OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
House Speaker Mike Johnson confronted President Biden after a meeting on border security and vowed not to be coerced into offering ineffective border reforms.
“No one is strong-arming me. I told the president – I looked right across the table from in the cabinet officials’ room and I said, ‘Mr. President, you have the authority right now to end this catastrophe. It’s your actions that created it,'” Johnson said during his interview on FOX when asked about Democrats reluctance to secure the southern border.
The Speaker informed Biden of evidence showing 64 incidents where the White House or agencies contributed to the border crisis. He suggested enforcing existing laws as a solution.
“I’ve cited to [Biden] – I read him the legal authority on the phone on Thursday of last week that he could take,” he said.
“Given the fact that many in the House of Representatives believe Alejandro Mayorkas should be impeached for failing to do his job, do you believe, whatever is agreed to in this so-called border deal, would in any way be implemented on the enforcement side by a man who has allowed our border to be open on the direction of the Biden team?” Ingraham asked Johnson.
“Absolutely not. Laura, Mayorkas is responsible for this. He engineered the open border. He is the one that has done that. So to your point, it doesn’t matter what laws we pass. If the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security is unable or unwilling to enforce them, I think is he unwilling in this case, then it makes no difference. That’s the point. I think the White House and the president himself has to take executive action. He has to do what he has, the authority under existing law, to solve this mess, to end the catastrophe that he and his agencies, including Mayorkas, have created. We’re going to insist upon that. We have been every single day. We will continue to because we owe that to the American people,” Johnson responded.
