senate. Republicans and Democrats came together — you just said it’s a broken — it’s broken — it’s divided, to be more clear — and they came and they did that. And so, that matters. We’ve been able, during this past three and a half years, to move forward in a bipartisan way on many legislation. So, this one is important. Why can’t we do that here?”
Not satisfied with that, the reporter said, “Well, just because of the framework through which it’s coming up again — again, not allowing for any changes; no indication this vote is going to be any different; and it looks like, if anything, bringing up this vote again and setting it up to fail, again, is really just an indication that Democrats know that they’re vulnerable on this issue. ”
KJP didn’t give much of an answer, saying that she’s leave the matter to Schumer. In her words: “So, here’s what I’ll say is that I’m going to leave it to Senator Schumer. I’m going to lead it — leave it to Senate leadership to speak to the votes, to speak through the process and how they’re going to move forward. That is literally something for them to talk about.”
She continued, “What I will say is it is long past time to get this done, to get this moving. We were able to get a bipartisan negotiation — a plan forward on an issue that many Americans care about, an issue that matters for our immigration system, for what’s happening at the border. And that’s a good thing. And so, Senator Schumer — and we support this — wants to move this forward. We want to see this move forward as well. The senator is — is very good at this. He’s very good at dealing with big legislation, obviously, as we’ve been able to move important legislation through over the past three and a half years. So, I’m going to let him speak to that.”
Watch them here:
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video
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