I love it when Democrats turn around right-wing attacks and go on offense.

During Karine Jean-Pierre’s Thursday press briefing, Fox News’ Peter Doocy tried a gotcha with the right-wing talking point about Vice President Kamala Harris being some kind of failed border czar. The truth is, she was never a “border czar,” was never assigned to work on or at the border but was put in charge of a diplomatic effort with Latin American countries to deal with root causes of migration.

After reading what appeared to be a White House statement that there has never been a border czar in the Biden administration, Doocy tried a different vehicle for the same attack: “Why are Democrats so sensitive about the vice president and the border?” he asked. As if the administration should not correct the record and allow false smears against Harris to stand.

Jean-Pierre handled it magnificently. Instead of explaining, she turned the question around and put the focus where it belong. “Why are Republicans so sensitive about actually not owning up to them getting in the way of a border deal?” she asked. “Why won’t they own up to that? Why won’t they own up to the last president told them not to move forward? It was a bipartisan deal on – just right there, available to them, and they voted twice against it.”

KJP is 100% right about the disingenuousness of right-wing border concerns, given the fact that they preferred to obey Trump rather than to do their actual job.

The “border czar” BS is a dog whistle akin to the “DEI hire” dog whistle, except that instead of suggesting that Harris was somehow awarded her job without deserving it, the suggestion is that she proved herself unworthy because she let in all those brown “rapists and killers” Trump fearmongers are streaming through our border.