The Biden-Harris 2024 reelection campaign outlined its road to victory Thursday, a plan that includes expanding the map, building on its 2020 and 2022 coalition and breaking through the media environment.
The road to victory also includes focusing on issues Americans care about and running as a united front, according to a memo obtained by The Hill. The memo, entitled “The Road to Victory in 2024” was sent by campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez to interested parties Thursday.
In its effort to expand the map, the campaign will invest early in ad buys in states including Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada, New Hampshire, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and Florida. To try to build on the 2020 and 2022 coalition, the campaign plans to focus on suburban voters “particularly motivated by Republican attacks on reproductive rights,” Rodriguez said. Additionally, they will focus on Black, Latino, Asian American, and Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander voters.
To try to break through the media environment, which Rodriguez describes is fragmented, they will “use innovative strategies to break through and connect with voters where they are” by “leveraging people’s personal networks, through amplifying core messages online, and having personal conversations offline,” she said.
And in order ensure it focuses on the American people, Rodriguez said the campaign will work to highlight lived experiences. To attempt to display a united front, the campaign will leverage already-established Democratic party infrastructure.
“Democrats are most successful when we run together. Working collaboratively with candidates and state parties, we’ll build a diverse campaign that’s focused on a unified message, tailored to the communities we need to register, persuade and turn out to vote,” she said.
Rodriguez also argued that the Biden-Harris campaign entered the 2024 reelection campaign “in a markedly strong position,” pointing to the better-than-expected 2022 midterm results for Democrats.
“In 2022, Democrats won elections in spite of a turnout environment that was more Republican than in 2020. This shows that, under the Biden administration, we have gained support from Republican and independent swing voters who had not previously voted for Democrats,” she said.
Additionally, she noted that Democrats have been successful in Wisconsin Supreme Court elections, special elections in Pennsylvania and the mayoral race in Jacksonville, Fla.
President Biden launched his 2024 reelection campaign April 25 through a video message. Rodriguez started her role as campaign manager this week. She previously was senior adviser to Biden and the director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs.
Republicans are blasting President Biden for leaving Washington for Asia on Wednesday without significant progress on debt limit negotiations, as the country inches toward a deadline on defaulting that could prove catastrophic on the financial system.
Biden will be in Japan for this weekend’s Group of Seven (G-7) summit but has canceled the latter portion of his trip, which included stops in Papua New Guinea and Australia, to be back in the nation’s capital and resume talks with congressional leaders.
Even with the shortened trip, lawmakers criticized Biden for taking off at all.
“Here we are on the brink of a Biden default. And I think we saw the helicopters going across here, and I said I think he’s leaving now to go to Japan. I’m like stop, stop,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) said during an outdoor press conference at the Capitol on Wednesday.
She criticized the president for priding himself on being a good negotiator yet not negotiating with Republicans between the beginning of February until last week, when he brought leaders to the table again.
“Mr. President, cancel your trip to Japan. Stay at the table,” said Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D). “Good grief, Mr. President, when is enough, enough? Shame on anyone, on anyone, who refuses to act. Speaker [Kevin] McCarthy and this entire team have been responsible, reasonable and sensible. Time is short, Mr. President. Let’s get this done.”
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who has gone toe-to-toe with Biden on some key policy issues, said the president “should not leave, and he should worry about the debt limit here at home.”
After his meeting with Biden and other congressional leaders Tuesday, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) was asked if Biden should even be attending the G-7 and responded that the president can make his own decisions about his time.
The White House maintains Biden can be president anywhere, a line they often use when he heads out of Washington.
But on the day of Biden's departure, McCarthy slightly changed his tune, saying, “I think he can” conduct international business while dealing with the debt ceiling before suggesting that the president should not have taken the trip.
“I think America wants an American president focused on American problems,” the California Republican said.
Biden delivered last-minute, unexpected remarks just before take off where he tried to assure the nation that leaders could come to an agreement before the country could default on its debt on June. 1 He referred to his shortened trip, indicating that would return Sunday after the G-7. His absence disrupted another international event — a planned Quad Leaders' summit in Sydney was canceled once Biden determined he would not attend.
