Capehart and Pletka on Harris’ immigration policy and Zelenskyy’s meeting with Trump

Washington Post associate editor Jonathan Capehart and Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute join Geoff Bennett to discuss the week in politics, including Kamala Harris’ visit to the U.S.-Mexico border to present her border security plan and Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s meeting with Donald Trump.
Geoff Bennett:
Vice President Kamala Harris heads to the U.S.-Mexico border to present her border security plan.
On that and other issues shaping the presidential race, we turn tonight to the analysis of Capehart and Pletka. That’s Jonathan Capehart, associate editor for The Washington Post, and Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute. David Brooks is away this evening.
With a welcome to you both.
So, Kamala Harris is visiting the border, trying to flip the script on what has been a political vulnerability for her.
Jonathan, the Harris campaign has tried to gain ground on this issue by pointing to the bipartisan border deal that congressional Republicans blocked earlier this year after Donald Trump came out against it. She’s at the border today. What else does she need to do, in your view, to confront this issue head on and try to cut into Donald Trump’s perceived advantage?
Jonathan Capehart:
Well, she’s doing it. She’s going to the border. She’s there. She will be speaking about it later this evening.
And by going to the border and talking about immigration, she — it does give her yet another chance. And she’s been talking about this on the campaign trail — gives her another chance to talk about the bipartisan comprehensive immigration deal that was negotiated by Democrats and Republicans, the lead Republican, Senator Lankford of Oklahoma, one of the most conservative Republicans in the Senate.
Had all the votes, and then Donald Trump called up and said, don’t vote for it, and it died, did not even come up for a vote. It gives the vice president an opportunity to talk about that bill, talk about the things that are in it, and talk about the fact that it had things in there that had her and the president going against their own party, because they were looking for a deal to do the exact thing Republicans say they were — they wanted to do and the exact thing the American people are saying they wanted addressed.
And that is securing the border, but also going further and reforming the immigration system. And Donald Trump didn’t want it to happen because he didn’t want to give Democrats an issue to run on.
Geoff Bennett:
And, Danielle, part of the Harris campaign strategy here to counter Trump’s approach is to use this new ad that they have released today. It’s going to air in Arizona and across a number of battleground states. Here it is.
Narrator:
Kamala Harris has never backed down from a challenge. She put cartel members and drug traffickers behind bars, and she will secure our border. Here’s her plan, hire thousands more border agents, enforce the law and step up technology, and stop fentanyl smuggling and human trafficking. We need a leader with a real plan to fix the border. And that’s Kamala Harris.
Geoff Bennett:
What do you make of that? I mean, the campaign is pointing to her record as attorney general taking on transnational criminal gangs, but they’re not defending the Biden immigration policy really.
Danielle Pletka, American Enterprise Institute:
We need a real leader to take on — that is not a felicitous term that they should have put at the end of that ad, because she’s been that leader. This was part of her responsibilities. She didn’t go to the border. She didn’t make it an issue.
And I understand. I mean, look, the politics of this are clear. This is an issue where she lags behind Donald Trump, where she’s perceived to be less good. And she can’t just shrug off 3.5 years as vice president of the United States and suddenly say, we need new, fresh leadership to deal with that.
Where were you for the last 3.5 years? But I think, look, Jonathan makes an interesting point. And this is — this is not a — this is a problem for the Biden administration. The Supreme Court has said — and I’m going to read the quote.
It says — in a decision on immigration, it said that current statute — quote — “exudes deference” to the president. In other words, the president had and has all the authorities that are needed to do what was necessary to either shut down or regulate the flow at the border and to deport people if necessary.
None of that happened for the first three years of the Biden administration. Now, is it good that Congress wanted to address this? Yes. Am I a little bit ambivalent about how it was handled? I am, because I think it needed a solution. And I think sometimes you have to compromise.
The argument that many make who opposed it is that the president has these authorities and that the legislation actually limited those authorities. In other words, it would have superseded existing legislation and limited the ability of the president to shut down the border unless there was a certain number of people, an average of 4,000 to 5,000 at the border.
Now, that was the complaint against it. Is it fair? I prefer compromise and bipartisan solutions, but that’s what happened. And it doesn’t take away from the fact that Kamala Harris didn’t do anything and Joe Biden didn’t do anything.
Geoff Bennett:
Well, let’s shift our focus to Donald Trump’s meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Zelenskyy was in Washington yesterday making an in-person plea for more military aid. And there you see him with Donald Trump today.
Jonathan, what were your takeaways based on their interaction?
Jonathan Capehart:
Look, I give President Zelenskyy major kudos and major props for meeting with Donald Trump. He could very well be the next president of the United States and meeting with a man who has said on multiple occasions that basically President Zelenskyy should just hand over his country to Vladimir Putin.
