During an interview aired on Monday’s broadcast of NBC’s “Late Night,” President Joe Biden stated that the Senate border bill “would allow us to control the border” and if he’s re-elected it will be taken up in the House and be passed, which Democrats didn’t do when they had control of both chambers and the White House from 2021 to 2023.
After host Seth Meyers said, “You even got an immigration bill that passed in the Senate, but never got taken up in the House,” Biden declared, “It will be.”
Meyers then asked, “What do you — would you want to do, what’s your 2024 agenda? Because I feel like we live in such crazy times that that is one of the things I feel we hear less about.”
Biden answered, “Look, the 202[4] agenda is to finish the job. For example, we’re now in a position where we have the strongest economy of any major nation in the world, number one. We’ve got a way to go yet. Inflation is down, 880,000 manufacturing jobs, we have 14 million new jobs, the unemployment rate is the lowest it’s been for the longest time, we’re building wealth for people. But really, we have to do more. The first thing I have to do is stop it from being turned around.”
He continued, “For example, you talked about the border, it didn’t pass. Well, guess what? We’re going to pass that border. It’s overwhelmingly, overwhelmingly supported by Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate. But because — I don’t know this for a fact, but I was told — that Trump was picking up the phone and calling the speaker of the House saying, don’t let it pass. Why? Not because he doesn’t think it’s good, because it will benefit Biden. That’s no way to run a country. That’s no way to deal. We didn’t — even when we had real divisions back when I was a young senator among Democrats and Republicans, that wasn’t the way it worked. And look, … this is not your father’s Republican Party. This is — you’ve got about 30% of the Republican Party controlling it all and I think it’s — we’re going to break it.”
Later, while talking about 2024 Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump, Biden said, “the idea that he said that the Congress wants to pass an overwhelmingly — a border provision that would allow us to control the border, first bill I ever introduced called for that. And here they’re saying, he’s saying, no, don’t do that, because it’ll help Biden. Help Biden? It’s about — not about Biden. It’s about the United States of America.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
