'Crossings are down': CNN panelist confronts GOP strategist on Harris' border record

CNN's Kate Bedingfield Friday morning smacked down a Republican strategist's claims that border security would be a liability for Kamala Harris.

The vice president gave her first sit-down interview since accepting the Democratic Party nomination, and she told CNN's Dana Bash that she intended to revive the border security bill that president Joe Biden helped draft with conservative Republicans but was eventually smothered by Donald Trump and his House allies.

"I think the other way she tackled that across the board in answering these questions in this interview was to say, you know, I've spent four years in the White House learning how to get things done," said Bedingfield, a former White House communications director for president Joe Biden. "I thought that's the other piece of her answer on the on the values thing that we haven't talked about yet. She said, you know, my values haven't changed, but I have learned how to get things done and I've learned about finding consensus and that you have to be able to get things done to move forward, and so that that is the important second piece here that lets her say, you know, I am a different candidate than I was in 2019 because I've spent four years in the White House getting things done."

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GOP strategist Brad Todd disagreed, saying that his fellow Republicans would pounce on Harris' record on border security.

"I think if she's going to own what the Biden record of getting things done on the border, I think Republicans are gonna be ecstatic about that," Todd said. "When she goes back to her experience as [California attorney general], that's memory-holing the last four years. It's a big case of amnesia where she ... was given a prominent role in stopping illegal crossings at the border. I don't think it's going to fly and I think the longer that this race dwells on immigration and border enforcement, the worse it is for Kamala Harris."

Bedingfield cut in with a fact check.

"It's important to note, I mean, she was responsible for migration from the Northern Triangle," Bedingfield said. "Crossings are down from those countries in the Northern Triangle since she took that portfolio. So if we're going to talk about the numbers, then we should to be fair to her, we should talk about the numbers as they exist."

Todd broke in to say that Americans didn't feel like border crossings were down.

"This is the thing where Washington's disconnect with America, is really stark" Todd said. "For Americans, is the border closed and are people still coming across illegally? That's the question, and this administration's record on that is terrible and it's started on their first day when they reversed Donald Trump's immigration policies."

CNN's Manu Raju stepped in to wrap up the segment for a commercial break but allowed Bedingfield to respond.

"In the wake of the executive order being implemented, numbers are down and you cannot argue that Republicans have been acting in good faith on trying to find solutions here in an election year," she said. "So if we're going to be if we're going to be talking about immigration as a political issue, Republicans have to own and Donald Trump has to own his part in ensuring that Congress didn't take any meaningful steps to fix the problem."

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