After Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) admitted that Republicans killed the bipartisan, conservative border bill, White House spokesperson Andrew Bates blasted Republicans for killing the border deal.
“This week Senator McConnell explicitly said why the toughest, fairest bipartisan border legislation in modern American history is stalled: ‘our nominee for president did not seem to want us to do anything at all.’
After President Biden worked with Republicans and Democrats in the Senate to assemble a landmark deal that secured the border and cracked down on fentanyl, congressional Republicans have been direct about why many of them sided with drug cartels and human smugglers over the Border Patrol Union and the Chamber of Commerce – because Donald Trump told them to.
This comes after President Biden turned around the soaring violent crime rate he inherited from his predecessor, leaving in its place the largest drop in violent crime in half a century.
It also comes as 80% of House Republicans propose defunding the police by cutting the COPS program, in contrast to his plan to hire over 100,000 more officers.
President Biden will not allow extreme Republican officials to endanger American communities. He will keep fighting for the toughest, fairest border security deal in decades,” Bates finished, in a statement sent to PoliticusUSA by the White House.
Hours before the national security supplemental was finally passed after months of dithering and demands that when met were then changed, McConnell was asked why it took so long. The Republican Minority Leader said in remarks to reporters of the border not being included, “First there was an effort to make law, which requires you to deal with Democrats, and then a number of our members thought it wasn’t good enough. And then our nominee for president didn’t seem to want us to do anything at all.”
The border bill that Republicans wrangled out of Democrats by tying it to aid for Ukraine was so conservative that Senator James Lankford (R-Okla) called it “by far the most conservative border security bill in four decades.”
Lankford was said he was threatened by a popular commentator — before this person knew any of the contents of the bill. “They told me flat out before they knew any of the contents of the bill, any of the content nothing was out at that point that told me flat out. If you try to move a bill that solves the border during this presidential year, I will do whatever I can to destroy you. Because I do not want you to solve this during the presidential election.”
Conservatives know that they need a chaotic border in order for Trump to have an issue he can run on that will scare people enough they might forget about his criminal indictments, overturning of Roe v Wade, being found liable for rape and fraud, and his promise to be a dictator “for a day.”
The Biden White House knows they’re being pummeled by Trump and Republicans over the border, so they’ve seized on McConnell’s admission to make the point that Republicans walked away from the border deal for political reasons. And those reasons are exactly why the Biden administration is being attacked over the border. Republicans are actively seeking to make things worse at the border, not better.
It’s not that President Biden doesn’t WANT to address the border; it’s that he’s been asking for additional money to do so as the number of people crossing has increased due to global political turmoil, but Republicans have refused the funding requests.
Republicans object to this administration’s approach to the border, which is fundamentally different from deliberately separating families at the border. Upholding the U.S.’s humanitarian principles costs money. It requires having trained people to assess asylum requests, safe housing, return trips, and more.
For context about the conservative approach to migration, the Texas Tribune reported, “Asked how far Texas could legally go to secure the border, Gov. Greg Abbott said the state isn’t shooting people who illegally cross the border because the Biden administration would charge officials with murder.”
Shooting people is cheaper and might stop people from crossing the border, but it is not something a nation founded on freedom does. Shooting people is a crime. It is not okay to suggest committing crimes to stop illegal crossings and it is even worse to do so when their party had in their hands a largely conservative bill full of conservative agendas and yet they walked away.
It shouldn’t be forgotten that the country elected President Joe Biden to get his policies. They did not elect Donald Trump. In fact, they rejected Donald Trump in 2020. Nevertheless, Democrats were willing to give Republicans what they wanted, which would have disturbed Democrats’ base, in order to get the national security supplemental. But Donald Trump said no, and so the Republicans walked away.
The White House’s comments on Thursday are hoping to draw attention to the cynical stance of a party screaming about the border every day while refusing to pass legislation that gives them 80% of what they wanted because it would help solve the issue they claim to care about.
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Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.
Sarah is two-time Telly award winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.
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