If you’re on speaking terms with any MAGA dopes, you know they’ve been spun up into a frenzy about the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border. Republican demagoguery on the issue has been a constant for decades, despite St. Ronnie of Rancho del Cielo committing amnesty. It reached new heights with Trump.
Simultaneously stirring panic about “migrant caravans” and refusing to entertain solutions makes sense for Republicans because immigration is a stick they can use to beat Democrats. There’s no political incentive for them to seriously address it, which is why Republicans haven’t acted on the issue aside from performative cruelty stunts for decades.
The bad faith is clear as day. But now GOP House Speaker Johnson has basically admitted out loud that his caucus is cynically using the border as a political weapon by flatly refusing to take up any immigration reform bill unless a Republican is president. Via TPM:
The White House, as you know, has been under immense pressure to offer concessions to address the continuing large number of migrants coming to the US-Mexico border. Now there’s a bipartisan compromise bill in the Senate. Last night Majority Leader Steve Scalise said that bill in DOA in the House. But Speaker Johnson said something more specific and revealing. He refused to bring up the bill and according to Jake Sherman of Punchbowl said “Congress can’t solve border until Trump is elected or a republican is back in the White House.”
Two things to note here. First, Johnson isn’t saying they won’t consider this bill. He’s saying they won’t consider any bill until Trump is elected. Sherman appears to have accepted the GOP wording – that “Congress can’t solve [the] border until Trump is elected.” But there’s more here. Johnson is saying openly that they won’t pass any bill until Trump is elected. In other words, however out of control they claim the border is they want to keep it that way through November to use it as a political issue. There’s a bipartisan deal but House Republicans are rejecting it out of hand. That’s not terribly surprising. But your political opponents seldom state it so openly. It’s an opening for the White House. Let’s see if they take it.
My guess is Democrats will unwrap that unexpected present, but they’ll have to go around the political media to get the message to voters. That won’t be easy, but I thank Speaker Johnson for handing me a quote I can use next time one of the Republicans in my life raises the issue. Also, I’m starting to think Johnson is bad at his job. Who could have guessed?
Open thread.
House GOP Rejects ALL Immigration BillsPost + Comments (102)
