Verdict with Ted Cruz - February 07, 2024


The INSIDE STORY of How We Defeated the Failed Open Borders Bill


Episode Stats


Length

40 minutes

Words per minute

179.33167

Word count

7,175

Sentence count

571

Harmful content

Misogyny

4

sentences flagged

Toxicity

12

sentences flagged

Hate speech

4

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Ted Cruz reacts to the failure of a border bill that would have codified open borders and provided billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine, but only $20 billion to secure the southern border. Ted Cruz explains why the bill failed and why we should be mad at Joe Biden for it.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.
00:00:02.580 Guaranteed human.
00:00:05.800 Welcome. It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.
00:00:09.860 And the big news is the Senate bill, this border disaster bill, has failed.
00:00:16.140 Senator, I want to get your reaction to this.
00:00:18.160 You fought incredibly hard to stop this bill,
00:00:21.700 which had a lot of things in it that people I don't even think realized going down to the wire.
00:00:26.920 It would basically codify, it would have codified open borders,
00:00:29.680 it would have sent another $60 billion to Ukraine, but only $20 billion to secure the southern border.
00:00:35.140 It would have given taxpayer-funded lawyers to illegals, 0.98
00:00:38.480 and it would have cost the American taxpayers $1.4 billion to resettle illegals in the U.S.,
00:00:45.700 including travel and accommodations.
00:00:48.880 Look, the bill was a terrible bill.
00:00:50.920 Now, the good news is the bill is dead.
00:00:53.680 It is dead as a doorknob.
00:00:55.920 It is going to fail.
00:00:56.800 You and I are recording this.
00:00:58.240 It's 11 o'clock at night, Tuesday night.
00:01:00.500 Tomorrow, Wednesday, the Senate will vote on what's called cloture on the motion to proceed.
00:01:07.140 That's the initial vote to take up this bill.
00:01:09.800 That's going to fail.
00:01:11.100 It needs 60 votes to proceed.
00:01:12.720 It's not going to get it.
00:01:14.240 You are going to see every Republican or almost every Republican vote now.
00:01:18.880 I don't know what the final vote will be.
00:01:20.440 There might be a couple of Republicans who vote yes,
00:01:22.580 but we're going to see the overwhelming majority of our conference vote now.
00:01:26.520 That's a very good thing.
00:01:29.320 That is the result of what has been an epic battle within the Republican conference in the Senate for months.
00:01:35.660 The reason the bill is going to fail tomorrow is because the bill is a bad bill.
00:01:43.740 It does not fix the problem of our open borders.
00:01:47.040 It does not fix the problem of the chaos of the southern border and the invasion that Joe Biden has caused.
00:01:53.880 And in significant ways, it makes it worse.
00:01:57.700 First, we should discuss as a policy matter why this bill was bad.
00:02:04.060 And then secondly, as a matter of politics, why the bill was even worse,
00:02:08.980 why the bill was a massive political blunder,
00:02:13.040 a total cluster by Senate Republican leadership that is going to do enormous damage.
00:02:19.560 Both are true, but we ought to start on the policy front.
00:02:22.420 Well, let's talk about the policy aspect of this,
00:02:25.500 because there is a lot of people that are very angry that this even got this close to being a possibility.
00:02:29.760 And it was only because of leaders like you that were willing to stand up and say absolutely not time and time again
00:02:37.620 while they were trying to cram this down our throats and also doing it with this.
00:02:42.300 Hey, we're going to tie Ukraine funding in here.
00:02:44.560 And if you don't give us that, as Joe Biden has said,
00:02:46.880 there's a good chance your boys are going to be fighting a war with Russia.
00:02:49.580 And oh, by the way, we're going to throw a little money in there for Israel at the same time,
00:02:53.340 which should have nothing to do with a border security bill.
00:02:57.500 Well, what what happened here now?
00:02:59.260 Now, the reason border security was tied to this is because Republicans quite rightly demanded it be tied on this.
00:03:05.440 And in particular, Joe Biden and the White House and Chuck Schumer,
00:03:08.940 they desperately want funding for Ukraine.
00:03:11.700 And so does Mitch McConnell.
00:03:14.000 So does Republican Senate leadership.
00:03:15.680 And what the Republican conference said, we united in the Senate and said, no, we're not going to fund Ukraine unless you secure the border.
00:03:25.360 We're not going to pay any more to secure the border in Ukraine until we secure our own border. 0.53
00:03:29.900 That was the right thing to say.
00:03:31.620 And I was vocal in leading the effort to say we're going to demand that we secure the border and do it now.
00:03:37.900 And we're going to use this leverage because the White House and the Democrats desperately want Ukraine funding.
00:03:43.860 And so we're perfectly fine to say, fine, we'll give you Ukraine funding if and this is a big if you actually secure the border.
00:03:52.560 This bill didn't do it.
00:03:53.980 What did this bill do?
00:03:55.340 Well, number one, it codified Joe Biden's open borders.
00:03:59.420 So the cause of the open borders, the biggest cause is catch and release.
00:04:04.000 The first week in office that Biden was president, he reinstated catch and release, a disastrous policy.
