I can’t say with confidence who was the first Republican to complain about the Biden administration successfully stopping illicit drugs at the border, though Rep. Andy Biggs was certainly among the first. It was nearly two years ago when the Arizona Republican complained via Twitter, “Under Joe Biden, enough fentanyl to kill 238 million Americans was seized at the southern border last month. Where’s the outrage in the media?”
Even at the time, it was odd to see a member of Congress complain about drugs being seized before they could reach American soil. The only folks who had reason to be “outraged” were drug dealers.
In the months that followed, this nevertheless became an oddly common criticism of President Joe Biden and his team. Every couple of months, from the Republican National Committee to the halls of Congress to the presidential campaign trail, the more the administration seized drugs, the more Republicans complained for reasons that never made a lot of sense.
Yesterday, House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik joined the GOP chorus with this tweet:
“Since Joe Biden took office, over 34 THOUSAND pounds of deadly fentanyl has been seized at the southern border. That is enough fentanyl to kill every person on the planet. We must pass the Secure our Border Act to ensure a nation that is SAFE.”
White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates asked a couple of years ago, “Wait, Republicans are now attacking us for stopping fentanyl trafficking?” Evidently yes, and those criticisms have become one of the GOP’s more frequently used talking points for reasons I’ve never been able to explain.
Ordinarily at this point, I’d make the usual spiel about how strange it is that Republicans don’t seem to know what “seized” means — a phenomenon that remains genuinely odd — but in this specific instance, it’s not the only problem.
Indeed, what was striking about Stefanik’s line of criticism wasn’t just its self-defeating…
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