‘We did the right thing’: Kamala Harris pressed on administration’s record on immigration

Kamala Harris at a town hall on Wednesday found herself vigorously defending the Biden administration’s immigration record from a CNN host’s repeated grilling on the timing of the executive actions taken this year. That’s when Anderson Cooper jumped in and grilled Harris on the “record border crossings” in 2022 and 2023 despite the administration’s many executive actions. “Finally in 2024, just in June, three weeks before the first presidential debate with Joe Biden you instituted executive actions that had a dramatic impact – really shut down people crossing over – why didn’t your administration do that in 2022, 2023?” Harris seized the moment to tout the reduced “flow of immigration” she said had been cut “by over half” before Cooper tried to jump in. Congress has the authority and the purse – I hate to use D.C. terms – but literally they write the checks.” She tried to end the exchange by reminding the crowd that at that present moment, “We have lower undocumented immigrants and illegal immigration than Trump when he left office.” Cooper again pushed back: “Do you wish you’d done those executive orders in 2022, 2023?” “I think we did the right thing,” she said before adding: “I pledge to you that I will work across the aisle to fix this long-standing problem.” Watch the clip below or at this link.