WASHINGTON–U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Chairman of the U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security and a member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on Tuesday spoke on the U.S. Senate floor on Republicans blocking the national security supplemental.
“We delivered a bipartisan bill to fix the border with the Republican senator appointed by the Republican caucus to cut the deal. And within 24 hours, before the ink was even dry, Republican senators decided they don't want a bipartisan bill to fix the border. They want to pretend they never asked for a bipartisan border bill. Because what they actually want is chaos. Because that's what Donald Trump says he wants,” Murphy said.
Murphy continued: “How did Senate Republicans tell us they wanted a bipartisan bill only to end up opposing the very bill that they asked for? Well, here's the simple truth, and there's no way around this. Republicans don't want to fix the border. They want the border to remain chaotic. They want the asylum system to remain broken. Because Republicans in this country don't view the border as a problem to fix anymore. They view it as a problem that needs to be exploited.”
On Republicans choosing to prioritize Donald Trump’s re-election over passing a bipartisan national security supplemental: “There's only one person that matters to Republicans, and his name is Donald Trump. Donald Trump made it clear last month. He told Republicans they should oppose any bipartisan bill to fix the border, and he meant it. To Trump it didn't matter at all, what the policy, what the substance was. His only advice was 'kill any bipartisan bill.' Why? Because President Trump wants to win an election. And if the border is fixed by a bipartisan bill, then that hurts his reelection chances. Trump wants chaos at the border because it helps him personally. He asked Republicans to back him, and nearly every single senator did exactly that, less than 48 hours after introduction of this bill. This country should be outraged. Regular people out there don't think this is a game. They don't think that the only thing that matters is Donald Trump's election odds.”
He concluded: “There used to be a difference between House Republicans and Senate Republicans. I used to explain this fact to my constituents all the time. I'd defend my Senate Republican colleagues; I'd explain how Trump doesn't control the Senate Republican Caucus like he controls the House. I don't think that's true any longer. I think this conference is just as big a mess as the conference in the House. And that's terrible for the border, which will remain a wreck because Republicans have just chosen to keep it that way. That's terrible for Ukraine, which will soon be overrun by Russia because Republicans have chosen to leave it undefended. And that's terrible for America because the one group of Republicans that used to be able to exercise original thought and independent judgment now just seems to be another subsidiary of the Trump campaign.”
A full transcript of his remarks can be found below:
“Mr. President, this is unbelievable. Like, I can't believe this is happening. We were all here. This wasn't a dream. This really happened. Republicans all stood up and said that they wanted a bipartisan bill to fix the border. The border is a priority. The border is a crisis.
“We delivered a bipartisan bill to fix the border with the Republican senator appointed by the Republican caucus to cut the deal. And within 24 hours, before the ink was even dry, Republican senators decided they don't want a bipartisan bill to fix the border. They want to pretend they never asked for a bipartisan border bill. Because what they actually want is chaos. Because that's what Donald Trump says he wants.
“What the hell just happened? Here's what happened. Because the facts are just the facts. In October, Republicans refused to support funding for Ukraine. They voted against stopping Putin from making Kyiv a Russian city, not because they opposed Ukrainian funding, they said. No, because they demanded that Ukraine funding be paired with bipartisan border reform. Democrats took them at their word. America took Republicans at their word. These two things had to be combined. Republicans appointed a lead negotiator, one of their most conservative members, a serious legislator: Senator Lankford, an unquestioned border hawk. I represented the Democratic caucus in those negotiations.
“Now I'll be honest with you, a lot of my friends told me that I was crazy. They told me that I was hopelessly naïve. That Republicans are never going to agree to a bipartisan bill to fix the border. This is just a setup. I shouldn't go into the negotiating room. It's a trap. But I did because you know what? I am an optimist, maybe a hopeless optimist. I still believe that when people say things in this body, they mean what they say.
“And I do believe that the border is a mess. It is too chaotic. We can't handle 10,000 people crossing on some days. I believe the asylum system is broken, and my constituents, whether they be right or left, believe the asylum system is broken. It shouldn't take 10 years to process an asylum claim, especially when the majority of those asylum claims are ultimately rejected. So, I went into the room skeptical that we could get a deal, but sincere, because my party actually wants to fix the problem at the border. And we are willing to reach out across the aisle and find a compromise in order to do it.
“And so we met for months. Every day. We took Thanksgiving off, we took Christmas off, but that was it. Because Republicans told us that they wanted a bipartisan border deal. We met every Saturday, every Sunday. We worked straight through the holidays because we saw an opportunity to cut through the politics to get a bipartisan agreement done to finally start fixing the border. We saw that opportunity because Republican senators told the country that if we could find an agreement with their appointed negotiator on border policy, then they would support it and they would support funding for Ukraine.
