Trump runs away from past boasting about killing bipartisan border deal
Donald Trump denied having anything to do with the death of the border bill that Republicans and Democrats negotiated at the end of 2023 and in the spring of 2024.
"Borders. They should focus on borders. You know, the House bill that was passed — that's the real bill that should be passed," Trump said. "Then you get on the original one and not this horrible one that was hoisted upon us by some people that had a bad day. But, uh, they should focus on borders and elections and if you can't get the borders right, and if you can't get the elections right they ought to close it up. Just close it up and let it sit."
Crowley asked specifically whether the government should be shut down over a bill that would ban immigrants from voting, among other things. It's already illegal for immigrants to vote.
Trump agreed that the government should be shut down if Republicans don't get what they want.
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"But you need more than the SAVE Act," Trump said. "You need borders. Real borders should be in the bill. Like we had. Like the congressional bill of a year ago. That was the real deal."
The House, which Republicans control, passed the bill he's speaking about.
However, the Senate is controlled narrowly by Democrats, so passing any kind of border security bill there requires buy-in from Democrats.
But when conservative Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) finalized the deal, Trump told the members not to vote for it and the bill collapsed.
Democrats have used that to attack Trump, saying that it was one of the most conservative immigration bills that would ever have passed. However, Republicans went from supporting it one day to pulling back their support after Trump demanded that the bill go down.
“I think the border is a very important issue for Donald Trump. And the fact that he would communicate to Republican senators and congresspeople that he doesn’t want us to solve the border problem because he wants to blame Biden for it is … really appalling,” said Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) told CNN at the time.
"So, I'm not there, but I have influence," Trump said about the Washington politicians. "But it seems to me, they only need a very small number of Republican votes. And that's how they got all this trillions and trillions of dollars. That should never have been granted by the way. If I was there it would — well I wouldn't be asking for it. So, you wouldn't have that problem."
Crowley asked Trump to talk about the Senate immigration bill and "why that bill was so bad and needed to die."
"Well, I didn't kill it, but I spoke badly about it. I didn't call people and say 'don't vote.' I could do that. I think they'd listen to me. But I didn't kill it I just said it's a terrible bill and it would let millions of people into our country. It made it worse than it is right now," Trump said.
The comment is a huge deviation from Trump's January comments, in which he told a Nevada crowd, "A lot of Senators are respectfully blaming it on me. I said, that's okay; blame it on me, please. Because they were getting ready to pass a very bad bill."
US actress Sigourney Weaver, who is getting a lifetime achievement award at the Venice Film Festival © Alberto PIZZOLI / AFP
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