Donald Trump sabotaged and killed a strong bipartisan border bill for his personal, political benefit
Trump wanted to prevent Biden from having a win, which would have made it much harder for Trump to win in 2024
There are so many examples of Trump acting corruptly for his personal or electoral benefit and screwing over his voters and Americans at large. However, the bipartisan border bill that he deliberately killed - so that he could gratuitously lie and grandstand about the border during Election 2024 and prevent Biden/Harris from having a major border policy achievement - is a particularly egregious example.
In this post, I’m sharing examples of Republicans who pointed out that Trump and his allies in the GOP were responsible for blocking and killing a strong and bipartisan border bill advanced by the Biden/Harris administration. It is a bill that Republican Senator James Lankford, a co-author, pointed out would have “completely shut down the border in many ways”.
[CNN’s Manu Raju]: The Speaker says that if one migrant comes across the border that it is one migrant too many [and that] your bill doesn’t enough to completely shut down the border.
[Lankford]: Actually, it does completely shut down the border in many ways.
Here are some examples of Republicans pointing out how Trump and his GOP allies in Congress sabotaged this bill.
Lindsey Graham: Everybody who says we should do something about border legislation, you're absolutely right but unfortunately, we didn't get there because Trump opposed the bipartisan border [Senate] deal. I hate that…
[Romney]: …the fact that [Trump] would communicate to Republican Senators and Congresspeople that he doesn’t want us to solve the border problem because he wants to blame Biden for it is really appalling…
[Crenshaw]: I’m extremely disappointed by the very strange maneuvering by many on the Right to torpedo a potential border reform fill. We have a bill that, on net, significantly decreases illegal immigration and we sabotaged that. That is inconsistent with what we told our voters that we would do….[an] unacceptable dereliction of our duty.
[Lankford]: I had a popular [Republican] commentator … that told me flat out, before they knew any of the contents of the Bill, nothing was out at that point, they told me flat out, if you try to move a bill that solves the border crisis 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. By the way, they have been faithful to their promise and have done everything they can to destroy me.
[McConnell]: …but our nominee for President [Trump] didn't seem to want us to do anything at all.
Fox host, Neil Cavuto and Sen. James Lankford
[Cavuto]: I know you’re trying not to zing your colleagues, but it was your colleagues, sir, who torpedoed this, who didn’t get the facts right on what you just outlined…they killed it, ironically not Democrats.
[Lankford]: Right. It was. And it was painful to be able to watch […] several of my colleagues started looking for ways after President Trump said ‘don’t fix anything' during the Presidential election, [it’s] the single biggest issue during the election, don’t resolve this. We’ll resolve it next year. Quite a few of my colleagues backed up, looked for a reason to shoot against it and then walked away. […]
[Cavuto]: That’s on Donald Trump, Senator.
In the meantime, because Trump and his foot soldiers in Congress sabotaged the border bill, President Biden issued an executive order in June 2024, which was described as follows:
President Biden on Tuesday unveiled new executive action authorizing U.S. immigration officials to deport large numbers of migrants without processing their asylum claims, announcing what is arguably the most restrictive border policy by a Democratic president in recent history.
The result? Crossings are below where they were during the latter part of the Trump administration.
Unlawful border crossings drop for 5th straight month, reaching lowest level since September 2020
[…]
While crossings have been declining for months, U.S. officials have attributed the steep decrease in illegal border crossings in recent weeks to a proclamation issued by President Biden in early June that has dramatically curtailed access to the overwhelmed U.S. asylum system.
[…]
Migration to the U.S. border has dropped so markedly that the weekly daily average of daily illegal border crossings is inching close to the 1,500 threshold the Biden administration set to deactivate its asylum crackdown.
[…]
Other factors have also played a role in the dramatic decrease in border crossings. At the request of the U.S., Mexican officials have overseen a large-scale crackdown on migrants over the past months, stopping many from setting foot on U.S. soil in the first place.
Let’s absorb that, along with the fact that VP Kamala Harris’ actions as part of her diplomatic efforts with Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, amid other factors, resulted in a huge drop in migrants from those countries (see my 3-part series here). It’s no wonder then, that last week, VP Harris was “endorsed by border mayors in swing-state Arizona”.
[Image via WikiImages]
Oh…. Unless exposed this will continue … wondering how democrats plan to do this?