And so the fact that Donald Trump met with Zelenskyy after saying before that he wasn’t going to meet with him because Zelenskyy said not nice things about him I guess shows a level of maturity of the former president.
But I do think, when a wartime president comes to the United States for the purpose of addressing the U.N., saying thank you to the people in the factory that are making the weapons that he’s been able to use to defend his country, that is a good thing for him to do. And it’s good that Donald Trump met with him.
Geoff Bennett:
Danielle, Donald Trump sees foreign policy so much through the prism of money. He talks about NATO countries needing to pay their fair share. Just in terms of the language he used today, he talks about a transaction, doing a deal.
What would it take to get the MAGA wing of the party and for Donald Trump himself to see Ukraine’s success in the best interests of this country?
Danielle Pletka:
It’s a great question.
But I want to talk a little bit about Zelenskyy for a second, because I think he was manipulated, and I think he was manipulated cynically by the White House.
The trip to Pennsylvania that he was going to do, which was one of many trips that he, the ambassador, Ukrainian leadership, do to thank the American people and the people in factories — I agree totally with, Jonathan, this is a really appropriate thing to do — had none of the senators — Democratic senators on the trip on the original manifest, had a short meeting with Governor Josh Shapiro to sign a sister city agreement and otherwise was not a political setup, and ended up looking like a campaign visit.
Now, that wasn’t organized by the Ukrainian Embassy. It was organized by the White House. I think Zelenskyy fell into that. I think he exacerbated that problem when he went and gave an interview to a house organ of the Democratic Party, “The New Yorker,” and made, frankly, let’s say, unwise comments.
I happen to agree with some of them, but unwise comments about J.D. Vance. But they created this firestorm. And, actually, I give a lot of credit not just to him in reaching out to Donald Trump to try to fix this, but Donald Trump being gracious and accepting that outreach immediately.
So I think that’s really important to understand, because the one thing I haven’t seen since this invasion happened is Joe Biden and Kamala Harris stand up and show the necessary bipartisan leadership to sell this to the American people. So what is it going to take?
I come back to your original question. It takes leadership. It takes effort. It takes the bully pulpit. People need to be persuaded.
(Crosstalk)
Danielle Pletka:
Go ahead.
Geoff Bennett:
Democrats would make the point that Joe Biden has shown that leadership and that the reason that there is a Western alliance that has been unified in supporting Ukraine is because of that leadership.
Danielle Pletka:
Democrats would make that argument. And Ukrainians will tell you, as will the Republicans on Capitol Hill and most Democrats, that the Biden administration has been a day late and a dollar short in every single weapons transfer to the Ukrainians.
When they need HIMARS, HIMARS come a year later. When they need aircraft, aircraft come a year later. When they need ATACMS, they come a year later. When they need to reach into Russia to hit targets where Russians are staging against them and the Biden administration won’t let them do it, they finally grudgingly allow them to in the last month.
Helping people when they’re losing is not the best plan. Helping them when they can win is the right plan. That’s what I call leadership, not just going and schmoozing at NATO.
Geoff Bennett:
What about that, Jonathan? And this is really a bipartisan criticism that the Biden administration, when it comes to giving Ukraine aid, when it comes to giving them the missiles that they have asked for, that the Biden administration has been too slow to get to yes.
And now the question is, will the West, will the U.S. give Ukraine the authority to shoot Western weapons deeper into Russia? The administration might get to yes on that question too, but at the moment it has taken them weeks and weeks and weeks to get there.
Jonathan Capehart:
Sorry, I’m just trying to recover from the hurricane of platitudes there.
Listen, Geoff. And we can’t just be simplistic about this. The hesitation of President Biden here in Russia’s war on Ukraine is thinking that, you know what, we don’t want this to flare up into a situation where the United States and the NATO countries are going to have to go to war with Russia.
I appreciate and applaud the president’s reticence and deliberation in helping the Ukrainians, in helping President Zelenskyy. And I’m glad you brought up the major point. The president and the Biden/Harris administration haven’t been doing nothing. They’re the ones who pulled together the coalition that has helped Ukraine last in a war that everyone thought would be over in a week.
And the idea that a wartime president like Zelenskyy could be manipulated by anyone, I think, is unbelievably insulting.
Geoff Bennett:
All right, Jonathan Capehart and Danielle Pletka.
Unfortunately, we are out of time.
Danielle Pletka:
That’s all right.
Geoff Bennett:
I’m sure we will continue this conversation elsewhere. Thank you both.
Danielle Pletka:
Thank you.
Jonathan Capehart:
Thanks, Geoff.