During the Thursday, July 25 White House Press Briefing, Fox News Channel senior White House correspondent Peter Doocy pressed White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre about Vice President Kamala Harris’s involvement at the border. As is usual, KJP tried to deflect criticism of the administration’s policies by attacking conservatives for their border stances.
As background, Democrats were allegedly given a “talking points” card that included various lines meant to push back on Republican criticisms of VP Harris. The alleged talking points card included talking points such as “There has never been such a position” as border czar and that Harris “Was NOT asked to lead on the Admin’s immigration or border enforcement policies.” Another line noted that VP Harris’s role was to “focus on changing conditions in OTHER countries, NOT U.S. border.”
Doocy, holding up a flier, said, “Democrats on Capitol Hill are being handed this card with talking points about the vice president and the border,” Then, reading off one of those talking points from the memo, Doocy read out, “Vice President Harris was never appointed Border Czar. There’s never been such a position, it doesn’t exist.”
Press Secretary KJP, pushing back on what Doocy implied with his remark about the memo and its lines about VP Harris, said, “We are going to debunk the false characterization of the vice president. She was not a border czar. Independent fact-checkers have said the same thing, that that did not exist, and that that is not true.”
Things also got tense in the briefing when Mr. Doocy further pressed KJP on the Biden Administration’s apparent sensitivity to criticism of VP Harris’s role and what she was involved in doing about the border. Pressing her on that border matter, Doocy asked KJP, “Why are Democrats so sensitive about the vice president and the border?”
Responding, she snapped back at him, asking why the GOP is “so sensitive” about the border, saying, “Why are Republicans so sensitive about actually not owning up to them getting in the way of a border deal? Why? Why won’t they own up to that? Why won’t they own up to the last president who told them not to move forward?”
Doocy then asked if the border would be such an issue if Kamala did what she was supposed to, saying, “Do you think that the border would be less of a talking point now if there was less migration to the border, say if somebody had addressed root causes of migration sooner?” KJP was evidently extremely annoyed by the question, saying, “Wait, hold on a second — did you not hear the beginning of my … I know there were a lot of talkers.”
She then said, claiming that things are improving at the border and have gotten better under the Biden Administration, “I talked about what we’re seeing at the border. It’s down by 55%. Not because of Republicans and Congress and what they did but because of what this president and the vice president and what they did.”
Watch them here:
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video
