Angry N.Y. Congressman roasts Biden for ‘malpractice’ that helped Trump win

A New York Democrat has some harsh words for the Biden administration after President-elect Donald Trump’s decisive victory.
Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) slammed President Joe Biden over his administration’s handling of the migrant crisis on Tuesday, claiming that his “malpractice” on the border may have cost Democrats the election. He questioned in a lengthy social media post why it took so long for Biden to issue executive action on the border when the action garnered widespread public support.
“We as Democrats paid a heavy price for the Biden Administration’s malpractice of acting like a deer in the headlights as the migrant crisis raged on for years,” Torres wrote on social media platform X.
He said that there has been an “overwhelming wave of migration whose impact was felt not only at the border but in blue cities like New York, where the shelter system came under severe strain,” since 2022. Despite this, Torres wrote that the Biden Administration did not issue an executive order to restrict migration at the border for another two years.
“By then, it was too late. The damage was done. The Republicans had won the issue. Lesson learned: when there’s a metaphorical fire provoking widespread public outrage, you must act decisively to extinguish it or else the voters will decisively punish you at the ballot box,” Torres wrote.“After the President issued the Executive Order (EO) restricting migration at the border, subsequent polling revealed that the EO, contrary to the media’s misconceptions about Latinos, enjoyed widespread public support from every racial category—Black and White, Latino and Asian. If the EO enjoyed broad public support, why did the President take so long before issuing it?” he added.
Torres went on to suggest that the left side of the Democratic Party has been given too much power, which contributed to the Democrats’ losses. He also added that inflation was the top reason Democrats lost.“Though popular among most Americans, the EO was unpopular among far-left elites, who have been given outsized power over the policymaking and messaging of the Democratic Party. Therein lies the second cause of our defeat. The first cause is inflation,” he wrote.
Immigration remained a top issue for voters ahead of the 2024 election and turned out to be a real problem for Democrats. While Democrats tried to address the border through bipartisan legislation in Congress, Republicans derailed the effort after Trump spoke out against it.
Trump has vowed to implement mass deportations and lock down the border now that he is elected to office. He tapped Tom Homan, Trump’s former acting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement director, to be his border czar in his new administration.
Torres is not the only Democrat to criticize Biden after Trump‘s resounding victory. Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) suggested that Biden should have dropped out sooner so that there could be an “open primary.” She argued in a recent interview with The New York Times that this could have helped build Democratic support among voters.
Torres won his reelection bid for the House last week.
Torres, who identifies as Afro-Latino, became among the first openly gay Black members of Congress when he was first elected in 2020. He grew up in public housing and represents a Bronx district in New York City that is one of the poorest in the nation. Torres currently serves on the House Committee on Financial Services. He had previously been a member of the New York City Council since 2014.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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