Republicans Are Pushing for Harris ‘Border Tsar’ Rebrand, as Mainstream Press Is Scrubbing All Signs of the Moniker

Republicans, seemingly caught flat-footed by Vice President Harris’s rapid rise to presumptive nominee, are hoping the first thing voters think when her name is mentioned is “border tsar” — a title she rejects and was never formally given to her, but has stuck after she took on the task of trying to mitigate flows of migrants to the southern border. Meanwhile, members of the press are in full Harris protection mode, retracting previous labels of border chief in the wake of her rise to the nomination. In 2021, Ms. Harris was given the task by President Biden’s senior staff to work on the “root causes” in the northern triangle countries of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. The term “border tsar” spread widely in the press, and the GOP thinks the historic inflow of migrants can be pinned directly on the vice president. On Wednesday, the Trump campaign sent out a statement that demanded reporters stick with their original declaration that Ms. Harris was, in fact, the president’s “border tsar.” A 2021 story from Axios gave Ms. Harris the moniker, but it has since been retracted. “This article has been updated and clarified to note that Axios was among the news outlets that incorrectly labeled Harris a ‘border czar’ back in 2021,” the outlet states. The author of that 2021 article, Stef Kight, was attacked by name by the Trump campaign after the editor’s note was attached. “After being exposed (and ratioed on X), Axios doubled down on their lie and committed the ultimate act of self-humiliation, adding an editor’s note to Kight’s article,” a spokesman for President Trump, Dylan Johnson, writes. “The fact is that Kamala Harris owns all of the border crisis.”Time Magazine, too, argued that Ms. Harris should not be described as a border tsar. The outlet describes it as a “misleading label they applied after she was charged with helming diplomatic efforts to address the root causes of migration from Central America.”The House has already seen a number of resolutions introduced to condemn Ms. Harris’ work over the last three years, which has yielded no results in terms of mitigating immigration across the border. Since she took on the role of trying to solve the “root causes,” 8 million migrants have been encountered at the border, according to the House Budget Committee. The resolution most likely to receive a vote is from Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, the head of the Republican conference. “House Republicans will vote on my resolution to condemn Kamala Harris’ failure as Joe Biden’s border czar. Kamala Harris’ failed leadership led to the most catastrophic open border crisis in history,” Ms. Stefanik said in a statement. “Biden’s open border czar Kamala Harris, and every elected Democrat is responsible for this border crisis and they must all be held accountable for their role in jeopardizing our national security and turning every community into a border community.”The resolution itself cites the recent horrifying murders of young American women that were committed by migrants as reasons necessitating condemnation. “Illegal immigrants with violent criminal histories who have murdered innocent Americans like Laken Riley, Jocelyn Nungary, Rachel Morin, and others throughout the United States, pose an existential threat to the safety and security of the American people,” the resolution states. It resolves that the House “strongly condemns the Biden Administration and its Border Czar, Kamala Harris’s failure to secure the United States border” and declares “that the continuation of the Biden, Harris border policies would be disastrous for both the United States and the American people.”Congressman John Duarte, a vulnerable California swing-district Republican, tells the Sun that he will “absolutely” get behind Ms. Stefanik’s resolution, and says it is good politics for the GOP. “I’m gonna be supporting that. There needs to be accountability,” he says. One House member, Congressman Andy Ogles, has also introduced articles of impeachment against Ms. Harris, primarily for her inability to solve the immigration crisis, but for other reasons as well. Article I states that Ms. Harris ought to be removed from office for her “willful refusal to uphold the immigration laws.”“Women and girls in the United States have paid a disproportionate price for the ongoing border crisis, tragically extenuated by the inaction of border czar Kamala Devi Harris,” the article states. It then, like Ms. Stefanik’s resolution, cites the recent string of murders committed by illegal immigrants. A second article filed by Mr. Ogles calls for Ms. Harris’ impeachment on the grounds that she has failed to invoke the 25th Amendment due to Mr. Biden’s cognitive decline, and refused to answer questions about the president’s health. On the articles of impeachment, Mr. Duarte was less sure about supporting such a move. He said he would want that to go through “regular order” — meaning a committee hearing processes, the drafting of articles, and committee approval. “It’s a very important constitutional feature that we should be judicious with. I want to see regular order, due process, and specific articles.”The GOP has scrambled to define Ms. Harris as a dangerous, untrustworthy, liberal San Franciscan, especially now that she has caught up to Trump Vance in several major polls. One Reuters survey found that Ms. Harris was leading the former president, 44 percent to 42 percent, nationally. Another poll from the firm Blueprint, which was first obtained by Semafor, finds that Ms. Harris is far less defined than Mr. Biden is, and has greater advantages when it comes to specific issue areas. The poll shows that voters do not associate her as much as her boss with the lack of affordable housing, inflation, or immigration. She is tied with Trump on the questions of who will do more to create jobs and who will do a better job at bringing prices down. Trump leads narrowly on the immigration issue, with 53 percent saying they trust Trump to handle the border compared to 47 percent who say the same of Ms. Harris.

Republicans Are Pushing for Harris ‘Border Tsar’ Rebrand, as Mainstream Press Is Scrubbing All Signs of the Moniker

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