While speaking to Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday," White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki managed to keep a straight face while stitcking to how the Biden administration is "absolutely committed to transparency" when it comes to media access. This includes access into the facilities where unaccompanied minors are being held, many longer than the legal time limit.
Like President Biden has been unable to do despite is promises of transparency, Psaki could not say when there would be more press access.
WATCH: Chris and @PressSec discuss the issue of transparency with the American people on the southern border. #FoxNewsSunday pic.twitter.com/Hf7cYEqCNc
— FoxNewsSunday (@FoxNewsSunday) March 28, 2021
Wallace was not unreasonable when he suggested press access could be made available, even when still keeping up with safety guidelines necessitated by the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic. Psaki still said they "are mindful of the fact that we are in the middle of the pandemic. We want to keep these kids safe, keep the staff safe."
The pictures which were available for Wallace to show highlighting the deplorable conditions these unaccompanied minors are being kept in were thanks to senators who went to the border to see it for themselves, including Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). The administration still tried to keep these photos from seeing the light of day.
As Beth reported, Sen. Cruz dealt with pushback from a bureaucrat of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), who repeatedly tried to block his camera and said, "Please give dignity to the people, please give dignity to the people."
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Sen. Mike Braun (R-IN) shared similar details with the Washington Examiner about his own experience:
Inside a migrant processing and holding center in Donna, Texas, Braun said, “There was one of Biden's representatives. I felt sorry for the lady because she actually talked to me about deleting a picture, but by the time she got to me, all those other pictures were taken, and that shows you the hypocrisy,” he said.
“None of us would have gone down there if we were going to be muzzled,” said Braun, who added that Border Patrol also asked that no photos were to be taken, but that “they were telling us that because they had to.”
Those photos showed children as young as 3 years old jammed into the facilities that Braun described as the worst situation for migrants in 20 years...
When Wallace dared to point out that "you are being less transparent than the Trump administration," Psaki's first thought was to respond that "the Trump administration was turning away kids at the border, sending them back on a treacherous journey, or they were ripping kids from the arms of their parents."
As Katie has reported multiple times, these promises of transparency with very little to back it up are nothing new from Psaki, though.
Psaki has also downplayed that there even is a crisis, which comes from DHS Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas, whose name she invoked. He had a similarly pathetic performance with Chris Wallace as well, which should raise the alarm even more.
The strategy for this administration seems to be to distract, deflect, and cast blame elsewhere, which surely isn't helping. If anything, it's only made the crisis on the southern border even worse.
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