In the News

WASHINGTON – Majority Whip Tom Emmer today joined CNBC’s Squawk Box to discuss the Senate’s foreign aid legislation, which fails to include any border security provisions.

Click here or above to watch the full interview.

Whip Emmer on the Senate’s foreign aid legislation and failure to adequately address Biden’s border crisis:

“Our Speaker made it very clear that our members would require for – in return for foreign aid, specifically, Ukraine – not only did we have to have certain questions answered when it comes to the Ukraine aid, but when you bring it over you have to make sure that it has border security on it. There was a two-month negotiation, Joe, that literally turned out a product that could not be done in the House or the Senate. If you’ll remember back last May, the House passed a border security bill that had five pieces: finish the wall, reform parole authority, reform the asylum authority, end ‘catch and release,’ and restore ‘remain in Mexico.’ Which, by the way, our border patrol has said by just doing the last one, restoring ‘remain in Mexico,’ it would staunch the flow across our southern border by some 70 percent overnight. What did the Senate send us? They sent us something that does nothing with the wall, does nothing with parole, does nothing with asylum, does not restore ‘remain in Mexico,’ and quite frankly codified what they are already doing illegally when it comes to ‘catch and release’ by saying you have shutdown authority at 5,000 a day coming across our southern border. Insanity. They need to get that done. And by the way, there is another way to handle it. If the president would just undo the 64 executive orders that he has signed since he took office which effectively opened our southern border, you could solve it that way, too. But we are going to have to figure out how to get this done in order to move this stuff here in the House.” 

Whip Emmer on aid to Israel:

“Joe, we actually brought it to the floor in the House last week, last Wednesday. And incredibly, it was an $18 billion package which included $14.3 that was requested back in October and then some additional to actually help our own troops. We have to take care of more efficient weapons for our troops when we are using multimillion-dollar rockets to shoot down drones that don’t even come near that cost. It came to the House floor last Wednesday, and the White House issued a veto threat that frankly was – to me it did not make sense. 166, almost 80 percent, of our Democrat colleagues in the House voted against supporting Israel. Instead, they voted on the side of Hamas.”

Whip Emmer on aid to Ukraine:

“So I’ve supported Ukraine aid in the past, and I’m not one of those that say we should not. But there are some very specific questions that our members and our Speaker have asked the White House to respond to that we’re not getting the answers. Specifically, where is the aid going to go to? What is the oversight mechanism to make sure that it gets there? There’s more than that, but those are just basic questions, Joe, that for whatever reason the White House is refusing to clarify so that we can go home, our members can actually go home to their constituents and say, look, we’ve got all the information, it’s really important that we do this, and then we can get it done. The White House – for whatever reason, back to your point – whether it’s the border, whether it’s aid to Israel, whether it’s Ukraine, the White House seems to be playing a political game. We’re doing the work of the House, Joe. We’re not responding to anyone except for the people that sent us here. Those are the voters at home, and this is the information they are asking for.”

###