On Monday’s broadcast of CNN’s “Inside Politics,” CNN Senior White House Correspondent MJ Lee stated that Democrats know they have to act on the border due to the surge of migrants, “but what they want to maintain is this idea that they are the party that supports humane policies, that they are compassionate, but I think getting to those policies is sort of the existential question that is so, so challenging” and “the juggling act for Democrats right now is that they sort of want the thing that they publicly say or have said they are not for.”
Lee said, “I think the White House and President Biden, certainly, they have felt increasing pressure to get more involved, to show that they are more involved, to get some kind of deal through, particularly because they have talked for so long about how much they need this Ukraine aid, you saw that last week with President Zelensky visiting Washington, D.C. I think what is so telling from the last couple of days is the real sense of optimism, if you can call it that, any sort of real urgency, you’re really seeing come from the Democrats rather than the Republicans. The Republicans, for the most part, have been saying, we’re okay leaving town, we’re going to go continue on with our holiday plans, let’s resume this when we come back in January. And I think in some ways, that’s really revealing about which party almost needs this more right now. The Democrats, they very much recognize that the border is a problem. The issue is that some of these policies that they are considering and talking about, they are quite unpalatable politically, particularly the ones that sort of resemble some of these former Trump-era policies. So, I think the juggling act for Democrats right now is that they sort of want the thing that they publicly say or have said they are not for.”
Later, she added, “I think one of the things that — one of the reasons that the immigration issue is so challenging, to state the obvious, for Democrats in this White House is that it’s so visually evocative, right? You have these scenes of migrants that are going through these dire circumstances to get to the border, to cross the border, and I think Democrats very much recognize that. But I think we’ve seen over the last year or so how incredibly challenging this issue has been for this White House. You look at Title 42 as such a great example of a piece of policy that Democrats for so long had said was inhumane, didn’t treat people well, it was something that they detested, and was completely a Trump-era policy. But then when the time came for that policy to expire, you saw what a difficult time Democrats had with confronting the reality that it was going to expire, because they had become dependent on that kind of policy to keep things under control. So, now, when you have this influx of migrants, they do need something, but what they want to maintain is this idea that they are the party that supports humane policies, that they are compassionate, but I think getting to those policies is sort of the existential question that is so, so challenging for Democrats.”
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