Tamara Keith and Amy Walter on a border deal and Nikki Haley’s presidential run

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• Geoff Bennett:

  The U.S. Senate is nearing a vote on a bipartisan immigration and border deal, but its prospects in the House remain uncertain. That's as Republican lawmakers move closer toward impeaching the homeland security secretary.

  With us on this Monday are Amy Walter of The Cook Political Report With Amy Walter and Tamara Keith of NPR.

  Happy Monday, as they say.

• Tamara Keith, National Public Radio:

  Yes.

• Geoff Bennett:

  So let's talk immigration, shall we?

  President Biden is embracing stricter border measures. He's speaking in support of this emerging border security and immigration deal on the Hill. He's supporting policies that are tougher than the ones he's advocated for in the past.

  Here's what he said to South Carolina voters over the weekend.

  Joe Biden , President of the United States: It'll also give me as president the emergency authority to shut down the border until it could get back under control. If that bill were the law today, I'd shut down the border right now and fix it quickly.

• Geoff Bennett:

  So he says he's willing to shut down the border. At the same time, Donald Trump is trying to tank this agreement, urging the House speaker, Mike Johnson, not to support it.

  Here's what Donald Trump says.

  Donald Trump , Former President of the United States (R) and Current U.S. Presidential Candidate: A lot of the senators are trying to say respectfully — they're blaming it on me. I said, that's OK. Please blame it on me, please, because they were getting ready to pass a very bad bill.

  And I will tell you what. A bad bill is — I'd rather have no bill than a bad bill.

• Geoff Bennett:

  So, Tam, the politics of this are so transparent. I mean, it appears that, for Donald Trump , the problem of immigration is more politically useful than an immigration solution.

• Tamara Keith:

  And he's been fairly transparent about saying that.

  The — having an issue that you can beat Joe Biden over the head with for the next 10 months, and an issue that independent voters, even many Democratic voters, say is a real concern and that Republican voters are off-the-charts worried about, that is absolutely something that former President Trump wants to be able to have as he campaigns against President Biden.

  And if, somehow, through magic that may not exist, a bipartisan deal were reached on immigration and border security that allowed President Biden to take actions and actually address this problem that everyone says is a crisis, that would be good for President Biden. That would inoculate him against the charges that he's soft on the border.

  And, certainly, that's why you're hearing President Biden using that language, saying, I would shut it down right now. He is daring Republicans to say, yes, we want the issue, we don't want this solution, because it's not perfect enough.

• Geoff Bennett:

  And, Amy, the former president trying to be magnanimous, saying, it's OK, blame me, as if he's not the main one driving the opposition, how do you see this?

• Amy Walter, The Cook Political Report:

  Yes, it seems to me, well, first of all, as Tam pointed out, it's not just that Trump wants to talk about this issue for the next few months just because.

  But if you look at the polling at — there was a Wall Street Journal poll out a couple months ago, he's got a 25-point lead over Biden on who do you trust on border security. So, again, if we're talking about blatantly political, there's your reason right there.

  I do think, though, there's a difference — and we will see if this is the case — once we get to November between border security and immigration. So the issue of border security, there's no doubt that this is a big challenge for the administration. This is definitely a weakness for this administration, for this president.

  But on immigration, you have Donald Trump and those around Donald Trump saying, look, our agenda on immigration is going to be mass deportations. It's going to be setting up detention centers. We're going to deputize people to be able to go into cities and deport citizens.

  We haven't really had that conversation yet. And that's what I'm curious to see as we move from now all through the summer and into the fall, where these two issues, how those two issues are playing off against each other.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Let's talk more about 2024, because Nikki Haley says she intends to stay in the race through Super Tuesday. She now says she doesn't necessarily have to win South Carolina, her home state. She only needs to do better than she did in New Hampshire and show that sort of trend line of improvement.

  Is she right about that?

• Tamara Keith:

  She is right that that is her message. Her message coming out of Iowa was that I need to do better in New Hampshire than I did in Iowa. Now she's headed to South Carolina. She's not talking about winning. She's talking about doing better.

  Math does not favor a path where you just do a little bit better along the way. And that is because, when you get to Super Tuesday, for instance, a state like California, they changed the rules. It used to be you could pick off congressional districts and win some delegates in each congressional. She could win the suburban congressional districts, for instance.

  Well, now if someone were to get more than 50 percent, then it becomes winner-take-all. And it's quite likely in a two-person race with Republicans voting that Donald Trump , based on what we have seen in the past and what we have seen in entrance polling and exit polling, Donald Trump 's going to do better than 50 percent.

  And so now a state like California with a huge number of delegates on the line, she gets a goose egg. It's really hard to keep competing, trying to win this war of attrition to try to build up the delegates if you just don't win.

• Amy Walter:

  Yes,

  That's where the Republican and the Democratic rules are so different. On the Democratic side, as long as you hit a threshold, maybe over 25 percent, 30 percent, you got a certain number of delegates. It's not how it works on the Republican side. And this is especially true in a state like California, as Tam pointed out, where not only can — if someone gets 50 percent, they get basically all the delegates, but that registered independents do not get to vote in the Republican primary.

  That's a big state to lose voters who define themselves or are registered as independents, because we know that many of those voters would maybe be more open to Nikki Haley.

• Geoff Bennett:

  And as we talk about the obstacles that lay before Nikki Haley, she's also saying that the RNC, in her view, isn't an honest broker, that they're not playing fair.

  What does she — what can she point to back that up?

• Tamara Keith:

  Well, Ronna McDaniel on television said, well, basically, now we need to consolidate. I wish I had the exact quote, but she went on television and said, Nikki Haley doesn't have a path to the nomination.

  She's the head of the Republican Party. That makes Haley's case that the party isn't staying independent here, it makes the case for her. Now, Haley can stay in the race as long as she has money to stay in the race. And what she has said is that Donald Trump going out there and, as she described it, being unhinged on New Hampshire primary night and criticizing her dress and everything else, all of that has helped her raise small-dollar donations.

  And so she actually has the money to continue going, at least for a while.

• Amy Walter:

  And she's on a fund-raising tour. She's going all across the country this week raising funds.

  Now, it's not enough to really compete in these Super Tuesday states like California and Texas, which costs millions of millions of millions of dollars.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Yes.

• Amy Walter:

  But it keeps the campaign, at least the staff and the sort of operations going.

• Geoff Bennett:

  We have got about a minute left.

  There's another primary this Saturday. It's the Democrats in South Carolina.

• Amy Walter:

  That's right.

• Geoff Bennett:

  President Biden was there this past weekend. What are you watching for?

• Amy Walter:

  You know, we know that there are still two other Democrats on the ballot. We have got Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson.

  Now, Dean Phillips put a lot of effort into New Hampshire to only get somewhere around 20 percent of the vote. Hasn't put much effort into South Carolina, if any at all. Let's see what those numbers look like. If, indeed, as Phillips said, there is an enthusiasm problem, there's a base problem for the president, it would show up in that total.

• Tamara Keith:

  Yes, and obviously watching turnout as well as everything else.

• Amy Walter:

  Yes.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Tamara Keith and Amy Walter, thanks so much.

• Tamara Keith:

  You're welcome.