On Tuesday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Special Report,” Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) stated that President Joe Biden waiting to take executive action on the border for three years “highlights…that it is up to Congress” and defended Biden rescinding Trump policies like Remain in Mexico by saying that Biden “understands how the federal government is supposed to function and what the role is for the White House and what the role is for the United States Congress.”
Host Bret Baier said, [relevant exchange begins around 3:20] “[S]o, three years in, the bipartisan bill fails, to your point. He says, then I had to take executive action. He could have taken executive action, Senator, on day one.”
Kelly responded, “But I think what it highlights is that it is up to Congress to deal with these kind of issues. If you want to spend money, significant amounts of money, this was billions of dollars, that’s the role of the United States Congress. That’s the role of the Senate. And that’s why — it took us a long time to get to the point. And by the way, this wasn’t meeting Republicans on this issue on the 50-yard line. It wasn’t that kind of compromise. It was meeting them — and I supported almost all the stuff in there, I would have wanted more immigration reform — but it was meeting them on the 10-yard line on their side of the field. But, because of the former president, we were not able to get this done.”
Baier followed up, “Okay, but my question is the executive orders on day one. President Biden could have come in and said, I want to leave Remain in Mexico. I’m going to [keep] all these things that were working. He could have done that. He waited three years to take this executive action.”
Kelly responded, “But he also understands how the federal government is supposed to function and what the role is for the White House and what the role is for the United States Congress. And it’s up to Congress to legislate on this. Executive actions are not the way we should be doing this thing. But, because of Senate Republicans, that’s the position he was put in.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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