President Biden’s call for Major League Baseball to yank its 2021 All-Star Game from Georgia over a new state voting law is designed to distract from the crisis at the US-Mexico border, Peach State Gov. Brian Kemp claimed Thursday.
Kemp spoke out one day after Biden told ESPN that he would “strongly support” MLB protesting by scrapping plans to hold the Midsummer Classic in Atlanta this July.
“He’s trying to distract from the border crisis that he has, where smugglers are dropping young children over 15-foot-high walls,” Kemp told Fox News, adding that Biden was also trying to divert attention from what Kemp called the “unconstitutional mandate” of H.R. 1, a Democrat-backed election reform package currently treading water in Congress.
“Joe Biden needs to focus on things he can control, like the southern border,” added Kemp. “That’s all this is. It’s a distraction. They’re using it to pass an unconstitutional mandate in H.R. 1. It’s all part of a political narrative that they’re pushing. And we’re going to continue to fight that.”
President Joe Biden delivers a speech on March 31, 2021 in Pittsburgh. APSince Biden took office and loosened immigration restrictions put in place by former President Donald Trump, tens of thousands of Central American migrants, including thousands of unaccompanied children, have created a logjam at the southern border.
The new Georgia law — which, among other things, requires photo ID for absentee voting and expands early voting — has been met with strong Democratic criticism, led by Biden, who has called it “Jim Crow on steroids.”
Georgia-based corporate entities, such as Delta Air Lines and Coca-Cola, have also issued statements against the law, facing threats of boycotts.
Fans arrive at Truist Park, home of the Atlanta Braves, to attend the memorial for Baseball Hall of Famer and Braves legend Hank Aaron on Jan. 26, 2021, in Atlanta. APBut for Biden’s criticism, Kemp argued that Georgia’s voting laws are more pro-democracy than those in the president’s adopted home state of Delaware.
“The state of Delaware has no in-person early voting. We have 17 days,” he told Fox. “In Georgia, you don’t have to have an excuse to get an absentee ballot by mail. In Delaware, you do.”
Biden’s nailbiter election win in Georgia in the 2020 presidential race — turning the state blue for the first time since 1992 — was crucial to his White House victory.
