'One god-awful mess': Biden blames border crisis on Trump administration

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden blamed the Trump administration for ongoing problems at the U.S.-Mexico border, citing its failure to cooperate and share critical information during the presidential transition period.

In an exclusive interview that aired Friday with "TODAY" show co-anchor Craig Melvin, Biden said his administration inherited “one god-awful mess at the border” from former President Donald Trump. He said it’s the result of “the failure to have a real transition — cooperation from the last administration, like every other administration has done.”

After the November election, Biden said that he had dispatched his transition team to meet with the officials leading the major departments across the government.

“The two departments that didn’t give us access to virtually anything were the immigration and the Defense Department,” said Biden, who added that his team didn’t know until he was sworn into office that Trump had fired many people from those departments and they were “understaffed considerably.”

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