President Donald Trump had nothing to do with inspiring Vice President Kamala Harris’s plans to visit the US-Mexico border, second gentleman Doug Emhoff has said.
Speaking to NBC News in his first television interview as first gentleman, Mr Emhoff said his wife “isn’t driven by any political issues or political pressure”.
“She’s really just doing what the right thing is to do for this very important job that the president entrusted her with,” he said, with President Joe Biden having tasked Ms Harris with leading the administration’s efforts to address irregular migration to the US border.
Ms Harris is set to visit the southern border in Texas on Friday, with the Biden administration announcing the plans as the vice president faced growing backlash for from Republicans for failing to make the trip sooner amid a rise in arrivals of migrants and asylum seekers at the border.
The announcement came days after Mr Trump revealed that he would be making his own border visit next Wednesday, accompanied by Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who has vowed to continue building the former president’s border wall.
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On Wednesday, Mr Trump sought to take credit for Ms Harris’s plans to visit the border, writing in a statement: “After months of ignoring the crisis at the Southern Border, it is great that we got Kamala Harris to finally go and see the tremendous destruction and death that they’ve created – a direct result of Biden ending my very tough but fair Border policies”.
“Harris and Biden were given the strongest Border in American history. And now, it is by far the worst in American history,” the former president said. “If Governor Abbott and I weren’t going there next week, she would have never gone!”
Mr Emhoff’s interview took place shortly after Ms Harris announced her travel plans, so it is unclear whether he was aware of Mr Trump’s comments.
However, asked whether Mr Trump’s own border plans may have played a role in pushing Ms Harris to make her own border trip, he denied that was the case.
“This is just the next phase in coordination with other parts of the administration,” he said, with Ms Harris having recently returned from a trip to Guatemala and Mexico to discuss the situation at the border, as well as the root causes driving migration to the US.
Mr Emhoff said that while “no one wants to see anyone they love attacked or criticised,” facing scrutiny from critics is “part of what [Ms Harris] signed up for in this life of public service”.