“And against the odds, we made the deal. We actually achieved the compromise. And here's just a snapshot of what it does. It allows the president to close portions of the border on those days when 10,000 people are crossing to funnel people who are applying for asylum in a much more orderly manner, to make sure that you don't have those chaotic scenes that we have watched on the news. It reforms the asylum system, a comprehensive reform, so that it doesn't take 10 years to get your asylum claim adjudicated. That it will take months. It screens individuals so that no longer are we going to let people into the country who don't have a likely positive claim of asylum. It allows more people to come into the country legally.
“We expand visas so that folks can find non asylum pathways to come to the country to reunite with family or to work. It speaks to our values by making sure that the most vulnerable people who come to the country, like young unaccompanied kids, have an advocate standing next to them when they're making their case for an asylum claim. It honors the commitment we made to our Afghan partners by allowing those individuals who are in the country today to have a pathway to citizenship. And it speaks to the nightmare in many cities where you have immigrants who can't work on the streets and in homeless shelters. It makes sure that we get more immediate work permits to individuals who do have legitimate claims for asylum.
“This bill is not comprehensive immigration reform, but it would fix the crisis at the border. It would immediately give the president tools to start better managing the border.
“We released the text of the bill on Sunday night at 7pm. The first serious bipartisan compromise on border policy in a decade. A breakthrough, a real chance for this nation to come together on an issue, immigration, that too often divides us. And within 24 hours, by 7pm Monday night, almost every single Senate Republican, including the Senate Republicans who set us on the mission four months ago, declared that they wouldn't support it.
“For some of them, it didn't even take that long. When the text of the bill came out, Senator Lee tweeted 'It's 370 pages long, time to start reading.' Three minutes later, he tweeted again, 'No self-respecting Senator should vote for this bill.’ That's either record time for reading a 370 page bill, or, more likely, Senator Lee didn't even open the PDF.
“What happened? How did Senate Republicans tell us they wanted a bipartisan bill only to end up opposing the very bill that they asked for? Well, here's the simple truth, and there's no way around this. Republicans don't want to fix the border. They want the border to remain chaotic. They want the asylum system to remain broken. Because Republicans in this country don't view the border as a problem to fix anymore. They view it as a problem that needs to be exploited.
“Senate Republicans have been pretty unapologetic about just wanting to keep this issue open as an election issue. Less than 24 hours after the text came out, one senator launched killtheborderbill.com, a website to fundraise for his campaign. Senator Barrasso said today that he can't support the bill, ‘Americans should just go to the upcoming election to solve the border crisis.’
“Maybe I'm a sucker, maybe I should be mad at myself, but yes, I believed that there are enough Senate Republicans of good faith who would actually support Senator Lankford's sincere efforts to work to achieve a bipartisan fix. But I was wrong. Senator Lankford doesn't matter. What his colleagues have put him through is unforgivable. Senator McConnell doesn't matter. The migrants and regular Americans who are getting screwed by a broken immigration system and a broken border don't matter.
“There's only one person that matters to Republicans, and his name is Donald Trump. Donald Trump made it clear last month. He told Republicans they should oppose any bipartisan bill to fix the border, and he meant it. To Trump it didn't matter at all, what the policy, what the substance was. His only advice was 'kill any bipartisan bill.' Why? Because President Trump wants to win an election. And if the border is fixed by a bipartisan bill, then that hurts his reelection chances. Trump wants chaos at the border because it helps him personally. He asked Republicans to back him, and nearly every single senator did exactly that, less than 48 hours after introduction of this bill.
“This country should be outraged. Regular people out there don't think this is a game. They don't think that the only thing that matters is Donald Trump's election odds. They do think the border is broken. They spent the last 40 years hearing about how the border is a problem, but they don't see any action from Congress. They're sick of this, and they want the two parties to come together to fix the problem. And they're going to be furious to find out that when Republicans here had the chance to support a bipartisan bill that they requested, that they asked for., almost every single Senate Republican opposed that bill because Donald Trump wants to keep the chaos.
“There used to be a difference between House Republicans and Senate Republicans. I used to explain this fact to my constituents all the time. I'd defend my Senate Republican colleagues. I'd explain how Trump doesn't control the Senate Republican caucus like he controls the House. I don't think that's true any longer. I think this conference is just as big a mess as the conference in the House. And that's terrible for the border, which will remain a wreck because Republicans have just chosen to keep it that way. That's terrible for Ukraine, which will soon be overrun by Russia because Republicans have chosen to leave it undefended. And that's terrible for America because the one group of Republicans that used to be able to exercise original thought and independent judgment now just seems to be another subsidiary of the Trump campaign. I yield the floor.”
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