A repeat of “Schumer’s Shutdown” when the deal that ended it expires February 8 is unlikely, as Democrats “put their hand on the stove and got burned,” Rep. Sean Duffy (R-Wis.) said Tuesday.
“I don’t think they have the upper hand,” Duffy said on “The Laura Ingraham Show.” “They put their hand on the stove and got burned. I don’t think they’ll try to do it again.”
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Democrats staged the high-stakes shutdown by blocking a vote in the Senate last week on a short-term funding measure, gambling that public sentiment would pressure Republicans to accede to their demands for amnesty for an estimated 800,000 illegal aliens covered by a controversial immigration program.
But on Monday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) blinked, agreeing to a deal in which Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell conceded little. Democrats’ hard-line progressive base exploded, accusing Schumer of caving in.
Duffy pointed to a Harvard CAPS/Harris poll indicating that not only did voters oppose shutting down the government over amnesty for young illegal immigrants, but they agree with President Donald Trump on a host of other immigration policy issues.
Strong majorities favor lower levels of legal immigration and building physical barriers along the U.S.-Mexican border.
The poll also showed a deal giving amnesty to people currently enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program — which gives deportation protection to illegal immigrants whose parents brought them to the United States as children — should include an end to a lottery program. The program awards about 50,000 green cards to randomly chosen applicants and puts an end to the ability of new citizens to sponsor extended family members in the “chain migration” process.
“America believes in ‘America First,'” Duffy said. “And it’s not always best for America to have a diversity lottery program. What’s best for America is to bring in the best and the brightest around the world, to come in and advance American society.”
Duffy said Americans clearly favor an immigration system that prioritizes the impact on Americans over the benefit to would-be immigrants.
“That’s why Trump has such a good gut about where Americans are at,” he said. “He’s been talking about ‘America First,’ talking about the best and the brightest. And that’s why when it’s polled, the American people agree with him. Even Democrats agree with him.”
Democrats, on the other hand, see immigration through a narrow lens, Duffy said — future voters who will support the party and its candidates every two years in elections.
“If you can’t win the electorate, replace the electorate with new voters, and that’s the plan” of the Democrats, the Wisconsin Republican said.
Duffy expressed skepticism that the supposedly lost texts are really unrecoverable. He speculated the messages must be especially damaging.
Duffy accused Schumer and Senate Minority Whip Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) of using “swamp-like tactics” to try to sell a fraud to Trump. The Democratic senators reportedly offered to “authorize” construction of the border wall. But in Washington-speak, an authorization means nothing unless Congress also “appropriates” the funds to pay for it.
The proposal actually amounted to $1.6 billion to repair existing fencing, not $18 billion for the complete wall Trump promised during the 2016 campaign, Duffy said.
“This doesn’t build trust,” he said. “This doesn’t build the ability of two sides to come together.”
Related: Actually, It’s Lindsey Graham Who Is Out of the Mainstream on Immigration
Duffy also addressed the week’s other big story — a report that the FBI lost five months’ worth of text messages exchanged between FBI investigator Peter Strzok and agency lawyer Lisa Page. Text messages from the 2016 election campaign that have been made public paint an unflattering picture of the pair, who were in a romantic relationship and traded passionate insults of Trump.
Duffy expressed skepticism that the supposedly lost texts are really unrecoverable. He speculated the messages must be especially damaging.
“I think they’re so damning to the FBI and the Department of Justice that they can’t send them over,” he said. “So what they have to do is run the risk of being totally bludgeoned by the American people because they’re so angry … That’s how bad I think they are and how bad they expose the conspiracy of using law enforcement to take down our duly elected president in Donald Trump.”
PoliZette senior writer Brendan Kirby can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter.
(photo credit, homepage image: Sean Duffy, CC BY-SA 2.0, by Gage Skidmore; photo credit, article image: Sean Duffy, CC BY 2.0, by HOW Coalition)
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