In a 30-second campaign ad, President Biden reacts to Donald Trump admitting that he worked to kill bipartisan legislation because it would have been politically advantageous to Democrats.
The latest in a series of advertisements showing the president reacting to Trump and other MAGA Republicans, Biden holds an iPad and watches a clip from a recent Fox News town hall between Trump and Laura Ingraham.
“Why were you against the Senate border deal?” Ingraham asks Trump. “The bipartisan border deal?”
“Well, they allow 5,000 people a week—but a lot of people took it as 5,000 people a day,” Trump replied, referring to the widely circulated falsehood that the bipartisan deal authored by Republican Senator James Lankford, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, and independent Senator Kyrsten Sinema would have permitted 5,000 undocumented migrants to unlawfully enter the country.
“It made it much better than the opposing side,” Trump concluded.
“You know, he just admitted it,” President Biden said, looking up. “He sabotaged our bipartisan deal—a bipartisan deal to secure the border because it ‘much better’ for the opposing side.”
“You know who the opposing side is?” Biden continued. “In this case, it’s America. Donald Trump roots against America every chance he gets. He’s only in this for himself.”
Trump’s lie about the “5,000 people a week” was persistently debunked by the bill’s coauthors, who explained it would automatically trigger a southern border shutdown after 5,000 contacts between law enforcement and undocumented migrants.
The bipartisan deal was relatively conservative and gave Republicans much of what they asked for over the previous months, such that it was endorsed by the pro-Trump, anti-Biden Border Patrol Union.
Despite this, Trump’s eagerness to use the border as a wedge issue prevailed over principle, and Republicans in both chambers backed away from the effort.
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