Is Biden Building Arizona Border Wall to Help A Democrat Win Re-Election – President Joe Biden was the target of mockery, outrage, and confusion this week when it was announced that his administration had approved the construction of a new section of border wall in Yuma, Arizona.
The news contradicts a promise from the president to never build “not another foot” of the wall during his administration and follows years of abuse and attacks directed at former President Donald Trump for initiating the project.
When asked about the decision by Fox News’ Peter Doocy during a press briefing, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre insisted that Biden was “not finishing the wall” but instead filling the gaps.
“We are cleaning up the mess the prior administration made,” Pierre said.
The White House press secretary then appeared to contradict herself, claiming that the border wall is an “ineffective use of taxpayer dollars” immediately after defending Biden’s decision to complete a section of border wall in Yuma.
“We are trying to save lives… A border wall is an ineffective use of taxpayer dollars,” Jean-Pierre said.
Why Now?
In one word: midterms.
The president’s shock decision was immediately recognized as an election-winning stunt by pundits, border officials, and politicians this week.
Republican Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona told Sean Hannity on Fox News on Friday that the president was simply engaging in “tokenism” to help his party fend off a “Red Wave” in November.
“Morelos Dam gets a lot of traffic, but this is an election year kind of symbol for them. That’s all this is,” Biggs told Hannity, referencing a structure located near the borders where California, Arizona, and Mexico meet.
Brandon Judd, the president of the National Border Patrol Council, also argued that the move was an effort by the Democrat-occupied White House to “help one of their own.”
“The Administration knows that border security is one of the biggest issues in Arizona so an announcement like this especially at this time makes sense to try to help one of their own. But if people will do the proper research they will find that filling in the gaps with the current situation in that particular area does not help improve border security,” Judd said this week.
Judd’s comments come as Democratic Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona faces a difficult re-election, with the Republicans looking to oust him over his failure to secure the border.
The move would be challenging for the president to defend in a head-to-head debate with a Republican candidate – but the presidential debates are two years away and the Democrats are more focused on maintaining control of the House and the Senate in just a handful of months. At this rate, the president may not even make it to those debates, either.
Could a brief U-turn on the border wall debate – albeit only for one state and a small segment of Trump’s border wall – be worth the 2024 attacks from the Republicans, to save the Democratic Congressional majority?
For Joe Biden, yes.
It’s worth it to potentially give him another two years to pass legislation stalled by moderate Democrats over the last 18 months and to allow him to win back support from his own party amid plummeting approval ratings.
Jack Buckby is a British author, counter-extremism researcher, and journalist based in New York. Reporting on the U.K., Europe, and the U.S., he works to analyze and understand left-wing and right-wing radicalization, and reports on Western governments’ approaches to the pressing issues of today. His books and research papers explore these themes and propose pragmatic solutions to our increasingly polarized society.
