A TALE OF TWO BORDER CITIES
All eyes were on Texas yesterday as the crisis at the southern border brought two presidents to the state—with a roughly 300-mile buffer.
“This is a Joe Biden invasion,” former President Donald Trump told reporters at a press conference in Eagle Pass, where illegal border crossings have spiked in recent months.
His choice of location spoke volumes. Eagle Pass has become a symbol of defiance for Republicans amid Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s feud with the Biden administration over immigration enforcement.
Pointing to recent examples of violent migrant crime, Trump said the blame for those tragedies belongs to President Joe Biden.
“He’s allowing thousands and thousands of people to come in from China, Iran, Yemen, the Congo, Syria, and a lot of other nations—many nations [that] are not very friendly to us. He’s transported the entire columns of fighting-aged men and … they look like warriors to me. Something’s going on. It’s bad.”
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As Trump delivered those remarks, Biden received a briefing in Brownsville, where illegal border crossings have sharply declined in recent years.
Speaking with reporters after, the president said House Republicans were at fault for not passing a controversial Senate border deal he had endorsed.
The bill includes $20 billion in funding for U.S. immigration enforcement and $60.1 billion in aid for Ukraine, among other provisions. It passed the Senate but was declared “dead on arrival” in the GOP-led House.
“We need to act,” Biden said, calling on Republicans to “show a little spine” and pass the bill.
He also extended that call to Trump, urging him to persuade his fellow Republicans to move.
“Instead of playing politics with the issue, why don’t we just get together and get it done?” he asked.
But recent polling shows that concern over illegal immigration now reaches across the political divide as 78 percent of Americans now view the issue as either a “major problem” or a “crisis”.
If that sentiment holds firm, Biden could have another Texas-sized problem in November.
—Samantha Flom
TRUMP MONETIZES HIS VOTES
Former President Donald Trump made another unprecedented move by launching his “Never Surrender Hi-Tops” at Sneaker Con earlier this month and soliciting votes for his presidential campaign at the same time.
The identities of Trump the celebrity and Trump the candidate are converging as he fights extensive legal battles over his ballot access, business operations, role in the Jan. 6 breach of the Capitol, and sexual harassment cases. The total legal penalties amount to half a billion dollars.
The MAGA base is with Trump; they don’t mind the mix of politics and the candidate’s personal finance.
“It’s a free world, right? It’s a great way to make money,” South Dakotan Charles Hibbs told The Epoch Times in South Carolina ahead of the Republican primary, in which Trump defeated rival Nikki Haley in her home state by 20 points.
“I would support anything he wants to do to acquire money to fight the illegal lawsuits that have been brought against him,” Stephen Robinson from Virginia told The Epoch Times. He said he would pay “ten grand” for Trump products because another Trump presidency was the solution the country needed.
Politics are getting increasingly tribal—that’s part of the reason Trump can “blur the distinction between the political realm and the commercial realm with the voters,” according to veteran political analyst Bob Holsworth.
Only Trump could pull off blending celebrity, consumerism, and politics, professor Robert Shapiro at Columbia University told The Epoch Times.
—Terri Wu
THE DEMOCRAT DARK MONEY MACHINE
Arabella Advisors is the biggest name in politics you’ve probably never heard of.
Nominally a provider of administrative and support services, Arabella is deeply tied to various funds that dish out millions to progressive and Democratic Party groups that often go directly into campaign coffers.
Arabella, now run by former telecom executive Himesh Bhise, is paid to provide administrative, operations, and management services for six politically active tax-exempt funds: New Venture Fund, Sixteen Thirty Fund, Hopewell Fund, Windward Fund, North Fund, and Impetus Fund.
In the run-up to the 2020 and 2022 elections, those groups funneled millions to progressive groups. They are likely to do it again in 2024.
In 2020, Arabella-linked funds sent about $218 million toward groups that were directly involved in efforts against former Trump or other Republican candidates, according to their tax records.
During that cycle, America Votes got most of the money. It subsequently handed out grants to organizations that wound up backing Biden along with federal candidates like Sen. Raphael Warnock.
In November 2023, Sixteen Thirty Fund President Amy Kurtz said her group is “prepared and proud to lead alongside our projects in the fight against authoritarianism and efforts to dismantle our freedoms.”
—Austin Alonzo
WHAT’S HAPPENING
- The judge in the case charging Trump with illegally retaining classified documents is scheduled to decide the start date of the trial and to rule on several motions.
- The judge in the Georgia case charging President Donald Trump with election interference will hear arguments on whether District Attorney Fani Willis should be removed from the case because she had an affair with one of the prosecutors.
- Biden hosts Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni at the White House.
Congress, for the fourth time since September, passed a stopgap spending bill to temporarily avert a government shutdown and give lawmakers more time to finish the appropriations process—this time until March 8 and March 22.
A grandmother faces more than 41 years in federal prison after being convicted under the FACE Act for seeking to convince women to not get an abortion. She is one of more than two dozen pro-life activists who have been charged under the act since 2022. The Epoch Times’ Beth Brelje has their stories in this special report.
No Labels is set to meet next Friday to decide if the centrist group with support a “unity ticket” for this year’s presidential election, a prospect Democrats fear could be a big spoiler for Biden.
