CNN’s Erin Burnett recently claimed that President Joe Biden is getting hit from all sides because of his latest immigration executive order yet presented him as a moderate on the issue. But is this portrayal accurate?
Immigration has always been a hot topic, and Biden repeatedly scores lower than Trump on handling it, according to polls. While Burnett did point this out, what caught my attention was how she emphasized CNN’s senior political analyst, Ron Brownstein’s opinion that public perspective and immigration policy always veer off in opposite directions. He cited his decades-long experience, recalling how immigration policyarguably became tougher under Trump, which met with broad resistance. However, under Biden, there seemed to be a more lenient approach, leading to a surge of support for Trump’s method. Lamentably, this comparison seems to be an overly simplified way of discussing an intricate issue like immigration policy.
Brownstein suggested that Biden might not fully overcome the gap that Trump left on immigration, but steps like the recent executive order may fortify Biden’s position. This could be an indication of political maneuvering. However, instead of a careful analysis, it appears Burnett is trying to present this as operative governance.
Next comes Van Jones, commentator and former Obama official, who had bountiful words of defense for Biden. Jones highlighted Biden’s dislike for executive orders that might not gain court approval – explaining why Biden had waited especially long before tackling the border’s chaos. Yet, he conveniently forgot all the student loan executive orders Biden signed off on.
Meanwhile, Jones seems to find plenty of time to criticize Republicans. He accuses them of spreading “fire” at the border, shipping migrants to Democrat-run cities, and then sabotaging attempts to fix the problem – all while ignoring the fact that Obama’s immigration policy wasn’t exactly any different.
As the conversation stretched, Burnett proceeded to project two soundbites from progressive Democrats, Rep. Pramila Jayapal and Sen. Alex Padilla to reinforce Biden’s supposed moderate credentials.
It took Biden five months before the election to finally act on the border conflict. Since then, his portrayal as a centrist, aided by networks such as CNN, seems to be an intriguing spectacle to observe.
Inevitably, this raises the question: Is Biden truly the moderate candidate he’s presented as, or is this another orchestrated attempt by mainstream media to coat a particular narrative?
