Sen. Rick Scott Leads a Press Conference with Senate Conservatives on Border Security

[Music] [Music] near the border and we had a real opportunity to do so uh Democrats wanted funding for Ukraine a lot of Republicans do as well I think most of our fellow citizens want to help the freedom loving people of Ukraine but there are there are issues involved in that but we had an opportunity to use the president's desire for funding for Ukraine to actually secure the border the challenge for republicans in this process uh was that Democrats actually want an open border certainly the president does most of the members Democrat members of Congress want an open border and they caused this process I've been saying for for quite some time now that negotiating with them on this issue is like negotiating with an arsonist to put out the fire that arsonist set so what we should have done is we should have first of all had trust in the American public who by and large agree with us they recognize the open border is a clear and present danger to America to its citizens and they want to secure the border so we should had faith in them we should had a very open process and I would suggest what we should have started with is somewhat like speaker Johnson has started is he lays out all the authority that the president currently has to secure the border the Supreme Court ruled on the immigration Naturalization Act that it exudes difference to the executive um then we could have pointed to well different areas of different Court decisions that have weakened that Authority and we could have corrected those the Republicans would have happily given the President Biden The Authority that he now says he wants I don't believe him but we have been happy to give him that authority to actually secure the Border because that's what we want the problem with this bill and it's kind of demonstrated in this in this chart here is it codifies an awful lot that we don't want it normalizes thousands of people a day it probably undermines a future president's ability to secure the Border by having things like a a discretion AR Threshold at 4,000 well what if you have a president in the future that wants to secure the border before it reaches 4,000 have you undermine that presence ability the fact that that that dis that discretion to close the border ends after three years could also be used by liberal groups against a conservative president wants to cure the Border by saying well you thought you had that Authority Under the Ina but Congress didn't think he had it so they passed this bill and they only gave a president that Authority three years so the real tragedy of this process is that what the American people want they're not going to get and there's no there was no reason for it and the bill that was produced and and I think we all have a great deal of appreciation sympathy for James Langford who is knowledgeable about this worked his tail off but he was just facing that instr mountable hurdle of dealing with and negotiating with people that want an open border it didn't work because that bill in the end would have probably done more harm than good by normalizing a flow of illegal immigration and undermining a future president who actually wants to secure the Border uh quick shifting to Ukraine uh I agree with my colleagues who are complaining about the process internally in our conference you know as a conference leadership needs to listen to its members you know in this case had leadership ship listened to us and insisted on tying Ukraine funding to meeting thresholds we might have had a bill we could support right now I think Republicans as you heard Senator Scott say our constituents are concerned about inflation which is caused by too much deficit spending uh we spend well north of 87080 billion a year in defense a year um now they want to spend another 110 billion at a minimum we should pay for it there there there's got to be some dollars for example in all the green energy boond doggle spending that we can resend to pay for security for Ukraine and Israel and Taiwan so the principal position of the Republican conference in the Senate should be you know we we may or may not support funding for Ukraine but if it's going to be given it ought to at a minimum be paid for because we have to stop mortgaging our children's future now'll turn it over to Senator Cruz every once in a while we have some good news the good news is this bill is dead now my views on this bill have not been ambiguous at the last press conference we had here I described it as quote a steaming pile of crap some people afterwards criticized that characterization can't imagine why and they said well you haven't read the text so how can you say that you're right all I knew was what had been described by the bill sponsors well now we've seen the text and it turned out my assessment was far too kind this bill is a terrible Bill I'm going to break it down on two two metrics number one policy and number two Politics on policy why is this bill a terrible bill because it does does not solve the problem we have the worst rate of illegal immigration in our nation's history people are dying children are being brutalized women are being sexually assaulted over a 100,000 people died of overdoses last year this bill doesn't fix it understand this border crisis is deliberate Joe Biden caused it he caused it by his own unilateral decisions three decisions caused this crisis all made the first week week of his presidency he inherited the lowest rate of illegal immigration in 45 years and his first week in pres as president he halted construction on the border wall he reinstated the disastrous policy of Catch and Release and he pulled out of the unbelievably successful remain in Mexico agreement that caused this explosion it also means Joe Biden could solve it tomorrow how would he solve it tomorrow by reversing those three decisions and you would get once again a secure border Joe Biden doesn't want to secure the Border Comm Harris doesn't want to secure the Border Chuck Schumer doesn't want to secure the border and this bill was designed not to secure the Border instead this bill codified Joe Biden's open borders this bill