South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) sparred with CNN anchor Dana Bash on Sunday over Senate negations involving border security, suggesting President Biden already has the power he needs to shut down the border and that no additional legislation is needed.
“The senators are really good at spinning a story to make themselves look good. What I would say is that I always look for someone who’s willing to take action and President Biden has all the authority he he needs to take action today,” Noem said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Bash then pushed back on Noem, asking her why the federal government should not work toward better asylum processes and detention processes, adding it is “a mess.”
“I think that he would have the ability to fix that broken immigration policy if the president could show that he was acting in good faith. Make an announcement that you’re changing your policies, you’re reallocating resources and going to start protecting the United States of America,” Noem responded.
“And you’d have Republicans coming down to the White House asking that to be partners on fixing our immigration policies. Instead, what we’ve got is this partisan bickering back and forth and no solutions while people invade our country,” the governor continued.
When Bash told Noem that Biden was negotiating, Noem continued to claim Biden was not doing enough. She also said in the interview she agreed with former President Trump that the border deal was “terrible.”
“To look at Congress and expect them to pass a bill when they failed for decades to do this. And then to say we have to accept this poison pill of a bill that — it essentially codifies illegal immigration, what it would do is put into statute that people can now come here illegally, and it’s just a terrible bill that I think President Trump is exactly right,” Noem said.
Trump has been railing against the potential border deal in recent days, saying he is fine if he is blamed for the border deal tanking in Congress. He also said the deal was a “catastrophe waiting to happen” in a series of social media posts over the weekend.