Takeaways from Biden and Trump’s dueling visits to the border

Washington CNN —

President Joe Biden and his political opponent Donald Trump both agree: The situation along the US-Mexico border needs to change. But their extraordinary dual visits to Texas showed that the likely 2024 general election rivals could not be further apart on how to obtain that goal.

In a rare overture for what otherwise promises to be a highly toxic and politically charged campaign, Biden extended an olive branch to Trump during his remarks in Brownsville, entreating the former president to join his efforts to get Congress to reconsider a bipartisan border agreement – one that Trump effectively scuttled by signaling to congressional Republicans that he was opposed to it.

“Join me – or I’ll join you – in telling Congress to pass this bipartisan border security bill,” Biden said, addressing Trump directly. “We can do this together.”

A truce seems unlikely. Just moments before, speaking in Eagle Pass, Trump blamed Biden directly for recent crimes that migrants were accused of committing across the country, using visceral language to describe the recent killing of a Georgia nursing student allegedly at the hands of an undocumented Venezuelan migrant.

“The United States is being overrun by the Biden migrant crime,” Trump said in Eagle Pass, adding that Biden has “the blood of countless innocent victims” on his hands.

It was an example of Trump’s crystal-clear – if bellicose and fear-mongering – messaging on the issue that has been a hallmark of his political career. Biden, meanwhile, simultaneously blamed Trump for the failure to get a bill done while also trying to convince the former president to work with him, highlighting the difficulty for Biden in talking about an issue that he only recently