00:04:10.900 It is catch and release is contrary to law.
00:04:12.960 It's contrary to federal immigration law.
00:04:14.640 Joe Biden is defying law by doing it.
00:04:17.220 Well, this bill would put it into law, catch and release.
00:04:20.060 When you catch people, you let them go.
00:04:21.460 Not only that, this bill normalized 5,000 illegal aliens a day, 5,000 illegal aliens a day works out to 1.8 million a year.
00:04:33.180 And explain what you mean by normalized, because this is one of the things that happened the last really 24, 48 hours that went viral.
00:04:41.660 And I'm not sure people understand how you could claim you were going to have a secure border while also saying 5,000 can come in here and then another five and another five and another five.
00:04:52.540 Explain that.
00:04:53.300 Well, the way it was written is it said that that if if 5,000 illegal aliens a day are crossing the border, then as the proponents of the bill would say, the border is shut down and they could no longer accept asylum applications.
00:05:12.900 That was their pitch.
00:05:13.840 They pitch this as an emergency provision, as a practical matter, if this passed, we would see 5,000 a day for all time, for all perpetuity.
00:05:25.160 We'd see 5,000 a day.
00:05:26.920 5,000 a day, as I said, is 1.8 million a year.
00:05:29.880 1.8 million a year means over the three years of the Biden presidency so far, we'd have nearly 6 million illegal aliens.
00:05:36.840 We have, in fact, had 9.6 million illegal aliens.
00:05:40.540 So what Republicans were saying idiotically is we're for two-thirds of the Biden open borders, and it's not even 5,000 a day. 0.89
00:05:50.880 It's more than that. 0.97
00:05:52.160 So there were a bunch of exemptions.
00:05:54.020 So, for example, the 5,000 a day did not count unaccompanied kids, which means there's a huge incentive for a massive flow of unaccompanied children.
00:06:05.360 These are little boys and little girls that get brutalized by human traffickers coming in.
00:06:12.740 Also, the so-called shutdown authority, when you cross 5,000 a day, was for a limited duration.
00:06:18.860 In the first year, it could be a maximum of 270 days.
00:06:22.720 In the second year, it could be for a maximum of 225 days.
00:06:26.460 In the third year, it could be a maximum of 180 days.
00:06:30.040 So that means it's 5,000 a day for half the year, and then for the other half of the year, you can go back to 10,000 a day, which is what we had in December, and it didn't have anything to limit it.
00:06:41.140 And then, insanely enough, it gave the president discretion to reopen the border at any time, quote, if it is in the national interest to temporarily suspend the border emergency authority.
00:06:54.960 In other words, it said to Biden, we're being so tough, we're going to say once you get to 5,000 a day, you've got to shut it down.
00:07:01.520 Well, unless you think you don't, and then you don't have to.
00:07:04.500 That made no sense.
00:07:06.160 Not only that, what else did it do?
00:07:08.560 It gave immediate work permits to people coming here illegally.
00:07:12.600 That is insane.
00:07:14.700 It gave free—
00:07:15.640 And by the way, they've been pushing hard for that over the last several weeks.
00:07:18.560 And their talking points is—and we've seen this in places like Denver, Colorado.
00:07:23.540 We've seen this in New York City.
00:07:25.180 We've seen this in sanctuary cities time and time again now over the last several months.
00:07:29.200 They're like, well, look, we wouldn't have this crisis that we have right now if you guys would just let them hurry up and work already.
00:07:36.460 And that was part of this put-a-gun-to-the-head of this country saying, well, everybody that's here illegally, if you'll just let them work and just let them stay and just let them maybe vote by 2030, then we can finally secure the border. 0.92
00:07:51.100 But then when you read the bill, as you just described it, there was no securing the border here at all.
00:07:55.880 Yeah.
00:07:56.700 It did not secure the border.
00:07:58.300 Not only that, it gave billions.
00:08:02.740 It gave $2.3 billion that would go to sanctuary cities.
00:08:06.300 It gave $1.4 billion that would go to nonprofit organizations that are providing shelter to illegal aliens and that are helping funnel this invasion. 0.73
00:08:17.600 So it literally spends billions.
00:08:19.720 You know, you mentioned the $20 billion fund amount.
00:08:23.000 That $20 billion is not to secure the border.
00:08:25.060 That's not actually, that's not money for building a wall.
00:08:28.700 That's not money for border patrol agents.
00:08:30.660 That's money to pay off sanctuary cities and to pay off the nonprofits, the NGOs that are producing this invasion.
00:08:40.420 And so on the face of it, this bill made things worse because it didn't solve the problem.
00:08:50.820 And so as a policy matter, it was putting into federal law, federal statute, Biden's open borders.
00:08:58.180 That was a spectacularly bad idea.
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00:10:33.720 Senator, the part that after you just described the initial things that were so wrong in this bill that so many listening are going to want to ask you is,
00:10:43.280 then why did Republicans actually even work on this?
00:10:47.440 Why did they agree to some of this?
00:10:49.820 Why were they selling us out?
