Chuck Todd: Bordering on dysfunction

In many ways, both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump are acting rationally in their postures on new border legislation.

Americans, in general, are usually proud of this fact: The U.S. is a nation of immigrants. And there’s nothing we love to collectively celebrate more as Americans than a good rags-to-riches story, especially if it begins in another country.

Strike up a conversation with an acquaintance and then at some point ask where their family emigrated from, and there’s always some pride in the answer, whether they talk about family coming from Europe, Asia, South America, the Caribbean or elsewhere. 

But our love affair with our collective origin story outside this country usually ends at the border — literally.

We don’t want to hear or feel the messiness of our country’s asylum system, and we collectively don’t want to be bothered with how someone gets here. But once they get here and become a citizen, we are usually very welcoming, eventually, and, yes, proud.  

And this brings us to our current political stalemate over the border and immigration. In many ways, both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump are acting rationally in their postures. For Biden: It’s an election year, and the last thing he wants is for the border to become an impediment to his foreign policy (the Ukraine aid linked to the border negotiations in the Senate) or his re-election. So it’s not shocking to me to see Biden essentially say, “I’ll accept just about any reasonable border idea as long as Ukraine aid is included.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/chuck-todd-bordering-dysfunction-rcna136349

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