SAUNDERS: After border security fails in Senate, Biden faults Trump

WASHINGTON — There’s been a serious outbreak of finger-pointing at the Biden White House this week.

During remarks delivered in the White House State Dining Room Tuesday, President Joe Biden recognized that a Senate border bill was likely to fail.

And it did tank the next day.

Biden blamed former President Donald Trump for pressing Senate Republicans to vote against the measure, because Trump would “rather weaponize this issue than actually solve it.”

Sadly, wrongly, Trump made no secret of his preference for not passing the bill so he could use the issue on the presidential campaign trail.

“Every day between now and November,” Biden opined, “the American people are going to know that the only reason the border is not secure is Donald Trump and his MAGA Republican friends.”

That’s a breathtaking admission from the president. Biden acknowledged that the Southwest border is “not secure.”

He blamed Republicans, because it’s not Biden’s fault, even if he has been in the Oval Office since January 2021 and could have used the power of his pen to sign executive orders to beef up enforcement. And he still can use it.

Instead, Biden used his pen to purge policies like Trump’s “Remain in Mexico.”

“I’m not making new law,” Biden crowed as he overrode Trump’s handiwork. “I’m eliminating bad policy.”

At Tuesday’s briefing, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre extended the blame game when she faulted Republicans for failing to act on the issue over the last three years, including two years when Democrats controlled the White House, Senate and House.

A reporter challenged KJP on that score. “So, you guys talk a lot, including today, about how the border wouldn’t be such a big deal if Congress would have just passed your immigration bill on day one. Who was in charge of Congress on day one?” Fox News’ Peter Doocy asked.

Jean-Pierre told Doocy, “But in those three years, it is true that Republicans have gotten in the way.”

How? During the first two years of the Biden presidency, Biden reversed Trump’s border wall funding, canceled the Keystone XL pipeline and lifted Trump’s transgender military ban. And there was nothing out-of-power Republicans could do.

So if Democrats didn’t pass a measure to beef up the border, could it be that Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer preferred weaponizing immigration rather than solving it?

This likelihood is lost on the likes of CNN anchor Jake Tapper, who, after the border bill failed, professed that he was “awestruck” at the GOP’s failure to pass immigration reform during Trump’s first two years in office, when Republicans controlled the Senate and House.

So when Team Biden complains that Trump would “rather weaponize” the border than solve it, it’s sour grapes. Biden’s porous border allowed record numbers of migrants to cross over illegally. According to U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, there were 302,034 encounters along the Southwest border in December alone.

Methinks Team Biden doesn’t want to solve it.

Contact Review-Journal Washington columnist Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com. Follow @debrajsaunders on X.