New Meet the Press host Chuck Todd pushed back against President Obama’s claims that his decision to delay taking executive action on granting legal status to people in the country illegally wasn’t motivated by the upcoming midterms elections. “It looks like politics, it looks like election-year politics,” Todd interjected at one point.
One of the reasons the president claims he delayed action was to make sure all the “t’s are crossed and the i’s are dotted,” but also pointed to the recent surge of unaccompanied children on the border complicated the matter. “A lot of Americans started thinking, ‘We’ve got this immigration crisis on our hands,’” Obama explained.
“But if the public’s not behind you, you’re not taking it?” Todd asked. “That sounds a little bit — that the public wouldn’t support what you did?”
“What I’m saying is I’m going to act because it’s the right thing for the country, but it’s going to be more sustainable, more effective if the public understands what the facts are on immigration, what we’ve done on unaccompanied children, and why it’s necessary,” the president said.
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