Oh no, Republicans are complaining about drug seizures at the U.S./Mexico border again.
On Sunday night, for example, Republican Sen. Bill Hagerty of Tennessee published a tweet that generated a fair amount of attention.
1,292 pounds of fentanyl—which killed more than 100,000 Americans last year—was seized at our southern border in April—a more than 420% increase compared to April 2020. This is a crisis, and Biden needs to address it now.
— Senator Bill Hagerty (@SenatorHagerty) June 6, 2022
It wasn’t long before this received some pushback for obvious reasons: If the Biden administration is seizing more drugs at the southern border than the Trump administration, that would appear to be evidence of progress — except for drug dealers.
The same day, Sen. Ted Cruz pointed to a meth seizure at a port of entry in Laredo. This, the Texas Republican argued, was evidence of the “Biden border crisis.”
As regular readers know, this line of criticism is weird, but it’s not new. Republicans have spent much of the last year complaining bitterly about Biden administration officials seizing illicit drugs before they entered the United States, which they see as proof of … something.
Why anyone in the United States, other than drug dealers, would complain about officials seizing drugs at the border is a little unclear, but it’s become one of the GOP’s most common complaints — even as the seizures necessarily debunk Republicans’ “open border” talking points.
As we’ve discussed, criminals have tried to smuggle illegal drugs into the country for many years. It’s happened during Republican administrations; it’s happened during Democratic administrations. Criminals have focused their efforts on the southern border, the northern border, ports, and even airports. The United States’ system of defense is far from perfect, but a dedicated group of professionals do their best to stop the shipments before they reach American streets — and lately, they’ve had several important successes.
That is, of course, what most Americans — again, excluding drug dealers — want.
And yet, Republicans routinely complain in the wake of border seizures, which isn’t just strange, it also contradicts the party’s previous line.
In early 2019, for example, when border officials seized a massive shipment of methamphetamine at a Texas port of entry, Cruz celebrated the developments. For the Republican, this wasn’t proof of a “Trump border crisis,” it was instead simply evidence of the “great work” being done by Americans. He’s not alone. Two years ago this month, the Republican National Committee pointed to drug seizures as proof that Donald Trump and his policies were helping “protect our nation.” Now, the RNC is trying to convince Americans that more recent drug seizures are evidence of “Biden’s open border.” How do Republicans explain the obvious contradiction? By ignoring it — and hoping voters don’t notice. If Republican officials want to argue that the shipments represent only a fraction of a larger whole, and that there are other shipments that border officials aren’t catching, they’re certainly welcome to make that case and present the evidence, to the extent that it’s available. But that’s not what Republicans are saying. Instead, they keep complaining about U.S. successes, which should be a tough sell in an election year.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
Latest Post
Recommended
