Republican Congressman Burgess Owens said President Joe Biden’s administration is a “dictatorship” that is making decisions with impunity during a Thursday morning appearance on Fox Business Channel.
“We don’t have anything close to a constitutional republic right now. We have a dictatorship,” Owens told host Maria Bartiromo. “We have bills coming through. We have no idea. The American people have no idea what is coming through. It is chaos right now.”
Biden began his presidency with a flurry of executive orders, 37 in all since taking office. Many of those have been to reverse executive orders enacted by his predecessor, former President Donald Trump.
Owens also dove headfirst into a recent skirmish in the culture war over a Washington Post article highlighting tools parents can use to teach their kids about social justice and groups like Black Lives Matter.
“That’s an ideology we need to be very careful about and the American people need to wake up,” he warned. “They’ve been undermining us for quite a while and now they’re going after kids, trying to indoctrinate us all to believe that we’re not a great country.”
Owens then turned his ire toward the Black Lives Matter movement.
“They hate God. They hate capitalism and they hate the family movement. That is not the American way. Americans need to wake up,” said Owens.
Earlier this week Owens accused Democrats and Biden of intentionally causing a crisis at the southern border from the rising number of immigrants attempting to enter the country. On Wednesday, Biden tapped Vice President Kamala Harris to be the point person on immigration and the border situation. She’s been tasked with slowing the number of “irregular migrants” heading to the country as well as strengthening relationships with Mexico and other Latin American countries.
Owens said much of what’s happening at the border is due to human trafficking. Fox News reports smugglers earned as much as $14 million per day in February. Owens said Harris and others from the Biden administration need to visit the border in person to see what is happening there.
“I call it slavery when you use people’s lives and bodies for profit. It’s time for us to bring an end to it. I think the president and Vice President Harris should get to the border to see it for themselves. We all know what is happening right now.”
Owens also slammed Harris for laughing at a reporter’s question about whether she would visit the border, which has sparked some outrage among Republicans. But, that talking point is disingenuous at best. In the video, a reporter asks Harris if she has any plans to travel to the border. Harris laughs after saying “Not today,” but then adds she has visited the area in the past and is sure she will do so in the future.
There is no evidence that Owens has visited the border area since he won election to Congress in November. His office has not responded to repeated questions from The Tribune about whether the congressman plans to visit the border area. However, Utah Sen. Mike Lee tweeted he is visiting the border area on Thursday along with 13 of his Republican colleagues in the Senate.
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