Tipsheet

KJP Still Thinks We're Suckers About the Crisis at the Border Following Biden's Visit

Rebecca Downs
Rebecca Downs  |  January 12, 2023 9:00 AM

We covered last week how, even with it being a new year, we're still stuck with the same Karine Jean-Pierre as the White House Press Secretary. That's only become more apparent. Wednesday's press briefing was a particularly noteworthy example of gaslighting, with Katie highlighting how Jean-Pierre answered, or more accurately didn't answer, questions directed to her about President Joe Biden's handling of classified information. Those weren't the only noteworthy moments, though, as Jean-Pierre still thinks we're all suckers when it comes to how the administration has handled the crisis at the southern border.

In addition to being schooled by Fox News' Peter Doocy with regards to Biden and classified information, particularly on the timing of when the news broke, Jean-Pierre also had to take Doocy's questions about the president's recent trip to the southern border. Before last weekend, Biden had yet to travel to see the crisis that worsened under his watch. When he did go, he was met with a very sanitized scene in El Paso, Texas.

This was something Doocy was quite aware of, as he asked Jean-Pierre "why didn't President Biden wanna see what's really going on at the border," to which Jean-Pierre, without missing a beat and with a straight face, replied that "he did see exactly what's going on at the border."

When Doocy pointed out that Biden "didn't talk to any migrants, and he didn't go anywhere that people actually cross illegally," asking "why not," Jean-Pierre looked to her notes to try to deflect and distract, pointing out how Biden "went to the migrant center." It was, the press secretary argued, reading from a script, "a critical place to be when you think about the partners, our partners who are helping support, uh, the migrants on the ground there." She casually mentioned as an aside that "there happened to be no migrants at the facility at the time he visited," as if that was merely a coincidence, something which Doocy immediately raised issue with and pointed out. 

In reality, the streets and even migrant centers were cleaned up before Biden arrived. "It's a dog and pony show," a volunteer at the Sacred Heart Church, which was helping migrants in the area seek shelter, was quoted by the Daily Mail as saying. "They've cleaned it all up for him."

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As Jean-Pierre tried to get away with her non-answer, she and Doocy engaged in cross-talk as he pointed out that "El Paso's been crushed," adding "the shelters are full, there are overflow of migrants sleeping in the streets" before asking "and then it's just a coincidence that suddenly the president shows up," as he trailed off, allowing Jean-Pierre to embarrass herself further as she indeed claimed "the president's visit had nothing to do with" the numbers going down for these winter months. 

Despite all that Doocy had just laid out, Jean-Pierre still expects the takeaway for people to have is that the president really did have an authentic visit. "And uh, and so the president go to see, he went to the border, he got to see for himself, talking to--we've always been very clear that we were going to, he was going to talk to the people on the ground who's working on the border, and that's what you saw." Jean-Pierre pointed to Biden speaking with Customs and Border Protection and other "partners on the ground" as proof. 

The trip reeks of a flashback from when Vice President Kamala Harris, inexplicably dubbed the border czar by Biden in March of 2021, visited the area in late June of 2021. She too, visited El Paso, but stuck mostly to the area around the airport, touring a border patrol station, not the actual border. 

For all of her failings, though, Biden still claims to be proud of, something the Border Patrol Union definitely picked up on and issued a fittingly snarky tweet about in response.