Ken Salazar, the former U.S. ambassador to Mexico under President Joe Biden and a longtime Democratic power broker, privately weighed mounting a presidential challenge against his own partys incumbent in 2024 before ultimately standing down.
According to Fox News, Salazar confided that the idea took shape after Bidens disastrous July 2024 debate performance, a moment that sent shockwaves through the Democratic establishment and confirmed what many voters had already suspected about the partys aging leadership. I should run for president, Salazar told himself, according to a book excerpt obtained by Politico, as he quietly assembled a team and drafted a platform while the White House and party elites scrambled to contain the fallout.
Salazars account underscores what conservatives had long warned: Democrats refused to confront the reality of the border catastrophe until it became a political emergency. He wrote that he had begged for a border czar and urged Biden early on to acknowledge the situation for what it was, insisting 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.
Behind closed doors, Salazar says, officials were far more candid than the public spin coming from the White House. He claimed that within the administration, staff used the word crisis routinely, even if at that time the White House refused to acknowledge it as such.
When Salazar pressed then-Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to be honest with the American people, he was met with political self-preservation. Mayorkas allegedly responded, Ken, I have a lot on my plate already. Im about to be impeached for all this border stuff. The Republicans have it out for me.
Despite his preparations, Salazar never declared a candidacy, watching instead as party insiders closed ranks. He had planned to step forward once Biden exited the race, but the Democratic National Committee bypassed open primaries and moved to coronate Vice President Kamala Harris, a move Salazar labeled a mistake, according to Politico.
Salazar reserved some of his sharpest criticism for Harris handling of the border portfolio she was handed early in the term. Harris was dubbed the border czar, a role Salazar had urged the Biden White House to create, yet he concluded, But sadly, her designation in this position was having no effect on migration flows.
He wrote that [Harris] had been placed in charge of getting at the root causes of migration, but many felt she had been ineffective. In his assessment, For whatever reason, she had been unable to help with the border and migration crisis, even though shed sat next door to the Oval Office for almost four years.
Salazar, a Colorado-born lawyer of Mexican descent and his states first Hispanic senator, did commend Bidens late-term move to effectively shut down the border in 2024, but he conceded the damage was already done. 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, he wrote, per Politico.
In his book, Borderlands: My Fight For An Inclusive America, Salazar reveals he is now pitching a borderlands platform to would-be Democratic contenders, an immigration framework that admits the system must be fixed, according to Politico. He has already met with Arizona Sens. Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego and plans to sit down with Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, even as Fox News Digital reports that Salazar, Pritzker, Gallego and Kelly did not respond to requests for comment, leaving voters to wonder whether Democrats are prepared to own the border crisis they helped create while President Trumps second administration moves aggressively to restore order.
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