The White House on Wednesday laughed off an invitation by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to visit the Southern border.
McCarthy told reporters on Tuesday after meeting the president that he invited him to come and see the effects of his disastrous open border policies for himself.
When reporters asked White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre for Biden’s reaction to the invitation, she only laughed.
“Look, he’s been there, he’s been to the border,” Jean-Pierre said.
But Biden has not actually visited the southern border, despite his claim.
“I’ve been there before and I haven’t — I mean, I know it well. I guess I should go down,” he said during a town hall meeting with CNN in October 2021.
He added that “I haven’t had a whole hell of lot of time to get down” to the border.
The only instance the president has been near the border was during a campaign trip on October 17, 2008, where he drove by a border area on his way to a rally in Mesilla, N.M. but did not stop, according to The Washington Post.
Jean-Pierre repeated that Biden was working to secure the border and referred to Biden’s widespread amnesty immigration reform legislation.
“We’re not seeing a willingness to work with us on fixing a situation that’s been around for decades now,” she said.
Jean-Pierre dismissed McCarthy’s action as a “political stunt” and did not respond to the invitation.
The White House has repeatedly struggled to respond to calls for the president to visit the border.
“What percentage of the public is focused on the border?” White House press secretary Jen Psaki asked in 2021 when she was still press secretary. “A much smaller percentage than who’s focused on the pandemic and the economy. So that may be maddening, but, you know, that’s what we try to do.”