Lankford on Newsmax Calls Out Senate Dems for Using Border Bill as “Prop” in “Political Stunt”

View the interview here.

WASHINGTON, DC – Senator James Lankford (R-OK) joined Newsmax’s Wake Up America to call out Senate Democrats for using the border security package as a prop in a political stunt by bringing it for a vote that is expected to fail later today. Lankford serves as the lead Republican on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Government Operations and Border Management. He delivered a floor speech sounding the alarm on the growing national security crisis and urging his colleagues to prioritize securing the border instead of pushing political messaging.

Excerpts

Lankford on if Any Democrats Have Reached Out to Seriously Try to Fix Border Crisis … No. This bill today is a prop. It’s a pure messaging vote and a fundraising piece for Democrats to be able to run on and say, ‘see, we want to do border security and those…Republicans don’t want to be able to do it’—which is absolutely absurd. I mean, they feel like they’ve got some way to be able to get high ground in this point. We pushed HR 2, that is Republicans, through the House. That passed the House, came over the Senate. Democrats did not give a single vote to that bill. That was a very strong border security bill, didn’t give a single vote to that in the Senate. So we sat down and said, ‘What can we actually get done?’ Obviously, we thought we could get at least something done on our side on it, and we could not on it. So, the logical thing is to say, ‘What needs to be done?’ The border issue’s still wide open. There’s 5,200 people who illegally crossed yesterday. So this is still a massive problem. It’s a huge national security risk. The way to handle this is to be serious and to say, ‘Clearly we have differences of opinion, but the American people aren’t divided on this. They just want it to stop.’ So we need to get together, stop the politics and the messaging, and the Democrat fundraising emails that are going on in this, and let’s actually solve the problem.

Lankford on Why He Is Voting Against the Border Bill… Because they’re not trying to actually pass anything. This is a political stunt that they’re trying to do. And I’m making it very clear with my vote that this is a stunt—not an attempt to do anything. And I’m going to be interested in how many Democrats walk away from this.

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