Biden's Border Bet
Plus: A jam-packed month of March and a time for choosing.
Busy month coming up! We’ll probably have a Republican presidential nominee by the end of it—and it’s not every March you get to have weekly government shutdown fights. Make sure you carve out some time to see Dune: Part Two.
Happy Friday.
Two Field Trips to the Rio Grande
Lots of action at the southern border yesterday, where border crossings remain at record highs. Not only were all those illegal crossers there, but Joe Biden and Donald Trump were too: Biden in Brownsville, Trump a few hundred miles away in Eagle Pass.
These days, everyone agrees the situation at the border is a crisis, with far too many people crossing for the systems we have in place to even try to process them all appropriately. The political question is who will take the blame.
Why border crossings rise is a complex issue with many causes, including growing regional instability: Only in very rare circumstances can a president simply snap their fingers and halt them completely. Trump learned this himself in his first term: Although crossings had cratered following his election—his tough-on-migrants reputation was probably one reason—they surged to what were then decade-long highs in mid-2019.
While Trump made increasingly hard-edged attempts to curb the problem—his hugely controversial and ultimately abortive family separation policy, his legally dubious end-run of using military construction funds to build his border wall, his remain-in-Mexico policy for asylum seekers—what really slammed the lid on illegal migration in the latter part of his first term was the pandemic. In addition to depressing the number of people trying to cross in the first place, COVID gave Trump the pretext to do what he couldn’t have done in normal times: Close the border altogether under a rarely used public health provision called Title 42.
The end of Title 42 was always going to create large surges in migration. But Biden also ran hard against Trump’s immigration policies in 2020, which he denounced as cruel. This rhetoric raised would-be migrants’ hopes of getting into America once Biden took office. When he was inaugurated, even with Title 42 still in place, migration reached an unprecedented pace, although those attempting to enter the country were still frequently expelled. (Some of the enormous spike in border-encounter data can actually be attributed to widespread expulsions, with those who were repeatedly punted back across the border only to try again counted multiple times in apprehension statistics.)
Then, last year, Biden’s declaration that the COVID national emergency was over sunsetted Title 42 as well, leading to still greater migration spikes.
Polls now routinely show Americans siding with Trump over Biden on this issue. One ABC News/Ipsos poll last month found 44 percent of Americans saying they would trust Trump over Biden to handle immigration and the border, with only 26 percent saying they’d trust Biden more. A Marquette poll last month was even more striking: 53 percent preferred Trump’s handling of immigration and border security versus only 25 percent for Biden.
All this explains why Biden is sprinting to the center on immigration—ordinarily a sign of political weakness.
“The United States is being overrun by the Biden migrant crime,” Trump exulted in Eagle Pass. “It’s a new form of vicious violation to our country—it’s migrant crime, we call it Biden migrant crime.”
But Democrats have reason to hope Trump and Republicans have overplayed their hand by spiking, at Trump’s request, a bipartisan border-security and foreign-aid package negotiated in the Senate last month. It goes to show, Democrats argue: Republicans are less interested in actually addressing the border crisis than they are in preserving it to run on in November.
“Instead of telling members of Congress to block this legislation, join me,” Biden said from Brownsville, addressing Trump rhetorically. “You know and I know it’s the toughest, most efficient, most effective border security bill this country has ever seen. Instead of playing politics with the issue, why don’t we just get together and get it done.”
—Andrew Egger
A March Wake-Up Call?
It’s Friday, which is good, with a weekend coming up, which is better. Because next week will be busy.
Super Tuesday is on March 5.
President Biden’s State of the Union address is the evening of March 7.
And there’s a possible partial government shutdown on March 8—as well as the likelihood that the issue of aid for Ukraine comes to a head about then.
But I want to say a word about Wednesday, March 6.
Why March 6?
Because roughly a third of the total delegates in both presidential primaries will have been selected the day before, with lopsided hauls for Biden and Trump. We’ll wake up on the morning of March 6 to the news that both men are on the verge of clinching the nominations of their parties.
Tens of millions of Americans will be confronted with the realization that they face eight months of another Biden-Trump race, a race that a large majority of them say they don’t want.
They may grudgingly accept this. In which case we’ll have a long campaign between the current president and the previous one, both of whom have presided over administrations most Americans disapprove of.
It could be that we all may end up grumbling about but acquiescing in this choice between Biden and Trump. And if it’s the choice we end up with, it’s an easy one, between an American democrat and an un-American authoritarian.
But there will be voter resistance to this choice. There will be over the next few weeks—for better or worse—a surge of interest in third-party and independent candidacies.
Which means that Nikki Haley—who, after Biden and Trump, will receive the third-most votes on Super Tuesday—could be at the center of gravity of American politics. She may choose not to play a central role in 2024. She may just get out of the race, and either (reluctantly) endorse Trump or refuse to endorse.
Or, she could choose to follow the logic of her recent rhetoric. She says we deserve a far better choice than Biden and Trump. Will she offer it?
Could she choose to embrace the dynamic that has somewhat unexpectedly taken over and energized her candidacy? Could she decide that this is her moment? Could she decide her historic role is to try to lead a movement that could begin to change American politics? Could she build on what she’s done so far and explore an independent candidacy, either for herself or for someone else?