00:10:51.680 Because without the Republicans working on this, if they would have just walked away, we would have never gotten this close.
00:10:57.460 Yeah, because it was political malpractice.
00:11:00.280 And that's the second piece of it.
00:11:02.440 I mentioned the policy was terrible.
00:11:04.260 But the policy was terrible because the politics were terrible.
00:11:07.760 Now, why were the politics terrible?
00:11:09.400 You know, we had in our lunches.
00:11:11.240 And so understand what goes on behind the scenes at the Senate.
00:11:14.560 Every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, all the Senate Republicans, we have lunch together.
00:11:19.420 And that's where we have discussions.
00:11:21.180 And I'll tell you, for the last several months, we have had knockdown, drag-out battles in the Senate Republican lunches over this issue.
00:11:28.920 Can you set the stage?
00:11:30.380 Like, when you're eating lunch, is this like cafeteria food, box lunch?
00:11:34.360 Are you in coat and tie?
00:11:35.640 Is it more casual?
00:11:36.860 How's the room seated?
00:11:37.880 Do you have a seat that you're seated in every time?
00:11:41.540 And is anyone from outside of just being a senator in that room?
00:11:45.520 Are they coming and going?
00:11:46.700 How does it work?
00:11:48.080 Yeah, so the lunches are in the United States Capitol.
00:11:51.140 So in the Capitol building itself on the second floor, which is the same floor that the Senate floor is on.
00:11:56.540 So it's kind of the middle floor of the Capitol.
00:11:59.220 And on two days a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, we have lunch in a room that's called the LBJ room.
00:12:04.580 And it's called the LBJ room because there's a portrait of LBJ on the wall.
00:12:07.880 And look, this is the Capitol, so it is ornate.
00:12:10.440 It is gilded.
00:12:11.420 There's, you know, beautiful painting and, you know, gold leaf.
00:12:15.520 And I mean, it's gorgeous.
00:12:16.540 It's the United States Capitol, so it's an amazing building.
00:12:20.000 The LBJ room is relatively small, so there are a whole series of round tables in the LBJ room, and it's pretty packed.
00:12:28.060 And all 49 Republicans are typically there having dinner.
00:12:32.320 And they're usually a half dozen staff members.
00:12:34.860 So it's basically senators and maybe a half dozen staff members for leadership that are in the room.
00:12:39.560 But it's almost exclusively senators in the room.
00:12:42.680 And the lunch is typically it's the food is prepared at the Capitol.
00:12:47.960 It's actually pretty good food.
00:12:49.140 It's surprising.
00:12:50.000 You know, it varied.
00:12:51.560 Like today, we had fried chicken and had some shrimp and a beef thing and some broccoli.
00:13:00.200 So it was, you know, it's kind of a it's nicer than a school cafeteria.
00:13:04.840 It's not gourmet food, but it was, you know, it's the food is surprisingly decent.
00:13:09.640 And we're sitting there.
00:13:12.740 And and then so two days a week, we're in the LBJ room.
00:13:15.480 And then on Wednesdays, we're in what's called the Mansfield room.
00:13:18.160 The Mansfield room is bigger.
00:13:19.880 And so the majority gets the Mansfield room on Tuesday and Thursdays because we're in the minority.
00:13:24.280 We're in the smaller room, the LBJ room on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
00:13:27.380 So the Democrats are meeting at the same time you guys are for lunch as well.
00:13:30.820 OK, yes.
00:13:31.360 And then do you have assigned seating?
00:13:32.980 Do you sit?
00:13:33.520 Is it by rank and file or do you just sit with your friends?
00:13:36.160 No.
00:13:36.640 So they're like they're, you know, I don't know, five or six round tables that are in
00:13:41.980 there and you go in and just sit wherever.
00:13:43.720 And so it varies.
00:13:44.580 I mean, people sometimes end up sitting next to some of the same people, but it varies
00:13:48.560 quite a bit.
00:13:49.080 You just kind of grab an open seat and you sit wherever.
00:13:51.060 So there's no assigned seats.
00:13:53.760 And then on Wednesdays, the Mansfield room is a bigger room and the table, instead of being
00:13:59.080 set up in a series of round tables, it's one big table that is a rectangle and we all
00:14:04.960 sit around it.
00:14:06.080 And that's called the steering lunch.
00:14:07.940 Steering is run by the steering committee.
00:14:10.480 Mike Lee is the chairman of the steering committee.
00:14:12.420 I'm on the executive committee of the steering committee.
00:14:15.240 The Wednesday lunches is actually driven by conservatives.
00:14:18.480 So the steering, the executive committee are the most conservative senators.
00:14:22.180 And the Wednesday lunch is designed to discuss policy.
00:14:26.020 And so the way it works, the Tuesday lunch is the leadership lunch.
00:14:29.520 And so Mitch McConnell and Republican leadership runs the Tuesday lunch.
00:14:33.040 The Wednesday lunch is the steering lunch.
00:14:35.900 And Mike Lee and the steering executive committee, of which I'm a member, runs that.
00:14:40.780 And that typically is very policy focused.
00:14:42.820 And then the Thursday lunch is hosted by a different senator every week.
00:14:47.460 And what you do when it's your turn to host the Thursday lunch is you fly in food from your
00:14:54.060 home state.
00:14:54.620 So I often bring in barbecue from Texas.
