West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin stopped by CNN’s State of the Union to speak with host Jake Tapper about the sad state of Biden’s border; “it’s dangerous to our country what’s happening right now,” Manchin tells Tapper.
“I think the majority of people who are sensible, reasonable, and responsible understand that to be so. So we’re going to basically work as the United States of America – working together and not working as a political tool and basically weaponizing it and blaming somebody else for not being perfect,” Manchin stated.
“The good would be stopping the flow of people coming to our country for the wrong reasons or people coming more than what we can handle. Jake, every one of us have gone to a sporting event, or to a concert event or some other activity,” Manchin continued. “We are over capacity right now. And we have to control this.”
“When you say it’s dangerous – what do you mean by dangerous? I mean, most of the people coming to this country do not pose a danger to Americans,” Tapper stated.
“Jake, we’re letting people come in and not adjudicating them through the parole system that you said and also basically just not having the means and having that much personnel to basically go through why you came, how you came, the purpose of you’re coming – this and that,” Manchin stated.
“We’re going to basically say ‘okay, you don’t seem to be a threat, maybe.’ They don’t know because they’re not doing, I think, proper screening. When you have 10 and 12,000 people coming a day, and you’re only able to basically really adjudicate maybe 500. No more than 1,000 a day, but 500 normally – Jake, you’re overrun. And you just turn them loose and basically disperse them within and says ‘we’ll get to you later.’ There can be very dangerous people coming for whatever nefarious reasons they’re coming for.”
“I don’t want to take that chance. I don’t think we should take that chance. And I think that our negotiators right now from our Republican and Democrat negotiators who are really diligent doing a great job, and then basically with the White House involved committed to getting this border under control,” Manchin stated.
Watch Manchin and Tapper talk border negotiations in the clip below:
.@Sen_JoeManchin tells CNN’s @jaketapper that he’s “very encouraged” and “very optimistic” about last-minute negotiations on a package to strengthen the border and give support to Ukraine and Israel. pic.twitter.com/OEL2IKMGYz
— State of the Union (@CNNSOTU) December 17, 2023