Columnist Charles Krauthammer argued the Republican Party should “abolish the filibuster” in order to pass a DHS funding bill defunding the president’s executive action on immigration on Thursday’s “On the Record” on the Fox News Channel.
“I would advocate to the GOP the thing that they’re looking at is a surrender on this, they’re going to get the blame if Homeland Security is shut down, even though it’ll largely operate nonetheless. So, if you’re going to get the blame, I think what they ought to do is abolish the filibuster and actually pass the budget for Homeland Security, which leaves out any of the funding in the immigration service for the unlawful, illegal executive amnesty of the president, and then send it on to the president. Remember, the Democrats are the ones who attacked the filibuster. They partially dismantled it, again, on a very party-line vote two years ago, and I think having begun the demolition, the Democrats have, the Republicans ought to finish it. Abolish the filibuster, take control of the Senate, pass the House bill, and send it on to the president” he stated.
Krauthammer added that doing so would “make his [Obama’s] choice a tough one because it’ll change the narrative. Right now the narrative is radical Republicans will not pass Homeland Security budget, jeopardizing american security while terrorism is rising. If you send it on to the president and he has to do a veto, a public act where he vetoes the funding for the department, the narrative will be that the president, in order to protect an unlawful action on immigration that is extremely unpopular anyway, is risking the security of the country. That’s a better narrative, and I think it puts pressure on the president to come to a compromise or to cave on this, which I think is what the Republicans should want.”
Krauthammer also reacted to the promotion of State Department Spokesperson Jen Psaki to White House Communications Director, saying “I’m not sure that Noah Webster himself would have been able to explain the president’s idea that you go into a kosher grocery store on a Friday afternoon and your target[s] are random. I mean, the gunman himself was on the radio during the hostage taking, in which he said he’d gone in to kill Jews, So there is no explaining this, and that’s why Jen Psaki, and also Josh Earnest, and others who’ve tried to explain the president look silly, but it isn’t really their fault.”
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