00:14:57.240 I'm going to be doing it soon.
00:14:58.340 And I'm going to fly in Tex-Mex instead, just because we've done barbecue the last several
00:15:01.820 times.
00:15:02.160 I figured Tex-Mex would be good.
00:15:04.640 And when a senator hosts it, that has less of a structure that the Thursday lunch, you
00:15:10.400 just kind of go around and recognize each person in the order they came in the room.
00:15:15.060 And they stand up and they can say whatever they want.
00:15:16.820 And it's usually a little more relaxed.
00:15:19.700 It's less substantive.
00:15:20.980 And people will tell a story.
00:15:23.460 They'll raise a policy point.
00:15:24.880 They'll kind of say whatever they want.
00:15:25.980 So that's that's how the three lunches are.
00:15:28.340 So you have these lunches and then go into what these lunches and how they change when
00:15:33.740 you were dealing with this immigration.
00:15:35.100 As you said, it was drag out.
00:15:36.820 Is this where it's a grand debate?
00:15:39.220 Is it you talk and someone else?
00:15:40.800 Can you interrupt?
00:15:41.600 Is there kind of a decorum of the room?
00:15:43.940 How does that work?
00:15:44.820 Yeah.
00:15:45.020 So there's a speaking order.
00:15:46.320 And so it just varies who wants to be recognized.
00:15:49.160 And so, you know, we had at lunch today.
00:15:53.400 Oh, I don't know.
00:15:53.900 We probably had 20, 25 senators speak. 0.91
00:15:57.860 And you get up and you talk and you say whatever you want.
00:16:00.340 And there's a difference of opinion.
00:16:01.440 But it was like today it became clear this bill is dead.
00:16:04.860 Like everyone was agreeing the votes aren't there.
00:16:06.760 We're not going to do it.
00:16:07.460 It doesn't make any sense.
00:16:08.840 But I'll tell you the case I made, I made and I've done this repeatedly for several months.
00:16:14.260 I made the case on the merits.
00:16:15.960 This bill was terrible and it was bad policy because it would not secure the border.
00:16:20.240 But I also made the case the politics was spectacularly bad.
00:16:24.260 And here's why the politics was spectacularly bad.
00:16:26.500 Number one, the chances of this becoming law were zero.
00:16:30.540 Why?
00:16:31.260 Because the House of Representatives made absolutely clear they wouldn't pass it.
00:16:36.320 The Speaker of the House said this bill is dead on arrival.
00:16:38.760 In fact, the top four in leadership in the House said there's no chance the House would pass this bill.
00:16:44.360 And so I spent the past couple of weeks standing up and looking at my colleagues who were pushing this bill and arguing for it.
00:16:50.660 And their argument was, well, look, this has some good changes to immigration law.
00:16:56.520 And I'll concede there were some good elements there.
00:16:58.960 They say, well, we toughened up asylum law.
00:17:01.040 I'm like, well, it doesn't matter if you codify catch and release and you put in place normalizing two million people a year coming illegally.
00:17:08.800 Like, OK, fine.
00:17:09.760 You get some minor tweaks in law, but who cares?
00:17:12.140 It doesn't solve the problem.
00:17:13.260 Sure.
00:17:14.400 But they would say, well, if we don't do it now, we can never make the law better.
00:17:19.100 And they were arguing before.
00:17:20.780 And these improvements in the law, when Trump is president, he can use it to secure the border.
00:17:26.360 And I said, look, that's wrong because, A, Trump doesn't need it to secure the border.
00:17:30.680 We had secured the border before without a law passing.
00:17:33.700 But, B, even if that were true, that won't happen unless this actually passes into law.
00:17:40.840 And given that the House of Representatives had told us it ain't going to happen, I repeatedly looked at the advocates for this bill.
00:17:46.640 I looked at Mitch McConnell.
00:17:47.580 I said, how do you pass the House of Representatives?
00:17:50.620 The Speaker of the House has said it's not going to.
00:17:52.660 And if it's dead on arrival, what the hell are we doing?
00:17:57.480 And if it's not going to pass, this is where the political piece kicks in.
00:18:02.080 I said, if it's not going to pass, what's the purpose?
00:18:05.660 And I'll tell you what the purpose is.
00:18:07.840 Chuck Schumer is thrilled today.
00:18:10.080 He is very, very happy because the political purpose of this was to give Democrats camouflage, to give them a defense.
00:18:19.320 To give them an out, right, where they're not taking heat.
00:18:22.080 So every single Democrat running for office in America, every Democrat Senate candidate, every Democrat House candidate, they're all already saying word for word the same thing, which is they're standing up and saying, number one, nothing happens on the border, which is what they want.
00:18:37.220 So the open borders continue.
00:18:39.040 That's the policy outcome they wanted.
00:18:40.840 But number two, every Democrat can now say, gosh, we wanted to secure the border.
00:18:46.720 We were ready to secure the border, but the mean old Republicans wouldn't let us.
00:18:52.720 And so it's their fault we have this border crisis.
00:18:55.400 And I get why Chuck Schumer wants that as a political talking point.
00:19:00.300 But why the hell would Republican leadership in the Senate?
00:19:03.720 And as I pointed out to them, I said today, I said, look, you guys have given the largest in-kind contribution to the Democrat Senate committee in the history of the country because you've given them an out and provided a defense.
