Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) claimed that congressional Republicans killed a bipartisan immigration bill earlier this year because of “what was being reported on social media.”
Republican lawmakers tanked an immigration bill hammered out by Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) after former President Donald Trump urged them to oppose it. Trump has been critical of President Joe Biden’s handling of the southern border and immigration policy more broadly. As such, the former president is seeking to use the issue to run against Biden on the campaign trail.
“The politics on this have changed,” McConnell told his fellow Senate Republicans at the time, thus permitting them to oppose it.
Appearing on Newsmax on Friday, Donalds gave a somewhat different account, namely that Republicans tanked the border bill over what they saw on social media. To be fair, that may have included Trump’s Truth Social posts on the subject.
“Let’s talk about the issue of this migration that’s going to be front and center for the next debate,” host Carl Higbie said before asking how Biden will spin the situation at the southern border.
“He’s gonna say that, ‘Oh, the Senate bill was good, but Donald Trump blocked it,'” Donalds replied. “That’s a lie. When the elements of the Senate bill were being leaked on X [formerly Twitter], House Republicans from Speaker Johnson on down, we rejected the bill based upon what we were being– what was being reported on social media.”
Donalds went on to note that Biden and congressional Democrats failed to act on immigration when they controlled the House and Senate, and only began showing an interest in the issue in this election year.
“The Democrats want to use this for political purposes,” he said. “They do not want solutions because they’ve had opportunities to bring solutions and they have not done it.”
Watch above via Newsmax.
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