When questioned about Biden’s indication that he can return to Washington on Sunday, have a press conference and finish the deal, McCarthy poked at the president for not engaging in talks between Feb. 1 and last week.
“It’s doable, but this is for a guy who didn’t want to meet with us for 97 days, and leaves the country and says he wants to come back Sunday to have a press conference? I really want a president that’s engaged and working through it,” the Speaker said.
The White House brushed off Republican criticism over Biden leaving Washington at all, highlighting the significance of the G-7.
“One of the responsibilities that an American president has is our leadership on the global stage, which is incredibly important and critical,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on the way to Japan, by way of Alaska, on Wednesday. “There are critical issues, yes, domestically, but also internationally that the president has to take on.”
McCarthy at the White House on Tuesday outlined that Biden had “changed the scope” of who is involved in talks, appointing White House officials, including his Office of Management and Budget director, to work directly with members of the Speaker’s team as they try to reach an agreement.
Biden on Wednesday said that group met last night and will meet again Wednesday as well as in the days following. Biden added he will be in “constant contact” with his team while at the G-7 and in touch with the Speaker.
National security adviser Jake Sullivan defended the decision to cancel the second leg of the trip when questioned about the White House previously insisting that Biden can do the job of president anywhere — right before they announced the trip would be cut short.
“As we were getting prepared to take off on this trip, he … made the determination that in the balance of his time, he needed to be back in Washington for the closing days before the deadline to ensure the United States does not go over a cliff,” Sullivan said.
“The president is confident that we can avoid default, but the reason he’s going back is to make sure that happens. So what he will tell [allies] is he is going home to do what a president does,” Sullivan said, adding that Biden will express confidence to allies that he can strike a deal.
Vice President Harris is set to provide an update to reporters on preventing default Thursday, alongside the director of the National Economic Council Director, Lael Brainard, indicating that she is also stepping in while the president is away.
That’s still not enough for lawmakers.
“[Treasury Department Secretary Janet Yellen] said the U.S. could default as early as June 1, which is 16 days away. With this as a backdrop, President Biden is planning to hop on a plane to Japan tomorrow,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said Tuesday. “He can't fly halfway around the globe just as negotiations are gaining momentum.”
Meanwhile, some Democrats defended the president’s decision to leave town.
"I don't think he's the one sitting in the room doing the negotiations. I think he's the one, hopefully, leading the people in the room negotiating, but he can do that via Zoom or via telephone call,” Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) said. “Look, there's a lot of shit going on in the world he needs to be tending to, too.”
Similarly, Sen. Dick Durbin (Ill.), the No. 2 Senate Democrat, said Biden’s trip to the G-7 is a high priority.
“President Biden has a G-7 meeting, which is an effort to establish global security. It's a very high priority,” he said. “I hope that Speaker McCarthy doesn't try to use that [against him]."
A group of Democratic senators led by Sen. Tina Smith (Minn.) are circulating a letter urging President Biden to invoke his constitutional authority under the 14th Amendment to raise the nation’s debt limit without having to pass legislation through Congress.
These senators say the spending reforms that Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has demanded in exchange for raising the debt limit are unacceptable and that Biden should circumvent Republican lawmakers by raising the debt limit unilaterally, something that has never been done before and would almost certainly be challenged in court.
“We write to urgently request that you prepare to exercise your authority under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, which clearly states: ‘the validity of the public debt of the United States...shall not be questioned.’ Using this authority would allow the United States to continue to pay its bills on-time, without delay, preventing a global economic catastrophe,” they write in a letter currently circulating through the Senate Democratic conference.
The signatories on the letter so far include Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.).
The lawmakers warned they will not accept any concessions attached to the debt limit that cut federal assistance for low-income Americans without raising taxes on wealthy individuals and corporations.
“We cannot reach a budget agreement that increases the suffering of millions of Americans who are already living in desperation. At a time of massive wealth and income inequality, we must ask billionaires and large corporations who are doing phenomenally well to start paying their fair share of taxes,” they wrote in response to proposals by House Republicans to increase work requirements for people who rely on Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.
The Democratic senators warned that Republican proposals in a House-passed bill to raise the debt limit could push as many as 21 million people off of Medicaid and deny nutrition assistance to 1.7 million women, infants and children.
