OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Utah Republican Sen. Mitt Romney said that former President Donald Trump was much better at handling the border crisis than President Joe Biden.
“People have been screaming about the border for all three and a half years Joe Biden has been president,” Romney argued during an exclusive MSNBC interview. “He’s not done anything to solve the problem of the border. That’s a huge issue for President Trump, I can’t understand why President Biden didn’t tackle this from the beginning.”
Romney locked horns with MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle over Biden’s record during the episode of “The Eleventh Hour with Stephanie Ruhle,” arguing that Trump may benefit from Biden’s failure to secure the border.
“That’s an issue that has worked for him, it worked for him back in 2016, he expects it will work for him again,” said Romney, the 2012 GOP presidential nominee. “If I were President Biden, I’d be all over that, and instead he served it to President Trump on a silver platter.”
Earlier in the interview, Ruhle expressed concern about the political polarization in America. She asked Romney how Biden would be able to reunify the country, noting that “he’s got a lot of policies under his belt that he’s done for the country and worked with you.”
“The way to bring people together is not just to give a good speech,” Romney said. “Nice as that is, the way to get people together is to tell them the truth. To let them know what the real challenges are that you’re concerned about and how you’re going to honestly deal with them.”
“President Biden isn’t just giving a good speech,” Ruhle argued. “Infrastructure law is now the law, the CHIPS Act is bringing jobs back, bringing manufacturing back. Those aren’t speeches.”
“The fact that things cost more than they did before, inflation is still there. People somehow think that the prices are going to go down — no, when you beat inflation prices don’t go down. That would be deflation, they just stabilize, and they’re getting stabilized, but the fact that people are paying more is a real concern,” Romney said.
Romney admitted, “This was not a problem when President Trump was president.”
“When he was president, he did a lot of things that sounded pretty ugly, but we didn’t have anywhere near the number of people that have come into the country illegally as we have under President Biden, and that’s something he should have done everything in his power, frankly, take some actions that maybe the courts would have stopped, then he’d have a better argument saying, ‘Hey, Congress needed to act,’ but he never did that,” Romney said. “As a result, the American people are saying, ‘Hey, I want something else.’”
WATCH:
This comes as the Trump campaign outraised Biden in April.
Trump and the RNC outraised Biden and the DNC in April, raising $76 million to $51 million, respectively.
Biden’s reelection campaign reported having $192 million in cash on hand at the end of last month, a figure it described as higher than that of any Democratic candidate in history. However, this amount was approximately the same as what was reported at the end of the first quarter on March 30, indicating that the campaign might be spending funds as quickly as it is raising them, The Associated Press reported.
“April’s totals were also down sharply from March when the president’s campaign and the DNC announced taking in more than $90 million,” the AP added.
Biden and his party have consistently out-fundraised his predecessor, but Trump’s fundraising received a significant boost in April, thanks to a record-setting $50.5 million raised during a single donor event early in the month. That event took place in Palm Beach, Florida, the home of billionaire investor John Paulson.
The event at John Paulson’s home was Trump’s response to a March fundraiser featuring former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama at New York’s Radio City Music Hall, where Biden’s campaign raised $26 million.
Looking ahead, Biden’s campaign is organizing a major fundraiser in Los Angeles next month, set to feature Hollywood stars George Clooney and Julia Roberts.
Trump and the GOP raised over $65.6 million in March and ended the month with $93.1 million in cash, the AP noted.
