After a week of publicly chastising congressional Republicans for rejecting a bipartisan deal on border policy, President Joe Biden used a meeting of governors at the White House on Friday to try a new tactic to attract those on Capitol Hill: urging state leaders to pressure their members of Congress to act.
“You face this every day, some you face it every day. You have real skin in the game,” Biden told governors across the country on Friday. “So if this matters to you and your state, tell your obstructing members of Congress – show a little courage, pass the bipartisan security bill.”
Biden later told governors privately that he was exploring actions he could take on his own without Congress.
And the president deployed the same pressure strategy on Friday, urging the House to pass the Senate-passed foreign aid bill, which includes aid to Ukraine, Israel and other countries and which was initially attached to the border agreement.
“Urge your representatives in Congress to force passage of this bill to prove that America can be counted on,” Biden said after marking the second anniversary of the US invasion of Ukraine on Saturday. Russia.
Biden’s call came during a meeting of governors who are gathering this weekend in the nation’s capital for their annual winter meeting. The president gathered state leaders for an event in which he, Vice President Kamala Harris and first lady Jill Biden delivered remarks Friday in the East Room of the White House before meeting with them privately.
In his speech, Biden praised governors for focusing on solving problems rather than “how many partisan points we score,” before praising his own commitment to being “a president for all Americans.”
“We actually invested more in everything we passed in red states than we did in blue states,” Biden said. “It’s a fact. The billions of dollars more we passed were invested in red states rather than blue states.
First lady Jill Biden has also gotten involved in politics, chastising Congress for often being “mired in gridlock.”
“This room is showing the nation something different and I would like the legislators on the Hill to follow your lead.” You are showing that we can turn down the volume, stop the shouting and actually listen to each other,” the first lady said in her speech.
The President then highlighted in particular his work with the governors of Wisconsin and Minnesota to rebuild the Blatnik Bridge, as well as with the governors of Kentucky and Ohio on the Brent Spence Companion Bridge. He praised California Governor Gavin Newsom’s work on the Golden State’s high-speed rail.
“Several presidents and several governors have promised to get the Brent Spence Companion Bridge built and this is the group that is delivering on those promises,” Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said Friday in an interview with Spectrum News.
“About 3 percent of the nation’s GDP passes over this bridge each year, so it’s critical not only to our states but also to the national economy,” Beshear added. “And now, with help from the federal government, we’re going to build this companion bridge and we’re going to do it without tolls.”
At the border, Biden told governors that laws and resources over time have not “kept up with” our immigration system, leading to a “broken” system.
“Doing nothing is not an option,” Biden told them.
The Senate abandoned a border policy deal that a bipartisan group of senators and the White House spent weeks negotiating after Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, came out against the deal.
Although the Republican Party initially insisted that border changes be tied to foreign aid, the upper house last week passed a $95 billion package providing aid to Ukraine, Israel, Indo-Pacific and many other countries without changing border policy. The foreign aid bill now heads to the Republican-controlled House, where its prospects appear uncertain.
Privately, following his public remarks, Biden told governors he was studying executive orders he might issue at the border in the absence of action from Congress, the president of the National Governors Association and Vice -chairman of governors. Spencer Cox of Utah and Jared Polis of Colorado told reporters after the meeting.
“He said he was working with his lawyers, trying to figure out what executive action would be upheld by the courts and would be constitutional and that he seemed a little frustrated that he wasn’t getting answers from the lawyers he thought he could take. the kind of actions he wanted to do,” Cox said.
He added that when governors told the president he needed to do more, Biden responded, “My lawyers tell me I can’t do more.”
Polis said the president mentioned that Trump took certain actions at the border that were overturned by federal courts.
“There was a frustration that this would also happen under his leadership, under any president,” he said.
Later Friday, the governors hosted U.S. Supreme Court Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Amy Coney Barrett at their conference. Other sessions will take place throughout the weekend.
Erin Kelly of Spectrum News contributed to this report