The lawmakers also blustered at House Republicans’ demands to attach major permitting reforms for fossil-fuel attraction projects to debt-limit legislation.
“We also cannot allow these budget negotiations to undermine the historic clean energy and environmental justice investments made by Congress and your administration by allowing fossil fuel companies to unleash a flood of dirty energy projects that will worsen the climate crisis and disproportionately impact frontline communities. We must continue the transition from fossil fuels to clean and renewable energy,” they wrote.
Merkley said the letter is intended to assure Biden that he will have support on Capitol Hill if he decides to use the 14th Amendment to raise the debt limit in the absence of a deal with McCarthy.
“It’s important because Kevin McCarthy has two main requests: attack ordinary, working families across America by cutting the foundations for health care, housing, education and good-paying jobs, and unleash fossil fuels on America. And both of those are absolutely unacceptable,” he said.
"I want the president to see that he has the support in the Senate to use the 14th Amendment," he said. "He has support to say no to outrageous demands from the radical right."
Treasury Department Secretary Janet Yellen, however, warned last week that invoking the 14th Amendment would be a "constitutional crisis" and would spur a legal battle.
Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas during an interview on Sunday waved off concerns about a potential impeachment, emphasizing that he is "focused on the work in front of us."
"I am focused on the work in front of us meeting the challenge, not only with respect to the southern border, but meeting the challenge of ... the cyber threat from cyber criminals and adverse foreign nations states," Mayorkas told CNN's Dana Bash on "State of the Union."
"I am focused on the increasing severity and frequency of extreme weather events," he added. "I am focused on the adverse actions of the People's Republic of China, North Korea, Iran, Russia. I am focused on the work of the Department of Homeland Security. I will continue to focus on that work throughout my tenure."
Mayorkas is facing numerous calls for his impeachment by House Republicans over his handling of the U.S. border. The House Homeland Security Committee grilled Mayorkas last month, focusing on a 2006 law that requires a standard of perfection at the border.
Title 42 - a pandemic era policy that allowed for the rapid expulsion of asylum-seekers - expired last week, prompting concerns that a surge of migrants would result at the border. Instead, Mayorkas said on Sunday that authorities seen a 50 percent drop in encounters at the border in the days since the rule expired.
A horrific mass killing in Texas has opened new sores in the national debate over illegal immigration and crime.
Five people, including a young boy whose age has been reported as 8 or 9, were killed Friday in Cleveland, Texas. The shooting in the small community about 45 miles north of Houston happened after neighbors reportedly told a man to stop shooting in his yard and he became enraged.
The alleged shooter has been named as Francisco Oropeza, 38. As of Monday afternoon, law enforcement agencies have been unable to apprehend Oropeza, despite a massive manhunt.
The case has taken on political power for reasons beyond the gruesome nature of the killing.
Oropeza is a Mexican national who appears to have been in the United States illegally. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials have confirmed that he was deported on at least four previous occasions stretching back more than a decade.
His previous deportations, those officials said, took place in March 2009, September 2009, January 2012 and July 2016.
That record, and the terrible crime of which he stands accused, has outraged those who want a stricter border policy.
Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council, which represents rank-and-file Border Patrol agents, noted that seeking to illegally reenter the United States having previously been deported is a felony.
“Had we prosecuted him for that felony, he would not have been able to kill” his alleged victims, Judd said.
Judd also made a wider point about border policy under President Biden.
“When you hear people like [Homeland Security] Secretary [Alejandro] Mayorkas say the border is not open, you have to look at this particular case … If somebody was able to reenter this country five different times despite being deported, that clearly shows the border is, in fact, open.”
Liberal advocates hit back, arguing that, historically, immigrants commit crime at lower rates than native-born Americans — and that attempts to draw a cause-and-effect line between immigration policy and the latest killing are raw demagoguery.
It’s a point that finds support from some independent observers.
Rhetoric linking illegal immigration and violent crime “has been used for a long time,” said Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University.
“None of the social science data confirms that is true and it quite often shows the opposite — that neighborhoods with a lot of immigration are safer,” said Zelizer. “But politically it has been very powerful. It creates the idea of an enemy coming from outside who is now inside.”
The political battle is only growing more intense.
