Dem Sen. Schatz: ‘A Lot’ of Dems Didn’t Want This Border Bill and Did It Because We Had to

On Wednesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) stated that “a lot of Democrats were deeply uncomfortable with those policy demands,” on the border that Republicans made “but we went along with it because we understand that there are challenges on the border, but more importantly, we want to pass this national security supplemental,” and “a lot of Democrats, progressives like myself were willing to swallow some things that we wouldn’t have normally been willing to swallow.”

Schatz said, “I think there’s a tendency among the so-called savvy set to sort of pretend like this was all foreseen and all foreseeable and that this is just normal Republican dysfunction. It’s actually not. They specifically made demands about Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) being the lead negotiator, and then they made specific policy demands, and a lot of Democrats were deeply uncomfortable with those policy demands, but we went along with it because we understand that there are challenges on the border, but more importantly, we want to pass this national security supplemental, because we think the free world is literally at stake. And so, we swallowed hard and said, let’s all jump in together. As of Sunday, there were 22 Republican senators saying they were going to vote for this and they thought they could get the number up to 27. One tweet and a few phone calls and the whole thing collapsed. That is not normal to vote against a thing that you specifically demanded.”

He added, “I think the border stuff is dead. And we worked very hard, and I really appreciate Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) and others for engaging in a very, very painful negotiation over a long period of time. They took political risk, and, again, a lot of Democrats, progressives like myself were willing to swallow some things that we wouldn’t have normally been willing to swallow. … I think the border stuff is dead. On Ukraine, it’s important to know Leader Schumer (D-NY) had a plan, he always has a plan, and procedurally speaking, we are in a position to immediately proceed to the national security supplemental without the border stuff, which, by the way, just so we’re all keeping score a little bit, is what we demanded in the first place before they said we will not do this without border provisions.”

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