No one can blame West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin for feeling more than a little betrayed by his Democratic colleagues these days. In order to secure Manchin’s support for the Inflation Reduction Act in July, President Joe Biden and Democratic leaders promised to facilitate the approval of a gas pipeline in his home state of West Virginia.
At the moment, that promise appears to be facing serious headwinds — from members of his own party.
That may be why he didn’t bother to sugarcoat his reply when asked about Vice President Kamala Harris’ insistence during a Sunday interview with NBC’s Chuck Todd that our southern border is secure.
Chuck Todd: “You’re confident this border is secure?”
Kamala Harris: “We have a secure border in that that is a priority for any nation.”pic.twitter.com/hpmpOdLijd
— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) September 12, 2022
During a Tuesday evening appearance on Fox News’ “Special Report,” the senator called Harris’ assessment “dead wrong.”
Manchin told host Brett Baier, “It’s wrong. She’s dead wrong on that. And I have said this. If we don’t secure it — I voted every time for the wall. But we need the wall and a lot more, technology, more agents.
.@BretBaier: “Vice President Harris said this weekend the southern border is ‘secure.’”
Manchin: “It’s wrong. She’s dead wrong on that.” pic.twitter.com/O2IIJsNu0E
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) September 13, 2022
“The 2013 immigration bill was still the best piece of legislation, I think, that we’ve ever had before us,” Manchin said. “We couldn’t get it passed through the Republican House at that time because of some politics involved there.
Are you concerned about the activities at America’s border?
“And they — the amnesty, people were shouting the word amnesty,” he noted. “That piece of legislation would have corrected everything we have going wrong. But, for anybody — the vice president, president, anybody — to say our borders are secured, that is not accurate. I’ve been there. It’s wrong.”
While many of us lost respect for Manchin after his abrupt decision to support the Inflation Reduction Act enabled its passage last month, we applaud him for his honesty.
In mid-August, with one and a half months still remaining in the current fiscal year, Customs and Border Protection reported there had been over two million migrant encounters at the border, according to Fox News.
During the previous fiscal year, there were over 1.7 million encounters, the report said. At this rate, if nothing is done to secure the border throughout the remainder of President Joe Biden’s term, the total could easily surpass 8 million.
Not only is this figure breathtaking, it’s dangerous.
An NPR/Ipsos poll released in late August found that more than 50 percent of those surveyed consider it “either completely or somewhat true that the U.S. is experiencing an invasion at the southern border.” The poll also showed that “half believe there is at least some truth to the view that migrants bringing fentanyl and other illegal drugs over the southern border are responsible for the increases of overdoses in the U.S.”
This pollster was clearly towing the party line. The report said these results “and others like them that were tested in this survey, shed light on how misleading information or politically charged rhetoric about immigration has taken root among a significant portion of the American public.”
With over 4.2M illegal immigrants crossing the border since Joe Biden took office, VP Kamala Harris claims “we have a secure border” and Senator @CortezMasto says “there’s no open borders.”
We need solutions, not more lies and refusals to acknowledge this deadly crisis. pic.twitter.com/RIMgMFeMq8
— Adam Paul Laxalt (@AdamLaxalt) September 12, 2022
Misleading information or politically charged rhetoric about immigration? Americans see the reality of the situation every day in the media. Even Chuck Todd seemed surprised by Harris’ claim that the border was secure.
It’s unlikely that Republicans will ever trust Manchin again after his role in facilitating passage of the needless and disingenuously named IRA. Still, it’s good to hear a Democrat speak the truth about the ongoing disaster at our southern border.
