WASHINGTON – Sen. Markwayne Mullin and Rep. Josh Brecheen said no to backing the bipartisan border bill crafted by their fellow Republican legislator during telephone town halls with their constituents on Tuesday..
As the border crisis, the situation between China and Taiwan and the wars in Ukraine and Gaza continue to raise concern among Americans, lawmakers are struggling to find solutions. In Mullin’s town hall meeting, he praised Sen. James Lankford for taking steps in the right direction. But he said he plans to vote no on the measure as it stands.
“People were coming out against this bill before they even had time to read it, and once you got to read it, the bill’s rough,” Mullin said. “Without question, it needs to be amended. I think we all need to take a deep breath on that and understand that [Lankford] knew he wasn’t negotiating a good bill, but he was negotiating a bill with [President Joe] Biden and [Sen. Chuck] Schumer in office.”
On Monday, after a closed-door meeting of Republican senators, Lankford said he might even end up voting against his own bill during the procedural vote scheduled for today, as first reported by the Washington Post.
“There’s some people that will not vote for the border,” Mullin said. “There’s a lot of Democrats who will not vote for the border, but they want Ukraine funding. Then there’s a lot of people that don’t want Ukraine funding, but they want Israel funding. There’s some people that don’t want Ukraine funding or Israel funding and last, we have Indo-Pacific, which is Taiwan. We don’t have enough votes to just pass a Ukraine bill,” Mullin told his constituents.
Besides reforming border security, Lankford’s bill appropriates more than $118 billion in aid, including $60 billion to support Ukraine and $14 billion to support Israel. But not every Republican wants to provide continued support to Ukraine.
In his town hall on Tuesday, Brecheen, who represents Oklahoma’s 2nd Congressional district, told his constituents that he is against appropriating more money to support Ukraine when European nations have not matched U.S. spending.
“I contend that economic security is national security,” he said. “Ukraine? I don’t see the tie. I see a civil war, in effect. I see a Europe who is in their backyard. It’s more in their national interest. We’ve spent $113 billion, and they have not matched that.”
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2021, the United Kingdom, the European Union and various other countries have supplied Ukraine with more than $53 billion in financial and budgetary support and in humanitarian and emergency assistance, according to recent data from the European Union and the United Kingdom.
As Texas lawmakers have taken their own actions to combat illegal immigration, Mullin mirrored the sentiment Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt expressed during his sixth State of the State address Monday. Stitt said he understands Texas’ frustration with the border crisis and supports Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in defending his state’s territory.
“I just want to indicate that I really praise the governor of Texas for what he has done to secure his border,” Mullin said. “I’m wondering if Arizona, Louisiana and some of the other states may follow up with razor wire and protection to try to slow down the number of illegal immigrants coming into the country.”
Gaylord News is a reporting project of the University of Oklahoma Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication. For more stories by Gaylord News, go to GaylordNews.net.
