Haley: Why is Harris "missing in action" on the border crisis?

Say …it’s been a while since we heard from Nikki Haley and Kamala Harris, no? Haley has an excuse, of course — she didn’t get named as the border-crisis czar by the current president. Haley has been quiet herself lately, likely preparing for the open GOP presidential nomination in 2024, although Ron DeSantis is sprinting past her thanks to the fallout from 60 Minutes’ fake news segment.

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Haley’s back today, though, going on offense against Harris in this segment on Fox News Channel earlier in the afternoon. Haley accuses the border-crisis czar of being “missing in action,” and that’s putting it mildly (via Reagan McCarthy):

“He [Biden] gives Kamala Harris– apparently, she’s the one in charge. This is the same person who encouraged 7,000 migrants to come to America. She referred to ICE as the KKK,” Haley said on Fox News’ America Reports. “She’s been missing in action. God help us if she ever becomes president, because if this is how she handles a crisis, I just can’t imagine how she would run our country.”

Haley also noted that Biden is “obsessed” with reversing Trump administration policies, even at the expense of both the American public and migrant children. Biden’s reversal of Trump-era immigration policies, which proved to be effective, was one of his first moves as president.

It’s been two weeks since Joe Biden publicly proclaimed Harris as the point person in dealing with the border crisis. Maybe someone needs to point her in the right direction. The Washington Examiner reported shortly after Haley’s appearance that Harris has yet to see the crisis at the border first-hand. But then again, she’s been … busy:

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Vice President Kamala Harris has not visited the border in the 14 days since she was first tapped to address the “root causes” of the migration crisis.

However, Harris has been spotted in a Chicago bakery, spent Easter weekend in her California home, met with California Gov. Gavin Newsom, and traveled to Connecticut to speak with a Boys and Girls Club.

When challenged on this itinerary, White House press secretary Jen Psaki responded with a can’t-a-person-just-have-a-snack explanation:

“She hasn’t visited the border or Central America or spoken with leaders of El Salvador or Honduras,” New York Post correspondent Steven Nelson told Psaki. “She traveled this week, took time to visit a bakery in Chicago. I’m wondering, is she still working on this [border issue], and can you address the perception that she’s kind of quietly backing off?”

“There’s a whole lot packed in there,” Psaki replied. “The vice president was visiting Chicago actually to talk COVID and the importance of communities getting the vaccine when it’s available and accessible to them.”

“And so while she was there, like many Americans, she got a snack,” she added. “I think she’s allowed to do that.”

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Raw Story laughably refers to this as a pushback to “right-wing media.” No one was questioning the bakery visit; Nelson wondered why the person named as border-crisis czar hasn’t even gone once to see the issue for herself. This isn’t pushing back — it’s misdirection.

In fact, it appears Harris’ workload in her new assignment has entirely consisted of, er … making two phone calls in two weeks:

President Biden named Harris on March 24 to head up the diplomatic effort to reach out to the leaders of Mexico and the Central American countries about the flood of migrants, saying she “speaks for me.”

But so far she has only phoned Guatemalan President Alejando Giammattei and Mexico’s Andrés Manuel López Obrador to discuss the “root causes” of the crisis.

She talked to Giammattei on March 30 and Obrador on Wednesday about increasing humanitarian assistance to the Northern Triangle countries to stem the tide of migration. …

Instead, in her first two weeks as czar, she has traveled to Connecticut, Chicago and home to California over the Easter weekend and has presided over swearing in ceremonies, touted the administration’s coronavirus stimulus package and the COVID response, visited vaccination sites, lunched with the president, attended a Cabinet meeting, and held listening sessions with faith leaders and small business owners, her public schedule showed.

Asked at the White House briefing Wednesday about when Harris might travel to the border, press secretary Jen Psaki said there were no trips on the schedule.

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They’re not even planning on a trip for Harris to scope out the border crisis firsthand? Good grief.  That’s not “missing in action” — it’s “going AWOL.”

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