This is another tidbit that popped up during Joe Biden’s interview with George Stephanopoulos. (The same one where he claimed that he supported filibuster “reform.”) To his credit, Stephanopoulos actually asked Biden about the crisis on the southern border and followed up with additional questions. This segment ran for roughly six minutes, but the highlight of the discussion was when the host asked Biden if he could say to the people in El Salvadore, Guatemala, and Honduras, “Don’t come.” Biden quickly responded by claiming that he could say that “quite clearly” and that was his message to any aspiring illegal immigrants. (ABC News)

President Joe Biden said in an exclusive interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos on Tuesday that his message to migrants is “Don’t come over.”

Amid a surge of migrants and unaccompanied minors on the U.S. southern border, Stephanopoulos asked the president, “Do you have to say quite clearly, ‘Don’t come’?”

“Yes, I can say quite clearly: Don’t come over,” Biden said during the wide-ranging interview in Darby, Pennsylvania.

“Don’t leave your town or city or community,” he added.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t an embeddable version of this segment of the interview available yet this morning, but you can watch the entire thing at the link. Biden actually rambles on about the situation on the border and in the Northern Triangle countries for quite a while, while Stephanopoulos keeps asking more probing questions.

The idea that Joe Biden is telling these waves of immigrants to not come to the border at this point is laughable. The time to do that would have been before he was sworn in, with a firm message that the border would remain closed while he worked on a way to improve the situation. It’s a bit late for that now.

I’ll toss some additional praise to Stephanopoulos for bringing up something that should have already been obvious. He brought up the fact that ABC’s reporters on the scene have been talking to the migrants and they were being told that Joe Biden had promised to make things better, so that’s why they were there. Joe’s answer was close to a flat denial, but he didn’t really have a rebuttal for the claim.

“The idea that Joe Biden said, ‘Come’ — because I heard the other day that they’re coming because they know I’m a nice guy,” Biden said.

“Here’s the deal, they’re not,” he said.

Biden goes on to say that the real reason they are coming is that they are fleeing oppression and violence. While those are certainly factors in the decisions being made by caravan participants, that doesnt’ explain why there were comparatively few of these human waves showing up earlier in the winter, which is generally the peak season for illegal migration caravans. Obviously, they are showing up now because they were told that Uncle Joe would be putting out the welcome mat.

Biden also sneaks in a shot attempting to blame Donald Trump for the current situation. He tells the host that “what you have to do is try to get control of the mess that was inherited.” The problem with that answer is that the current mess didn’t exist on January 20th. The borders were closed and Mexico was still helping us enforce the Remain in Mexico policy. We were not being overwhelmed by families and children. That all happened after Biden made his announcement and came into office.

The one thing I will say on a positive note for Joe Biden is that in the few segments from the interview I’ve watched so far, he didn’t really seem to mentally wander as he’s done in other appearances this year. He mostly stayed on topic and answered the questions, even if the answers weren’t particularly good or honest. So that’s something at least.