John Kerry, who previously held the role of climate envoy under President Joe Biden, acknowledged during a podcast interview on Thursday that President Donald Trump had been “right” about the need to secure the U.S. border, saying Democrats had failed to uphold it.
Speaking on the BBC’s “Reflections” podcast, Kerry stated, “The first thing any president should say, any president, or anybody in public life, is, without a border protected, you don’t have a nation — I believe that. If you’re going to define your nation, you have to have a border that means something,” adding, “We have a system. I wish President Biden had been heard more often saying, ‘I’m going to enforce the law.’”
Kerry, who also served as Secretary of State under Barack Obama and ran as the Democratic nominee for president in 2004, was questioned by BBC’s James Naughtie about whether Trump would likely tout Kerry’s comments as vindication of his stance.
“He was right,” Kerry replied. “The problem is we all should have been right. Everybody should have been right, doing the same thing, all moving in the same direction.”
Earlier in the discussion, Kerry shared that he had expressed to Biden that the Democratic Party had mishandled the border situation.
“They just allowed the border to continue to be sieged, under siege,” he said.
Kerry also pointed out that Democrats had backed immigration reform legislation that faced opposition from Trump and several Republican lawmakers.
Later in the interview, Naughtie shifted the topic to Biden’s re-election campaign, asking whether things might have played out differently had Biden stepped aside earlier instead of doing so after pressure from fellow Democrats.
“I think in retrospect that’s pretty clear, it answers itself,” Kerry responded.
When pressed further on whether Biden had realized this himself, Kerry declined to speculate.
“He’s my friend, and he did a hell of a job. I don’t think he’s gotten enough credit for what a great president he was,” he said of Biden.
Meanwhile, immigration remains a central issue in Trump’s policy agenda, especially as he seeks to return to the White House. His administration has prioritized aggressive enforcement and deportations.
Between June 1 and June 22, U.S. Customs and Border Protection recorded 5,414 arrests at the border, with the El Paso area seeing the most activity. During the same period, there were 986 confirmed “gotaways.” Both statistics represent record lows.
For comparison, the number of apprehensions in May under Trump stood at just under 9,000—dramatically lower than the approximately 118,000 reported during the same month a year earlier while Biden was still in office.
{Matzav.com}