- Steve Rattner, a former official of the ex-President Barack Obama's administration, admitted that outgoing President Joe Biden's handling of immigration policies was "not Biden's finest moment."
- Rattner cited a chart from a New York Times op-ed showing a sharp increase in border crossings after Biden took office, reaching nearly 300,000 a month at its peak.
- He acknowledged President-elect Donald Trump's claim of low border crossings during his tenure, noting that crossings were about 74,000 a month when Trump left office.
- Rattner attributed the surge in migrant crossings to Biden's policies, including a moratorium on deportations.
- He noted an improvement in the situation, with current border crossings running at about 100,000 a month, similar to levels during the Trump administration.
Former Obama administration official and prominent MSNBC's "Morning Joe" contributor Steve Rattner has finally admitted that President Joe Biden's handling of the border was "not his finest moment."
During a recent segment analyzing key trends of 2024, Rattner, who currently manages the personal and philanthropic assets of former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, made these comments while discussing a chart from an op-ed he wrote for the New York Times. The chart stressed the significant increase in border crossings after Biden took office in January 2021.
"The border was not Biden's finest moment, frankly," Rattner said, pointing to data showing a sharp rise in encounters between border officials and migrants along the U.S.-Mexico border. "You can see what happened here," he added, emphasizing the contrast between the pre-Biden and post-Biden periods.
Rattner also addressed President-elect Donald Trump's claims about the low number of illegal crossings during his tenure. "And Trump is not wrong when he talks about how border crossings were quite low. They're running about 74,000 a month when he left office and they, in fact, did shoot up," he conceded. These crossings under the Biden administration reached almost 300,000 a month at its peak. (Related: 32% of American voters say illegal immigration should be Trump's top priority when he takes office.)
He then attributed the surge in migrant crossings to "some things Biden said" and "some ways that they put a moratorium, for example, on deportations."
Rattner: Border crossings now plunge to near-Trump levels
Despite his acknowledgment, he noted that the situation has since improved, with border crossings currently running at about 100,000 a month.
"But in fact, we did get up here almost to 300,000 a month. But what maybe people don’t entirely know is that border crossings have come back down almost to where they were under Trump. They're running at about 100,000 at the moment. So we went up the hill and we went down the hill. But unfortunately, that was pretty costly to Biden during the election."
Similarly, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas repeatedly stated that the border was secure before the House of Representatives voted to impeach him in March 2024.
"I would respectfully disagree," he said during an interview with CNN in 2023 when asked about Republicans and Democrats claiming the Biden administration failed in securing the border. "We have been planning for months and months, over a year and a half. We have surged resources, asylum officers, Border Patrol agents, and processing coordinators to do the data entry work so our Border Patrol agents can be out in the field."
"We’ve expanded our holding capacity in Border Patrol stations. We've added beds to Immigration and Customs Enforcement in our detention facilities. We've increased our transportation resources, the number of flights, and removal flights with our foreign partners. We're setting up regional processing centers now. It's extraordinary what we've done over the past 18 months or so," he continued.
However, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) figures, the Border Patrol has encountered millions of illegal immigrants since the start of fiscal year 2021.
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Watch this video of Rattner discussing the chart from his op-ed article for the New York Times.
This video is from the Daily Videos channel on Brighteon.com.
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