“This illegal alien brutally murdered 5 individuals in an ‘execution-style’ shooting,” Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) tweeted Monday. “He was previously deported and has been arrested numerous times. Why was he in our country roaming around freely?”
Biggs called for the impeachment of Mayorkas.
Kari Lake, the defeated GOP candidate in last November’s Arizona gubernatorial election, tweeted, “How do we continue to let these criminals into the country?”
At Monday’s media briefing, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre characterized the events in Cleveland as “yet another shocking, horrific act of gun violence.”
Jean-Pierre noted that while President Biden was “praying” for those affected, “the president believes prayers alone are not enough.”
The press secretary noted Biden’s desire for Congress to pass stricter gun-control legislation — a long-held wish that has almost no chance of being fulfilled anytime soon.
Continuing the political back-and-forth, the Republican National Committee tweeted within minutes of Jean-Pierre’s opening remarks that she did “not mention” that Oropeza is “an illegal immigrant who has been deported FIVE TIMES.”
The atrocity in Texas arises at an especially febrile time when it comes to debates about the border.
Encounters between unauthorized migrants and Customs and Border Protection agents at the southwestern border hit their highest figure ever recorded last December, at more than 252,000.
The figure declined significantly in January and February, to fewer than 160,000 in each month. But in March, the most recent month for which data is available, those encounters rose again, to almost 192,000.
It is widely expected that those numbers will surge once Title 42 ends in less than two weeks. That Trump-era policy, continued under Biden, was used to quickly expel migrants and is expected to end on May 11.
Immigration has long been one of Biden’s weakest political issues and Republicans are sure to want to press their advantage on the topic as the presidential campaign heats up.
In a Reuters/Ipsos poll in mid-April, just 27 percent of Americans approved of Biden’s handling of immigration — tying for the lowest approval number in any of the 11 issues tested in that survey.
Advocates of a stricter immigration policy see the shooting in Texas as evidence of how badly the current policy is falling.
“It’s just another example of what happens when we fail to enforse our laws, when you fail to enforce the border,” said Ira Mehlman, the media director of FAIR, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which favors a stricter immigration system. “Virtually nobody is deported anymore.”
But Mehlman distanced himself from a controversial statement from the office of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, which referred to the victims of the Cleveland shooting as “five illegal immigrants.”
“It doesn’t matter what the immigration states of the victims is,” Mehlman said. “Nobody should be killed for asking a guy to stop shooting in his backyard.”
Trump faces a tougher road to winning his party's nomination, with a field of primary challengers taking shape and expected to grow. But he so far is the clear front-runner despite a host of legal troubles, leading the pack in some polls by double-digits a few months out from the first scheduled debate.
The rematch would be a replay of one of the most negative and divisive elections in American history, culminating in Trump's refusal to concede and a riot by his supporters at the U.S. Capitol that forced the evacuation of Congress.
“There aren’t going to be that many people excited about a rematch because there aren’t that many people who want both of these people running for president,” said David Hopkins, an author and political science professor at Boston College.
An NBC News poll published Sunday found 70 percent of Americans and 51 percent of Democrats don’t think Biden should run for reelection in 2024. The same poll found 60 percent of Americans and roughly one-third of Republicans do not think Trump should run again.
An Associated Press poll published Friday found 65 percent of adults said they would probably or definitely not support Trump in a general election, compared to 56 percent who said the same about Biden.
Experts and strategists believe there are several factors contributing to the public’s lack of desire to see Trump and Biden face each other for a second time.
“Often, when you ask people, ‘Would you like someone else,’ it’s easy to conjure a hypothetical alternative candidate,” Hopkins said. “But when you ask people about flesh and blood alternatives, they tend to be less popular.”
For Biden, questions about his age continue to weigh on voters’ minds. Biden, who is 80, was the oldest president ever to be sworn in two years ago, and he would be 86 at the end of a full second term.
The NBC News poll found that of those who said Biden should not run again, 48 percent cited his age as a major reason.
It is not unusual for an incumbent president to seek another term. What is unusual is a former president seeking to win back the White House while retaining his hold on the party, especially one like Trump who has been at the center of numerous unprecedented controversies for the past eight years, including two impeachments and a recent arrest in New York City.
