Politics

Biden’s Mexico ambassador was so frustrated, he almost ran for president himself

Published

4 months ago

June 11, 2026

For nearly four years, Ken Salazar — the U.S. ambassador to Mexico under former President Joe Biden — grew increasingly frustrated with the White House’s border plan.

Salazar says he begged for a “border czar” to run point on interagency coordination; he never got one, and instead, the moniker was inaccurately and problematically affixed to then-Vice President Kamala Harris. He asked for the White House to openly call it a border “crisis”; the designation came too late.

Salazar became so distraught that by July 2024, three weeks after Biden’s disastrous presidential debate performance, he decided to take matters into his own hands: “I should run for president,” Salazar told himself, according to his forthcoming book, a copy of which Blue Light News obtained before its July 28 release date.

“There was political failure to understand the reality of the crisis at the border, and the political consequence it would have on Democrats in the 2024 election,” Salazar told Blue Light News.

Salazar doesn’t want his party to repeat the past. His book, Borderlands: My Fight for an Inclusive America, is part-memoir, part-manifesto. Salazar — the former Interior secretary, Democratic U.S. senator, and Colorado attorney general — makes a case for what he calls “a new North American alliance,” in which the U.S., Canada and Mexico integrate their supply chains, jointly patrol their shared borders and promote cultural and educational exchanges. He sees it as a revival of former President John F. Kennedy’s Alliance for Progress.

But the book is also a warning to future 2028 Democratic presidential candidates.

Salazar is positioning himself as his party’s immigration whisperer, meeting with presidential hopefuls and pitching them on his “borderlands platform,” which says the U.S.’ borders are “broken” and “must be fixed.” He said in an interview that he’s already met with Arizona Sens. Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego about his plan, and he has a meeting scheduled with Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker. (Spokespeople for Kelly, Gallego and Pritzker did not respond to requests for comment.)

Salazar never followed through with his plan of running for president in 2024. Although he dialed up advisers and operatives and drafted out a platform, the Democratic Party did not hold a mini-primary to choose its new nominee after Biden dropped out. Instead, Biden hand-picked his successor, Harris — a decision Salazar calls a “mistake.”

Salazar writes that he consistently petitioned the White House to create a “border czar” position, allowing someone in Washington to run point on the interagency response to the immigration crisis. Harris, as vice president, had been tasked with addressing “root causes” of migration, and she devoted her efforts to addressing corruption in Central America. Salazar saw that as insufficient: “But sadly, her designation in this position was having no effect on migration flows,” he writes. He pressed several White House officials, and even Biden himself, to create the position. The designation never came.

“[Harris] had been placed in charge of getting at the ‘root causes’ of migration, but many felt she had been ineffective,” Salazar writes, suggesting perhaps she hadn’t been given enough authority or felt that taking more responsibility on the issue would be “political suicide.” “For whatever reason, she had been unable to help with the border and migration crisis, even though she’d sat next door to the Oval Office for almost four years.”

A spokesperson for Biden declined to comment, and a spokesperson for Harris did not respond to a request for comment.

Salazar’s book arrives at a moment when Americans view President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement with widespread pessimism. A POLITICO Poll in April showed that half of Americans — including one quarter of his 2024 voters — said Trump’s mass deportations campaign is too aggressive. But his border policy is still viewed favorably, and Americans still broadly trust Republicans over Democrats on immigration — a fact some Democrats chalk up to a “Biden hangover.”

It’s likely to kickstart a fresh round of recriminations within the Democratic Party, on the heels of former first lady Jill Biden’s new memoir detailing her husband’s exit from the 2024 campaign. Joe Biden is also expected to release a new book soon, though a spokesperson clarified that “the release date has not been finalized.”

Salazar, in his book, is candid about the failures of the previous administration — and how those shortcomings provided a window for Trump to ride a wave of voter frustration with immigration enforcement back into office.

His administration colleagues disappointed him on other fronts. In October 2023, when Mayorkas visited Mexico, Salazar notes he pushed him for a consistent, White House-driven message on the border crisis. (“We used the word ‘crisis’ freely and often,” Salazar writes, “even if at that time the White House refused to acknowledge it as such.”) Salazar claims Mayorkas told him: “Ken, I have a lot on my plate already. I’m about to be impeached for all this border stuff. The Republicans have it out for me.”

Mayorkas declined to comment about Salazar’s characterization.

Salazar’s consistent efforts, and failures, to garner buy-in from the White House on addressing the border crisis led him to question how seriously his Democratic colleagues took the issue and how well they understood the U.S.’ relationship with Mexico. “I’m not sure this administration knows what they’re doing,” Salazar told his wife at the tail end of Biden’s visit to Mexico in 2023.

