With Title 42 set to expire, MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell welcomed on two former Obama officials to discuss the border crisis on her Thursday show. One of those officials was former deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes who claimed that one reason the border crisis is so bad is because the U.S. is just too mean to the communist and socialist dictatorships in Cuba and Venezuela.
Mitchell led Rhodes by lamenting “very little was done in the last four years before Joe Biden” with regards to foreign aid in Central America to address why people are heading north in the first place.
Rhodes replied that while policy towards Central and Latin America will not provide an immediate benefit, “That doesn't mean we don't do that though. Like, we should be doing everything we can to address every aspect of the push factors that are driving people to the border and in some cases, Andrea, our own policies are contributing to that.”
Those policies include ones toward, “Cuba and Venezuela. We could be having an honest conversation here that the embargo that we have on Cuba and the sanctions we have on Cuba and Venezuela are contributing significantly to the humanitarian crisis that is also driving people to the border.”
It was a remarkable statement considering that people have been trying to escape Cuba for decades and that the Venezuelan government’s economic idiocy is responsible for the condition that country, but Mitchell would act as if it was a completely fair point.
Criticizing Biden from the left, she asked Rhodes to affirm that, “President Biden had the option of doing something about that and much to the frustration -- and we're not saying anything has improved, in fact, to the contrary about the human rights issues down there, but those sanctions could've been addressed and other aspects could have been addressed, but because of politics they have not wanted to touch that. Right, Ben?”
Rhodes complied and made the curious claim that Team Obama did, in fact, greatly improve the lives of the Cuban people, “part of the plan was essentially that if we were relaxing our sanctions, life is improving for the people of Cuba. Their economic circumstances are improving. They’re also empowered by the internet and we changed our migration policy so they didn't get automatically paroled in the United States, under the presumption things would be getting better for them Cuba.”
It is unclear where Rhodes got this idea that Cubans have been empowered by the internet considering the state imposed restrictions, but Rhodes nevertheless knew who to blame for the crises both at the border and in Cuba and it wasn’t the Communist Party, “When Donald Trump put all those sanctions back in place and tried to roll back everything that we’d done, it created a real acute humanitarian crisis in Cuba where people just can't get the food to survive and so they’re coming to the U.S. border in enormous numbers.”
Trump, however, isn’t the only one to blame. Rhodes also took a shot at Biden from the left:
This is an obvious thing that is sitting right in front of the Biden Administration, to just go back to the kind of openness we had in the Obama years, ... the only thing standing in the way…you said it, is politics and right now the politics they will face at the border, I would argue, are worse than having a few angry members of Congress if they revert to the Obama policy on Cuba.
Even if one was to buy Rhodes’s arguments that being softer on communism would lead to a less intense border crisis, Cuba and Venezuela are just two of the countries of origin and it doesn’t address Biden's policies or all of the other politicians and activists in this country encouraging people to take the journey north.
This segment was sponsored by E-Trade.
Here is a transcript for the May 11 show:
MSNBC Andrea Mitchell Reports
5/11/2023
12:10 PM ET
ANDREA MITCHELL: Ben, for years I've been hearing administration officials, previous administration, your administration -- very little was done in the last four years before Joe Biden came in-- to deal with it in those countries, to do more, you know, in all kinds of foreign aid and that was reduced before President Biden came in. But, now we are being told about regional processing centers from the State Department, two days ago. It’s going to take a long time to stand those up and people are having trouble with the app that has been deployed. It might be somewhat of Déjà vu with the Obamacare rollout that, you know, these technical fixes don't always work as planned, especially not in these conditions.
BEN RHODES: Yeah, I mean, Jeh has it exactly right in the sense that you're not going to stop the images that we're seeing. You’re not going to stop the thousands and tens of thousands of people coming to the border in the next few months or even the next couple of years just through policies that you pursue in Central and Latin America.
That doesn't mean we don't do that though. Like, we should be doing everything we can to address every aspect of the push factors that are driving people to the border and in some cases, Andrea, our own policies are contributing to that. So, you mentioned Cuba and Venezuela. We could be having an honest conversation here that the embargo that we have on Cuba and the sanctions we have on Cuba and Venezuela are contributing significantly to the humanitarian crisis that is also driving people to the border.
…
MITCHELL: Let me just pick up on one thing you said and follow up with you on that because regarding Cuba and I know you know the policy very well, you were part of an organization under President Obama and was down there for all those events. The-- President Biden had the option of doing something about that and much to the frustration -- and we're not saying anything has improved, in fact, to the contrary about the human rights issues down there, but those sanctions could've been addressed and other aspects could have been addressed, but because of politics they have not wanted to touch that. Right, Ben?
RHODES: That's exactly right, Andrea. I mean, Jeh was a part of this too and part of the plan was essentially that if we were relaxing our sanctions, life is improving for the people of Cuba. Their economic circumstances are improving. They’re also empowered by the internet and we changed our migration policy so they didn't get automatically paroled in the United States, under the presumption things would be getting better for them Cuba.
When Donald Trump put all those sanctions back in place and tried to roll back everything that we’d done, it created a real acute humanitarian crisis in Cuba where people just can't get the food to survive and so they’re coming to the U.S. border in enormous numbers that we haven't seen in many, many years and this is an obvious thing that is sitting right in front of the Biden Administration, to just go back to the kind of openness we had in the Obama years, make life better for the Cuban people and deal with one of the major push factors that is driving up numbers to the border and the only thing standing in the way—because a lot of those people were part of the same policies we perused in the Obama years—you said it, is politics and right now the politics they will face at the border, I would argue, are worse than having a few angry members of Congress if they revert to the Obama policy on Cuba.
