On Wednesday, the U.S./Mexico border had a visit from an American power trio: Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. This was, no mistake, a power play, intended not only to give these three, who share aspects of foreign affairs and our borders, a good look at the border, but also to send a message to Mexico, to the cartels, and to would-be illegal immigrants. That message? Playtime is over; the adults are back in charge.
We might note that all three of these officials are military veterans; all have served overseas, far from home, in dangerous places. You don’t have to be John Rambo to know what it’s like to be in a harsh place under harsh circumstances, and such a thing lends you some perspective that others, through no fault of their own, just don’t understand. But mostly, officials who are in charge of the various aspects of this mess must see things for themselves. There’s just no substitute for eyes-on.
While the primary purpose of the border visit is to give three key people a good look at things on the ground, it is also a message to the Mexican government. America, this message says, is taking this seriously enough to send senior officials, all of whom report directly to the President of the United States, to the border to see things for themselves.
See Related: ‘Defamiliarizing’ the Border: The Latest Insanity From the No-Longer-Hallowed Halls of Academia
Working As Advertised: Even Legacy Media Admits Trump’s Border Crackdown Is Effective
Vice President Vance later spoke on their examination of the border:
The VP said:
We took the helicopter ride over here, and we saw a big chunk of border wall, and I said, “Is that the federal government’s border wall?” And they said, “Well, it was ordered during teh first Trump administration but Joe Biden wouldn’t let us actually build it. Governor Abbott (of Texas) was of course the one who actually helped us put a lot of that stuff up and of course that stopped the flow in a pretty profound way.
We’ll talk a little bit more at the press conference but as you saw the president said yesterday, I think it’s really the most important part of his speech, is that we didn’t need new laws to secure the border, we needed a new president, and thank God we have that. I’ve heard already from a number of the folks that I’ve talked to in (the) Border Patrol, that all we needed to do was to empower these guys to do their job, thank God they have done their job, we’re thrilled that they’ve done it, and now we’ve seen just in this area, border crossings go from about 1,500 a day to 30 a day. That’s simply the President of the United States empowering these professionals to do what they do so well.
It’s working. It’s all working. And all the pieces aren’t even fully in place yet – but they will be.
