Exclusive — Rep. Beth Van Duyne: Budget Bill ‘Continues the Biden Policies that are Destroying Our Border’

The $1.2 trillion budget bill “continues the Biden policies that are destroying our border,” Texas Rep. Beth Van Duyne (R-TX) said during an appearance on Breitbart News Daily.

While a majority of Republicans in the House voted against the measure, it passed in the U.S. House on Friday, as it had “enough, two-thirds of the majority because so many Democrats voted for it, to get it out of the House,” she explained. Early Saturday, the Senate passed it, avoiding a government shutdown. But at the end of the day, the Texas Republican explained, it is a bad bill.

“It continues the Biden policies that are destroying our border and destroying our communities. It did nothing really to secure our border, didn’t add policies that had been taken off the table that were successful, such as the Remain in Mexico policy,” she explained.

“[It] did nothing to continue building a wall. What it did do was continue the catch and release program. It continued that CBP [Customs and Border Patrol] … app that lets people apply with their phone and get in and get plane tickets everywhere. It was crashing, and when you look at the spin and then you look at the fact that it is continuing to pay agencies that are doing destructive policies against our country, it was not a bill that I can support,” she continued.

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When asked if Republicans received any wins in this spending bill, the congresswoman said the GOP is “claiming to add more dollars into the budget into the border.” However, it is not quite as it seems.

“But the problem is where they’re adding it,” she said. It “is making it more efficient to put more people illegally into our country, but that was something that they claimed that they get. We got some DEI programs out of the military. We got some DEI programs pulled out of federal agencies. There were a few other things that they claimed … more money added to defense,” she said, adding that at the end of the day, the bill did not properly address what she and many others view as the number one issue in the country: border security.

“[The] number one focus needs to be what’s happening on our border, and that was not prioritized,” she added, explaining that Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) did not have enough backing to negotiate a strong border bill.

“So while Speaker Johnson went in there, trying to have a hammer in saying that we have to have this as part of it, … he did not have enough votes to deal with it,” she said.

“It’s shocking that you think about the amount of damage that has happened to our country just alone at our southern border. You know that the crime, that the drug cartels, that the targeting of our youth in fentanyl death, that is not just in Republican districts. That is also in democratic districts. … But we haven’t seen that level of support amongst anybody in the House and Senate on the Democrat side of the aisle. And they have to be hearing from their constituents,” she said.

“They have to see the … polling numbers of the president and recognize that this is an issue, and yet they lack the backbone to be able to support measures that would truly make a difference,” she added.

 Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Eastern.