Peter Doocy Pushes KJP On Biden’s Reason for Not Talking To Migrants During Border Trip

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre defended Joe Biden’s recent visit to the border as Fox News reporter Peter Doocy questioned the president’s official reason for not actually seeing any migrants while he was in El Paso, Texas.

During the president’s trip, he did visit a migrant facility that happened to not have any migrants. CNN’s Rosa Flores reported from El Paso that advocates were upset with the president not seeing migrant conditions firsthand. The White House said the facility Biden visited being empty was “coincidental.”

“Why didn’t President Biden want to see what’s really going on at the border?” Doocy asked during a Wednesday White House briefing where the two also clashed over Biden’s handling of classified documents.

“He did see exactly what’s going on at the border,” Jean-Pierre said.

“He didn’t talk to any migrants, and he didn’t go anywhere that people actually cross illegally. Why not?” Doocy shot back.

Jean-Pierre touted Biden’s trip as a success and said there “happened” to be no migrants at the facility Biden visited, prompting another prod from Doocy.

“El Paso’s been crushed. The shelters are full. There are overflow migrants sleeping in the streets and then it’s just a coincidence that suddenly the president shows up and [there’s no one],” he said.

Jean-Pierre claimed migrant numbers have been down in El Paso, though she did not say this was the reason for the president not visiting migrants during his trip.

“El Paso did go down significantly prior to the president’s visit by about 70 percent and that’s a good thing, Peter,” she said.

The press secretary added that the president did speak to officials who work directly with migrants. She also reiterated the president’s call for Congress to pass immigration reform.

Doocy was not the only reporter to see holes in the official reason for Biden not visiting migrants. In her report, Flores argued it would have been easy for Biden to see the conditions migrants are facing.

“I checked the migrant dashboard that the city of El Paso has. And at the time when the president was here, there were nearly 1,000 migrants who were in federal detention so if the president really wanted to see conditions, I kind of doubt that the President of the United States would have been denied access,” she said.

Watch the clip above, via Townhall on Twitter.

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