00:19:17.280 And you've done nothing zero to fix the problem.
00:19:21.040 So explain to me what your strategy would have been differently, knowing now how this played out.
00:19:26.600 Very simple.
00:19:27.000 And who around you agreed with you, and why was it so hard to get other Republicans to come to your rationale before this disaster happened?
00:19:37.500 So our strategy was simple, and it started off as the right strategy.
00:19:40.620 We said we're not going to pass Ukraine funding unless you actually secure the border.
00:19:45.700 That was the right strategy.
00:19:47.420 What was critical is actually secure the border.
00:19:50.140 And the way to do that, the House actually passed a bill, and it's called H.R.2, and it is very tough border security legislation.
00:19:58.440 It is mandatory.
00:19:59.860 It stops catch and release.
00:20:01.160 It mandates detention.
00:20:02.280 It mandates deportation.
00:20:03.740 It mandates building the wall.
00:20:05.600 It ties the president's hands.
00:20:07.840 And it was designed to do everything possible legally to force Biden to stop these open borders.
00:20:15.780 The House passed H.R.2.
00:20:17.640 It was the right way to go.
00:20:18.600 Now, I've introduced H.R.2 in the Senate.
00:20:21.600 I am the lead Senate author for H.R.2.
00:20:24.500 My position was very simple.
00:20:26.060 You want to know how you get this done?
00:20:28.120 Attach H.R.2 to Ukraine funding.
00:20:30.420 By the way, I would vote for Ukraine funding in H.R.2.
00:20:33.700 Why?
00:20:34.360 Because securing the border is a massive national security priority for America, a massive public safety priority, a massive priority for saving our nation.
00:20:43.600 That would be a good deal.
00:20:45.560 You know what happened when the bill came over?
00:20:47.200 Chuck Schumer said at the outset, said H.R.2 is off the table.
00:20:51.260 We refuse to do it.
00:20:52.340 Absolutely not.
00:20:53.380 Why?
00:20:54.460 Because H.R.2 would actually secure the border.
00:20:57.620 And Chuck Schumer doesn't want to secure the border.
00:20:59.520 And so Schumer immediately rejected H.R.2 because it was effective, and he would only agree to something that was massively ineffective and that ensured this southern border invasion continues.
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00:21:43.660 So then how did leadership get this so wrong?
00:21:48.000 Because the American people in the polling specifically on the border crisis was overwhelmingly in the side of conservatives and what we've been calling for, what we've been advocating for, and for genuinely securing the border.
00:22:05.060 In fact, it played even more into the hands of the Republican Party after you had this fight between Texas and cutting the razor wire and Mayorkas and what's happening with the Biden administration.
00:22:18.920 And the polling shows that the American people are not with Joe Biden on this issue.
00:22:23.940 How could they not see that?
00:22:25.740 How could Mitch McConnell not see that?
00:22:28.580 Because Mitch McConnell, what he cares about is Ukraine funding.
00:22:32.140 He has said repeatedly it is the most important thing in the country to fund the war in Ukraine.
00:22:38.620 And so –
00:22:39.360 Does he believe that or is there something behind the scenes politically that I don't understand?
00:22:42.580 No, I think he believes it.
00:22:44.000 I have no reason to doubt his sincerity in saying that.
00:22:47.160 But he is passionate about it.
00:22:49.020 And when it comes to the border, look, would he like to secure the border?
00:22:52.860 Sure.
00:22:53.600 Would he vote for something to secure the border?
00:22:55.640 Sure.
00:22:56.280 But it's not a driving priority for him.
00:22:59.300 If it doesn't happen, well, okay, that's unfortunate.
00:23:01.660 But it's not – it wasn't his objective in this whole thing.
00:23:05.500 And so here's the fundamental challenge.
00:23:07.940 And listen, this bill was negotiated by James Lankford, Republican from Oklahoma, by Chris Murphy, an extremely liberal left-wing Democrat from Connecticut, and by Kyrsten Sinema, a liberal to somewhat moderate Democrat slash independent from Arizona.
00:23:26.040 And Lankford – Lankford's a really good guy, and Lankford has been just gone through a buzzsaw on this.
00:23:34.040 And basically what happened is leadership pushed him out on a limb and then sawed the limb off behind him.
00:23:41.100 And he's been getting pounded.
00:23:42.780 But here was the problem for Lankford, and Lankford was just – followed orders and did what leadership asked him to do.
00:23:49.560 And here was the problem.
00:23:50.380 There were two mandates that were non-negotiable.
00:23:54.280 Chuck Schumer's mandate effectively was we will not secure the border.
00:23:58.020 We won't agree to anything that is effective securing the border.
00:24:00.980 That was Chuck Schumer's non-negotiable.
00:24:03.540 Mitch McConnell's mandate, his non-negotiable, was we must, must, must get a deal because what he cares about is Ukraine funding.
00:24:11.080 So Lankford was essentially told, do whatever you can to get a deal from Schumer, but no is not an answer.
00:24:19.280 You must agree to what Schumer wants.
00:24:22.420 And so Lankford spent hundreds, thousands of hours negotiating with Chris Murphy, which I do not envy the guy.
00:24:28.700 That was not fun.
