CNBC Host Challenges Pete Buttigieg on Border Crisis Responsibility: ‘Did You Miss 7.2 Million People Coming In Under Trump?’

Opinion

Screenshot: Texas Lindsay

If Pete Buttigieg thought he was going to have an easy time with an interview on a relatively tame business network, reality introduced itself very fast.

Reality was in the form of CNBC host Joe Kernen. The host grew visibly irked as the Transportation Secretary actively tried, and critics would say failed, to spin focus on the border crisis away from President Biden.

To see a mainstream media host reduce Buttigieg to a stammering and stuttering mess had to be a shock to even the most vocal supporters of the Biden administration.

Kernen began by asserting that the White House only began taking interest in the illegal immigration crisis when it became a clear detriment to the Biden campaign. Buttigieg attempted to interject, but the host was not having it.

“Let me finish first. Every time we hear those talking points, it’s suddenly, it was Republicans who ruined the border,” Kernen said. “That’s why people get so frustrated.”

RELATED: Trump Promises ‘Mass Deportations’ Of Illegal Immigrants: ‘Day One’

Pete Buttigieg Gets Owned

Kernen was spitting undeniable facts at an official who isn’t often hit with such things during mainstream media appearances.

We do know all of those things. Biden urged illegal immigrants to surge the border. And we know he issued an executive order on his first day in office terminating any construction of the border wall. We also know he ended the ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy.

You had to know Pete Buttigieg was going to try and spin and filibuster his way out of the CNBC host’s critique.

Unfortunately for Buttigieg, this time, the host simply was not having it yet again.

Buttigieg insinuated that the only border policy President Biden got rid of involved family separations which is categorically untrue.

“Did you see 7.2 million people come in during the Trump administration?” Kernen fired back, leaving Buttigieg with only one option – repeat his ‘family separation’ talking point.

You can see the host grow visibly agitated with the Democrat’s efforts to debate the matter.

RELATED: Flashback – Bill O’Reilly And Geraldo Rivera Debate Illegal Immigrant Violence In 2007

Ended Family Separations?

Critics would suggest that Pete Buttigieg and his lone argument that Biden stopped family separations is entertaining, considering we know that even that statement isn’t true.

You may recall that a New York Times investigation reporter last year analyzed statistics indicating the Biden administration had lost tens of thousands of illegal immigrant children.

“In several congressional hearings, HHS Secretary Becerra has been asked about our reporting that HHS couldn’t reach 85,000 migrant children right after releasing them,” reporter Hannah Dreier said at the time.

“He says he doesn’t know where those numbers come from. For what it’s worth, they’re from the HHS press office.”

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has insisted he will turn the Biden border crisis around by re-implementing some of his policies and even implementing a few new ones.

Trump has pledged to invoke the Alien Enemies Act if elected. That’s a wartime law that would allow the President to authorize the arrest and deportation of illegal immigrants over the age of 14. Trump also said America would witness “mass deportations” on his first day in office.

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Rusty Weiss has been covering politics for over 15 years. His writings have appeared in the Daily Caller, Fox… More about Rusty Weiss