NBC White House correspondent says Biden administration doesn't 'want to touch' immigration issue

close

Video

NBC White House correspondent says Biden admin doesn't want to touch the issue of immigration

NBC White House correspondent Mike Memoli said Thursday that the Biden White House doesn't want to touch the issue of immigration. 

NBC White House correspondent Mike Memoli told NBC's "Meet the Press Now" host Chuck Todd on Wednesday that the Biden administration does not want to touch" the issue of immigration and the border crisis. 

Todd said that while he believed Democratic candidates made more money off of Sen. Lindsey Graham's abortion bill announcement than Republicans did off of the celebration of the Inflation Reduction Act, "this report wasn’t good." 

"This report indicates that there does need to be some action on inflation and number one it's our labor market, and number two it is our labor market, and number three it is our labor market. We need more workers, particularly in the lower wage scale and the White House doesn’t seem to want to deal with this," Todd said. 

Memoli said that President Biden highlighted wage growth in his written statement about the August inflation numbers. Inflation rose 8.3% in August from last year.

Mike Memoli tells Chuck Todd that the Biden administration doesn't want to deal with immigration. (Screenshot/NBC/MeetThePressNow)

NUMBER OF ILLEGAL MIGRANTS WHO ENTERED US SINCE BIDEN TOOK OFFICE APPROACHING TWO MILLION 

"You have a good story in which the still overheated, potentially, job market creating one of the problems that they are facing which is that higher wages are leading to higher prices and Chuck, you know the issue they don't want to touch, and talk about electric fences, which is immigration," he said. "That is the answer here to deal with some of these challenges."

Memoli referenced Todd's recent interview with Vice President Kamala Harris and said it was clear that the administration was keeping the issue at "arms length."

During the interview, Harris claimed that the border is "secure. 

"I think that there is no question that we have to do what the president and I asked Congress to do, the first request we made: pass a bill to create a pathway to citizenship," Harris said on Sunday's "Meet the Press."

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris smiles during her speech at the NAACP National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey, U.S. July 18, 2022. (Reuters/Hannah Beier)

VIDEO CAPTURES MIGRANTS IN CAMO SCALING ARIZONA WALL AFTER HARRIS SAYS BORDER SECURE

"The border is secure, but we also have a broken immigration system, in particular, over the last four years before we came in, and it needs to be fixed," she continued.

Todd said that the administration is happily taking credit for lowering gas prices but that they don't want to address the "employment issue" at all. 

Illegal immigrants pictured on April 1, 2022. as the deadline for Title 42 to expire loomed. (John Moore/Getty Images)

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Gov. Greg Abbott sent two buses with migrants to Washington, D.C. on Thursday. Between 75 and 100 migrants arrived near Vice President Kamala Harris' Naval Observatory residence. 

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser declared a state of emergency last week as migrants from Texas and Arizona continue to arrive.