NewsNation Chief Washington Anchor and On Balance host Leland Vittert was a foreign correspondent for four years in Jerusalem. He gives you an early look at tonight’s 7 p.m. ET show. 

The border situation isn’t a failure of policy – it is the policy. 

• Republicans love to call Biden’s border policy a “failure.” Perhaps that is the point.
• MSNBC today featured a reporter live in Eagle Pass, Texas, reporting on the “humanitarian crisis” of 12,000 illegal immigrants detained on the border Monday.
• The pictures they show from Eagle Pass are identical  to those from NewsNation’s own Jorge Ventura – it is literally the “huddled masses.”
• See this one from Ventura:

MSNBC’s framing speaks volumes.

• Their banner this morning read “humanitarian crisis” as if Customs and Border Patrol is creating a humanitarian crisis by detaining people who chose to come here illegally, but that’s besides the point.  
• As long as people coming across call back to their friends and report that they safely made it to the American city of their choice, more will come from the same village, city or country. The reverse is also true: Sending people back en masse to their home countries will quickly stop the flow of additional people, but Vice President Kamala Harris says calls for border security are dangerous.
  • Watch Harris say calls for border security “will have real consequence.”
• MSNBC’s framing of the situation previews what is to come from the Biden administration. Humanitarian crises require drastic action.

The border situation is worse right now than it has ever been, but that was true a few months ago…it keeps getting worse, by choice, and lately every month is a record month. There are three million pending immigration cases. Last year at this time there were nearly two million. 

• If every person with a pending immigration case were gathered together, the crowd would be larger than the population of Chicago, which is the third largest city in the United States. 
• What is there to do with that many people? Drastic action is required.
  • You can’t gather the population of Chicago together. That’s 30 of Michigan’s big house football stadiums. Talk about a humanitarian disaster, and a political one for whoever tries. 
  • Even if the political will to deport them existed, it’s a logistical impossibility. 
  • So what is the drastic action? 

Andrew Arthur writes in the New York Post Biden is breaking the border on purpose because he wants mass amnesty. Arthur notes, “One of Biden’s first acts as president was to send Congress an amnesty bill covering nearly every illegal immigrant here and opening the door for aliens deported under Trump to return. The White House blames the border crisis on Republicans for blocking it, but even Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) wouldn’t touch it.”

• Of course, that blanket amnesty wouldn’t fly with a Republican-controlled Congress if Biden were to make a deal with them, but the sheer numbers of people coming across gives him more, not less, leverage. The bigger the problem, the biggest concessions he can extract from Republicans to “fix” it.  

Watch tonight: Former U.S. ambassador to Mexico Chris Landau on Mexico’s fight against the new Texas law to return illegal immigrants to Mexico. 

• Thought bubble: The Biden administration’s policy is a lot closer to Mexico’s than Texas’. 

DEI Darling 

Fresh allegations: Aaron Sibarium writes in the Washington Free Beacon, “Fresh Allegations of Plagiarism Unearthed in Official Academic Complaint Against Claudine Gay.” 

• Sibarium lays out in stunning detail the level of her alleged lack of integrity: The new allegations, which were submitted to Harvard’s research integrity officer, Stacey Springs, include the examples reported by the Washington Free Beacon and other outlets, as well as dozens of additional cases in which Gay quoted or paraphrased authors without proper attribution, according to a copy of the complaint reviewed by the Free Beacon. They range from missing quotation marks around a few phrases or sentences to entire paragraphs lifted verbatim.”
  • Remember Harvard’s board said in a statement of support a few weeks ago that an “independent review” cleared Gay of plagiarism. Did they review these allegations as well? Or did the review whitewash her behavior?   
  • Thought bubble 💭: Firing Gay threatens the entire DEI premise to which Harvard’s Board subscribes to. DEI sees everything based on past racial oppression (unless it is against Jews) and specifically excludes meritocracy and objective standards. Plagiarism is an objective standard that is supposed to be applied without regard to your standing in the diversity olympics. These two thoughts are at odds and Harvard’s board has made its choice. 

Show me the money: 

• At over $50 billion, Harvard’s endowment is larger than the GDP of most countries, including Jordan. And it grows both through investment and tax free gifts. Gay’s job is to keep money rolling in, but what happens when the money gets turned off? 

Watch tonight Shan Wu (@shanlonwu) joins us. He defends college students accused of wrongdoing and tonight he will discuss how Harvard would handle Gay’s case if she weren’t their DEI experiment.

Some reading for the road: Isabel Vincent of the New York Post highlights a rabbi criticizing Gay over antisemitism. 

Watch tonight: Francesca Block of The Free Press will join us with her reporting exposing how antisemitism is taught in American schools. 

Programming note for tomorrow: We are still waiting to see if Biden will hold the customary year end presidential newscast as it isn’t on the schedule. As we told you yesterday, the White House continues to worry about Biden’s public performances. Tomorrow, we will tell you why Biden might not need to hold a newscast and how 2024 could be his best year yet. 

• Secretary of State Antony Blinken did hold a year-ender. A clip from it will give you everything you need to silence pro-Hamas friends and family over Christmas. 

How to Prevent a War Over Christmas

Biden is so scared of starting a war, but he won’t prevent one. 

• Jennifer Jacobs, Courtney McBride and Kitty Donaldson at Bloomberg write, “U.S. Weighs Whether to Attack Houthi Rebels in Yemen.”
  • Whether to attack? The Houthis have attacked U.S. Navy ships countless times and have attempted to sink cargo ships in international waters. They have effectively shut down international shipping lanes and there is a question about whether to attack them? Biden’s policy towards Iran and its militias is clearly provocative, not because of its strength, but because it telegraphs weakness. 

Former Navy Captain Jerry Hendrix lays out the scary reality: America isn’t scary, or at least, as scary as it was before. 

• His Wall Street Journal op-ed is a devastating recitation of facts about the ability of the US Navy to project force. At least in the short term that ability still exists but right now is meaningless without a commander-in-chief willing to use it.  

Remember Biden’s sending of two carrier battle groups was supposed to keep Hezbhollah out of the war in Israel. A post on X from Israel’s former U.N. speechwriter Aviva Klompas suggests that isn’t working! 

But, wasn’t America’s support of Ukraine going to assert our position in the world and let dictators know “America is back”?

• Yes it was, but Francesca Ebel of the Washington Post says Putin is now winning and suggests 2024 might be his best year yet. 
• Thought bubble: Nobody talks about Ukraine anymore. Biden won’t spend political capital anymore? It was the moral fight of our time…and as we reported a few weeks ago and discussed with Niall Stanage (@NiallStanage), nobody cares. In fact it’s the third rail of American politics. 

Tune into “On Balance with Leland Vittert” weeknights at 7/6C on NewsNation. Find your channel here.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and not necessarily of NewsNation.