Mayor Leeser: “I Was NOT Pressured by White House”

Yesterday, Fox News reported that El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser had been “pressured” by the Biden White House NOT to declare a state of emergency in El Paso over thousands of asylum seekers crossing into the city.

The New York Post also ran the story which claimed as its source City Councilwoman Claudia Rodriguez.  “He told me the White House asked him not to”, is the quote attributed to Rodriguez.

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Rodriguez and two other councilmembers urge Leeser to declare a state of emergency in response to thousands of migrants who arrived in El Paso over the last several weeks.

Mayor Leeser appeared on our show this morning to DENY the claims. Fifteen minutes after speaking on our show, Leeser appeared on Fox where he, again, denied being pressured by the Biden administration.

But, as the report on KTSM says that Leeser DID say at a City Council meeting on September 27^th that “The White House has asked at this point for us not to do that”, referring to declaring an emergency.

When pressed on the matter, Leeser told KTSM, “They’ve asked me not to do it, yeah, because that’s what we agreed on doing, you know. “ Leeser added that anyone who knew him knows that “he can’t be pressured”.

On today’s Buzz Adams Morning Show Leeser told us his decision (not to declare an emergency) was his own decision because “it was the right thing to do”.

Leeser also told us that the situation has been dealt with humanely and that the pictures Fox was showing of large groups of migrants were from days or even weeks earlier. As soon as Leeser pointed this out, they changed the screen graphic to show that the images were from October 12^th, not today.

Here is the interview Oscar did with Fox’s Dana Perino today.