'Cynical Senate Theatre': Mitch McConnell Slams Border Bill, Calls For Tougher Executive Action

4 months ago

During remarks on the Senate floor, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) spoke about the bipartisan border bill that will be voted on today.

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Transcript

00:00 Nearing the end of President Biden's term,

00:05 and the American people's patience for his failure to secure our southern border

00:10 is running thin. After three years in office,

00:15 nearly every conceivable metric has distinguished the Biden

00:21 administration from its predecessors for all

00:27 of the wrong reasons. Since the President took office,

00:33 customs and border protection have seen the highest annual total

00:39 for border encounters on record. CBP

00:46 has reported more than

00:51 77.8 million encounters with illegal immigrants at the

00:58 southern border, and this doesn't even count the 1.6

01:02 million known getaways.

01:07 Fentanyl and other lethal drugs pushed by China through Mexico and across our

01:11 border are the primary cause of death among

01:14 American adults between ages 18 and 45.

01:21 And reports of individuals on the terror watch

01:26 living to sneak across the southern border

01:34 have literally soared on President Biden's watch.

01:39 Five years ago, CBP didn't encounter a single individual on the list

01:46 between southern border ports of entry. Last year, they encountered 169.

01:56 This is what broken borders look like. This is humanitarian and national

02:01 security failure of the highest degree.

02:06 And it's no mystery how we got there. President Biden and Vice President

02:11 Harris were promising open borders four years ago

02:14 on the campaign trail,

02:17 and they started following through literally on day one.

02:24 The Biden administration rescinded policies like "Remain in Mexico" that

02:27 helped CBP hold the crisis at bay.

02:33 They froze construction of physical barriers

02:37 at the border out of spite for their predecessor,

02:42 a move that most Americans now say they want to see reversed.

02:48 Every Senate Democrat voted to let President Biden repeal Title 42,

02:56 a pandemic-era policy that represented

03:01 border officials' only meaningful tool to stem the flow of illegal arrivals.

03:09 The administration's supposed "borders are"

03:13 traveled widely to discuss the root causes of migration,

03:17 but for months, you couldn't find time to visit the border

03:21 itself. And for years, Washington Democrats have refused to call the

03:25 situation what it obviously is, a crisis.

03:31 At every step, the American people have been left

03:36 literally scratching their heads. In some cases,

03:40 they've been left with unimaginable grief,

03:45 like the family of Lincoln Riley, the student murdered by a man

03:49 who shouldn't have been allowed into the country in the first place.

03:54 And in every case, they've wondered why their elected leaders are missing in

03:59 action. Families are wondering why Senate

04:03 Democrats opposed Senator Blackmun's proposal to allow

04:07 state and local law enforcement to cooperate with ICE

04:11 to detain and deport criminals, why they voted down Senator Budd's

04:17 legislation that would have prohibited granting legal status or citizenship to

04:22 individuals who have assaulted a law enforcement

04:25 officer, why they blocked a proposal

04:31 that would have required that individuals DHS deemed to be

04:37 special interest aliens, potential national security risk,

04:42 are detained at the border and not released into the interior

04:46 by the thousands. They're wondering why left-wing groups are exploiting the

04:51 crisis to align their own pockets.

04:55 Well, one thing the American people don't have to wonder about

04:59 is why Washington Democrats are suddenly chomping at the bit

05:03 to convince their constituents that they care

05:07 about border security. After all, working families are the ones telling pollsters

05:12 the border is their very top election year

05:16 concern. The American people aren't fooled. They

05:19 know that the president's summary reversal of common sense border

05:23 authorities is what started the crisis and they know

05:27 the solution is not a cynical

05:32 Senate theater.

05:36 The solution is a president who's willing to exercise his authority

05:40 to use the tools he already has at his disposal

05:44 and to start cleaning up this mess. If Senate Democrats wanted to start

05:50 fixing the crisis tomorrow, they would be urging the president to do

05:55 exactly that. The American people have every right to expect

06:00 secure borders along with safe streets and stable prices. They don't have time

06:07 for distraction and neither do Senate Republicans.

'Cynical Senate Theatre': Mitch McConnell Slams Border Bill, Calls For Tougher Executive Action

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