CNN commentator and former Biden White House communications director Kate Bedingfield warned Democratic governors not to offer “knee-jerk” resistance to President-elect Donald Trump’s plans for border security.
Bedingfield made the comments on CNN on Tuesday during a network discussion about Trump’s latest personnel picks for his upcoming administration that signal his aggressive stance on tackling illegal immigration.
“I think for Democratic governors to knee-jerk, take a position of we’re going to fight this is, is not smart,” Bedingfield said.
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The president-elect announced earlier this week that he would appoint former Obama-era ICE official Tom Homan as his border czar to oversee mass deportation actions as well as make former Trump senior adviser Stephen Miller his deputy chief of staff of policy.
In the wake of the announcement, Homan warned blue state governors who have said they will resist the second Trump administration’s deportation actions to “get the hell out the way.”
On CNN, Bedingfield appeared somewhat to take Homan and the administration’s side, telling governors that they should respect Trump’s decisive election night victory and not get in the way of the voters’ decision to have the President-elect enact his border policies.
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“I think Democratic governors need to be responsive to what people said on Tuesday [Election Day],” she said, clarifying, “That does not mean they need to wholeheartedly embrace family separation and mass deportation.”
The former Biden official reminded viewers that despite talk about blue state resistance, Democratic lawmakers “put forward a very aggressive border bill by the way in the last year, that any Democratic governor would be smart – I think – to embrace.”
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Bedingfield said she believes that the rhetoric used by Trump allies regarding U.S. southern border security has been harsh and that’s why Democratic leaders are opposed to Trump’s plans.
“I understand the – because of the most callous and hateful language that the Stephen Millers of the world use, I understand why Democratic governors sort of feel on a moral level that it’s their obligation to oppose it. That I get.”
Still, she said these leaders should not be caught not doing enough on the issue just because of the rhetoric.
“But I think having just a knee-jerk reaction that we’re gonna be seen as the people who are standing in the way of taking more aggressive steps on immigration is not the place to be for the Democrats.”
