Axios Details Meltdown in Biden Administration Over the Border

Axios Details Meltdown in Biden Administration Over the Border

It’s not a coincidence that negative press stories have emerged since the special counsel’s report called President Joe Biden an ‘elderly man with poor memory’ while coming to his defense.

Have you noticed Biden’s Twitter account (It will always be Twitter to me) has been more active? The Biden campaign even joined TikTok.

My opinion? They want Biden to tank but give off the illusion that he is okay.

The latest example is a huge leak to Axios about Biden blowing up the border since the beginning of his administration.

But don’t worry. Axios added a small section to deflect blame to former President Donald Trump because otherwise, it’d be too obvious: “Much of the current crisis is rooted in factors Biden’s team has had little control over — including unprecedented global calamities that have pushed millions of migrants to the U.S., decades of congressional inaction, and the state of key agencies after the Trump administration.”

But then there’s the shots at Biden.

Biden lost his temper on his team in January 2023 on his way to the border. The staff members, then-Deputy Chief of Staff Jen O’Malley Dillon, Homeland Security adviser Liz Sherwood-Randall, and, others didn’t have “obscure immigration data points” for him.

One key sentence (my emphasis): “People in the meeting later told others in frustration that his winding process and irritability were making it more difficult to reach decisions about the border.”

Another key sentence (emphasis mine): “As the humanitarian conditions at the border have deteriorated and the politics surrounding immigration have become a thorn for Biden, he becomes scratchier when the issue comes up, according to current and former aides.”

Ignore the Border

Why hasn’t the Biden administration spoken about the border? Political vulnerability:

• White House officials limited and pushed against having Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas or other immigration officials appear on TV until a few months ago.
• Publicly, the White House also initially downplayed jumps in illegal border crossings as normal “ebbs and flows” — even as some internally pushed to acknowledge that the problem was significant.
• Some former administration officials believe the strategy provided an information vacuum — that was filled by Biden’s critics.

So they knew immigration was a problem. They knew the whole time. And they choose the election year to talk about it? Not suspicious at all.

Don’t forget that the media is picking up on the massive crossings at our northern border.

Kamala Harris

Then there’s our supposed border czar Vice President Kamala Harris. She tries to shed responsibility by claiming she only had to deal with the Northern Triangle (Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador) and Mexico.

The situation grew, but Harris stayed with the Northern Triangle and Mexico.

Ouch: “She’s been at best ineffective, and at worst sporadically engaged and not seeing it was her responsibility. It’s an opportunity for her, and she didn’t fill the breach.”

Internal Conflict

The border strategy always remained “incoherent” due to constant turnovers in departments.

Some people wanted punishments for those who crossed illegally. Others wanted the Biden administration “to reform asylum policies and expand legal pathways for migrants to stay in the U.S.”

Susan Rice, another holdover from former President Barak Obama’s administration, had some harsh words for HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra:

• There was — and still is — deep animosity toward Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra for what was seen as his reluctance to find more space in child migrant shelters, which are overseen by HHS, according to several sources familiar with the dynamics.
• Rice referred to Becerra as a “bitch-ass” and privately called him an “idiot,” according to multiple sources.
• During one meeting when Biden was tearing into Becerra, Rice passed Mayorkas a note that read: “Don’t save him,” according to two people familiar with the meeting.

Rice also didn’t get along with Harris. Some speculate it started when Biden considered both of them for VP:

The tension between Rice and Harris had origins in the summer of 2020, when both were being vetted for vice president. Rice later told people she thought Harris and her team were partly responsible for opposition research that resulted in negative coverage of Rice.

Rice appeared to others to take pride in being more informed on the border than Harris.

Some Harris aides found Rice to be disrespectful toward the vice president and dismissively referred to the former UN ambassador as just a “staffer.”

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