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After the latest surge of migrants in the border town of Del Rio, Texas, our hosts discuss how the Biden administration has handled the immigration issue since taking office. Plus, President Biden continues to have foreign policy problems. What happened with the botched drone strike in Afghanistan? Why is France mad at us? All of that leaves Jonah with one big question: Is Biden just bad at his job?
Show Notes:
-Jonah on Biden’s foreign policy
-The Morning Dispatch breaks down the drone strike that killed civilians in Afghanistan
-TMD catches you up on the deal between the U.S., U.K., and Australia
The Biden administration is incompetence personified. A rash and botched exit from Afghanistan. The abandonment of our counterterrorism mission. The abandonment of our civil society and intelligence efforts in a country of geo-strategic importance. The abandonment of a U.S. citizen held hostage by the Haqqani network. The abandonment of Americans and Afghan partners behind enemy lines. The lack of preparation for all aspects of the withdrawal from Afghanistan. The mistaken killing of Afghan children and U.S.-affiliated civilians using hellfire missiles in an effort to mask White House cowardice. The border crisis. The diplomatic disrespect shown to NATO allies, especially France, our oldest ally, a UN P5 member, and nuclear power. Runaway spending amid historic levels of national debt and a potential default. Disregard for constitutional constraints on executive and federal powers. Disregard for national sovereignty and border security. Continually surprising domestic political and foreign diplomatic partners alike. Abetting our enemies by ceding tens of billions of dollars of weapons and materiel to them. Etcetera…. All this, within only the first several months of the Biden presidency. After the Trump administration’s escalating chaos and turmoil, Biden’s early months seem to have lost their shock value. But even the Trump administration at this point was far more stable and sane.
I can't believe you did an entire segment on immigration policy and did not discuss the likely effect of Biden ending the Remain-in-Mexico policy of the Trump admin. This happened almost immediately upon Biden entering office and has been reported on previously by The Dispatch, including here: https://morning.thedispatch.com/p/the-morning-dispatch-bidens-border.
"Trump left two major policies in place: The Migrant Protection Protocols, under which migrants suing for asylum in America were required to remain in Mexico pending their court date, and Title 42, a pandemic-era policy that required the deportation of all border-crossers from Mexico and several Central American countries, purportedly for the sake of public health. Biden ended the former entirely and the latter in part, implementing an exception for unaccompanied children."
The obvious conclusion here is that Biden's change in policy is almost solely responsible for the surge in migrants. Yet, if I were to listen to The Dispatch podcast discussion of this issue, I would think the Biden admin hadn't changed any Trump admin policies and the surge in migrants is either unrelated to the Biden administration or is solely due to Biden's problem communicating to migrants that they shouldn't come here (which was also reported in the above Morning Dispatch article.)