As House Republicans prepared to hold a vote on impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Monday, CNN This Morning anchor Phil Mattingly implied to Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries that the move would be racist or anti-immigrant simply because of Mayorkas’s biography.
Mattingly had asked Jefferies about progressive criticisms and opposition to the Senate border deal and wondered what he was hearing from the caucus. For his part, Jefferies gave a clichéd response about having conversations with members before moving into a denunciation of Republicans and their efforts to impeach Mayorkas.
Taking the change of topic in stride, Mattingly read a statement from the White House, “When you talk about impeachment, a White House official pointed out that in the impeachment report, it says, ‘The committee, through these articles of impeachment, begins the process of deporting Secretary Mayorkas from his position.’”
Mattingly approved of the sentiment, “You know, I think it's not subtle, the fact that Secretary Mayorkas is the first immigrant from his family to serve as a DHS secretary. When you hear that, what do you think?”
Obviously, Mattingly meant the first immigrant over all to be DHS secretary, not the first immigrant from the Mayorkas family, but that stumble is nothing compared to the effort to team up with the House’s top Democrat to play the race card. Naturally, Jefferies was willing to play along, “Well, it's outrageous, and it's consistent with the type of xenophobic rhetoric that extreme MAGA Republicans in this town have become known for utilizing and deploying, certainly that's been the case since 2015.”
Jefferies had his talking points and he was going to get them in regardless of the topic, “Again, what does the impeachment of Secretary Mayorkas have to do with building a healthy economy? Nothing. What does the impeachment of Secretary Mayorkas have to do with addressing the inflationary pressures that have existed on the economy since the shutdown of the economy as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic? Nothing. And it has nothing to do with fixing our broken immigration system.”
On one hand, Democrats want to argue inflation is not that big of a deal, but on the other, here is Jefferies, condemning Republicans for not doing anything about it. Of course, Mattingly didn’t notice the inconsistency.
Here is a transcript for the February 5 show:
CNN This Morning
2/6/2024
7:42 PM ET
PHIL MATTINGLY: When you talk about impeachment, a White House official pointed out that in the impeachment report, it says, "The committee, through these articles of impeachment, begins the process of deporting Secretary Mayorkas from his position."
You know, I think it's not subtle, the fact that Secretary Mayorkas is the first immigrant from his family to serve as a DHS secretary. When you hear that, what do you think?
JEFFRIES: Well, it's outrageous, and it's consistent with the type of xenophobic rhetoric that extreme MAGA Republicans in this town have become known for utilizing and deploying, certainly that's been the case since 2015.
Again, what does the impeachment of Secretary Mayorkas have to do with building a healthy economy? Nothing. What does the impeachment of Secretary Mayorkas have to do with addressing the inflationary pressures that have existed on the economy since the shutdown of the economy as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic? Nothing. And it has nothing to do with fixing our broken immigration system.
And so, we, at this point, really need our Republican colleagues to choose to walk away from chaos, which is what they want, and they're purveyors of chaos of dysfunction and extremism and join us in a common sense approach to meeting the needs of the American people.
