Jake Tapper Grills WH Press Sec Jen Psaki About Border Crisis: Aren’t You Worried You’re ‘Sending the Signal’ For More Kids to Come Here?
CNN’s Jake Tapper grilled White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki on his show Monday afternoon, pressing her for answers about President Joe Biden’s plans to address the border crisis.
Tapper began by asking Psaki about photographs released by Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) showing crowded conditions at a facility for children in Donna, Texas.
“Does the president believe these conditions are acceptable?” Tapper asked.
“No, he doesn’t,” Psaki replied, “and that’s why he wants to move children as quickly as possible out of the Border Patrol facilities. They are not meant for children, and that’s why he wants to open more shelters, he wants to increase and expedite processing at the border, and this is an issue he’s focused on every single day, Jake.”
Tapper then asked about reports that some children had been in custody for more than 10 days, far past the legal maximum 72 hours. “What are you doing right now to fix this?” he asked. “Is President Biden perhaps going to ask Congress for emergency funding to help alleviate the conditions there?”
Psaki replied that she had consulted with the administration’s policy experts on this and that it was “less an issue of funding and more an issue of needing more facilities and expediting the processing,” and the White House was working on both of those issues.
Tapper then mentioned a recent Wall Street Journal editorial that criticized the White House for trying to say that migrants shouldn’t come to the border, but without “changing the policy incentives” that drew people to the United States. Acknowledging that it was “a complicated issue” and affected by poverty and natural disasters in migrants’ home countries, Tapper asked Psaki about the “two competing priorities” between “want[ing] to be humane” and not wanting to be “ripping kids from their parents,” but that more humane policy could be incentivizing people to come.
“We know we’re working against a lot of head winds here and there’s more work we have to do to keep reiterating this is not the time to come,” said Psaki, noting the two hurricanes that hit Central America last year, as well as problems with crime, drug cartels, and smugglers eager to profit from bringing people across the border. The Biden administration was buying ads on radio, TV, Facebook, and other social media in these countries urging people not to come, she said.
At the end of the interview, Tapper borrowed one of Psaki’s favorite phrases, saying he wanted to “circle back” on the issue.
“If you’re sending the signal that kids who come to the United States and have the phone numbers of relatives in their pocket that you want to get them to those houses, isn’t that message that you just made a few minutes ago going to encourage more of this?” asked Tapper, noting the significant dangers families and children faced on the journey here.
“Are you not afraid that when you say that — and I understand the motivation, you want to get these kids into a safe place once they are here — but even just saying that might get some more kids on the road in dangerous situations, no?” asked Tapper.
“That’s certainly not our objective,” Psaki responded. “What we’re trying to do to prevent so many kids from being in the border patrol facilities…which we all agree that is not a place for kids.”
The White House’s messaging, Psaki continued, was going out on multiple platforms to tell people “this is not a safe journey…this is not the time to come and that people will be turned away at the border,” but still that they would “do everything that we can to ensure that kids are not left in these facilities longer than they should.”
Watch the video clips above, via CNN.
