President Joe Biden sits in the Oval Office as he signs a series of orders at the White House in Washington, DC, after being sworn in at the US Capitol on January 20, 2021. (Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)
(CNSNews.com) – President Joe Biden’s executive orders are “dictatorial” and something that Biden himself criticized when he was running for president, Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) said Thursday.
Even The New York Times criticized the president for signing executive orders on everything ranging from climate change, immigration, racial equity, to health care, saying in an editorial, “Ease up on the executive actions. These directives are a flawed substitute for regulation … they are not meant to serve as an end run around the will of Congress.”
In an interview with Fox News’s “America Reports with John Roberts and Sandra Smith,” Donalds said he was “shocked” that the NYT called Biden out, “because they are right.”
“What he is doing is a complete affront to the democratic process. It is an affront to Congress. These executive orders are just — frankly, this is dictatorial. Don’t believe me? Joe Biden said that himself when he was running for president. He said that if you can’t get the votes you just can’t go around doing executive orders unless you are a dictator,” Donalds said.
“And now Joe Biden’s not even listening to his own words, so this has to stop. The president needs to bring these measures to Congress and allow Congress to deliberate them one at a time so we can actually do the will of the people for all Americans,” he said.
Biden signed an executive order on Thursday rescinding the Mexico City policy, which blocks federal funding of abortion overseas.
Donalds said that by doing so, Biden is not even following his own words “from a week ago when he was sworn in.”
“He called for unity. This does not breed unity. Listen, abortion is highly controversial in our politics. We all know this, but if you’re going to allow for taxpayer-funded abortion in other countries, mainly in Mexico City, that is a slap in the face of Americans who believe in life, who want to protect life, and that you are using our tax dollars to promote it in other parts of the world. It’s outrageous,” he said.
“Again, the president needs to bring that to Congress, but the reason he won’t bring it to Congress is because it won’t pass. That’s the bottom line,” the congressman said.
Biden also signed executive orders on DACA, the Muslim travel ban, and the deportation moratorium.
“Again, we need to do this as a Congress. The president can’t just do this stuff on his own. First of all, DACA, when it was originally put in by President Obama, was unconstitutional because he created at that time period a new immigration procedure that was not under the laws passed by Congress, and so President Trump was right in making changes and rescinding DACA,” Donalds said.
“President Biden is wrong for trying to sign it back in with another executive order. Congress needs to be doing this work, amongst all the other work we need to do with respect to immigration, to make sure we continue to promote lawful immigration while holding people coming into our country illegally accountable for doing so. This is only going to weaken our borders. It’s only going to weaken our country. The president needs to stop,” the congressman said.
