President Joe Biden was reportedly furious about the surge of immigrants illegally crossing the southern border during the first months of his administration, making him angrier than any other policy issue.
In the first six months of Biden’s White House term, the president could often be heard cursing in frustration at the lack of action taken at the southern border, according to the forthcoming book The Fight of His Life: Inside Joe Biden’s White House by Chris Whipple. Biden had already appointed Vice President Kamala Harris as the “border czar,” a position that led to harsh criticism as the number of immigrants arriving at the border continued to increase.
“Illegal immigrants kept arriving. And Biden was furious,” Whipple wrote, according to a copy of the book obtained by the Hill. “From all over the West Wing, you could hear the president cursing, dropping f-bombs (he’d always apologize when women were present).”
Biden was especially frustrated by the lack of solutions to address the problem, a struggle the president is still grappling with nearly two years into his presidency amid record-high immigration numbers. Roughly 411,000 illegal immigrants were encountered at the southern border in October and November, according to the Center for Immigration Studies — surpassing the total number of immigrants who were apprehended at the border for all of fiscal 2020.
Harris’s allies reportedly complained about the vice president’s responsibility on the issue, according to Whipple, often lamenting that Biden was setting her up for failure by giving her the position. Others pointed to Republicans’ criticisms of her job performance as a way to get rid of her.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“I think there is a definite targeting of the vice president that has nothing to do with her assignment,” a senior adviser told Whipple. “And it has everything to do with who she is and the desire by some in the right wing to make her gone.”
The Fight of His Life: Inside Joe Biden’s White House is set to be released on Jan. 17.