Finally, in June 2024, Biden issued an executive order that effectively closed the southern border, which Salazar cheered as a success. “This should have been a moment of vindication — after all, American voters were demanding action on the border — but it was too late, and images of an out-of-control border would dominate the closing months of the presidential election,” Salazar writes. (Last month, Mayorkas also implied the Biden administration should have taken that action sooner.)

The border was “antiquated, under-resourced, underdeveloped, insecure, and broken,” Salazar adds. “In this, Trump had been correct.”

It’s a warning sign to Salazar’s party both in this year’s midterm cycle and in 2028: Downplay voters’ concerns on immigration and the border at your own peril.

Salazar’s hope is that the Democratic Party’s next standard-bearer will take up his “borderlands” platform, which places the impetus for border enforcement upon all three North American countries. If no one does, though, he isn’t closing the door on a run himself.

Asked three times by Blue Light News if he’s considering a presidential bid in 2028, he demurred. “I can’t see the future beyond the reality that we have a November 2026 election, and a lot’s going to happen this year,” he said. “Looking ahead, I want this borderlands platform to be part of that agenda for the future.”

Eric Bazail-Eimil contributed.

Politics

Trump will hit several deep-red states in October campaign blitz

Published

7 hours ago

September 25, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump is hitting the campaign trail — and a series of his stops are in deep-red states he comfortably won in 2024.

Trump will campaign in Iowa, Florida, Texas and Alaska ahead of Election Day, according to two people with knowledge of the matter, who were granted anonymity to discuss not-yet-public plans. That’s on top of his scheduled stop in Oklahoma next week, as the RNC announced, and his visit to Alabama, which POLITICO first reported.

While the president has indicated a desire to stump for Ken Paxton in Texas and Dan Sullivan in Alaska, the addition of Iowa and Florida to his campaign schedule signals an expanded focus on red states as Republicans grow increasingly nervous heading into the final stretch of the midterms.

The president is also preparing to hold campaign rallies in more traditional battleground states starting Oct. 3, according to one of the people.

His travel schedule is a clear signal that the GOP is seeking to shore up their own territory — as rising voter anger over sky-high costs and mass deportations creates new openings for Democrats. The six confirmed states have highly watched Senate, House and gubernatorial contests this November, but they are also ones Trump won by double digits two years ago.

“While Democrats squabble over the last two cents their party has to spare, the president is barnstorming the country, energizing our base, and supercharging Republican candidates in key races and beyond,” said Natalie Baldassarre, an RNC spokesperson.

“We have the resources to spend, and Republicans are full steam ahead to protect and expand our majorities,” Baldassarre added.

The White House referred Blue Light News to the RNC.

Vice President JD Vance will also ramp up his campaign travel ahead of Election Day. He and Trump are expected to make stops in Ohio to boost GOP Sen. Jon Husted, as POLITICO has reported. Husted is trailing former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown in internal GOP polling by top Senate Republicans, according to two other people with direct knowledge of the matter, granted anonymity to share private details.

Trump’s latest midterms travel swing will first start with Oklahoma and Alabama — two deep-red states where Democrats haven’t made the same inroads in statewide elections as they have in other traditionally conservative states like Texas, Alaska and Kansas.

But his Alabama event could help drive turnout and shore up support for GOP state Rep. Rhett Marques, who is in a competitive race with Democratic Rep. Shomari Figures in the state’s 2nd District, despite Republicans’ effort to redraw the seat in their favor.

Republicans in Iowa, Texas and Alaska are growing increasingly alarmed about how close their Senate races are amid fallout from the Iran war and other policy moves by Trump. Florida Republicans have become uneasy about their own firewall, with some polling showing statewide races inside the margin of error.

Rep. Ashley Hinson, the GOP Senate nominee in Iowa, recently publicly broke with Trump over the Iran war, as did several other Iowa House Republicans.

“The bigger question on everything continues to be, whatever you do, will there be enough time. I just don’t know,” said one person close to the White House. “We’re teetering on the edge of it doesn’t matter anymore.”

Alec Hernández contributed to this report.

Politics

Poll: A crack is emerging in Trump’s coalition over deportations

Published

13 hours ago

September 25, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign is running into resistance within his own voter coalition, as more and more Republican candidates publicly break with him ahead of the November election.

New results from The POLITICO Poll help explain why: Non-MAGA Trump voters are more than twice as likely as self-identified MAGA Trump voters to say his mass deportation campaign is too aggressive, 31% to 14%. While roughly similar shares of both groups believe Trump’s campaign is about right, the MAGA base wants him to go even further: 36% of MAGA Trump voters say his campaign is not aggressive enough, compared with 23% of non-MAGA Trump voters.

Meanwhile, support across Trump’s entire voter coalition falls when it comes to deporting people beyond the most violent offenders, such as those with minor criminal offenses or who have been living in the U.S. for years without legal status.

