Gowdy: Don’t ‘Take the Bait’ and ‘Over-Respond’ to Exec Amnesty

Representative Trey Gowdy (R-SC) argued that the GOP should not “take the bait” and “over-respond” to the president’s executive action on immigration while recommending attacking appointments made by the president in the Senate on Wednesday’s “America’s Newsroom.”

Gowdy stated that “senator Obama was right and candidate Obama was right, but President Obama is wrong. There’s a difference between exercising prosecutorial discretion, on a case-by-case basis, all prosecutors do that. But to announce ahead of time we’re no longer going to prosecute certain categories of crime, with respect to immigration, that’s not criminal, that’s a civil matter. So now you’re arguing the president can suspend all civil remedies, and added to that you’re now arguing, not only can we not impose sanctions on you, we can confer benefits on you.” 

Regarding the specific strategy to attack the executive action, Gowdy said “The House is debating right now how to respond to it. I think it’s careful that we not take the bait, what the president wants to us do is to over-respond so our public approval ratings are as low as his. My personal preference, in terms of strategies is for the Senate to use advice and consent…[Sen.] John McCain (R-AZ) said ‘you know what, Mr. President, you want to act like an emperor, we’re going to do our job and not confer advice and consent and not approve some of your nominees.”

Gowdy added that he would also attack the funding of the executive action, but cautioned “but the funding gets into a shutdown debate which we historically have never won.”

(h/t The Right Scoop)

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett