Exclusive–GOP Reps Expect Biden to Engage in Border ‘Blamefest’ at SOTU

WASHINGTON, DC– Republican members of Congress told Breitbart News that President Joe Biden will dole out a lot of blame to Republicans, especially on the border, during the State of the Union address, rather than accepting responsibility for his shortcomings.

Breitbart News caught up with several GOP members Thursday morning and afternoon at the House Republicans’ Media Row ahead of Biden’s big speech.

Rep. Michael Waltz (R-FL) said the address “is going to be a giant blame-shifting session” and pointed to the dead pro-migration border bill the Senate cobbled together and Ukraine in particular.

“He’s going to shift blame on the border because of that package that was more about immigration reform than it was securing the border, coming from the Senate,” Waltz said.  “He’s going to shift blame on Ukraine, even though deterrence failed, and his energy policy, or lack of energy policy, is actually fueling Putin’s war. But yet, he wants this narrative, ‘If we don’t just keep signing blank checks of billions of dollars for him to feed into a strategy that has now become one of attrition and another endless war, then we’re somehow pro-Russia,’ which is ridiculous, but that’s going to be the narrative. And then back to the border, we’ve been really clear about authorizing him to go after the cartels. This is really what it’s all about. They’re trafficking the humans; they’re trafficking the fentanyl; they literally seized control of a third of Mexico. It’s just completely unsustainable and unacceptable. And, of course, the economic piece is what I’m really curious to hear. Is he really going to roll out a strategy of raising taxes in the middle of an economy that’s teetering or was in a recession last year and is arguably still teetering on it with out-of-control inflation?”

Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL) predicted that Biden would try to blame Republicans over the southern border, even though he has the power to enact executive actions that would stymie the flow of immigrants.

“Especially on the border, he’s going to attempt to blame Republicans that we haven’t sent him ‘the money’ he needs to shut the border down,” Steube said. “He just wants more money to process more illegals to come into our country. What was amazing about that narrative is that he could change what’s happening on the border today from the White House with the stroke of a pen; he changed it the moment he got elected from the Trump-era policies, like the remain-in-Mexico policy, some amnesty policies that completely were curbing what was happening at the border. And he’s gonna try to blame Republicans for that, when he could do it. He doesn’t need congressional action to do it, but he’s probably going to try to take the bill that came from the Senate, which would still allow 5,000 illegals a day to come into our country as campaign fodder, that as Republicans, we’re holding all of this up.”

Steube’s comment comes days after former President Donald Trump called on Biden to enact Trump-era policies through executive order to secure the border.

Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-SD) told Breitbart News that the “best thing that Joe Biden could do tonight is to take accountability for the southern border” – something Johnson admits Biden will not do.

“It would be a remarkable act of leadership; it would break the internet; it would break the news cycle; it would break the crisis at the border,” Johnson said. “He’s not going to do that. Instead, he’s going to play the blame game, and he is going to talk a lot about ‘shrinkflation’. And listen, the number of Cheeze-Its that’s in a snack bag, I’m sure, is of interest to Americans, but it is nowhere near as important as the fact that eight million folks have illegally entered this country via the southern border in the last three years. Joe Biden should take accountability. I highly doubt he will.”

Johnson’s guest at this year’s State of the Union is Butte County Sheriff Fred Lamphere, who emphasized that South Dakotans are feeling the effects of the porous southern border.

“We’ve dealt, within our county, traffic stops, stop people who were on the deport list. We just do not have a federal authority to step in and help us put these people into custody, detain them long enough to turn them over to federal authority,” he explained. “We’re being advised to release them. Advise them they need to report to a federal courthouse, and that doesn’t happen. We risk litigation by holding them in custody when we don’t have a process to take them to the next level.”

“We’ve felt the effects of the fentanyl crisis. We’ve lost people in our county and within our state, hundreds of people to fentanyl overdoses,” Lamphere added.

When asked if Biden would be doling out blame or taking responsibility for his administration’s shortcomings, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) told Breitbart News that Biden would attempt to demonstrate some “personal vigor” Thursday.

“Joe Biden wants to create some common connection with Americans, and really what Joe Biden has in common with most Americans is that everyone’s worse off than we were four years ago,” Gaetz said. “The American people, economically, the country from the standpoint of our honor in the world, and Joe Biden, in just about every sense, is diminished. And so he will, I think, try to display some sense of personal vigor, but he seems to have lost a little on his fastball.”

Rep. Austin Scott predicts that Biden’s State of the Union remarks will be a “blamefest.”

“He’s not going to take responsibility for anything; it’s going to be a blamefest,” Scott said. “I think the best example of this will be with immigration. When he came in, he fulfilled promises that he made in the campaign to stop the policies that have been put in place that had reduced the flow of illegal immigrants. He did what he said he was going to do in the campaign. All he has to do is reverse what he did to stop the flow of illegal immigration in the country.”

“He’s 100 percent going to blame it on Republicans not passing an additional piece of legislation that he does not need to secure the border,” he added.