The Patriot Post® · A Border Wall of Blame-Shifting
“Do you believe the border wall works?” asked a reporter of Joe Biden yesterday. His one-word reply: “No.”
In Biden’s world, it doesn’t “work” because the border invasion is intentional, and a wall would literally get in the way.
Biden was asked the question because of his administration’s quiet and then exposed waivers to resume construction of Donald Trump’s border wall. Even DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas effectively admitted a wall works, saying there’s “an acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers.”
We covered the seeming about-face yesterday, but there’s oh so much more to say today.
“The money was appropriated for the border wall,” Biden explained of the DHS memo opening the door for wall construction to begin again. “I tried to get them to reappropriate, to redirect that money. They didn’t. They wouldn’t. And in the meantime, there’s nothing under the law other than they have to use the money for what it was appropriated. I can’t stop that.”
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre trotted out the same excuse: “We went to Congress. Congress appropriates the funding. We asked them to not use that funding for that particular purpose. They denied it, and now we’re complying with the law.”
It’s tempting to laugh and point to this as another example of Biden not really being in charge. But it’s far worse.
When has the law or appropriations or even the Constitution ever stopped Joe Biden before? Congress didn’t pass student loan forgiveness? Do it anyway. Supreme Court struck that down? Do it again anyway.
Biden set about on Day One to undo just about everything Trump did. Kill the pipelines, the drilling permits, the census changes, the border policies. “There will not be another foot of wall constructed in my administration,” Biden promised on the 2020 campaign trail. On his first day in office, he issued a proclamation doing just that. A couple of months ago, his administration was selling the wall-building material it didn’t need.
Yet suddenly, Biden is constrained by appropriations law passed under Trump. Why is that? Because Biden can do a minimal something to stem the terrible crisis caused by his border policies, mollifying Democrats in sanctuary jurisdictions, while blaming Trump for the cruelty of it all and insisting that it won’t work in any case.
Given that the plan is for only 20 miles of wall, it won’t work. In fact, it’s “not a serious policy solution,” which is what Biden early in his presidency called Trump’s wall. Texas Senator Ted Cruz called the whole thing “window dressing to pretend he cares.”
Mayorkas angrily insisted that “a border wall is not the answer” and that his public notice about it “is being taken out of context and it does not signify any change in policy whatsoever.” Translation: The border will remain open.
This blame-shifting reminds us of one other significant action Biden took while claiming his hands were tied by his predecessor: surrendering and retreating from Afghanistan. Blaming Trump was a lie, of course. Trump’s plan was clearly not to surrender to the Taliban in a repeat of Saigon in 1975 the way Biden did, with the deaths of 13 Americans on his hands. But somehow, for the first time, Biden was obliged to follow a plan Trump supposedly set in stone.
That and the border wall comments are sick and pathetic buck passing to cover for disastrous policies, but it’s par for the course for a guy who lies about himself the way Biden does.
He and other Democrats want the border crisis. Any policies to stop it are deemed “cruel” and “racist.” Yet the dereliction of duty from this president and his DHS sidekick is impeachable, and, frankly, it’s more consequential for the nation than the Bidens getting rich off the family name.