codified Catch and Release catch and release is contrary to law but if we' have passed this bill Catch and Release would be right there in the US Co code this bill normalized 5,000 illegal immigrants a day 5,000 illegal immigrants a day works out to roughly 1.8 million a year we've seen 9.6 million illegal immigrants under Joe Biden apparently the Republican position was going to be we don't like your 9.6 but we're okay with 2third of that illegal immigration that was ridiculous this bill gave work permits to illegal immigrants this bill gave government funded lawyers to illegal immigrants you know one of the provisions that I personally find most noxious this bill goes directly after the state of Texas and it says all litigation about immigration you can't sue in Texas anymore you got to come to Washington DC to one of the most liberal courts in the country Texas sorry we're throwing you out of court in Texas you got to come to DC as I observed on X last night once San Republican would side with Joe Biden over the state of Texas in this battle to secure the Border that's what this bill did so as a policy matter it was terrible policy and as a matter of politics it was even dumber it was obvious from day one this bill would never pass into law Speaker of the House said was Dead on Arrival house leadership all said it has zero chance of Passage so if it wasn't going to pass into law if you knew that and we did know that what was the purpose of it the entire purpose of this bill is to give political camouflage for Democrats running in November the objective of this bill was number one to do nothing so to so to do zero to to to secure the Border but to let every Democrat running for office say gosh I wanted to secure the Border but those mean Republicans wouldn't let us this is all about talking points to deceive the voters we're already seeing Democrat candidates across the country repeating that I was ready to secure the Border but the Republicans didn't it's an utter lie remember again Joe Biden can secure the Border any day he wants he doesn't want to and by the way we could have passed legisl that every one of us would have supported hr2 that passed the House of Representatives I've introduced hr2 in the Senate Chuck Schumer wants a bill that I'll vote for Ukraine Aid on it give me Ukraine Aid and hr2 and I'll vote for that because that actually would secure the border and what did Chuck Schumer say at the outset nope hr2 is off the table why because the Democrats do not want to secure the Border they want this Invasion and the Americans who are dying as a result they're willing to look the other way leaders set priorities leaders set goals I never negotiate with people that don't share the same goals that I have that the people I represent have if you will my goal my priority through all this has been to secure the Border President Biden's goal his priorities all along are to fund Ukraine this bill should really be called the Ukraine funding bill and yes Joe Biden's been going through this charade now for several months but he was never serious about securing the Border like my colleague said Joe Biden could secure the Border yesterday that was never his goal Joe Biden's goals are to fund Ukraine to not fund Israel he wants to fund Hamas I think it's all very obvious what his goals are now he doesn't want to do anything that might hurt Iran's feelings that's Joe Biden's goals why because they're trying to salvage this horrible national security policies look there are there is legislation that we would support we would we would support a bill that actually secured the border and though whatever folks are going to hear today on their social media on their news the good news is that Americans figured this out already they understand that Joe Biden could secure the Border yesterday and that ultimately come November the American public gets to decide who is going to secure our border under Joe Biden 10 million people cross the border illegally president Trump average less than a thousand people per day that's why come November we're going to have a new sheriff in town who's going to secure the Border thank you j i i i don't need to stand up here for too long I Echo the comments uh made by my colleagues and friends up here but one of the things that I've heard from a number of reporters and from a number of democratic activists is this argument that why don't you guys not let the perfect be the enemy of the good and of course the presumption here is that this is good border policy it's not good border policy we're letting the bad be the enemy of the good because this is bad border policy if you're going to actually vote to enact border policy you're going to take a tough vote for all the reasons that Ted stated it ought to actually do something important we have to remember the fundamental framing here this is what so much of the reporting ignores about this border crisis the fundamental framing here is Joe Biden has every tool at his disposal to end the Border crisis tomorrow so what we're trying to do with this law is constrain his discretion and force him to do the job that he refuses to do we're trying to force the president to do what he already could do under existing legal Authority and yet every single Le provision of this legislation or nearly every provision of this legislation allows either secretary May orcus or the president of United States to wave the enforcement mechanisms how how do you square these things how do you say we've got to force the president to do a job and yet we're passing a border bill that allows the president to wave every single Authority that the bill gives him we do not need to give Joe Biden more tools we do not need to give Joe Biden a border security bill which is really as Marshall Roger Marshall said a Ukraine first bill masquerading as a border security Bill what we need to do is pass legislation that forces Joe Biden to do his job restrains his discretion constrains his discretion not give him more authority to run ound the laws that we have in this country this bill doesn't do that so we can't support it as you heard everybody said that doesn't mean there is an immigration law that we would support