Republican senators should back border wall funding just as they rallied around Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif., pictured above) insisted on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle” Wednesday night.
“I watched what [Senate Majority Leader Mitch] McConnell [R-Ky.] just said today. He said we’re going to have a vigorous fight over the wall in December,” McCarthy told Fox News host Laura Ingraham.
“And watching what this Senate was able to do with Kavanaugh, I believe this gives them the opportunity and the time to get this done once and for all,” he said.
Building the wall across the U.S.-Mexico border was one of President Donald Trump’s most iconic campaign promises, and “Build the wall!” chants still occur frequently at Trump’s rallies to this day.
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But the House and the Senate have been unable to reach any kind of consensus on permanently funding the border wall or some of Trump’s other strict immigration enforcement agenda items.
McCarthy is introducing a measure this week to fully fund Trump’s border wall, which he told Ingraham is called “Build the Wall, Enforce the Law.”
When Ingraham asked how the bill could pass the Senate even if the House passed it, McCarthy replied, “I don’t think the question is ‘if’ it will pass the House.”
“It fully funds the wall $25 billion, but even does more. You know, Kate’s Law, which we passed, is a part of this. Stop sanctuary cities. It keeps children safe because it removes the MS-13 gang members and then denounces this movement, like in San Francisco, that allows illegals to vote in our election,” McCarthy added.
McCarthy said he was encouraged by the Senate GOP’s almost complete unity in rallying behind Kavanaugh during a bitterly partisan and contentious confirmation process that was derailed by last-minute sexual assault allegations. Only Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) refused to vote for Kavanaugh alongside her GOP peers.
“I keep thinking — given how great it was to have the party unified for a Supreme Court seat, if the party had been as unified in that first year of the Trump administration on this issue, which was one of his seminal issues on the campaign trail — half of that wall or maybe a quarter of that wall would have been built already,” Ingraham agreed.
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McCarthy said that “the battle when it came to Kavanaugh was the rule of law — that’s one of the things that makes America the strongest.”
“Our communities will not be safe if you can’t secure your own borders,” McCarthy warned.
This is why it is so vital that Republicans maintain their majorities in both the House and the Senate following the November midterm elections, McCarthy insisted.
“And that’s what this election is about, this … ability to build the wall and enforce the law,” said McCarthy, who is in the running to replace retiring Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wis.).
Noting that he recently visited the border at El Paso, McCarthy told Ingraham that he wished “every American would spend one day with a border patrol agent.”
“If they spent one day with them, I don’t think there would be any question about building this wall and keeping our communities safe,” he said.
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