00:24:31.120 But he was operating from a position that McConnell wouldn't let him say no.
00:24:35.900 McConnell's instructions were get a deal.
00:24:38.360 So when you ask James, well, why are these terms so bad?
00:24:42.200 Why aren't they better?
00:24:43.000 He says, well, that's all the Democrats would agree to.
00:24:45.620 Yeah.
00:24:45.780 Like it's real simple.
00:24:47.300 If you want the Ukraine funding, pass HR2.
00:24:50.460 And you've got to be prepared to walk away.
00:24:52.720 Now, I don't know what they would have done if that happened, but we will never know because McConnell's immediate response when Schumer said, no, no, no, we won't do HR2, is, well, okay.
00:25:01.740 Well, then we'll do whatever you want.
00:25:03.260 And it's even worse than that.
00:25:06.880 This was an incredibly misguided strategy.
00:25:09.400 But I want you to listen to McConnell at a press conference today after our lunch.
00:25:14.860 Give a listen.
00:25:17.100 Senator Schumer says that he worked extensively with you on this package.
00:25:25.240 What do you say to your colleagues who said that you misread your conference in helping to craft this border?
00:25:31.200 I followed the instructions of my conference who were insisting that we tackle this in October.
00:25:37.600 I mean, it's actually our side that wanted to tackle the border issue.
00:25:43.480 We started it.
00:25:44.420 Obviously, with a Democratic president and a Democratic Senate, our negotiators had to deal with them.
00:25:54.420 And James Lankford, under those situations, did a remarkable job to pick off the Border Council, which supported President Trump.
00:26:03.720 Certainly underscores that it was a quality product that that particular union felt would make progress toward making things better.
00:26:12.660 But as I said earlier, things have changed over the last four months.
00:26:18.680 And it's been made perfectly clear by the speaker that he wouldn't take it up even if we sent it to him.
00:26:28.020 And so I think that's probably why most of our members think we ought to have opposition tomorrow.
00:26:34.840 We'll see.
00:26:36.000 And then move on with the rest of the supplement.
00:26:39.040 I mean, that's a great story, Senator, but it doesn't seem to necessarily add up with reality, does it?
00:26:44.120 Well, and I want to underscore, so you're seeing half of what was the biggest fight at lunch today.
00:26:51.040 And so I wanted you to listen to that, because that's what Mitch said at lunch.
00:26:54.520 And I have a policy at the lunches, which is I don't repeat what other senators say at the lunch.
00:26:58.820 I think they're owed some expectation of privacy that we can have candid and really frank discussions.
00:27:05.720 So I don't repeat what others say, but I repeat what I say, because if I said it, I have a right to repeat it and say it elsewhere.
00:27:10.820 Given that Mitch went out and just said it to the reporters, I can tell you that's what he said in the room as well.
00:27:16.260 And when he said it, I stood up and I said, by the way, and you listen to the words he just said that press conference.
00:27:23.020 He said, well, gosh, it was the Republican conference that wanted to tackle this issue.
00:27:27.720 Notice tackle this issue.
00:27:29.240 Yeah.
00:27:29.700 No, we didn't want to, quote, tackle this issue.
00:27:33.060 We wanted to solve this issue, fix the border.
00:27:37.080 Notice he said, well, gosh, it's Democrats, so obviously we weren't going to succeed in solving the border.
00:27:42.380 So we just had to tackle the issue and do what the Democrats want.
00:27:45.980 That's his view.
00:27:47.600 But when he made that argument, and you just listened to it, I stood up immediately after him.
00:27:53.040 And I said, I got to say, if Republican senators go out and repeat what Mitch just said, it would be spectacularly harmful and it would be a massive political favor to Chuck Schumer and every Democrat running.
00:28:10.000 And let me explain to you why.
00:28:11.200 Because what Mitch argued, notice he said there, hey, you know, James did a fantastic job and this bill was a great work product.
00:28:17.360 It was a terrific bill.
00:28:18.380 And Mitch was like saying, well, just say, well, the House wouldn't pass it.
00:28:22.720 And I said, let me be clear.
00:28:24.320 If a bunch of Republicans go out and say this is a terrific bill, but the House wouldn't pass it, every Democrat, John Tester this week has already said, look, I was ready to secure the border.
00:28:34.500 But these crazy right wingers wouldn't pass it. 0.72
00:28:36.940 And their story they want to tell is these knuckle dragging Trumpers don't actually want to secure the border because we had a great bill to secure the border. 0.98
00:28:47.280 And they're so crazy they want. 0.65
00:28:50.420 So their argument is that Republicans want the issue. 0.83
00:28:52.880 We want to campaign on the border rather than actually fix it.
00:28:55.640 And I'll tell you, I yelled at my colleagues last week when they were making this argument.
00:29:00.440 And I said, listen, for me, I've lived this border.
00:29:03.600 There is nobody in this body who wants to solve this more than I do because it is a travesty that is hammering and destroying Texas every day.
00:29:13.140 But I said, listen, if a bunch of Republicans go out and tell the story, this was a great bill that would secure the border. 0.85
00:29:20.100 But, you know, Trump is so crazy we couldn't do it. 0.98
