George C. Upper III – The Western Journal Feb 3, 2024

House Speaker Mike Johnson just handed out some serious ammunition to those who have been saying — for years, in some cases — that Joe Biden isn’t actually running the country as president.

“I’m not sure Joe Biden is actually making these decisions,” the Louisiana Republican said of Biden’s immigration policies during an interview Friday on Fox Business.

Johnson told Maria Bartiromo on “Mornings with Maria” that he felt Biden’s staff was preventing him from taking executive action to secure the U.S. border with Mexico.

Johnson said he’d been trying for weeks to convince the president to re-institute the “Remain in Mexico” policy first put in place by former President Donald Trump during his administration and to start building more of the border wall again.

Biden has insisted that he lacks the authority to take those actions — even though Trump took them and Johnson himself has explained to the president that he already has everything he needs to start securing the border.

“He knows that he has the authority,” Johnson said. “We’ve documented it for him.

“I’ve read to him the law myself — to the president,” he added. “Read him the provisions of the law and said, ‘Mr. President, please take action.’”

Biden nonetheless continues to argue that he cannot act unless Congress does first.

“I don’t think he’s allowed to do it,” Johnson speculated.

“I’m not sure Joe Biden is actually making these decisions,” he added. “I think it’s staff around him, and they’re pushing him to hold the — or to keep the border open.”

It’s unlikely that the border deal negotiated in the Senate — which is said to contain additional aid to Ukraine — will be passed by the Republican-controlled House, so if Biden continues to refuse to take executive action on the border, nothing is likely to change until after the November election.

“They’ve been trying to work this deal. We’ve heard rumor about it, reports about it. But even as we sit here this morning, Maria, I’ve never seen the text,” Johnson said Friday.

If the deal is as it has been reported to be, however, Johnson said it was “dead on arrival” in the House.

There is, of course, the possibility that the deal is better than some have made it out to be, and while Johnson didn’t seem optimistic about that possibility, he said he was open to it.

“The devil is in the details. We’ll check it out,” Johnson told Bartiromo. “I’m not prejudging anything, but I’ve told them the necessary elements of H.R. 2 are what are required to get control of the border.