'Am I nuts': Top Dem slams Johnson over calling bipartisan border bill 'election year gimmick'

Two weeks after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Republican lawmakers tanked the bipartisan US border package, House Speaker Mike Johnson is insisting that a border control proposal — which GOP lawmakers say they want — is an "election year gimmick" being pushed by Democrats.

Punchbowl News' Jake Sherman shared a statement Johnson issued Thursday via X (formerly Twitter), which read, "House Republicans have been sounding the alarm about the catastrophic effects of President Biden’s open border policies since he began his term… He has thus far ignored my demands, and the pleas from big city mayors, border state governors, and the American people. Now, in an election year… the President suddenly seems interested in trying to make a change using the legal authority that he claimed until recently didn’t exist."

US Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) replied to Johnson's statement, writing, "Republicans opposed the bipartisan border bill they asked for. Now Speaker Johnson says an executive action to control the border would be a 'gimmick'. Am I nuts or does it KIND of feel like Republicans don’t want to fix the border because chaos helps them politically."

READ MORE: Mitch McConnell kills bipartisan border bill — 3 hours after speaking in support of it

The same week Republican lawmakers smacked down the legislation, Murphy, who help negotiate details of the bill along with US Senators James Lankford (R-OK and Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ), told Politico, "I’ve never seen an about-face like this in the 20-plus years I’ve been in politics. [T]he only silver lining to what just happened is that it exposes the Republican Party as fraudulent on the issue of the border. They had a bipartisan deal that would have made a huge down payment on fixing the problems of the border, and they ran for the hills because they don’t want to fix the border.

Former President Donald Trump strongly opposed "the bill and warned Republican lawmakers against supporting it which led to" Johnson "pledging that the legislation would be 'dead on arrival' should it pass the US Senate."

READ MORE: 'This ends one of two ways': Biden plans offensive against GOPers who tanked border bill