“Some people aren’t happy with that matchup because anything with Donald Trump’s name attached to it, they’re not happy,” said Jim Kessler, co-founder of the centrist think tank Third Way.
A Trump-Biden rematch would carry echoes of a particularly brutal 2020 presidential campaign that was set against the backdrop of the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and nationwide protests sparked by the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. It featured vitriolic personal attacks, particularly from Trump’s team against Hunter Biden, and was marred by Trump's refusal to accept the results and the subsequent attack on the Capitol.
There have been times over the past two years when a Biden-Trump rematch did not seem as inevitable as it may now.
Republican leaders sought to distance themselves from Trump early in the aftermath of the violent attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, which was fueled by the former president’s repeated claims that the 2020 election was fraudulent and stolen from him.
Biden, meanwhile, faced skepticism throughout 2022 from Democrats about whether he warranted a second term given his age and concerns about rampant inflation.
Democrats have since rallied behind Biden, who is not facing a serious primary challenge, after a stronger-than-expected showing in last November’s midterms, a raft of bipartisan legislation passed last year and the president’s handling of the war in Ukraine.
At the same time, Trump has solidified his grip on the GOP, earning a slew of endorsements from members of Congress in recent weeks. Sunday’s NBC News poll found Trump leading a hypothetical GOP primary with 46 percent support, with his next closest competition Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who polled at 31 percent.
National polls have consistently shown Trump with a double-digit lead on DeSantis and other would-be challengers, though state-level polls show a closer race, and in some cases have the Florida governor narrowly leading the former president.
For Biden and his team, the possibility of a rematch with Trump is “top of mind,” said Jen Psaki, the former White House press secretary, Sunday on her MSNBC show.
“A race against Trump is definitely not a battle of policy ideas … which is why the comparison that the White House is focused on is not entirely on policy differences,” Psaki said. “It’s between a competent president and a chaotic Republican Party. Competence versus chaos. As of now, that contrast is kind of playing out on its own.”
“Biden did beat Trump last time, but he still has an incredibly tough fight ahead of him,” she added.
While polls have underscored the sense of national fatigue at the prospect of a Trump-Biden rematch, recent election cycles have indicated voters are as engaged as ever.
More than 158 million Americans cast ballots in the 2020 presidential election, a record for turnout.
The 2022 elections saw the second-highest voter turnout for a midterm since 2002, with roughly 107 million votes cast. The highest turnout came in 2018, when Trump was in office.
With Trump a big driver of turnout for Republicans who support him and Democrats who oppose him — and issues like abortion likely to be key for voters in 2024 — it’s expected that even those who’d rather see other candidates atop the ballot will still head to the polls next November.
“Anger is a great motivator in politics, and dissatisfaction can actually stimulate people to be more engaged with politics rather than to be apathetic,” said Hopkins. “That seems to be a big part of the story of why in our polarized age we’re seeing a surge in political activity. A lot of people are very strongly motivated by their dislike of at least one of the parties or at least one of the candidates.”
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas says the Biden administration is getting ready to announce a new border security plan to handle an expected surge of migrants when pandemic-era immigration restrictions lift May 11.
“I think next week we’ll have more to say about our preparation and some of the things we are going to be doing,” Mayorkas told reporters at the Department of Homeland Security headquarters on Thursday.
President Biden has come under steady fire from Republican lawmakers over his administration’s handling of the border. This week, Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) filed a vote of no confidence resolution against Mayorkas, saying his handling of the border is negligent.
“I stand at the ready to receive articles of impeachment from the House and conduct an impeachment trial in this body,” Marshall said at a Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday. “But in the meantime, I think the Senate must show our colleagues in the House that we’ve had enough of the failures from the Department of Homeland Security and believe that the secretary is not fit to faithfully carry out the duties of his office.”
Illegal border crossings are expected to increase significantly starting in May once pandemic-era rules on immigration expire, most notably Title 42, which allows the U.S. to quickly turn away undocumented migrants without allowing them to seek asylum in the interest of public health.
“We’re certainly going to see numbers higher than we’re seeing today,” Border Patrol Commissioner Troy Miller said in a hearing Wednesday.
