Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) delivered a brutal reality check to Republicans over the bipartisan border bill Wednesday by naming the reason they oppose it.
“Let me bring everybody back to reality and give you a little history lesson. The reason you oppose the bill is not because you have any policy issues with it ... You oppose it because Donald Trump opposes it,” said Swalwell at a House Judiciary Committee markup meeting.
He continued, “Donald Trump opposes it because Donald Trump wants to be president because Donald Trump has 91 felony counts that he’s facing and the only way that those go away and he is not held accountable is if he’s president.”
Senate Republicans blocked the bill last month after Trump urged them not to back it, with some GOP lawmakers declaring that a border deal would benefit President Joe Biden ahead of the November election.
Swalwell took aim at Republicans who follow Trump, claiming that the former president wants “the issue, not the solution.”
“Have you all lost your minds?” asked Swalwell as he noted that Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), the “second-most conservative member of the Senate,” was the top GOP negotiator for the bill.
“He wrote the toughest border security bill that has come out of the Senate and President Biden engaged with him with other Democrats to find a solution because they’re in the solutions business and you’re in the chaos business.”