Rep. Steve Scalise Caught Holding a Milk Carton Declaring Kamala Harris Missing … While VP is Doing a Border Event

Rep. Steve Scalise has earned a reputation for making stark and damaging claims against his political rivals that eventually prove to be entirely wrong. Who can forget the numerous times that he falsely—and dangerously irresponsibly—claimed that Democrats were in favor of murdering babies?  Now there is a new entry to the growing canon of Scalise proving himself wrong.

While covering a GOP Leadership press conference Wednesday morning, Punchbowl founder Jake Sherman tweeted an image of Scalise holing a milk carton mocked up to feature Vice President Kamala Harris in what can be fairly called a sophomoric political stunt designed to bring critical attention to the notion that the VP has been absent from what the GOP insist is a crisis of illegal immigration at the US border.

The only problem with Scalise’s ill-planned stunt? At the very time, this photo was taken, Vice President was leading a virtual roundtable discussion focused on diplomatic issues with Mexico and Northern Triangle nations (Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala) that lay at the root of the migration problems the nation currently faces.

Check out the tweeted image below:

President Joe Biden recently announced that his Vice President would be taking over issues at the border. Conservative opinion media have made a lot of hay out of the fact that she has not visited the border in this new role, and the Vice President’s office has made clear that the border is less her focus, rather the underlying issues leading to the migration is what she is addressing.

The recent surge in migrants coming from what is known as the Triangle Nations coincided with former President Donald Trump’s cutting hundreds of millions of dollars of humanitarian aid, which has led many to believe has had a significant impact on the instability of these developing nations struggling with corruption and crime.

Trump’s 2018 budget proposal dramatically slashed aid to Central America. The budget called for cutting assistance to Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador by more than 30 percent, and by more than 45 percent to Mexico from 2016 levels. The budget proposal reflected an oft-heard comment made by Trump throughout his campaign and early in his administration.

The actual financial disbursement thus far supports that proposal. According to the website USAID, under Trump’s first 2018 budget for foreign aid disbursement international development to Honduras fell from $99 million to $49 million. El Salvador saw a similar dip from $62 million to $39 million, while aid to Guatemala saw the biggest decline from $136 million to $65 million.

It is entirely reasonable for the Biden administration to focus on the endemic issues of border and migration issues and not the symptoms. It’s akin to focusing on symptoms of a deadly virus and not the underlying illness.

The full report from the Vice President’s pool reporter, including information from the Vice President’s office which explains the roundtable discussion, is below:

VP’s office passed along some background info and a list of meeting attendees:
In her role overseeing diplomacy towards Mexico and Northern Triangle nations, Vice President Harris will lead a virtual roundtable at 10:00am today with experts who will offer assessments and recommendations for the region.

Issues likely to be covered include the root causes of migration, humanitarian assistance, economic development, climate resilience, transparency, and good governance.

Participants include the following individuals – in addition to the Vice President and Ambassador Nancy McEldowney, National Security Advisor to the Vice President:

Dan Restrepo is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, an independent nonpartisan policy institute. Restrepo served as the principal advisor to President Barack Obama on issues related to Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada, serving as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Western Hemisphere Affairs at the National Security Council.

Vicki Gass is Senior Policy Advisor for Central America at Oxfam and has been working on Central American social and economic justice issues since 1984, including local organizing in El Salvador.

Andrew Selee has been President of the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan institution that seeks to improve immigration and integration policies through fact-based research, opportunities for learning and dialogue, and the development of new ideas to dress complex policy questions, since August 2017.

Lisa Haugaard, Co-director of the Latin America Working Group, has led advocacy efforts on human rights issues and U.S. policy towards Latin America for a coalition of human rights, faith, labor and nongovernmental groups for over 20 years.

Geoff Thale is the President at the Washington Office on Latin America, a leading research and advocacy organization advancing human rights in the Americas. He follows hemispheric trends as well as U.S. policy toward the region, working across WOLA’s multiple program areas.

Carolina Herrera is Natural Resources Defense Council Manager of Green Finance and Climate Change. Herrera’s work focuses on clean energy and sustainable development in Latin America, particularly in Mexico and Chile.

Jason Marczak is Director of the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center. He joined the Atlantic Council in October 2013 to launch the Arsht Center and set the strategic direction for its Latin America work.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.