Sinema slams GOP for voting to keep border 'crisis as a talking point for the election'

15 February 2024

Sen;. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Arizona) — who was one of the three main negotiators on the bipartisan border security legislation that failed in the US Senate last week — blasted her Republican colleagues for their sudden and abrupt one-eighty on border policy.

During a interview with CNN, Sinema blamed the death of the legislation not on any particular policy hangups, but on a lack of political will. Even though she didn't directly mention former President Donald Trump, Sinema suggested that his pressure campaign on Republicans behind the scenes resulted in them tanking their own stated number-one policy priority.

"It was incredibly disappointing to see my colleagues change their mind and say 'actually, we'd like to keep this. We'd like to keep this crisis as a talking point for the election.' The reality is, that is exactly what they will do." Sinema said.

"But meanwhile... my state is dealing with this unmitigated crisis every day, with over 7,000 people crossing into our country every day. It's a fact that this crisis still remains, and that my colleagues have decided they don't want to solve the problem," she added.

Arizona's senior US senator was the bridge between hardline conservative Sen. James Lankford (R-Oklahoma) and Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut), working to help the two come to an agreement on border policies that both parties could support. However, the legislation's chances of passage through the senate imploded before the text was even released after Trump repeatedly assailed efforts to address the border prior to him potentially winning the election and taking credit.

The bill began as a supplemental foreign aid package for US allies overseas, but House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) threatened to sink it if it didn't include funding to address the influx of thousands of migrants coming across the Southern border each week. Senators then combined roughly $14 billion in border funding with the roughly $95 billion in foreign aid, but the bill died anyway after Trump suggested that any Republican who supported it would be a target of his rage.

Currently, lawmakers are back to negotiating the specifics of foreign aid, with the $95.3 billion appropriation of funds for Israel, Taiwan and Ukraine passing the US Senate with approximately 20 Republican votes. However, Johnson has since retreated to his earlier position of not supporting the legislation due to there not being any new funds for the Southern border.

Watch video of Sinema's remarks below, or by clicking this link.

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