Former Democratic House member Tulsi Gabbard scorched Vice President Kamala Harris for claiming the Mexican border is secure, saying the vice president “has no business being a heartbeat away from the presidency.”
Gabbard, a U.S. Army Reserve officer who represented Hawaii in Congress for four terms from 2013-2021 and ran for the Democratic nomination for president in 2020, blasted Harris on Twitter after a straight-faced claim on “Meet the Press” that the border is secure. More than 2 million migrants have poured into the U.S. since President Joe Biden was elected and rescinded a host of security measures.
“Kamala Harris’ statement that ‘we have a secure border’ is further evidence that she’s either completely disconnected from reality or she’s blatantly lying,” Gabbard said. “Either way, she has no business being a heartbeat away from the presidency.”
Kamala Harris' statement that “we have a secure border” is further evidence that she’s either completely disconnected from reality or she's blatantly lying. Either way, she has no business being a heartbeat away from the presidency. pic.twitter.com/H7cPeJCad9
— Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) September 17, 2022
Harris made the implausible claim to a skeptical NBC News host Chuck Todd on September 11.
“I think that there is no question that we have to do what the president and I asked Congress to do, the first request we made: pass a bill to create a pathway to citizenship,” Harris said. “The border is secure, but we also have a broken immigration system, in particular, over the last four years before we came in, and it needs to be fixed.”
Todd, who is often accused of bias having worked on far-left Iowa Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin’s 1992 presidential campaign before launching his career as a journalist, gently pushed back.
“We’re going to have two million people cross this border for the first time ever,” he said. “You’re confident this border’s secure?”
Harris stuck to the claim and even appeared to blame former President Trump, who made border security his signature issue, for any problems with illegal immigration.
“We have a secure border in that that is a priority for any nation, including ours and our administration,” Harris replied. “But there are still a lot of problems that we are trying to fix given the deterioration that happened over the last four years.”
Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin (WV) also blasted Harris over the comments, calling them “dead wrong.”
Although the outspoken Gabbard remains a Democrat, she has become increasingly popular with conservatives and something of a pariah within her own party. Nearly a year ago, she warned that the Biden administration’s spending on its “Build Back Better” plan would trigger inflation, concerns which administration officials including Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen dismissed, only to see prices soar over the ensuing months following trillions in spending.
“Commonsense tells us that dumping trillions more dollars into the economy right now (via BBB) will make the inflation crisis worse, and we certainly don’t need 87,000 more IRS agents harassing regular folks,” Gabbard tweeted last November.
She has also been highly critical of the Biden administration’s promotion of puberty blockers for adolescents who identify as transgender.