Biden To Face Off With Trump In Dueling Border Visits This Week

President Joe Biden will visit the southern border this week at the same time former President Donald Trump will be there, the White House announced.

On Monday morning, a White House official said Biden will travel to Texas this week:

On Thursday, President Biden will travel to Brownsville, Texas to meet with U.S. Border Patrol agents, law enforcement, and local leaders. He will discuss the urgent need to pass the Senate bipartisan border security agreement, the toughest and fairest set of reforms to secure the border in decades. He will reiterate his calls for Congressional Republicans to stop playing politics and to provide the funding needed for additional U.S. Border Patrol agents, more asylum officers, fentanyl detection technology and more.

Trump will be in Eagle Pass, Texas on Thursday as well, setting up a potential split-screen of photo ops.

On Monday’s edition of CNN Newsroom With Jim Acosta, anchor Jim Acosta and correspondent Priscilla Alvarez broke the news:

JIM ACOSTA: President Biden is planning a rare visit to the border on Thursday. Let’s go straight to the White House. Priscilla. Alvarez. Priscilla, this is a very big deal. A lot of folks have been asking, Will the president go to the border? It sounds like he’s going to the border.

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ: He is. It’s a pretty extraordinary move because not only is he going to the border, he’s also planning to go on the same day that former President Donald Trump is also at the border.

What this indicates is a White House that is trying to flip the script on Republicans and seize on the issue of border security, especially after that Senate border deal that included some of the toughest security measures in recent memory, tanked because Republicans backed away from it with the encouragement of former President Donald Trump.

The White House has been hammering House Republicans on this, saying that they were ready to take these really extraordinary authorities, some that would include shutting down the border and that the Republicans just walked away from that.

And we also know that after this fallout from the bill, the White House has been considering executive action to take on border security.

So all of this culminating on Thursday in this visit to the US-Mexico border by President Biden. He has visited the border before, he went to El Paso during his administration. He’s going to a different part of the Texas-Mexico border this time around, clearly trying to show or is do a counterprogramming here with former President Donald Trump.

JIM ACOSTA: All right. Fascinating that a lot of people are going to be watching that visit on Thursday. Priscilla Alvarez, thank you very much.

Watch above via CNN Newsroom With Jim Acosta.

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