there are a number of Provisions in this bill that they were made better and actually forc Joe Biden to do his job we'd all vote for it I'm maybe the biggest skeptic of Ukraine Aid in the United States Senate I care much more about the American southern border but I'm not going to vote for a border security package that doesn't do any border security thanks uh since Mike Lee gave a movie reference I'll have my own um this whole episode reminds me of that scene from the first vacation where Chevy Chas goes to buy his car and Eugene Ley comes out and uh it's not the car he ordered he brings out the metallic PE Green family truckster and chvy Chase is like this is not the car and Eugene Ley says you think you hate it now but way do you drive it so when you saw the language this is what we were warning about the language is actually worse than anybody could have possibly imagined we thought it was going to be bad just because of the things that got leaked out and for the reasons mentioned normalizes thousands of people illegal immigrants each day thousands normalizes that um so you've got that Dynamic happening but the language the two things I want to highlight because you've heard a lot of this before first of all Joe Biden has every Authority right now to secure the Border we don't need to do anything we might support strong language to force him to do it but he doesn't need anything to secure the Border can do those three things that Ted mentioned remain in Mexico prbly being one finish the wall with the money that's already been appropriated and stop abusing parole he's illegal Al paring millions of people here by category which is a legal underere existing law but if you were the two biggest issues with this bill if you were a open borders Think Tank and tried to come up with two clever ways to get around whatever it is that they're trying to do in this bill you would do two things one is you would remove the courts from the Asylum process which is what they're doing here they have these Asylum agents that are true believers in open borders approving citizenship essentially at the border that will only be a magnet for the cartels telling these folks what to say when they get there the second piece is any way to you know actually Force Joe Biden to enforce law would be removed because Texas can't even do it in their home jurisdiction they have to come to the DC circuit which has been mentioned as a liberal circuit so if you did those two things this is a win for you if you're an open borders crowd they got those two things in this bill that's just two things so this bill is a total disaster it's dead it's going to require 41 courageous Senators stand up and say Chuck Schumer we're not going to accept this you've given two days on this disasterous language no more and it's sort of a word of warning about trying to The Next Step once this is dead try to tie unrelated things together again hopefully people have learned their lesson if you had a smart Israel bill on the floor it would get 90 plus votes but all roads lead through Ukraine here I found out in this town so tying all this stuff together again we sort of see what this happens let's have the courage to actually debate these things individually people can offer amendments we don't money want money going uh to Hamas we've already pointed those objections but when you start lumping this stuff together uh it creates real problems and that has played out dramatically in this cataclysmically bad Bill that hopefully we'll reject tomorrow you know you can we'll take questions but you can see this with Chris Murphy's leave that there see this with Chris Murphy's uh tweet a requirement that president to funnel Asylum claims in land ports of Entry when more than 5,000 people cross the day the Border never closes they said it rection B not a step resp I don't know why they did that I'm a big fans of them but uh they're mistaken in that and what I'll tell you no one in my conference I stood up at lunch and I asked the people negotiating this I said what's your strategy to pass this in the house Speaker of the House has said it's Dead on Arrival do you have any strategy to pass it on the house and if you don't why are you doing this why are you behaving like Chuck Schumer's political team this was always a stupid idea and the reason it was a stupid idea is because our leadership was not actually seeking to secure the border that was not the objective because Chuck Schumer was not willing to secure the Border why is this bill so bad look Chris Murphy was very candid you know they say in Washington a gaff is when a politician accidentally tells the truth well there you go Chris Murphy the Border never closes the democrat's opening position was we will not secure the Border and the reason this bill got so bad is Republican leadership wanted a Ukraine bill so bad they just said give the Democrats what they want so we can get Ukraine funding even if it doesn't solve the problem I think it is disastrous to put into law Joe Biden's open borders I think it is disastrous to put into law Catch and Release and I think it is disastrous for Republicans to claim falsely where securing the Border when they're voting for a bill that as Chris Murphy admits the Border never closes it keeps this Invasion going in perpetuity if this bill passed the invasion that we are seeing never stops look if you don't believe me most reporters here are Democrats if you don't believe me believe the Democrat Mayors and the Democrat Governors who are telling you what's happening in their City Eric Adams liberal Democrat mayor in New York City said illegal immigration is destroying New York City that was 110,000 illegal immigrants I don't disagree with him on that but if 110,000 illegal immigrants are destroying New York City what the hell do you think 9.6 million are doing to Texas and the rest of the Southern border and so I'm angry I'm angry that the Democrats want this human suffering to continue and I'm angry at our own Republican leadership for going along with it in a terrible Bill our line should have been secure the border and we're with you and if you won't the answer is no it was obvious this bill would end in failure and yet