Is Kamala Harris Now The ‘Primary Messenger’ For Biden Admin’s Policies?: White House Questioned

  • 2 months ago
During a White House press briefing on Wednesday, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked about President Biden’s public events and his actions on the border.

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Transcript
00:00Just a follow-up on the scheduling question.
00:02Yeah, sure.
00:03As the President dials back a bit of late the public events,
00:07are we to read into that, either now or in the near future,
00:10that the Vice President should be the kind of primary messenger
00:13of the administration's policies?
00:14No, the President is going to be certainly
00:16the messenger of the policies.
00:18He's the President of the United States.
00:19He's going to continue to do that.
00:21They both will be, as she's out there as well,
00:23as Vice President.
00:24That is not going to change.
00:26You will hear from the President.
00:27You will hear from the President.
00:29He wants to be out there.
00:30He believes there's still a lot of work
00:31to get done in the next six months.
00:33He wants to lay out what it is that he
00:37would like to get done, building on our successes,
00:39whether it's health care, whether it's the economy.
00:42There's still a lot more work to do in the economy,
00:45even though we're leading the world in what we've
00:47been able to do here to turn to restart the economy.
00:51And so, look, you're going to hear from the President
00:54about this in a short order.
00:56You're going to see the President later this week.
00:58You're going to hear from him.
01:00And so I would say, stay tuned.
01:02And the President certainly is looking forward
01:05to the next six months, continuing
01:07to lay out his plans on behalf of the American people.
01:11OK, go ahead.
01:12Yes, when are we going to see the President and Vice
01:14President together?
01:15That's a good question.
01:16I don't have anything for you right now at this time.
01:19But obviously, they were together today having lunch.
01:24That was a private discussion, private lunch.
01:27But I could assure you, you all will see them together
01:31at some point.
01:32I do want to ask you about the border security legislation
01:34that the President still wants and that the Vice President
01:38Harris is also talking about.
01:40Would the President be willing to make a deal on that
01:43in the lame duck session when Congress is back?
01:46Yeah, I get the question.
01:48But he did make a deal.
01:49That was what we did with two months
01:52with Republicans in the Senate.
01:54Yes, but they stopped agreeing to that.
01:57It's so wild because we worked with Republicans
02:00and with Democrats.
02:02And if this deal in Congress, obviously, in the Senate,
02:04to be more specific, and if this deal would have gone through,
02:07it would have been the toughest, fairest, bipartisan border
02:09security legislation in modern history.
02:13And congressional Republicans decided
02:15to block it because Donald Trump felt like it
02:17would make Americans safer.
02:20So do not move forward with it.
02:21That's what he felt. And it would harm him politically.
02:25That's what he felt.
02:28And so, look, we did a deal.
02:31It was a very good deal that Republicans agreed on,
02:36Democrats agreed on.
02:37The President reached across the aisle
02:38to make this happen when people told him
02:41that that wouldn't be possible.
02:43And the former President got in the way.
02:47And he got in the way not because it was the right thing
02:50to do for the American people.
02:51It was the right thing to do for himself.
02:54And so the President would love,
02:56would love to move forward with that deal,
02:58with that deal that we were able to get done.
03:01But they themselves, Republicans,
03:02voted twice against it.
03:04And so the President has taken executive actions,
03:07and we want to make sure that we continue
03:10to reduce unauthorized crossing, to lower —
03:13and we've been able to do that — to lower than any other —
03:16under any other prior administration.
03:18We have been able to do that through actions here.
03:21But in order to deal with this,
03:23we have to have legislation.
03:24And there was a deal — there was a deal on the table
03:27that we were able to negotiate with Republicans
03:29and Democrats in the Senate.
03:31The former President got in the way.
03:34You know?
03:34Will that deal still be on the table after the election?
03:37It's on the table right now.
03:39We want to make that deal move forward.
03:41We do. We are ready.
03:43The President's ready to sign it.
03:45It's Republicans.
03:46This is really — I appreciate the questions,
03:48but this is really a question for Republicans
03:50in Congress to answer, too.

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