President Joe Biden is expected to sign a narrow executive order on immigration Tuesday afternoon, despite previously claiming he had no authority to do anything about the crisis he created, but the transparently political attempt to throw a life preserver to the president's job approval before November's election. Republican Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana, as only he can, explained Tuesday morning why he isn't buying the ploy — and why Biden-sympathetic mainstream reporters shouldn't either.
"President Biden is in trouble politically — he's polling right up there with fungal infections," Sen. Kennedy quipped in a Senate press conference. "Part of the reason for that is that he gave in to the loon-wing of his party and he dissolved the southern border."
"Now, five months before an election, he has to appear to be willing to do something about it," the Louisiana Republican continued. "Hence this executive order. He expects you to report this epiphany that he has had, take what the White House is telling you, balance on your noses like trained seals, and report it uncritically," Sen. Kennedy said, speaking to reporters gathered for his remarks.
"For three years, we have watched President Biden push on a door that has been clearly marked pull," Sen. Kennedy assessed. "He's mismanaged Congress, COVID, the national debt, the economy, inflation, crime, Afghanistan, Iran, the war in Gaza, the war in Ukraine, and now of course the border."
Through all these crises of Biden's creation, Sen. Kennedy said that "every time" he thinks "the president has hit rock bottom, he has managed to find a shovel and continue to dig."
"It's a little late, isn't it Mr. President?" Sen. Kennedy asked rhetorically of Biden's sudden realization that the same authority he used to gut border security and open the floodgates to illegal aliens allows him to reinstate the effective policies that prevented the current crisis.
"You can't make this cat walk backward," Sen. Kennedy continued. "The president's border policies have allowed 8 million people to come into our country illegally. If you try to come into our country today legally, you are a sucker — all that you have to do is present yourself at the southern border," he added of Biden's use of catch-and-release, abuse of parole, and lack of interest in immediately removing ineligible-for-asylum illegal aliens.
"For three years, President Biden told us all there is no crisis at the southern border for reasons clearly stated on the teleprompter," Sen. Kennedy reminded. "And his plan to deal with the crisis at the border was to pretend that there wasn't a crisis at the border — some of you reported that, some of you didn't," he told reporters.
"Well, when the American people figured it out — because they may be poorer under President Biden but they're not stupid — the Biden administration shifted strategy," Sen. Kennedy continued. "[The administration] then said, well we know there's a crisis at the border but we don't have any authority to fix it. That didn't work either, because the American people aren't cell-deep stupid."
"So now he has decided to tell you that he has been born again, he has had an epiphany, he is now a border hawk," said Sen. Kennedy. "And that's what he wants you to report."
"Look, you can cut the hypocrisy with a knife," Sen. Kennedy emphasized of Biden's back-and-forth, election-motivated border policy. "I have seen the good side of politics but I've also seen the dark side. I spent 25 years in the major leagues of Louisiana politics before I was sent down to the minors here in Washington," he continued. "I have seen the good side but I've seen the dark side."
"This is one of the most cynical things that I have ever seen a politician attempt to do five months before an election," Sen. Kennedy reiterated. "It is insulting, it is cheap, it is contemptuous — the American people see that and I hope you do too."
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