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Clear as mud: KJP and John Kirby’s stories don’t match up

March 26, 2024 | | Print Article

President Joe Biden’s mouthpieces wrangled with reporters as they tried to get the messaging right on questions about executive actions on the border.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and Biden’s top national security spokesperson, John Kirby fielded questions from reporters at a Monday press briefing and addressed the issue of executive actions by the president, in particular, on the migrant invasion of the southern U.S. border.

Jean-Pierre was asked about Biden being “receptive” to Democrats calling on him to take executive action on the border crisis, referring specifically to comments made by Sen. Tim Kaine urging the president to do so.

The press secretary’s round-about response was to say that Biden is “always” looking at how executive actions could work.

“A majority of Americans care about what’s happening at the border. And we took a step to do that. We took a step. The President, along with Republicans in the Senate, Democrats in the Senate, took a step to actually deal with this issue,” she said.

“We’ve been very clear about executive actions. Will we look at executive- — executive actions to see what could work? Sure, we always do that,” Jean-Pierre continued.

“But here’s the thing. What we understand, the bottom line is that we have to move forward with legislative action to actually make a difference here. And that’s what we want to see,” she added. “Executive action won’t do it. It won’t have the impact that this bipartisan agreement — negotiation that came to fruition.”

Earlier in the briefing, Kirby had the issue and called out reporting that Biden has not taken any executive actions on the border as “just not true.”

“I don’t have any announcements to make with respect to executive action. I would remind that, you know, this i- — this argument that the President hasn’t taken executive action or — or — is just not true. He has kept American troops down there at the border. He has worked as commander-in-chief with the government of Mexico to — to improve their ability to try to stem that flow and to go after fentanyl traffickers. I mean, it’s not as if he hasn’t,” Kirby said before throwing the weight on to Congress.

“But there is a real limit that — what really needs to be done, if you really care about the border and stemming the flow, is additional resources,” he said.

“And the President can’t just sign those into being. You got to have funding behind that. You have to have a checking account for that. And that comes from the power of the purse and that comes from Capitol Hill,” Kirby insisted.

When asked a follow up question on if there was “nothing more that he could do outside of Congress,” Kirby replied, “I’m not going to get into anything more or he would or wouldn’t do. I certainly won’t get ahead of the president’s decision space on this.”

“But the idea that he hasn’t taken executive action when warranted is just not true. He has. But there is a real limit to executive action in terms of what’s needed down there,” he reiterated.

“What’s needed is funding, more than anything. And, again, for all the people out there expressing concerns about the border, number one, we share those concerns, which is why the president put, you know, billions of dollars into a national security supplemental to give the Border Patrol, to give the customs courts additional resources. You got to have funding for that,” Kirby concluded.

Frieda Powers
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