Fix the U.S.-Mexico border and secure America against foreign threats — or reinstall Donald Trump as President by giving the Republican frontrunner an issue on which to run against incumbent Joe Biden? That’s the binary facing House Republicans, Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) acknowledges, in considering the Senate’s bipartisan border fix proposal, which Lankford says, “is definitely not going to let a lot of people in [at the border]. It’s focused on turning people around.”
Whether it’s true or not, Fox News star Shannon Bream’s question for the Senator below presumes that Republicans objecting to the Senate proposal are colluding for political reasons, as she frankly asks Lankford: “Why give [Biden] — in an election year — the cover of this deal?”
This backfired spectacularly.
— Angry Staffer 🌻 (@Angry_Staffer) January 28, 2024
FOX: Why give Biden this (win) in an election year?
Lankford then breaks down how the bill *would* solve a lot of the issues, and reminds the host that they all took an oath to the constitution, even in election years.
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Lankford replies essentially that his priority isn’t political gamesmanship, but effective governance, saying that Republicans “four months ago” held back resources for Ukraine and Israel while “demanding changes in policy” at the border. Now with a border solution near at hand, those same Republicans, according to Lankford, are now saying “just kidding, I actually don’t want to change the law because it’s a presidential election year.”
Lankford characterizes that stance, explicitly stated in Bream’s question, as unethical and a dereliction of duty, saying: “We all have an oath to the Constitution and we have a commitment to say we’re going to do whatever we can to be able to secure the border.”
Enumerating ways in which a porous border endangers America, and citing the number terror watch list stops and migrants considered national security risks released, Lankford reiterates that “it is out Constitutional obligation to be able to secure our country as fast as we can secure it. This [proposal] puts in mandatory pieces that haven’t been there in the past that make this administration actually enforce the law.”
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