Miller cited U.N. statistics that an estimated 660,000 migrants are traveling through Mexico right now. He said the number of border crossings could nearly double to about 10,000 per day.
Mayorkas did not disclose what the new plan would be, but he said the department would prepare with additional bed space in migrant facilities.
Nearly 2 million migrants have been turned back from the border using Title 42. The Biden administration has come under fire from Democrats and activists who have said the measure does not provide border crossers with their right to seek asylum in the U.S.
The administration has attempted to overturn Title 42 in the past but ran into roadblocks in federal court and opposition from Republican lawmakers in border states. With the coronavirus pandemic officially over, the administration no longer expects any legal challenges.
Mayorkas said the department is considering a new rule to more easily deny asylum claims. Migrants who have not applied for asylum in other countries on their way to the U.S. or have crossed the border illegally would not be eligible for asylum.
The rule is in the public comment period, and Mayorkas said Tuesday that there is not a specific date for implementation as of now.
Much of the criticism was focused on reports that a significant number of child migrants were placed with sponsors who forced them to work, sometimes through the night, at dangerous factories.
Immigration is expected to be a major issue in the 2024 election; Biden is expected to announce his reelection campaign in the coming days.
Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) on Thursday introduced a vote of no confidence resolution for Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, the first effort in the Senate to mirror impeachment efforts percolating in the House.
The resolution comes after Marshall said during an exchange with Mayorkas in a Senate appearance on Tuesday that the secretary was derelict in his duties and, “I would be derelict to not do something about this.”
The nine-page resolution lays out a series of complaints about the state of the border, blaming Mayorkas for everything from increased migration, including attempts to clear a camp of some 15,000 Haitians near the Texas border, to drug flows and overdoses.
"There isn't one American who believes our southern border is secure,” Marshall said in a release.
“In the real world, if you fail at your job, you get fired — the federal government should be no different.”
The resolution would have little effect if passed — an uphill battle in the Democrat-led Senate, and it would not have any bearing on impeachment efforts in the House, which have still not formally taken shape.
The resolution also points to an argument building in the House that Mayorkas was dishonest before Congress — a case built on the secretary asserting in prior appearances that he has maintained control of the border.
The GOP argues that Mayorkas is failing to meet the definition of operational control laid out under the Secure Fence Act of 2006, which says the standard has only been met if the country prohibits “all unlawful entries” of both migrants and drugs.
Mayorkas recently told lawmakers that the standard of perfection laid out under the law has never been met, but it encourages the secretary to use all resources at their disposal to improve security.
“The Secure Fence Act provides that operational control means that not a single individual crosses the border illegally. And it’s for that reason that prior secretaries and myself have said that under that definition, no administration has had operational control,” Mayorkas said.
“As I have testified under oath multiple times, we use a lens of reasonableness in defining operational control. Are we maximizing the resources that we have to deliver the most effective results? And under that definition, we are doing so very much to gain operational control.”
With escalating impeachment discussions, the Department of Homeland Security has also called on Congress to do more to address problems with the U.S. immigration system that exacerbate efforts to enter and remain in the country illegally.
“Instead of pointing fingers and pursuing baseless attacks, Congress should work with the Department and pass legislation to fix our broken immigration system, which has not been updated in over 40 years,” the agency said in a statement.
While numerous House lawmakers have expressed an interest in impeaching Mayorkas, the process has not yet begun. If successful, an impeachment resolution would be forwarded to the Democrat-led Senate.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a new interview that the number of people arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border has reached an “extraordinary height.”
“The number of people that are arriving at our border is at an extraordinary height. There is no question about that,” Mayorkas told Sharyn Alfonsi in a forthcoming episode of “60 Minutes."
“But that is not unique to the southern border of the United States,” he continued. “There is tremendous amount of movement throughout the hemisphere, and in fact throughout the world.”
Mayorkas has faced intense criticism from Republican lawmakers over his handling of the southern border, with some calling for his impeachment.
“I think that we face a very serious challenge in certain parts of the border,” the Homeland Security secretary acknowledged in the "60 Minutes" interview.
However, he declined to call the situation a crisis, as many GOP lawmakers have described it.
