Ahead of President Biden's State of the Union address, Cactus Politics sat down with Representative Eli Crane (R-AZ) and discussed what he expected to hear during the speech, which he said would contain "a lot of gaslighting" on the ongoing border crisis, blaming Republicans for failing to aid in securing the border.
"He created this problem. Everybody really knows it that has eyes and ears and is willing to look at this objectively," Rep. Crane added, pointing at the multiple instances during the 2020 campaign where he encouraged border crossings.
More to the point, he described visiting the border with Representative Andy Biggs (R-AZ), where a group of migrants told him "they love President Biden" and were expecting Border Patrol to pick them up, process them, and fly them across the United States.
"So I think he is going to try and shift blame, and he is going to do his best in the State of the Union when he has got that many eyeballs on him to try and act as if, "Oh, you know, I want to fix the border, but these pesky Republicans would not pass the bipartisan border bill that we just had up here," Rep. Crane continued.
Cactus Politics noted some Democrats, such as Representatives Vicente Gonzalez (D-TX) and Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), "are open to a Remain in Mexico bill coming back."
Crane agreed there is "a trajectory since I started. Some of your staunchest Democrats who would sit there and make fun of us Republicans who are saying, "Hey, part of border security is a wall. We need to finish the wall. It is not the end all be all that a lot of your naysayers or your critics try and make it out to be."
After all, he said, "Security has always been and always will be overlapping deterrence," citing his own experiences as a Navy SEAL. After missions, he would return to a walled base. Even then, it was only one line of defense.
"If you cannot even get the basic right, you will never get the important right," Crane concluded.
