Tipsheet

Did Tim Kaine Offer the Worst Answer on the Border Crisis?

Rebecca Downs
Rebecca Downs  |  March 25, 2024 8:30 PM

During the most recent edition of "Fox News Sunday," host Shannon Bream had Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) on to discuss various issues of the border crisis. This is especially in the context of the capabilities of ISIS and the alarming amount of people on the terror watch list who have been encountered at the southern border, with 70 people this year alone having been arrested. Not only did Kaine use typical talking points when it comes to the crisis at the southern border, which is to promote a bad bill and blame Republicans, he took it a step further when it comes to how he claimed that calling what's happening at the border "an invasion" is akin to "that kind of wording that led the deranged guy to go shoot up the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, killing folks a couple years ago."

Bream had spoken to Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) before Kaine, who was much more clear in condemning the crisis at the border. He also called out the role that President Joe Biden and his administration have played in making the problem a whole lot worse with all of the executive orders he issued.

Kaine didn't just claim "I don't think it's an invasion," and that "I think you've got to be careful throwing around words like invasion," as well as how "I think that kind of rhetoric is irresponsible" in addition to referencing the Tree of Life Synagogue killing where Jews were targeted. He also did so after Bream reminded him of footage from last Friday in which illegal immigrants swarmed the border and overwhelmed Texas National Guardsmen. 

Bream also referenced coverage from The Federalist, "To Stop The Border Invasion, Get Tough On Mexico" to ask Kaine "would you consider this an invasion? And is there more we could be doing with respect to pressuring Mexico?"

Not only did Kaine's answer involve a scolding, but he also failed to speak to getting tougher on Mexico, other than to blame Republicans who killed the bad border bill put out in early February. Although it was the work of Sens. James Lankford (R-OK), Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ), and Chris Murphy (D-CT), after several months of negotiations, Kaine only mentioned Lankford's role.

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Kaine also parroted talking points from the Biden White House, which was to blame Republicans for killing the bill, because former and potentially future President Donald Trump told them to. Kaine failed to bring up how it was actually a bad bill. 

Although Bream brought it up when mentioning the footage, Kaine did not really have to answer for Biden's executive orders making the border less secure. Again, Cotton had no problem bringing up how Biden has made the crisis even worse.

"The only person responsible for the chaos at our border is Joe Biden. In 2020, he said that he would reverse all of President Trump's highly effective policies. That sent a signal to everyone around the world that if you got to our border you could get in. That's exactly what he did on day one," he insisted. "And we had more illegal crossings in 2021 than we had had in any previous year and again in '22, and again in '23. That has nothing to do with the bill that Congress may or may not pass in the spring of 2024."

Cotton again emphasized Biden was at fault by pointing out that "this chaos at our border, 10 million illegal migrants crossing our--into our country's border over the last three-plus years is solely the responsibility of Joe Biden."

Speaking further of executive orders, Kaine also went with another narrative that the White House has gone with, which is to say Biden could perhaps maybe issue an executive order to lessen the crisis, but he'd rather let Congress handle the problem. 

"I do encourage him to use executive actions. I don't think he can do everything that was in our bipartisan bill by executive order. But there's probably a subset of things he can do. And I think his team is considering it," Kaine said when asked by Bream about executive order the president has teased he may or may not take. 

In case the segment wasn't embarrassing enough for him, Kaine went with a talking point that had been debunked in real time, with the proper context, by blaming Trump spoke of a "bloodbath" during a rally earlier this month in Ohio. In reality, it was clear he was talking about an economic sense, should he not win in November. 

That Kaine went for a false narrative was even more embarrassing and desperate considering he tried to use it to draw a contrast between Trump and Biden, in that Trump is supposedly "using phrases like bloodbath, et cetera, to talk about what he hopes to do in a second term."

Kaine was fact-checked on the spot by Bream, who reminded him "we think it's important to have it in context that [Trump] was talking about the automobile industry, China, Mexico, imports from there. He said a lot of things that you could take," adding "you could take issue with and those can certainly be debated, but on that particular one context, we think it's important."

Bringing it back to the border crisis and words that Democrats like Kaine take issue with, other elected officials and activist groups have been on the losing end here before. Earlier this month, Biden dared to acknowledge that 22-year-old Laken Riley was murdered, with the suspect being "an illegal," albeit he couldn't even pronounce her name correctly. The backlash over Biden daring to use such a term was swift and severe, and after an initially confusing response the following day, he ended up admitting he regretted using the word, though the White House then laughably tried to claim he didn't actually apologize.

According to a new poll from Harvard CAPS-Harris, which Spencer also highlighted earlier on Monday, 73 percent of voters believe that it is appropriate to use the term "illegal immigrants." This includes 73 percent of Democrats, 76 percent of Republicans, 69 percent of Independents/Others, 80 percent of those who have heard of Laken Riley, and 61 percent of those who have not heard of the young woman.