“I have tremendous faith in the people of the Department of Homeland Security, and a crisis speaks to me of a withdrawal from our mission,” Mayorkas said. “And we are only putting more force and more energy into it.”
Encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border increased substantially under President Biden, with Customs and Border Patrol reporting nearly 2.4 million encounters from October 2021 through September 2022.
However, the Biden administration's new asylum policies aimed at discouraging Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan and Venezuelan migrants from traveling through Mexico seem to have eased the influx slightly. Between December and January, encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border dropped by nearly 100,000.
Republicans say they have a good argument to make when it comes to this classic election question: Are you better off than you were four years ago?
Inflation is high, crime is up, stocks are flat or falling and immigration is out of control, GOP operatives say.
But Democrats — and even some Republicans — argue emphatically that Americans in 2024 will feel they are much better off than they were four years ago, when the country was suffering through the pandemic in the final year of Donald Trump’s presidency.
They say many Americans will remember the Trump presidency as among the darkest times in U.S. history and point out his four years in office included two impeachments — the second over a riot at the Capitol.
“Good luck with that argument,” said Democratic strategist Christy Setzer. “Personally, I'd think voters remember the Trump years as a time of constant anxiety, chaos and cruelty — hence voting him out.”
To be sure, the are you better off argument has some pluses for the GOP. But it may also be a double-edged sword, inviting call-backs to Trump even as he is the frontrunner for the GOP nomination next year.
“It's an invitation to run with Trump, whether or not he’s on the ticket,” said Republican strategist Susan Del Percio, who opposes the former president.
“It’s not a winning strategy for the Republican Party,” Del Percio added. “It’s looking backwards.”
Biden’s poll numbers have been underwater for months and a Gallup poll out this week showed that voters disapprove of his handling of foreign affairs, energy policy and the environment. When it comes to the key issue of the economy, only 32 percent of those surveyed approve of Biden’s performance.
A Real Clear Politics average of national polls this week showed just 28 percent believe the country is headed in the right direction.
Republicans see Biden’s weaknesses as an opportunity to draw a contrast. They say they have a good argument to make that the country was on more solid footing before Biden took office.
“In just over two years, Biden has tanked the economy, opened up our borders, embarrassed America on the world stage, worsened a supply chain crisis, and stoked the coals of division in our country,” said Republican National Committee spokesperson Emma Vaughn. “Americans are less safe, and their paychecks are worth less as a result of Biden’s reckless policies.
“Come 2024 voters will send him packing home to Delaware for good,” she said.
Even Republicans who are desperate to see Biden lose next year are hesitant to talk about the Trump era and urged party operatives not to make the comparison.
“I don’t think people really want to go back to the Trump years because they were so tumultuous,” said Republican strategist John Feehery.
He and other Republicans say there is a case to be made in pointing to Biden’s flaws — from inflation to the border — as a way to make the case that the country needs to move in a different direction.
“He’s out of touch, barely cognizant and that’s why his poll numbers are so low,” Feehery said. “Not only is he from the past but his ideas are from the past. They need to make that connection to his view of the world.”
One Republican strategist said the comparison between Biden and Trump is a good one to make “because at the end of the day, the biggest issue will be the rising cost of groceries and the inability to pay soaring bills.”
“Even if things seemed not so great under Trump with all his shenanigans and bullshit, this election is going to be about the economy, period,” the strategist said.
GOP candidates are taking issue with some of Trump’s positions.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is expected to announce a bid for the presidency in the coming months, has sought to undermine Trump’s handling of COVID-19 and lockdowns during 2020.
“You take a crisis situation like Covid, the good thing about it is that when you’re an elected executive, you have to make all kinds of decisions, you’ve got to steer that ship,” DeSantis said in January. “And the good thing is that people are able to render a judgment on that: whether they re-elect you or not.”
But Democrats say they will win any argument that compares Biden’s tenure to Trump’s. Biden, they say, helped bring the nation back from a deadly pandemic and an economy that was quickly tanking as a result.
They also tout the record job growth under Biden and highlight his legislative wins.
“If Republicans overall election strategy is to compare the Trump presidency to Biden, then who am I to stop them from handing Democrats the White House for another four years?” said Democratic strategist Rodell Mollineau.