John Thune Calls Out Dems Over 'Political Theater' By Bringing Back Bipartisan Border Bill

4 months ago

At a Senate Republican press briefing on Tuesday, Sen. John Thune (R-SD) spoke about border security legislation.

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Transcript

00:00The next to the economy, which the administration has completely mishandled, the next and most

00:11important issue in the minds of most people in this country is the border, as Senator

00:14McConnell pointed out. And in fact, you look at the polls, 80 percent of Americans believe

00:21the border is an issue. And more than 50 percent of Americans believe it is a major issue.

00:28Senate Republicans happen to agree on that, which is why we've been urging the Biden administration

00:34to take the actions that are necessary to get operational control of the border. And

00:38they can consistently fail in that regard.

00:41This is an example of just the gotaways. So you hear us talk about numbers like those

00:47apprehended. That number is seven and a half million or so. There have been, since President

00:53Biden took office, about 1.8 million gotaways. And this is just look at this. I mean, this

00:58is when he takes office. You get 2021, two, three. And, you know, we've got a long ways

01:02to go this year yet. But this is the way that the gotaways have increased. Now, these are

01:07known gotaways, meaning that they have they were observed. They couldn't catch them. They're

01:11also unknown gotaways. The number could be significantly higher. And what's really concerning

01:16about all this, of course, is that since President Biden's taken office, 362 people who have

01:21been apprehended, those who have been caught are on the terrorist watch list. That doesn't

01:26include the number on this list or the unknown gotaways.

01:30So Republicans have tried consistently, repeatedly, to get the Democrats to focus on it. We twice

01:36had votes on H.R. 2, which is a bill that passed the House of Representatives. The Democrats

01:41defeated it, voted against it. They have blocked legislation like Senator Blackburn's bill

01:46that basically would have said that law enforcement officials, state and local law enforcement

01:52officials can detain criminals, illegal criminals, until they can be deported. There was a bud

01:58bill that would have made attacking a law enforcement officer a deportable offense.

02:04The Democrats blocked that. They blocked a bill by Senator Haggard, if you can imagine

02:09this, that would make it a requirement that to be counted in the census, you actually

02:14have to be a citizen of the country. They blocked that legislation.

02:18So Republicans have tried repeatedly to get Democrats to focus on this on the floor, and

02:23they have not. So where we are right now, obviously, is this has become a political

02:28liability, a political vulnerability for the Democrats. I wish they were focused on this

02:33issue because they think it's a national security issue. The reason all of a sudden they're

02:37interested in doing something, or at least appearing to be doing something, is because

02:41they know they've got a big political vulnerability on this.

02:44This can be solved very simply. This president, President Biden, can reverse all the policies

02:49that he implemented the day he took office, which is what has led to this massive, massive

02:55problem at our southern border. And we still encourage him to do that. But all the charades

03:01and political theater the Democrats are trying to adopt on the Senate floor to protect incumbents,

03:07that they are worried, they know are on the wrong side of this issue, isn't going to change

03:12the way things are on the southern border.

John Thune Calls Out Dems Over 'Political Theater' By Bringing Back Bipartisan Border Bill

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