DHS Chief Bristles Over Question About Why Biden and Harris Haven’t Visited the Border: ‘Quite Unfair’

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas engaged in a contentious exchange on Thursday with a South Carolina Republican who asked him to explain why Vice President Kamala Harris has not visited the border since she entered the White House.

The exchange between Mayorkas and Rep. Ralph Norman came during a morning hearing of the House Homeland Security Committee, where Mayorkas appeared to testify. Norman asked Mayorkas to say whether Harris should visit the border, to which he replied, “I consider that question to be quite unfair.”

Norman cut him off to shoot back. “Your comments are just words, and they’re very unfair. I asked you a simple question, and I would like for you to just answer simply. Does it make sense for the leaders of the free world to go in to talk and see what’s going on at the border?”

Mayorkas replied, in part, with the observation that Harris previously “served as the attorney general of a border state, of California,” and argued that she was “quite familiar with the situation at the border.”

“But she’s laughing at it!” Norman responded. “It’s an insult to say that you’re looking at the border wall … what do you have to look at? You’re not building it.”

Norman continued speaking for about a minute before his time expired. The exchange came after Harris’ delivered an interview with Lester Holt this month in which she responded awkwardly when the NBC News anchor asked why she hadn’t visited the border. Harris laughed and replied, “And I haven’t been to Europe.”

Watch above via C-SPAN.