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Harris Defends Her Absence at the Border: ‘I Don’t Understand the Point’
https://www.nationalreview.com ^ | June 8, 2021 10:46 AM | By BRITTANY BERNSTEIN

Posted on 06/08/2021 9:22:52 AM PDT by Red Badger

Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday deflected questions about why she has not yet visited the southern border after being tasked with handling the “root causes” of migration, saying “we’ve been to the border.”

NBC’s Lester Holt asked Harris whether she has plans to visit the border, having gone 76 days without a trip there since being named border czar.

“I – at some point – you know – we are going to the border. We’ve been to the border,” Harris said. “So this whole – this whole – this whole thing about the border. We’ve been to the border. We’ve been to the border.”

Holt pushed back, noting Harris had not been to the border herself while in office.

“I – and I haven’t been to Europe. And I mean, I don’t – I don’t understand the point that you’re making,” Harris said, adding “I’m not discounting the importance of the border.”

“Listen, I care about what’s happening at the border,” Harris said, adding that she is “in Guatemala because my focus is dealing with the root causes of migration.”

“There may be some who think that that is not important, but it is my firm belief that if we care about what’s happening at the border, we better care about the root causes and address them,” she said. “And so that’s what I’m doing.”

Holt also raised criticisms leveled by Representative Henry Cuellar (D., Texas) and other border Democrats over Harris’s absence at the border.

“We don’t just go visit the border, we live at the border. We talk to the NGOs there, we talk to the mayors, the county judges, to the border patrol, to the men and women in blue, green, and other folks, ICE agents also. We understand this very well,” Cuellar told National Review in April. “I still will encourage them to do more, to reach out to the folks on the border communities and keep talking to them, to make sure that they get a balanced view of what’s happening there at the border itself.”

CNN reported last week that Harris’ team is trying to distance her from the U.S.-Mexico border crisis after President Biden appointed the vice president to lead the administration’s efforts there in March.

At the time, Biden announced the assignment saying he had asked “because she’s the most qualified person to do it, to lead our efforts with Mexico and the Northern Triangle, and the countries that can help, need help in stemming the movement of so many folks, stemming the migration to our southern border.”

However, according to CNN, Harris’s aides went into a “panic” after Biden’s announcement “out of concern that her assignment was being mischaracterized and could be politically damaging if she were linked to the border, which at the time was facing a growing number of arrivals.”

Harris and the White House have previously excused the vice president’s absence at the White House as being due to “COVID issues” or the risk of disruption of a vice-presidential visit.

The Biden administration has faced a surge of migration at the southern border after rolling back a number of Trump-era policies, including the Migrant Protection Protocols, which required asylum-seekers to remain in Mexico while their claims were being adjudicated.

Since the policy was rolled back, roughly 40 percent of those who arrive on the Southern border seeking asylum are admitted to the U.S while their claims are adjudicated, and many of them never appear at their scheduled court hearings.

Harris’ comments on Tuesday came as she visited Guatemala, her first visit abroad since taking on the crisis at the border.

During a joint press conference with Guatemala President Alejandro Giammattei on Monday, Harris told Central Americans considering illegally migrating to the U.S., “Do not come.”

“We will discourage illegal migration,” she said. “The United States will continue to enforce our laws and secure our border.”

“There are legal methods by which migration can and should occur,” Harris said.

“If you come to our border, you will be turned back,” the vice president added.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Government; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: anchorbaby; giggles; kamala
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To: Red Badger

21 posted on 06/08/2021 9:38:02 AM PDT by plain talk
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To: 17th Miss Regt

She has never wanted to do anything that involves ‘work’....................


22 posted on 06/08/2021 9:38:31 AM PDT by Red Badger (Jesus said there is no marriage in Heaven. That's why they call it Heaven.....................)
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To: Red Badger

“The United States will continue to enforce our laws and secure our border.”

Not since Jan 21st...


23 posted on 06/08/2021 9:38:59 AM PDT by Carriage Hill (A society grows great when old men plant trees, in whose shade they know they will never sit..)
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To: SaxxonWoods

She lied.....................


24 posted on 06/08/2021 9:39:49 AM PDT by Red Badger (Jesus said there is no marriage in Heaven. That's why they call it Heaven.....................)
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To: Red Badger

Of course you don’t get the point, you blithering idiot. The only thing that you are “good” at is sucking at your job. Beyond that, you don’t do anything.


25 posted on 06/08/2021 9:40:07 AM PDT by Howie66 (God Bless TEXAS! #Texit)
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To: Red Badger

The tool Kamala lies about everything. She is in so far above her qualifications.


26 posted on 06/08/2021 9:40:53 AM PDT by dforest (huh?)
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To: Red Badger
…We’ve been to the border,” Harris said. “So this whole – this whole – this whole thing about the border. We’ve been to the border. We’ve been to the border.”

Refresh my memory. Who was it who said, “if you tell the same lie enough, people will believe it.”?

27 posted on 06/08/2021 9:41:09 AM PDT by immadashell (New Planned Parenthood slogan: Black Babies’ Lives Don't Matter!)
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To: Red Badger

Being Willie Brown’s “mattress” for 20+ yrs was certainly no work.


28 posted on 06/08/2021 9:42:06 AM PDT by Carriage Hill (A society grows great when old men plant trees, in whose shade they know they will never sit..)
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To: Red Badger
because YOUR BOSS TOLD YOU TO GO!!!
29 posted on 06/08/2021 9:42:27 AM PDT by Chode (there is no fall back position, there's no rally point, there is no LZ... we're on our own. P144:1)
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To: SMARTY

Most politicians know they have to make public relations photo op appearances and mouth platitudes. If she still doesn’t get that then the Dems will have a real problem with her as President soon.