repeatedly every one of us at lunch stood up repeatedly and said this is where it's going to end and yet like a cowboy riding a nuclear bom bomb down waving a flag that was for you Mike Mike left Republican leadership would not listen to reason and now we're in a colossal mess I want to answer the board of Patrol question a little bit more from the heart uh most of us have been to the Border multiple times the border patrol officers are desperate my dad was a police officer I know what it's like they're they're going they're drowning they're going down for the third time and maybe there was a little piece that could have helped them but it's not enough to secure the border at the end of the day a small Lifeline to border patrol but it but it doesn't really secure the Border Senator is it time for Mitch McConnell to go I think it is look everyone here also supported a leadership challenge to Mitch McConnell in November uh I think a Republican leader should actually lead this conference and should advance the priorities of Republicans I can tell you what I said when we had that leadership election in November of 20122 it was right after a very disappointing election 2022 the wind was at our back it should have been a phenomenal Republican election year Republicans should have won the Senate we should have won a big majority in the house instead we lost a seat in the Senate and we barely got a majority in the house and and I up and said look in any ordinary organization when you are faced with failure if you're running a business and you lose $50 million you don't just say hey everything's great let's keep doing it no you sit down and say what are we doing wrong and at that meeting I turned to Mitch McConnell then and I said look we spent the last two years with a group a handful of Republicans joining with Democrats to pass the Democrat agenda I said may maybe that's a good idea I I don't think it is but someone could make the argument that's a good idea I'll tell you it's one-sided you know who doesn't do that the Democrats in 2017 and 2018 when we had a Republican president Republican Senate Republican house not one single time did a group of Democrats join with the Republicans to pass the Republican agenda so we're the only ones who do it but I turned to Mitch then and I said is there anything what are we willing to fight on what are you willing to fight on is there anything you're willing to draw a line in the sand and say we will fight and he refused to answer that question now and that's why we're in this mess because this was a plan that was designed to lose this is a plan Chuck Schumer is thrilled with with which is why Schumer says I got 98 problems but Mitch isn't one of them we had we you know we had an election um in November 22 which was supposed to be in Jan January of 23 they rushed it um and we talked about what we wanted to do different we look we ought to come together and start talking about what we believe in and then fight for those things as a conference we're not doing that that's why that's why that we're we're in the position we're in you know they a few people negotiated this McConnell decided we are not going to have something that forced a lawless Administration to secure the Border um and so I mean this is where we are and we're doing the exact same thing on Ukraine regarding Ukraine what is the future UK and are you Standalone well first off there A lot of us have different views but I think everybody would like Ukraine to win and Russia to lose but we'd like to know you know I don't think a lot of us think we ought to be doing humanitarian Aid uh we ought to let Europe do that I think a lot of us believe we shouldn't be borrowing money to run their government but we would like to give them lethal aid but like what is the plan do you realize in this bill finally the the B Administration has to give us their plan why wouldn't you be before you want to come ask us for money tell us exactly what the plan is if you listen to We had a conference we had a conference meet on this people say we'd like a lot of people said like to get the pay paid for uh and we'd like to understand what the plan is we don't have one I have a question for Senator please sure you were recently elected you want a primary to win the nomination do you think the Republican leadership here is out of tou with voters on the that [Music] uniled well I want to Echo everything that Ted has said um and and I think all of us have made this argument that leadership really screwed this up I think they made a series of political arguments that were never going to actually fly they knew or should at least should have known that this bill was never actually going to get there and certainly on the Ukraine question yes I think leadership is massively out of touch with Republican voters we are not as a Republican party behind unlimited unaccounted for Aid to Ukraine without any goals in mind without any sense of where the money is going and what's going to be accomplished if we continue to support Ukraine so I absolutely think it's it's it's a failure of leadership that we've gotten to this point and yes I think they're out of touch on that particular issue there's one other point here uh because you've heard some of some folks in our leadership make this argument that what happened here is Republicans as a conference demanded that we use Ukraine as leverage to get border concessions from the Biden Administration they'll say things like well you wanted us to negotiate for border security and now that we have this package you say that it's not good enough well we asked you to negotiate for border security not crappy border security that has nothing to do with securing the American southern border so this idea that we signed a political like death compact where we wanted to negotiate for border security so we're there committed to to to supporting any package that comes out of these negotiations is ridiculous if you had a bill that said we're going to legalize 12 million illegal aliens every single Republican I hope would vote against it but we're not committing ourselves to voting for this thing just because we entered the negotiation and the idea that we are the