The new survey, conducted by London-based Public First, reveals how Trump’s immigration agenda — which has long been one of his signature political issues and a reliable GOP rallying point — has divided the very coalition that helped power his two presidential wins. The president’s MAGA loyalists are still more inclined than other Trump voters to support a tougher immigration posture, but there are clear limits to how far voters want the administration to go.

Those intraparty tensions burst into public view this month, when Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.) released a campaign ad pushing back against Trump’s deportation agenda, saying some of his efforts “have gone too far” and that Hispanic voters who supported him in 2024 “feel betrayed.” It was a remarkable break from a sitting GOP lawmaker over one of the president’s defining policies, as Democrats have locked in on Florida’s 27th District as a prime target in their bid to flip the House.

Salazar’s public rift with Trump exemplifies the fears Republicans had been privately warning about for months: that the president’s immigration enforcement — marked last year by high-profile, flashy raids that rippled through communities — was alienating moderate Republicans, independents, young voters and Latinos who support border security and immigration enforcement in theory but dislike how it is being carried out.

And as the party stares down a difficult midterm landscape, including in districts and states Trump won in 2024, other GOP candidates followed Salazar’s lead, increasingly putting distance between themselves and the administration on key issues like immigration — despite having voted last year to approve billions of dollars for border security and immigration enforcement. On Wednesday, Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), whose race has tightened against Democrat Adam Hamilton, also softened his stance on Immigration and Customs Enforcement as raids in southwest Kansas prompt temporary business closures and schools.

“When ICE operates in Kansas, it needs to coordinate with our local law enforcement. Our sheriffs and police know these communities better than anyone, and working together keeps officers and residents safe,” he wrote on social media, adding that he’s been in direct contact with Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin.

The Blue Light News Poll finds most Americans — including majorities of both MAGA and non-MAGA Trump voters — believe people convicted of serious violent or sexual offenses should be prioritized for deportation, underscoring broad agreement on a more targeted approach to enforcement.

The survey also finds that few people — including among both MAGA and non-MAGA Trump voters — prioritized targeting other groups for deportations. Less than a quarter of each group say people convicted of minor criminal offenses should be prioritized. Support falls further when voters are asked about prioritizing people who have lived in the U.S. for several years without legal status or people with dependent children in the U.S.

“A lot of it has to do with how you talk about it. They don’t want amnesty for people who have broken the law. They want everybody to do it the right way,” said a person close to the White House granted anonymity to discuss how Republicans are viewing the issue. “They understand that some people might be law-abiding, hard working.”

White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said Blue Light News is “skewing data to paint a false narrative.”

“The American people sent President Trump back to the White House to stop the invasion of our country and deport the millions of illegal aliens Biden and Democrats allowed into the country. The president is delivering on his promises,” she said.

Days after releasing the ad, Salazar said she had a “fantastic conversation” with Trump and urged him to protect the political “fortune” he had brought to the Republican Party on immigration. She also told CBS last weekend that Trump and the average American understand “the between the narco and the nanny and the gangster and the gardener.”

She said the administration should distinguish between criminals and unauthorized immigrants working in crucial industries such as agriculture, construction, hospitality and health care.

That distinction is also reflected in The Blue Light News Poll. Both MAGA and non-MAGA Trump voters are open to maintaining or increasing the number of people coming into the U.S. to work in sectors facing labor shortages, such as health care or agriculture. Sixty-five percent of MAGA Trump voters and 69% non-MAGA Trump voters say they want to see about the same number — or more — people coming to the U.S. to work in those sectors facing labor shortages.

“Trump 2.0 that took over in January 2025 completely misread what voters were telling him and Joe Biden during 2024, which was that they wanted to see more order and security over the U.S.-Mexico border,” said Matt Barreto, who conducted polling for former Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2024 campaign. “Instead, what Trump told Americans was, ‘Now I’m going to go hunt down immigrants who are just working and contributing to America.’ And there was extremely limited support for that.”

Past POLITICO polling on immigration has shown that the Trump administration has been unable to reverse the damage with voters on the issue. Last fall, battleground Republicans were already expressing concern about the administration’s immigration tactics. Those concerns intensified in the months that followed, while negative voter sentiment hardened by April after federal agents killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis.

The Trump administration, in the wake of bipartisan outrage, softened its rhetoric and abandoned flashy raids that often devolved into clashes with protesters. The president also installed Mullin, who moved quickly to repair relationships on Capitol Hill and keep the Department of Homeland Security out of the headlines.

But Mullin is also facing pressure from MAGA critics and immigration hardliners who think he’s not committed to the president’s vow to deport millions of unauthorized immigrants. In an effort to shore up his support with that contingent, top administration accounts, including Mullin’s, have ramped up posts about ICE, arrests statistics and tough talk about the administration’s immigration enforcement agenda.