CNN’s Harwood: Biden’s Policies ‘Likely’ to Increase Flow at Border, But ‘There’s Not a Whole Lot the President Can Do’

On Monday’s broadcast of CNN’s “Early Start,” CNN White House Correspondent John Harwood argued that even though the spending in the American Rescue Plan “fueled some of the inflation that we’re now experiencing” and President Joe Biden “lifting some Trump restrictions or announcing that he’s lifting some Trump restrictions” is “likely to increase the flow” of people coming over the border, “there’s not a whole lot” Biden can do on these issues.

Harwood said, “Now, in the case of inflation, which is the dominant economic problem, he had something to do with that inflation. The economists, if you talk to them, left and right, will agree that the American Rescue Plan was larger than it should have been, than it needed to have been, that it fueled some of the inflation that we’re now experiencing. Countries around the world are experiencing inflation, but it’s higher here. The issue is though, what can President Biden do about it right now? And the answer is not very much. That’s the Federal Reserve’s job to try to tackle that. They’re raising interest rates. But it’s kind of out of Biden’s hand. And so, when we get these monthly economic reports, and people say, look, highest inflation in 40 years and ask the White House about it, they don’t have particularly good answers, and there aren’t particularly good answers for the White House.”

He continued, “On immigration, President Biden hasn’t really implemented much of the immigration agenda that he ran on. But the flow of people from south of the border seeking to get into the United States is something that has existed for decades. It ebbs and flows with how the economy’s going. And now, you’ve got a whole lot of people who want to come in and the question is, how can President Biden deal with that? He’s lifting some Trump restrictions or announcing that he’s lifting some Trump restrictions, and that’s likely to increase the flow. But that’s just a thorny problem that there’s not a whole lot the president can do to manage.”

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