idea you hear this from some of our leadership and hopefully they will stop the idea that we committed to supporting whatever came out of this negotiation is pure unadulterated we supported a negotiation to bring Common Sense border security to this country we did not agree to a border fig Leaf to send another1 billion to Ukraine listen James Langford is a good man he's a good friend of all of us we all like James uh he is deeply principled he's deeply honorable um I think leadership sent him out on a kamakazi mission and I think it was very cynical of Republican leadership to do that um I think he did it in good faith and they put him on the edge of a a branch and they saw the branch off and that unfortunately is a pattern we see with Republican leadership here and it's why there are re very re real concerns about our leadership that was not not the right way to handle this and and the problem was leadership's position was you must get to a deal and understand Schumer's position was we will never secure the southern border now those two statements if they both are true what is the only outcome that can come of that we'll reach a deal that doesn't secure the Border that's what they they did and what leadership should have said is we're going to secure the Border if you want a deal agree to secure the border and if not we will walk away and what leadership did that was wrong is they were so desperate to a deal that they agreed to Chuck Schumer's open borders I I want to stick up for my friend James Langford here James Langford did the very best job he could do with the cards he was dealt I don't think that James is is really pleased with this bill either there's lots of things but pretty much everything I've asked him about he said I tried but we couldn't get across the Finish Line look the American people gave the Democrats the White House they gave him control of the Senate and a very slim majority in the house so we're negotiating a bill that looks just like this that ends up just where you would think it would be it Shades what the Democrats wanted I really don't think Henry Kissinger could have negotiated a better deal with the cards that he was dealt this is not on the back back of James Langford his goal to secure the border is as genuine as anybody else up here but this bill is the best he could do I'm not know how to speak for James I think his Hope was that we could take this bill and amend it and make it better but I'm afraid it's not close enough to to uh do anything but stop the life support and pronounce it dead let me just quick chime in on here the problem with this is it was opaque process it was secret how do you take an issue that what percentage of American public agree you know 90 plus believe we do do need a secure border that the open border is a clear and present danger to America to them how do you take that and screw it up well you you do it by not being transparent you do it by not trusting the American public and and that as a result from the get-go when McConnell and entered into this secret negotiation with Schumer uh it was fatally flawed nobody knew it was in it uh what was being leaked looked bad enough but we weren't trying to win the argument in the court of public opinion people would supported what we want to do here I I said repeatedly and again I it Galls me to hear you know people talk about that you know we're trying to take some political Advantage early on the negotiation I said we'd be doing Joe Biden an enormous political favor favor if we forced him secure the Border I was more than willing to do that because I want to secure the Border as all of us do but when you do it in a secret negotiation when you without consulting the conference take off the table probably our biggest point of Leverage which is tie Ukraine funding to metrics that the president has to meet again we're dealing with a lawless president who ignores Supreme Court rulings who has lied repeated the American public how do you force that executive who wants an open border to actually abide by any agreement you got to tie it to what he wants that was taken off the table and it was secret and so this just blew up in ler McConnell's face and now he's trying to blame president Trump who to best of my knowledge I haven't talked to him I'm not sure anybody on the stage has talked to him we wanted to secure the border that is why we are voting no this does more harm then good and that's not James langford's fault that's leader McConnell's fault I just want to add point on this because what Ron said is very important when you go into a border security negotiation as complicated as immigration law is and you make it entirely secret that gives a massive asymmetric advantage to the team that has more lawyers so on the one hand you have the Democratic majority you have the Department of Homeland Security the Department of Justice you have the army of lawyers that they have and on the other hand is James lenford and his staff negotiating in secret the idea that any person could negotiate successfully to a border security package that wouldn't have multiple loopholes in it is crazy these guys have a massive Advantage it was a huge mistake I don't know who in leadership made this decision but if it had been out in the open okay we have a number of good immigration groups we have a number of good advocacy organizations that could have helped us level the playing field the fact that it was done in secret I think was by Design and it was done to sabotage real border security yeah the [Music] um [Music] is would be you know joid um with regard with regard to the border patrol agents I have a good relationship like I think all of us do you respect them I know they're working hard I think I think they would like they would appreciate any support they can to try to secure the Border any of us we've all been down there they're working their butts off and this is I mean this is you know this is they will they will take anything to try to do better better job but this we we have an obligation to secure the Border this doesn't do it yes hi Senator I'm interested in hearing more about what happened at this GOP conference meeting you know I'm trying to clarify