Karine Jean-Pierre: I Don’t Know Why We Would Reach out to a Governor or Governors Who Are Clearly Playing a Political Game
On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre joined Alex Wagner on MSNBC, and the conversation turned to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Texas Governor Greg Abbott sending illegal immigrants to Democrat cities. Wagner asked Jean-Pierre if the White House has attempted to contact the governor to talk to them about the situation.
“I guess I wonder, internally — or not internally — has the President reached out to any of these governors?”Wagner asked.
Jean-Pierre answered, “So, here’s the thing — and I was asked this question earlier today — I don’t know why we would reach out to a governor or governors who are clearly playing a political game. Right? It is something they’re doing not to find a solution but to literally put people’s lives at risk. We’re talking about people who are fleeing communism, we’re talking about folks who are leaving Venezuela, leaving Nicaragua, leaving Cuba, because there are regimes there that are incredibly dangerous. And they’re using these children, these families, as political pawns after dealing with the political stress that they’re dealing from another country. So that’s not the solution, that’s a political game that they’re playing. And so, what we’re doing is we’re calling that out because it’s dangerous. When you leave kids on the side of the roads of a busy, busy street, that’s dangerous. And we’ve heard from these families saying that they were worried, that they were scared, that they didn’t know what was happening, what was going on, and it is incredibly shameful. And the question to Ron DeSantis, Governor DeSantis, is, what do you tell to the people in Florida, folks who are from those countries, that you are using these folks as a political pawn, as a political game? Look, we’re ready, we’ve always been ready on day one the President said he’s put forward his immigration legislation, a comprehensive piece of legislation, and he said, ‘Let’s figure out how we fix this broken system.’ But instead, that’s not what they want to do. They don’t want to vote for the historic amount of funds that would go to DHS to deal with this issue. They don’t want to work on real solutions. So we’re gonna call that out, Alex.”
Watch the clip above via MSNBC
