Vice President Kamala Harris, who has overseen an unprecedented surge of illegal immigration during her time in office, sought to present herself as a border hawk on Friday as she visited the southern border for the first time since being handed the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. Beginning her Arizona speech, Harris presented herself as tough on immigration, saying “the United States is a sovereign nation, and I believe we have a duty to set rules at our border and to enforce them.” “And I take that responsibility very seriously,” she added. Harris continued, saying that American is “a nation of immigrants,” and as such pains must be taken to reform the immigration system so that it functions properly and “makes our country stronger.” Despite her recent attempt to appear tough on illegal immigration, Harris has presided over an unprecedented flood of illegal immigrants into the United States as vice president. As The Daily Wire reported, more than 10 million people have crossed the border under the Biden-Harris administration, with an estimated 1.7 million illegal immigrant gotaways recorded since President Joe Biden was inaugurated in 2021. This is in contrast to the years 2018, 2019, and 2020 during President Donald Trump’s administration, which reported a total of 415,000 reported gotaways. Harris also visited Trump’s border wall, which in 2019 she called a “medieval vanity project.” In 2020, she said the border wall was a “waste of taxpayer money and won’t make us any safer.” Kamala: “President Trump’s wall is a racist vanity project.” Kamala Harris after looking at her poll numbers on border security: pic.twitter.com/3cLJpdk6oO — Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) September 27, 2024 The vice president added during her Arizona speech that she supports the recent border security bill, a controversial bipartisan plan that faced intense criticism from many Republicans, and would, according to The Heritage Foundation, codify “crisis levels of daily illegal immigration” and make it difficult for a future president to deal with the issue. Harris continued: “On behalf of all, across our nation, who want to see these problems solved, I say, we cannot accept Donald Trump’s failure to lead, we should not permit scapegoating instead of solutions … or rhetoric instead of results.” Despite promises to stand tough on illegal immigration, the Biden-Harris administration ended many Trump administration policies that restricted the flow of immigration into the United States, including the Remain in Mexico policy, Title 42, and Proclamation 9844, among others.

Congratulations to MSNBC's Morning Joe. They actually interviewed outgoing NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg for over five minutes on Friday morning without giving in to their natural urge to try to get him to criticize Donald Trump. However, at about the six minute mark they could resist no longer and the Morning Joe tag team of Eugene Robinson and Jonathan Lemire tried to get Stoltenberg to express even minor disapproval of Orange Man Bad. Unfortunately, their attempt not only failed but Stoltenberg praised Trump for getting NATO allies to pay their fair share of the costs. First up at bat was Eugene Robinson.   EUGENE ROBINSON: Mr. Stoltenberg, what is the level of trepidation about the U.S. election, and how is that being seen in the NATO countries? JENS: STOLTENBERG: Well, of course, NATO allies watch the elections in the U.S., as everyone else, but I expect that regardless of who is elected as president in November, the United States will remain a strong and committed ally, partly because it is the U.S. security interest to have a strong NATO. the United States has not gone to war alone since the Korean War, you’ve always gone to war together with NATO allies. That makes it stronger. You have something China and Russia doesn’t have, and that’s more than 30 friends and allies, good for the United States. Second, there’s strong bipartisan support in the United States for NATO in the Congress, but also among the voters, according to all the opinion polls. And thirdly, the criticism from the United States and also from former President Trump has not mainly been against NATO. It has been against NATO allies not spending enough on NATO, and that was right, but that has changed because a few years ago, very few allies spent 2%, now many allies are spending much more than 2%, and the U.S. is no longer the biggest spender based on GDP or a share of the GDP. Poland and the Baltic countries are spending more share of the GDP than the United States. So this has really improved the burden sharing within the alliance. Drat! Stoltenberg praised Trump for getting NATO allies to act with fiscal responsibility in sharing the financial burden of that organization. Well, perhaps Jonathan Lemire can squeeze a Trump critique out of Stoltenberg with a more direct and heavy-handed approach. JONATHAN LEMIRE: So, you are right, Mr. Secretary General, that former President Trump was a big advocate on allies to spend more, but he also, as you well know, has been rather deferential to Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, throughout his political career. What is your level of concern that if Trump were to win again, that he would abandon Ukraine and he would give Putin at least some measure of a victory there in Ukraine? JENS STOLTENBERG: “Well, again, I expect that the United States, regardless of who is the president, see what is in the security interest of the United States. And if President Putin wins in Ukraine, it’s a tragedy for the Ukrainians, but it’s dangerous for us. It will send a message to President Putin that when he violates international law and he uses military force, he gets what he wants. That’s also closely watched in Beijing, so it will send a message to all the authoritarian powers, including China, that using force, then they get what they want. What happens in Ukraine today could happen in Asia tomorrow. It was clearly stated, for instance, by the Japanese prime minister said recently. And it’s not for me to speak on behalf of any of the candidates, but I just know that when I worked with former President Trump, we had the issue of Javelins, and he actually stepped up the military support too Ukraine and provided Javelins. So, well, it is in the U.S. security interest to ensure that European allies and the United States enable Ukrainians to stop the Russian invaders, and I expect that to be the position of our elections. Morning Joe signed off with that and you could almost hear a sad trombone signaling mission NOT accomplished.

First Kamala Harris drew a softball interview from MSNBC's Stephanie Ruhle. Then her husband apparently drew a softball interview from MSNBC's Jen Psaki, who served as White House press secretary for Biden, and Harris. They previewed part of the interview on Andrea Mitchell Reports on Friday. In it, Psaki cued up Emhoff to denounce Donald Trump.  The Democrats have pounced on Trump claiming the Jews could be the difference if he loses again. "In my opinion, the Jewish people would have a lot to do with a loss if I’m at 40%. If I’m at for– think of it. That means 60% are voting for Kamala, who in particular is a bad Democrat. The Democrats are bad to Israel. Very bad." Trump also promised to be the best friend Israel's ever had and promised to fight antisemitism. None of that context is going to make MSDNC.  They didn't show a Psaki question before Emhoff teed off.  “What really bothered me a week or so ago is when Trump got up there at an event purporting, an event purporting to fight antisemitism and he said vile antisemitic things long tropes that are just terrible, and we have to speak out every single time when something like that happens,” Emhoff said. “So I’m going to continue not to be afraid, not to be intimidated, not to live in fear, but to live openly and proudly as a Jewish person.” PSAKI: When you hear him say things like that, and he said that if he doesn’t win, it will be essentially the fault of Jewish Americans — EMHOFF: Blame the Jews, one of the oldest tropes.” PSAKI: An old trope, I know you put out a statement on X at the time. Do you worry that he’s putting a target on the backs of Jewish Americans? EMHOFF: He is. I mean, take him at his word. He lies about a lot of things, but you’ve got to take him at his word on things like this. S so yeah, this is a disgusting trope, this so-called dual loyalties. It’s an outrage and it’s not just Jewish people that should be outraged. So on MSNBC, they're never responsible for "putting a target on the back of Donald Trump" with their constant denunciations, but Trump complaining he should get a higher share of the Jewish vote is dangerously antisemitic.