California Gov. Gavin Newsom made a high-profile trip to the border with Mexico days after President Joe Biden declined to visit the area in a move that fuels speculation about the Democrat's national ambitions, the Washington Examiner reported.
Newsom's office said the governor went on the trip "to discuss immigration reform and [his] commitment to supporting immigrant communities and the border region."
Newsom's communications director Erin Mellon told the Examiner that the governor "toured a testing, vaccination, and resource center and was joined by the Governor of Baja California, Marina del Pilar Avila Olmeda, to visit a migrant shelter in Mexicali."
Even though Newsom has said he has "sub-zero interest" in running for president, the fact that he made the trip so soon after Biden did not, was an indicator to some that Newsom does seek the White House. Biden has not visited the border since becoming president, telling reporters that he had "more important things going on" than to stop there.
Pro-Trump pundit John Cardillo, for example, posted a tweet stating that "Does Newsom not realize California shares a border with Mexico? He left the state because he's running for president."
Conservative groups and politicians have been citing the surge of illegal immigrants at the southern border as a major national problem that Biden has failed to address since he entered the White House, a view that is now supported by a majority of the country, according to a NPR survey from earlier this year.
Emphasizing the point even more that immigration policy has been one of Biden's weak policy areas in the eyes of the public was a Reuters/Ipsos poll in September that revealed that most Americans believe his administration needs to do more to halt the current tide of undocumented immigrants crossing the border.
Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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