Democratic strategist Jennifer Holdsworth told Hill.TV’s “Rising” on Friday that President Trump sent troops to the border in an effort to “make a splash in the media” and push his argument that there is a crisis at the U.S. border.
“I don’t think that he’s really willing to help the issue, I think that he’s just willing to make a splash in the media by sending the military down,” Holdsworth, senior vice president of issues management at MWWPR Public Affairs, told hosts Krystal Ball and Buck Sexton.
Trump ordered active-duty troops to the border last year, saying they were needed because of a surge in immigrants seeking to come to the United States.
The president also declared a national emergency at the border last month as a means of securing additional funding for his long-promised border wall.
“It’s the fact that the marines are not the answer. We should be sending in FEMA. We should be sending in other organizations, not the military. It is taxing to the military,” Holdsworth said.
“I also think that this is a symptom of the president not being deliberative. He’s not being contemplative. He’s pushing a narrative on this. Whether or not you believe that there is a ‘crisis’ on the southern border, I particularly do not believe it is a crisis, but I believe that it is certainly a humanitarian issue that we are not paying appropriate attention to,” she continued.
“If the president was very concerned about making sure that all of these people were processed, and that all of these people coming not just from the southern border but from other countries to the southern border to enter into the United States, he would take a more holistic approach to how were were going to reform immigration in this country, and he’s not willing to do that,” she said.
— Julia Manchester
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