President Joe Biden’s push for gun control Thursday distracted the media from new alarming numbers detailing the historic migrant crisis on the Southern border.
The president’s Rose Garden event highlighted the administration’s planned executive actions on gun control. The president also emphasized the dreams of gun control advocates, including a new assault rifle ban and reversing liability protections for gun manufacturers.
Biden’s gun control proposals were enough to distract reporters at the White House press briefing Thursday afternoon, who did not ask press secretary Jen Psaki a single question about the border crisis. There was also no mention of the record-breaking numbers of migrants apprehended at the border.
Agents apprehended nearly 170,000 migrants in March, a nearly 72 percent increase in a month. That included a record 18,663 unattended minors in a single month, more than twice the number apprehended in February.
Psaki ignored the crisis during the briefing, bringing in Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm to discuss President Biden’s dramatic spending proposals to increase green energy.
The White House has resisted commenting on the crisis after Biden insisted during a press conference in March that the rise in apprehensions were seasonal.
“It happens every single, solitary year: There is a significant increase in the number of people coming to the border in the winter months of January, February, March. That happens every year,” Biden said.
The latest numbers, however, triggered corporate media fact-checkers to point out the administration’s messaging failure on the issue:
Vice President Kamala Harris, despite taking charge of the “root causes” of the border crisis, has focused her travel domestically to promote the coronavirus vaccine and the administration’s proposed $2.5 trillion infrastructure spending plan.
On Wednesday, during the White House press briefing, Psaki declined to detail any trips to the border by the president or the vice president to draw attention to the issue.
“I don’t have any trips to outline or preview,” she said. “What our focus is, on is solutions.”