Newell: The southern border is like New Orleans after Katrina and all Biden is doing is managing the media about it
WWL's Newell Normand compared what's going on at the southern border of the United States to New Orleans after Katrina.
How's that exactly? It's about the way the government is trying to position the optics of the crisis, said Newell, who used to be the Jefferson Parish sheriff before joining WWL.
Newell told a moving story about his experience in Katrina and it went like this:
"There was a lot of pressure put on local officials in trying to move people from certain locations that the media had access to. And I vividly remember being in a very heated conversation with a number of federal officials about trying to move folks from the Uno Assembly Center, from the Louisiana Superdome and other areas to New Orleans International Airport. We were in charge of security at the airport. We were losing people. There were folks committing suicide. We had no, we didn't have, sufficient medical services. The bathrooms were not operational. We didn't have a feeding operation. And the list goes on and on and on. And a lot of local folks, myself included, recognize that if we lose the airport, it was going to be, a real problem -- symbolic of losing the entire city," Newell said.
"Now, why is this relevant to now? Well, that was the thing. I remember this vivid conversation where they were saying, we need to get all of these folks out of being out front of the media. We're getting our brains bashed in. And that's all it was about was controlling the media."
And what's the Biden administration trying to do right now? Newell thinks they're trying to control the optics for the media rather than fix the problem.
After Katrina "it was all about managing the media," Newell said and "Well, it's the same thing that's going on at the southern border right now. As I read more and more articles about what's going on it. You know, I go back to those days in the aftermath of Katrina where it was all about managing the messaging. Managing the dialog, managing the media. And everyone realizes that this is chaos. It is a crisis at the border."
