CNN commentator and host S.E. Cupp called Vice President Kamala Harris’ visit to Arizona’s border a “tricky” situation on Friday, noting voters with major concerns about the issue don’t “trust” her.
Harris visited the U.S. southern border in Douglas, Arizona, on Friday aiming to unveil stricter immigration policies that build on President Joe Biden’s June executive order pausing new asylum requests after hitting a daily average of 2,500 over the span of a week. On “The Situation Room With Wolf Blitzer,” Cupp said Harris is “damned” if she visits or doesn’t, calling out the “circular argument” between both parties on how to fix the border crisis.
“This is a tricky issue for her. She’s damned if she does, she’s damned if she doesn‘t. If she didn‘t go they’d say, ‘She didn‘t even go to the border, see how unseriously she takes it.’ She‘s going now, so there’s the circular argument, ‘Well why didn‘t you go earlier?’ Folks are saying this was all Biden’s policies,” Cupp said. “Then Democrats will say, but when ‘we tried to fix it, Republicans said no.’ It’s a circular argument that never ends and it will never end.”
“But I can tell you it’s not appealing to undecided voters in the swing states who are not here for the finger-pointing and the blame game, they just want solutions,” Cupp continued. “So for the voters for whom immigration is a top number one issue, she‘s not reaching them. They don‘t trust her, they don’t trust Biden.”
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Cupp added that voters who don’t see the border crisis as a top concern and instead view it as a “softer issue” could be swayed by Harris’ visit and push for stricter policies.
“But for the voters for whom immigration is a softer issue, may be a top five issue, I think she can by tacking to the middle a little bit. By giving specifics on what she would do, by calling for more resources, by saying that it will be harder to lift those restrictions on the border. That is enough, I think, for some undecided independent voters. Again, for whom they don’t already have an immigration hard line stance.”
Harris has been criticized for her flip-flopping on the border, as she once labeled the wall as “un-American,” a “stupid waste of money” and Trump’s “medieval vanity project.” The vice president was called out online in late August after her campaign released an ad flashing the U.S. Mexico border wall in the video that touted her as the “border-state prosecutor.”
With many voters’ top concerns revolving around the economy, inflation and immigration, an ABC News/Ipsos pollreleased on Sept. 15 shows former President Donald Trump leading Harris on who voters trust with their concerns. Data shows Trump leads Harris by seven points in who Americans trust more to handle the economy and inflation, while Trump also leads by 10 points on who voters trust to handle immigration.
Featured Image Credit: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from Washington D.C, United States