Example: While he was Governor of Michigan Rick Snyder invited camera crews to video his wearing a suit and a construction hard hat and using a clean shovel to start the road construction work with the first action. Silly and nonsensical. But that’s politics. Same as eating an ear of sweet corn in front of Iowa farmers. Opposite: Sen Cruz enjoying the beach. And Harris being thousands of miles away from the crying children torn from their mothers’ arms at the border (allegedly). AOC went there and cried more than the children did.

All symbolic but that’s how it works.


30 posted on 06/08/2021 9:42:36 AM PDT by frank ballenger (You have summoned up a thundercloud. You're gonna hear from me. Anthem by Leonard Cohen)
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To: Red Badger

“NBC’s Lester Holt...pushed back, noting Harris had not been to the border herself while in office. “

Lester better be wearing comfortable shoes because I predict he will be looking for a new job by the end of the day! ;)


31 posted on 06/08/2021 9:43:07 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin (I don't have 'Hobbies.' I'm developing a robust post-Apocalyptic skill set. )
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To: Red Badger
– and I haven’t been to Europe

Yes, Madame Vice President. But Europe is not illegally coming to our borders in the hundred thousands annually

32 posted on 06/08/2021 9:47:20 AM PDT by llevrok (I'm old enough to remember when the quarantine was to be 2 weeks)
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To: Red Badger

You’re VPOTUS. If you were at the border there would be pictures.

It’s called s photo op dunce.

I get you don’t want your likeness tied to the commie disaster at the border, but we can all see right through you.

Thing is she knows Joe will be gone soon, so feels empowered like when she finishes willy brown off.

She thinks the whole of America is Willy Brown.


33 posted on 06/08/2021 9:47:50 AM PDT by Eddie01
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To: Red Badger

But what is the point of her going down there? It’s hard to imagine how things could get worse, but I’m quite confident that she would make them worse. And by keeping her distance she can put all the blame on CornPop, Mayorkas and Blinken.

What is happening on the border is all according to their plan. Probably not her plan, as she is just the public face of it, but it is the plan of of the anonymous puppet masters that pull her puppet strings.

I’ll go out on a limb and say that almost everyone on here thought that CornPop would already be gone and she’d be in the White House. I didn’t think he’d last 3 months. And maybe that was the plan, but something may have happened. Maybe the puppet masters gave her way too much “credit” and soon realized that she is just as incompetent and dumb as CornPop, possibly more, if that’s possible. But given the protection she’d get for being a woman and being “black”...which she isn’t but that’s how they’d prop her up...she’d potentially be out of their grasp. Therefore, she could be a bit more uncontrollable and unpredictable.

Also, I think she’s realizing that when she was in the Senate, no matter how loud she got, no matter how dumb she sounded. no matter how incompetent she was, no matter how nasty she was, she was 1 of 100. She could hide. She gets out in front, on any of this, and it is all on her. I don’t think she wants that spotlight. Easy to say....If I were President, I’d do this or I’d do that”....well, now she’s one short step from it and possibly realizing that she wants no part of it.

Either way, she’s nasty, she’s an idiot, she’s incompetent, and she knows how she got there.


34 posted on 06/08/2021 9:47:50 AM PDT by qaz123
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To: Red Badger

35 posted on 06/08/2021 9:47:54 AM PDT by Seruzawa (The political Left is the Garden of Eden of Incompetence - Marx the Smarter (Groucho))
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To: Red Badger

She makes a good point about addressing the root causes, but she could’ve stopped at the border on the way to Guatemala.


36 posted on 06/08/2021 9:48:58 AM PDT by skr (May God confound the enemy)
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To: Red Badger

37 posted on 06/08/2021 9:51:14 AM PDT by Magnum44 (...against all enemies, foreign and domestic...)
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To: SMARTY

“Impossible for her to KNOW what’s happening at the border, if she hasn’t BEEN THERE.”

In my business career I learned quickly there is no substitute for a site visit whether it is to a company factory, a supplier factory, or a customer’s location. Site visits are necessary to validate the information you are receiving, as well as to see what you aren’t being told.

Unfortunately, even if Kamala went to the border, her Marxist globalist ideology blinds her to the truth, so a visit will be a waste of time. Kamala is not going to visit the BLM and national park land spoiled by the trash and destruction of thousands of immigrants crossing the land. She will not visit a ranch to talk to private landowners who are dealing daily with drug and human trafficking on their land. The border locations she does visit will not have overcrowding and children in “cages”.

Time is on her side. The illegals are being resettled across the country and are becoming the burden of local communities. When Kamala finally goes to the border, the locations and press will be tightly controlled and every activity carefully staged and scripted. Kamala will declare victory and the press will applaud. From then on there will be no border problem. Social media censors will eliminate any dissent.

If the GOP were truly an opposition party, GOP members of Congress would be visiting the border every week and would be coming back to Washington to scream on the Capitol steps about the conditions there. How many visits has “Mitch” made to the border this year. What about Romney? Why doesn’t Trump himself make a visit? To his credit, Kevin McCarthy went in March. However, one visit doesn’t win a war. The pressure on the Democrats needs to be constant. Unfortunately Republicans are incapable of a sustained offensive.


38 posted on 06/08/2021 9:52:00 AM PDT by Soul of the South (The past is gone and cannot be changed. Tomorrow can be a better day if we work on it.)
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To: Red Badger

will they be reinstating Trump’s policies?


39 posted on 06/08/2021 9:54:01 AM PDT by joshua c (Dump the LEFT. Cable tv, Big tech, national name brands)
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To: Seruzawa

D’oh!


40 posted on 06/08/2021 9:55:35 AM PDT by SaveFerris (The Lord and Messiah: Jesus Christ of Nazareth - http://www.BiblicalJesusChrist.Com)
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