Total Disaster: Biden's Team Is at Each Other’s Throats Over the Border Crisis
I don’t need to explain that the situation at the southern border is a nightmare. We have been subjected to a deluge of migrants entering the country illegally daily. When Julio was with us, he documented it. Guy Benson has seen it. Katie Pavlich and Spencer Brown have witnessed the chaos. You’ve seen the reports about the border crossings and how it’s strained our health care and social systems here: Denver hospitals are about to collapse, and New York City had to dole out $53 million to give illegal aliens pre-paid credit cards.
Now, we have this lengthy report about the level of dysfunction, rage, and interdepartmental animosity within the Biden administration over the border crisis. We could expect it since this White House is staffed with the inept and the braindead, but on this matter, it’s total chaos. Axios touched upon a furious Biden during a January 2023 meeting, where he ripped his top immigration officials for not having obscure data sets. The president’s cantankerous disposition has hindered a consensus on the border matter. It also described how Kamala Harris, the border czar, had a golden opportunity to show off her stuff and failed. In short, “infighting, blame-shifting, and indecision” are the three words that could describe this nightmare in crisis management. It’s got to the point where top aides are calling out other members of the administration as "bitch-asses." Susan Rice is the top mean girl here (via Axios):
Infighting broke out among those on Biden's team.
Domestic Policy Advisor Susan Rice emerged as a central — and controversial — coordinator of the administration's approach to the border.
Some officials found her needlessly combative and disagreed with her policy-wise. But even many of her critics credit her with taking on more responsibility on the border at a time when most other top Biden officials were shying away from it.
There was — and still is — deep animosity toward Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra for what was seen as his reluctance to find more space in child migrant shelters, which are overseen by HHS, according to several sources familiar with the dynamics.
Rice referred to Becerra as a "bitch-ass" and privately called him an "idiot," according to multiple sources.
During one meeting when Biden was tearing into Becerra, Rice passed Mayorkas a note that read: "Don't save him," according to two people familiar with the meeting.
[…]
Rice also clashed repeatedly with Sherwood-Randall and had tension with Vice President Harris, according to people familiar with the dynamics.
The tension between Rice and Harris had origins in the summer of 2020, when both were being vetted for vice president. Rice later told people she thought Harris and her team were partly responsible for opposition research that resulted in negative coverage of Rice.
Rice appeared to others to take pride in being more informed on the border than Harris.
Some Harris aides found Rice to be disrespectful toward the vice president and dismissively referred to the former UN ambassador as just a "staffer."
Kamala deserves to be torched, but Susan Rice needs to slow her roll since she’s Ms. Unmasker and a master liar during the 2012 Benghazi terror attack. Both women are in the Hall of Fame for incompetence and corruption. The report also noted that high staff turnover and internal drama have led to contradictory directives being issued. There’s also the pro-illegal alien/amnesty side jockeying for influence against Democrats who hold more traditional views about immigration enforcement as well. Still, the fish rots from the head:
Aboard Air Force One en route to tour the southern border in January 2023, President Biden sat at the head of his conference table and exploded with fury.
The president lit into his team, which included then-Deputy Chief of Staff Jen O'Malley Dillon, Homeland Security adviser Liz Sherwood-Randall and other immigration officials. He demanded obscure immigration data points — and vented when his staff didn't have them handy.
Why it matters: The previously unreported meeting, recounted to Axios by three people familiar with the events, is emblematic of the Biden administration's struggle with the border crisis during the past three years — infighting, blame-shifting and indecision.
Biden's fury subsided, and aides scrambled for the information he wanted. People in the meeting later told others in frustration that his winding process and irritability were making it more difficult to reach decisions about the border.
Supposedly, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was not in favor of one of Biden’s disastrous immigration executive orders, like a 100-day moratorium on deportations, and Axios, which leans left, did throw in some tidbits about how some factors were not in the Biden administration’s control.
“Much of the current crisis is rooted in factors Biden's team has had little control over — including unprecedented global calamities that have pushed millions of migrants to the U.S., decades of congressional inaction, and the state of key agencies after the Trump administration,” they wrote.
That’s crap. The border was at its most secure in years under Trump. All we had to do was keep those immigration policies in place and finish the wall. This is a responsibility of the executive, and Biden could re-authorize every Trump EO to empower border enforcement to detain and deport people. Sending that message alone could work wonders: if you get here, you’re going back. To add another layer, Biden should stop suing states like Arizona and Texas, which are trying to enforce what is already federal immigration law.
Overall, the lengthy article paints a picture of chaos that Biden and his aides have long accused the Trump administration of embodying, except Trump was controlling the border. Biden has allowed it to become overrun, and the ‘adults in the room’ don’t know what to do. And when they try to come up with what they think are solutions, it’s dashed by Biden’s temper, pro-amnesty staffers, and nasty infighting. It’s fitting for this presidency, which has been a bumbling mess since day one.
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