00:29:23.540 But the Speaker of the House and the House Republicans, they're so crazy we couldn't do it. 0.99
00:29:27.140 And so it's their fault.
00:29:28.120 But we had a fabulous bill.
00:29:30.140 I said, listen, you are literally repeating Schumer's talking points for every Senate Democrat incumbent.
00:29:38.700 If you want John Tester to win, go say what you just said to the reporters.
00:29:42.560 If you want Sherrod Brown to win, if you want every Democrat running to win, go say that.
00:29:47.560 And I said, look, what you ought to say.
00:29:50.300 And I said, listen, you don't have to throw James Lankford under the bus.
00:29:52.760 He's a good man. 0.97
00:29:54.580 But the reason this bill sucks is because the Democrats are radical zealots who don't want to secure the border. 0.99
00:30:02.440 And so they wouldn't agree to a bill other than a bill that sucks. 0.99
00:30:06.460 And that's not a complicated message. 1.00
00:30:08.900 You don't have to say, you know, Lankford is a horrible human being.
00:30:13.060 You just have to say he was given an impossible task because it depended on the Democrats agreeing and the Democrats want open borders.
00:30:22.720 As long as they want open borders, they won't agree to legislation that stops open borders.
00:30:26.940 But the infuriating thing is Mitch walked right out and said it to the press.
00:30:31.540 So he's perfectly happy to say, hey, great bill, just crazy Republicans won't pass it.
00:30:36.480 And that's exactly what Schumer is saying as well.
00:30:39.420 The two of them, this wasn't a Lankford Murphy bill.
00:30:44.300 This was a Schumer McConnell bill.
00:30:46.800 This was the two of them.
00:30:48.000 And why was it?
00:30:48.940 Because both of them desperately want to fund the Ukraine war.
00:30:54.140 And on immigration, they just wanted to throw whatever fig leaf was necessary on the table to give to to give an excuse to try to get Ukraine funding passed.
00:31:04.020 There's a lot of people that are going to be listening.
00:31:05.540 They're going to say, all right, well, yes, this seems like this is a victory that we didn't have this bill become law.
00:31:11.260 But there also seems to be a lot of frustration of, OK, what's next?
00:31:16.960 I mean, Senator, we we can't secure the border.
00:31:20.520 That is their leverage on everything.
00:31:23.180 Biden's sitting there saying, OK, fine, we'll just keep having record number of illegal immigrants come across the southern border.
00:31:30.200 You look at the numbers there.
00:31:32.640 There were breaking record after record.
00:31:34.880 I go back to the basics.
00:31:36.240 It's the Biden said in his press conference, quote, the only reason the border is not secure is Donald Trump.
00:31:41.920 We know that's a lie.
00:31:43.640 Notice, notice, notice, by the way, that's Mitch McConnell's talking point to Joe Biden and Mitch McConnell are saying the same thing.
00:31:50.040 Why is the Republican Senate leader repeating Biden and Schumer's talking point?
00:31:54.920 That is a lie.
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00:33:28.340 Not only is it a lie, Donald Trump's not the president right now.
00:33:31.820 And you look at the numbers to also back up why it's a lie.
00:33:35.480 In 2020, illegal border encounters were 400,000.
00:33:39.500 2021, it jumped to 1,735,000.
00:33:43.260 Then in 2022, under Biden again, it jumped to 2,379,000.
00:33:48.260 2023, 2,476,000.
00:33:51.520 And yet he wants to say the only reason the border is not secure is because of Donald Trump.
00:33:55.880 It's a lie.
00:33:56.900 There are the facts to back that up.
00:33:58.200 But what's next now?
00:33:59.740 Well, and let me explain more why it's a lie.
00:34:02.160 Listen, what Biden is saying, what Schumer is saying, is that we had a fabulous bipartisan agreement that would have solved this problem.
00:34:09.240 But then crazy Donald Trump and they're telling decided he didn't want to solve this problem and he threw a fit and said, don't pass anything because I want to campaign on this.
00:34:19.640 And then their narrative continues to be, and all the Republicans are sheep and they just obeyed Donald Trump.
00:34:25.860 And the reason this failed is because Trump ordered Republicans to oppose this.
00:34:30.460 That is Joe Biden's story.
00:34:32.040 It is also Chuck Schumer's story.
00:34:33.780 It is also the story of every single Senate Democrat.
00:34:37.480 I'm reading the clips and it's word for word, every Senate Democrat.
00:34:41.460 And you know what?
00:34:42.000 It's also Mitch McConnell's story.
00:34:43.840 And it's the story of several other Republicans who are going out and they're saying, oh, you're just following Trump's orders.
00:34:49.060 Well, listen, I talk to Trump frequently, but I can tell you I haven't had a single conversation with Trump about this issue at all.
00:34:56.120 Well, I've been leading the fight against this issue from the beginning.
00:34:59.880 We haven't talked about this supplemental bill, but but it was obvious on the merits.
00:35:03.980 I looked to the merits and said, does this bill solve the problem?
00:35:06.660 And it doesn't.
00:35:08.160 But it is incredibly harmful when Republican senators, many of them just they don't like Trump and and and they're they're frustrated now.
00:35:19.600 And so they're lashing out, but they're lashing out in a way that helps Democrats.
00:35:23.440 So where where do we go from here?
