Senator Raphael Warnock (D-GA) said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that it is “craven” some Republicans who stopped the bipartisan border bill are pointing to the murder of Laken Riley “to score cheap political points.”
Anchor Jake Tapper said, “A horrible tragedy in your state, I don’t have to tell you, Laken Riley, a 22-year-old Augusta University nursing student, was bludgeoned to death last month while on a run on the UGA campus. The suspect is an undocumented immigrant from Venezuela, who was released after crossing the border illegally, had a criminal record in New York, was still a free person.”
He continued, “At his rally last night, Trump was met with Laken Riley’s family. He blamed Biden’s border policies for her death. The Riley’s are your constituents. Is it not true that there were policy failures that led to this tragic murder?”
Warnock said, “Listen, first of all, let me just say that my heart goes out to this family of the family of Laken Riley. I can tell you, as a pastor who has done hundreds of eulogies and presided over all kinds of funerals, there is no grief worse than when nature is tragically reversed, and rather than the children burying the parents, the parents have to bear the children. So it’s unfortunate that in this moment of grief, there those who are trying to score cheap political points. The border must be secured. We know this.”
He added, “There’s agreement about that on both sides, which is why we had a bipartisan piece of legislation before us just a matter of weeks ago and the fact that there are those who walked away from this bipartisan legislation, or at least a chance to debate it and now they’re trying to score political points and the wake of a young woman’s death, that is craven politics at its worse. It is what turns people away from politics. I think we can do much better than that. We can secure the border, and we can make sure that we are doing everything we can to make sure our children are safe.”
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