On 11/22/2022, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre dismissed Kevin McCarthy making trips to the U.S.-Mexico border as a “political stunt”. Jean-Pierre made the statement in response to questions about House minority leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., making an appearance at the border. President Biden has yet to visit the southern border nearly two years into his presidency as the country wrestles with an unprecedented border crisis.
A reporter asked Jean-Pierre, “The other question I have is: Republican Leader McCarthy is in El Paso today — probably going to make some kind of announcement involving the Homeland Security Secretary. How does the White House respond to criticism that it has lost control of the border? And given the change in leadership at Customs and Border Protection, what changes does the White House have in mind about how it wants to manage the flow of migrants over the border?”
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: So, just a couple of things. You know, I know — I’ve heard that Mayorkas is — pardon me, that Kevin McCarthy is at the border. And the question that we have for Kevin McCarthy, who is soon to be — who is soon to be Speaker McCarthy, you know: What is — what is his plan? What is he doing to help the situation that we’re seeing? What — what is his plan?
He goes down there and he does a political stunt, like many Republicans do, that we have seen them do. But he actually is not putting forth a plan — a plan to help us, you know, deal with an issue that we’re all seeing that you all are reporting.
“I’ve heard that Kevin McCarthy is at the border, and the question we have for Kevin McCarthy–who’s soon to be Speaker McCarthy–is, what is his plan? What is he doing to help the situation that we’re seeing?” Jean-Pierre began. “He goes down there, and he does a political stunt like many Republicans do, but he is not actually putting forth a plan.”
“This is — we have put a solution to this. We have said, “Here are the ways that we can deal with this.” The first day — on the President’s first day in the White House, he put forth a comprehensive immigration plan because he knew how important it was to move forward with getting this done … He put forward, again, a comprehensive immigration bill on day one … So, we have a plan. We’ve been putting that forward. McCarthy has no plan. The Republican Party has no plan. They do nothing except do political stunts.”
Reporter: So is there a change in approach though, given that you’re changing leadership at CBP? Does that signal that the administration is going to change course at all?
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: We feel that we have a plan that we have put forward … Instead of doing political stunts and making about — making this about politics, you know, why don’t Speaker McCarthy — soon-to-be Speaker McCarthy actually put some — a plan before us, actually come to the table, and put some work into it?
Reporter: A follow-up on Chris’s questions on the border. You were saying the administration has been clear about its plan. There actually hasn’t been an official statement on whether or not the administration will appeal the December 21st court order that would lift Title 42. Will the administration appeal or will it not?
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: So, just a couple things here. So, in many ways, we’ve been preparing for — I just want to make sure that we’ve been — you’re aware that — I know we get questions about if we’ve been preparing for what to do on — once Title 42 is lifted. So, we’ve been preparing for this. We’ve been working to accelerate asylum process times
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WH: Kevin McCarthy border political stunt, we have a comprehensive plan, blame GOPs for border