Biden Adviser Sperling Dodges on Whether Border Burden Should Be Equal: Won’t ‘Validate’ ‘Stunts’ — We Passed the American Rescue Plan

On Friday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “The Story,” Biden Senior Adviser Gene Sperling would not say that the burden of dealing with the border crisis should be shared equally among the states because he doesn’t want to validate “political stunts using real people’s lives,” and said that states have “surging revenues because of the American Rescue Plan. They have a significant amount of resources. And they should want to work in a serious way to deal with our immigration challenges in this country.”

Host Martha MacCallum asked, “In the meantime, shouldn’t Massachusetts bear the same burden as Texas, shouldn’t that burden be spread, shouldn’t Massachusetts do their fair share?”

Sperling answered, “If you want me to try to validate what I think are — seem very much like political stunts using real people’s lives, putting people on planes, not clearly with their permission, I’m not going to validate that.”

MacCallum then asked, “I’m just asking you, shouldn’t all the states bear the burden of the border policy from the White House?”

Sperling answered, “As I said, I think the thing we need to do is — we have given tremendous support to states in a way that is almost unprecedented, even though most — many of them, and many of those governors still claim that they were against the American Rescue Plan, and yet, they benefit from it every day. They’ve had surging revenues because of the American Rescue Plan. They have a significant amount of resources. And they should want to work in a serious way to deal with our immigration challenges in this country. That’s what this administration is open to. And yeah, no, I’m not going to try to, in any way, dignify the type of stunts that I think have been pulled that I do not think are treating people with dignity. So, you and I just disagree on that.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett

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