Jake Tapper's infamous furrowed brow of skepticism got quite a workout this morning on CNN's State Of The Union. The cause was the shuffling, dodging, and general evasiveness by Democrat vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine when questioned about the Wikileaks revelation that Hillary Clinton had called for open borders.
Perhaps Kaine thought he would only be faced with questions that he would be eager to answer about the recent release of a decade old off-color Donald Trump tape. For the first part of the interview, Kaine was happily chirping away on this topic. However, Tapper eventually switched gears to ask about the Wikileaks revelation and suddenly Kaine's mood switched from upbeat to evasive.
JACK TAPPER: Um, let's turn to the latest revelations from Wikileaks. We finally got a glimpse at excerpts of those famous paid speeches by Hillary Clinton that Bernie Sanders wanted released during the Democratic primaries. In one of them in a closed door 2013 speech to a Brazilian bank, Secretary Clinton said this, take a look, "My dream is a hemispheric common market with open borders sometime in the future." Is that her dream? Is that what she wants? Open borders? An open market?
Uh-oh! Not good. Time now for Kaine to go into denial mode:
TIM KAINE: Um, yeah Jake, I'm glad you asked it that way because I don't think we can dignify documents dumped by Wikileaks and just assume that they are accurate and true. Anybody who hacks in to get documents is completely capable of manipulating them. But you asked a question about what is her position on policy. Hillary's position on policy on markets and trade is very plain which is we will do trade deals but only if they meet three criteria. Do they increase American jobs? Do they increase American wages and are they good for national security? And if they are and if we can enforce them then trade deals are okay. But if they are not then we can't embrace them. And as you know when Hillary was a U.S. senator she voted for some trade deals when they met her standards but she voted against others when they didn't. We're going to fight so that the only trade deals we'll contemplate are the ones that have the high standards that she set out.
This word blizzard evasion by Kaine only caused Jake's skeptical brow to furrow even deeper.
TAPPER: Right, but senator... First of all, are you disputing the accuracy of this? Did Hillary Clinton not say to these Brazilian bankers that she had this dream?
Okay, time now to blame the Russians.
KAINE: Jake, I have no way of knowing the accuracy of documents dumped by this hacking organization. I think it is really important, this hacking has been connected, much of the hacking has been connected to the Russian government. Yesterday the Director of National Intelligence indicated that this kind of hacking has been traced directly to the Russian government and there is a direct intent to influence the outcome of an American election. If that is in fact true, you cannot accept as gospel truth everything that they might put in a document. But you didn't ask about the document. You asked me what Hillary Clinton's position was.
TAPPER: Right, that's fair. Is this document then, is it accurate? Did she tell Brazilian bankers that her greatest dream...?
KAINE: I have no way of knowing that. I have no way of knowing that.
TAPPER: Well, you could ask her.
Which is something Kaine most definitely does not want to do.
KAINE: But..but the documents are in the thousands. I haven’t asked her. You asked me about her position on trade. Her position on trade is very clear.
And her position on open borders, as she told the Brazilian bankers, is also very clear.
When Tapper continues pressing about Hillary's dream of OPEN BORDERS, Kaine hides behind that old liberal security blanket: comprehensive immigration reform.
TAPPER: What about her position on borders? She says her dream in this document, her dream is a hemispheric common market with open borders. Is that something that — in the Clinton/Kaine administration we would see open borders?
KAINE: We believe in comprehensive immigration reform that would with the pillars that we’ve described where we would have more border security. Jake, as you know, I voted for significant investments in June of 2013 and continue to believe that’s part of a comprehensive immigration reform plan along with the value of keeping families together in providing a path to citizenship for those who work hard, play by the rules and pay taxes.
Yup, still no answer from Kaine on open borders. He would prefer to yak about an 11 year old Trump tape that has nothing to do with policy rather than answer about Hillary's stated desire for OPEN BORDERS that would flood America with millions more people.
