Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Krysten Sinema (I-AZ) got into a heated exchange on the floor of the U.S. Senate on Thursday as Sinema called Graham out for what she saw as hypocrisy in his stance on the bipartisan border bill.
After raging against the numbers of illegal migrants coming across the border Graham said, “Senator Murphy, Sinema, Langford, and others set out to come up with a bipartisan proposal that, I thought did a pretty good job in many ways. However, having said that, I didn’t think it was enough. I was hoping to be able to build on what they did. But here’s where we’re at. The House declared it insufficient.”
“Will the senator yield to a question?” interjected Sinema, who was in the chamber listening to Graham’s speech on the bill she helped negotiate and he voted to kill earlier in the week.
“Yes,” Graham agreed.
“Oh. Thank you. Thank you. Senator, I was just listening carefully to your speech, and you mentioned that you thought the bill that we had drafted and introduced yesterday was a good start, but not enough. Yeah. I’m wondering if if, you would remind us how you voted yesterday on the motion to proceed to the bill that had the border package that we worked on together?” Sinema asked.
“I’ll be glad to. I voted no because I didn’t see a process in place or willingness by my Democratic colleagues to allow me to express. I think it could be better, see in the Gang of Eight. You weren’t here, but Senator McCain was, we worked really hard. Senator Bennett’s been involved in all this stuff in 2013, and we let the bill come to the floor, people amend it, and we spent days and weeks. So that’s why I voted, ‘No,’” Graham continued as Sinema again pressed for a question.
“No, no, I, I am reclaiming my time,” Graham shot back, refusing another question from Sinema.
“So here’s what I’m saying. This has been a half-assed effort to deal with border security for the people,” Graham continued as Sinema kept pressing for a question.
“No, I am speaking, speak later,” Graham said to her.
“To the people in the House, we have not really tried hard to secure the border. We took a well-meaning product. People worked really hard. I applaud you and others for coming out with a product that I thought had a lot of good things in it, but not enough for me,” Graham continued.
“Yield to a question?” Sinema pressed again.
“No, to my House colleagues, you can do better than this. Don’t send us back H.R.- 2. It’s not going anywhere. You know, you couldn’t get all Republicans for H.R.- 2. We lost one Republican and got no Democrat. So this idea we’ve done enough on the border is BS. I am not done. I’m not going to help Ukraine until we first do a better job helping ourselves,” he continued.
Sinema again pressed for a question and Graham finally relented.
“Thank you. Now, Senator Graham, I know you’ve been here quite a bit longer than me, but it is my understanding that in order to get to the portion of a bill where we offer amendments on the floor, we first have to pass the motion to proceed. And it is also my understanding that it was offered by leadership and the three sponsors of the border Bill, which your team gratefully helped us create, that we would have an open amendment process. So could you help me understand why you voted against the motion to proceed?” Sinema asked again, calling Graham out for offering kind words for a bill stop from being debated.
“I’ll be glad to,” he shot back.
“Before we were able to offer any amendments, including your amendments,” Sinema added.
“Yes. I think the fix is in. I think people on our side and your side wanted to do the border thing as quick as they could, so we could get the Ukraine, and I don’t trust the system here to be able to allow us to have the debate that we had for the Gang of Eight bill,” Graham replied, becoming more and more animated:
That’s why I voted ‘no,’ because I didn’t see any willingness in my. It proved to be correct because now the Republican leadership has joined with a. Democratic leadership to shut down debate on the border bill, throwing a few amendments on the Ukraine bill and saying, aren’t you happy now? No, I am not happy. I am not happy. I made it that I wanted to secure the border before I helped Ukraine. Everything you say about Ukraine is right. I was not kidding. To our colleagues in the House, we’ve done a half-assed job here trying to secure the border.
We shut this thing down unlike any other time I’ve been involved in immigration. I’ve taken a lot of hard votes. You’ve taken a lot of hard. I know, you’ve been kicked around. I understand it, Senator Lankford. I admire the hell out of him. I thought you produced a pretty good product and a really good product in some areas, but it wasn’t enough.
As Graham raged on, Sinema tried for another question, which he ignored. “For those of you who want to help Ukraine, you’ve made it harder. We’re going to lose a handful of Republican votes over here, because they felt they were shut out in the debate about how to secure the border.”
“You don’t have a snowball’s chance in Hell of getting it through the house, because we took the border issue and we didn’t address it the way it should have been. We closed it out. I could see the game being fixed. I am here as a proud supporter of Ukraine, telling you that you’ve hurt the cause of Ukraine by trying to short-change a debate on the border,” Graham fumed.
Watch the full clip above via C-SPAN.
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