Senator James Lankford, the primary Republican negotiator on the Senate’s recently revealed border deal, is running out of patience with the rest of his party.
Lankford has been working for months on a bipartisan bill to address the U.S.-Mexico border, as well as funding for Ukraine and Israel. But the measure, which was revealed Sunday, was immediately met with Republican backlash.
And the GOP’s response is starting to wear Lankford down. The Oklahoma senator called out his party’s two-facedness on the border during an interview Monday.
“The key aspect of this, again, is, are we as Republicans going to have press conferences and complain the border is bad and then intentionally leave it open?” Lankford said on Fox News.
“Are we going to just complain about things, or are we actually going to address and change as many things as we can?”
Lankford: The key aspect of this again is are we as Republicans going to have press conferences and complain the border is bad and then intentionally leave it open? pic.twitter.com/Yk48ePjziO
— Acyn (@Acyn) February 5, 2024
The bill has received mixed support on both sides, with some Democrats saying that the immigration measures are too draconian. But Republicans have been quietly working for months to actually tank the bill entirely, out of loyalty to Donald Trump.
Republican lawmakers have repeatedly indicated that they don’t want to support the bill in case it ends up helping Joe Biden get reelected. Instead, they would rather continue to fearmonger about immigration in the hopes that Trump wins the 2024 election and can crack down on the border.
House Speaker Mike Johnson called the border deal “dead on arrival” in the chamber. Lankford noted Monday that Johnson had made that comment before he’d actually read the bill.
Lankford has been steadily losing his mind over Republicans’ response to the bipartisan bill. In late January, he said on Fox News that he was just trying to give his party what they have been demanding: a more restrictive border policy.
“Now, it’s interesting, a few months later, when we’re finally getting to the end, they’re like, ‘Just kidding, I actually don’t want a change in law because it’s a presidential election year,’” he said.