00:35:25.500 I mean, there's also another defeat.
00:35:27.200 People are frustrated on the House side and impeaching Mayorkas that failed.
00:35:30.720 Granted, it could come up for another vote.
00:35:32.900 But as of now, that seems like that's a failure.
00:35:35.240 We have an open border.
00:35:36.380 That seems like another failure.
00:35:38.400 Is this now just going to be a wide open border till Election Day?
00:35:41.980 And that's what this this next election is going to be about.
00:35:44.840 Hey, you vote for Republicans and you'll get a secure border only if we have the House, Senate and the White House.
00:35:50.720 Look, in all likelihood, yes.
00:35:52.500 Joe Biden caused this open border.
00:35:56.680 Joe Biden could secure it tomorrow.
00:35:59.100 He did it unilaterally.
00:36:00.620 He didn't pass any new legislation.
00:36:02.200 He didn't change the law to cause this crisis.
00:36:04.140 He simply defied the law.
00:36:06.120 He made three decisions that caused this crisis.
00:36:08.240 He stopped building the border wall.
00:36:09.800 He reinstated the disastrous policy of catch and release.
00:36:13.600 And he ended the incredibly successful policy.
00:36:16.220 The agreement remain in Mexico.
00:36:18.160 That's what caused this crisis.
00:36:19.720 Biden could change that tomorrow.
00:36:21.840 He doesn't want to.
00:36:22.880 He's not going to.
00:36:24.320 Now, actually, to fix this, we don't necessarily need a Republican president, Republican House and Republican Senate.
00:36:30.940 We just need a Republican president. 0.98
00:36:32.080 If Trump were president again, we would secure the border again.
00:36:36.180 Why?
00:36:36.560 Because he would vigorously enforce the law.
00:36:38.700 Biden is defying the law.
00:36:40.320 Winning the White House is the key to securing the border.
00:36:42.840 Now, with a Republican Senate and House, we can do more.
00:36:46.300 We can be more effective.
00:36:47.620 But you ask, what's next?
00:36:50.460 Well, listen, what's next?
00:36:52.000 Tomorrow, we're going to vote on this supplemental with the bad border provisions.
00:36:58.280 That's going to fail.
00:36:59.560 What we're anticipating will happen next is Schumer is going to go back to the supplemental that has Ukraine and has Israel and has Taiwan and does nothing on the border.
00:37:09.560 That's what he tried initially that we blocked in the fall.
00:37:13.960 And I don't know what will happen.
00:37:16.680 I'm going to oppose it because what I said before, I still believe.
00:37:19.660 I'm not going to vote for this bill until we actually secure our border.
00:37:24.540 When I said it, unlike Republican leadership, I wasn't just reading talking points.
00:37:29.060 I actually believe that securing the border is the existential national security threat facing the United States right now.
00:37:35.920 And we should use the leverage that the Democrats desperately want on Ukraine to try to get it done.
00:37:42.120 So I think our view should be, if you want Ukraine funding, attach it to HR2 and you'll get your funding.
00:37:48.220 But Schumer's going to take up Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan.
00:37:53.260 He's probably going to begin tomorrow.
00:37:55.260 And I don't know what will happen, but I think there's a very real possibility that a significant number of Republicans vote for that, that they care so much about the Ukraine funding.
00:38:05.040 They're going to say, we tried on the border.
00:38:06.900 We failed.
00:38:07.500 Now let's fund Ukraine.
00:38:08.540 If they get nine votes, which I think is probably pretty likely, they'll get 60, which is what it takes to pass the Senate.
00:38:17.460 And so I think there's a reasonable prospect that a supplemental bill that funds Ukraine and Israel and Taiwan will pass out of the Senate.
00:38:24.200 But then I think it's very likely to fail in the House.
00:38:27.640 I don't think the House will take it up.
00:38:29.440 And that means that McConnell and Schumer and Biden still have a problem.
00:38:34.020 If they want Ukraine funding, passing a clean funding bill out of the Senate is not going to get the job done.
00:38:40.800 And so what I would urge the House to do is take the Ukraine funding bill, attach H.R. 2 to it, and send it back to the Senate and keep fighting.
00:38:50.140 Use the leverage we have to say, hey, you can have this funding if you want.
00:38:55.540 Secure the border first, because that matters more.
00:38:58.680 And use that leverage.
00:39:00.140 Look, that will not come from McConnell and Senate Republican leadership.
00:39:04.260 But I'm hopeful the Speaker and House Republicans will hold the line.
00:39:08.200 And I hope that's what's next.
00:39:09.780 It's going to be very interesting to see where this all ends up, Senator.
00:39:13.120 I appreciate you kind of taking us behind closed doors and explaining how the sausage is made here.
00:39:18.920 Because even with this victory of it not going to become a bill, become law, there's still a lot of real, real, genuine frustration from conservatives.
00:39:29.600 And it may be that it is the election year issue.
00:39:33.060 Don't forget, we do this show Monday, Wednesday and Fridays.
00:39:36.440 Make sure you hit that subscribe, auto download button.
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00:39:53.320 And the Senate and I will see you back here on Friday.
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