(By the way, if polling suggests, as I think it might, that a Haley independent candidacy would hurt Trump rather than helping him, that would make such a run more palatable to many who might support her.)
But even if Haley doesn’t step up, someone else may. Or President Biden might recognize the widespread discontent out there—and the very real possibility that he’ll lose to Trump—and choose to step aside.
In any case, there’s clearly interest in—even eagerness for—a younger, different alternative, one way or the other, to Biden and Trump.
That interest may be frustrated. Politics is a graveyard of wistful hopes. Ultimately it may well come down to a choice between Biden and Trump. That choice is easy.
But I’m less certain than some others that it’s the choice we’re doomed to face.
—William Kristol
Catching up . . .
Mike Johnson’s plan for getting the House in line: Deploy Trump: Politico
Justin Amash, congressman who left GOP, announces Senate run in Michigan: Washington Post
Putin’s bluffing on nukes (for now), says top NATO official: Politico
Thousands turn out for Navalny’s funeral in Moscow: New York Times
GOP’s post-Roe peril spreads like wildfire: Axios
This chart of ocean temperatures should really scare you: Vox
Telehealth abortions continue to rise–even in banned states, a new study shows: Mother Jones
Quick Hits
1. Dressing to Impress
On the subject of border visits, Joe Perticone wonders: when did all the Republicans start doing their wardrobe shopping for these trips at military surplus stores? From yesterday’s Press Pass:
While these trips have attained the status of a political tradition, participants have kept things fresh by embracing a new trend: border patrol cosplay. And like the cosplay you’d see at your average Comicon, these lawmakers’ outfits range from the earnest if clumsy homage, on one end, to the sort of outfit that makes you wonder if the handcuffs and pepper spray are real, on the other.
Let’s start with this: The Department of Homeland Security has an official color palette for all its uniforms and insignia. The only authorized green for use is billed as “DHS-green,” which has a color hex code of #5e9732. (Coincidentally, this exact shade is also the official green of the Chili’s restaurant chain.) That green and similar tones look good while worn along the border, especially for people whose regular work clothes would stand out against the drab uniforms of actual U.S. Border Patrol agents or Texas National Guardsmen. This is the rare fashion niche where Republican officials are the first to jump on a new style.
2. Rich Guys with Empty Heads
And on the site today, Matt Johnson takes apart Elon Musk and David Sacks, the “celebrity billionaires” who have been among the loudest anti-Ukraine voices online in the past two years:
Neither Sacks nor Musk, of course, has any idea what they’re talking about. They’re figures with massive resources and influence, yet they don’t seem capable of distinguishing good information from bad. They regularly cite clueless conspiracy theorists, ignore experts on Ukraine and Russia, and make bold predictions which turn out to be false. For example, in October 2022, Sacks predicted that American sanctions against Russia (with which almost every European country participated) had “backfired on a soon-to-be-shivering Europe.” But Europe had plenty of energy to stay warm in the winter of 2022-2023 and has even more this year. . .
Entrepreneurs-turned-pundits like Musk and Sacks are effective propagandists because they present themselves as political outsiders opposing the despised Washington “elite.” (If two billionaires with degrees from Stanford, the University of Chicago, and the University of Pennsylvania aren’t elites, then no one is.) It’s a good time for self-proclaimed outsiders in American politics. Trump was the ultimate political outsider, and still positions himself as one despite having been president for four years and effectively owning one of the two major political parties. After Musk took over X, it quickly became a home for anti-establishment demagogues like Carlson, Alex Jones, and Candace Owens. Musk often tweets about the imminent death of the mainstream media and presents his troll-infested platform as the inevitable alternative. Sacks retweets Ukraine commentary from fringe conspiracy theorists, including one of the original progenitors of the pizzagate conspiracy theory and a former musician-cum-Candace Owens ally who tried to pass off a 2021 video as proof of Ukrainian corruption in 2024.
Cheap Shots
STOP PUSHING FOR BIDEN TO STEP ASIDE. (I’m not yelling, I’m writing emphatically.) It’s a panic move that guarantees a Trump win. There IS no other D palatable to all elements of the party, and no D is going to vote 3rd party/independent/write-in for Nikki Haley. Just stop.
The following appeared today in Jennifer Rubin's column in the Washington Post:
"Salon interviewed John Gartner, a psychologist and former professor at Johns Hopkins University Medical School.
Gartner was analytic, specific and frank. He pointed to “‘phonemic paraphasias’ — the substitution of non-words for words that sound similar.” He spelled out his observations:
"Some examples of Trump’s non-words: Beneficiaries becomes “benefishes.” Renovations become “renoversh.” Pivotal became “pivobal.” Obama became “obamna.” Missiles became “mishiz.” Christmas became “Crissus.” Bipartisan became “bipars.” …
"Trump also engages in what we call “tangential speech.” He just becomes incomprehensible when he engages in free association word salad speech that is all over the place. Again, that’s a sign of real brain damage, not being old, not being slow, not losing a step ... but of severe cognitive deterioration."
"What I don’t understand is why those clips aren’t replayed over and over in the mainstream media. Isn’t Trump babbling incoherently the most newsworthy part of his rally? You can be sure it would be if it were Biden.
"Perhaps outlets and figures such as Gartner who responsibly discuss Trump’s mental and emotional condition will shame the rest of the media into covering what should be a major story."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/03/01/newsletter-race-trump/