Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz doubled down Tuesday on his call for fresh leadership in the upper chamber’s GOP caucus, saying the Senate’s crafting of its border bill has been a disaster from its inception.
Cruz told Fox News that by calculating the amount of illegal immigrants permitted per day through the law it portrayed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., and other GOP proponents to be comfortable with a large proportionality of President Biden’s current border crisis figures.
“It’s been a disaster on policy. And it’s been a disaster on politics. On policy, this bill is terrible. It is an absolute. It is a bill that Chuck Schumer wanted that is designed not to secure the border, not just not to secure the border. It’s designed to make it worse,” he said.
Cruz said the bill, crafted by Lankford and Sens. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., “codifies” Biden’s penchant to allow a porous border and “normalizes” 5,000 illegal migrants per day.
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“That works out to 1.8 million a year. That works out to about 6 million illegal immigrants over the three years of Biden… So the idiotic Republican proposal was let’s be for two thirds of the border invasion that Biden has allowed,” he said.
On “Hannity,” Cruz reiterated his view that McConnell may need to be replaced at the top of GOP leadership.
McConnell, who has most recently appeared to admit defeat on the legislation, deadpanned to reporters when asked about Cruz saying “I think it is” time for him to step down: “I think we can all agree that Senator Cruz is not a fan [of mine].”
At the press conference where Cruz made his initial remarks, he claimed the other senators surrounding him at the time are supportive of leadership changes.
Cruz said that he was particularly irked by a provision in the border bill that would direct litigation against the law to be filed in the decidedly liberal District of Columbia, rather than Texas as has been recent practice.
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“I’ve got to say, Senate Republican leadership; I told them this months ago… and they proceeded down this this path that ended up it was a box canyon with a kamikaze pilot crashing into a wall: It was a disaster,” he said.
“Who won in this battle? His name is Charles Schumer – Chuck Schumer did this. He knew it would fail. He wanted it to fail.”
Cruz claimed Democratic leadership will be happy with the bill being torpedoed because it provides political cover to lawmakers facing re-election in November:
“The purpose of this bill was to let every Democrat running for the Senate and running for the House to stand up and say, self-righteously, ‘I wanted to secure the border’… but those mean Republicans wouldn’t let me,” he argued.
Cruz said that, by contrast, the true illustration of Democrats’ position on border security was illegal immigrant Jhoan Boada, who flipped the double-bird after walking free on no bail following an alleged assault on NYPD officers.
As for Republicans’ failed attempt to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, upcoming special elections to fill Republican vacancies may mean the inevitable was simply delayed, host Sean Hannity added.
California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom assigned the special election for former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s right-leaning Bakersfield seat for mid-May, and former Rep. Bill Johnson’s seat along the Ohio River in the Buckeye State is set to be filled on June 11.
With former Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., having been expelled late last year, his seat will remain vacant for only another week until a special election takes place on Long Island.
One Democrat, former Rep. Brian Higgins of New York, resigned last week and his Buffalo-area seat has yet to be given a special election date.
Hannity said he is optimistic that the results of the special elections plus the return of Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., – the only congressman who was unable to vote; absent for health reasons – will result in a different outcome on the next impeachment attempt.
He noted Rep. Blake Moore of Utah, who is the vice chairman of the House Republican Conference, was recorded as a “nay” vote – but only because it would by-rule allow him as a member of leadership to reintroduce the resolution again.
“Republicans will have a chance to secure a stronger majority. Hopefully they do,” he said.
