The Republican senator who led efforts to negotiate with the Biden administration on a border deal was condemned and censured by his own state’s party on Saturday for the simple act of speaking with Democrats—despite the fact that the chamber has not yet voted on the measure.
Just one day later, a defiant Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) appeared on Fox News to defend his work in Congress—which many of his colleagues supported until former President Donald Trump came out against the measure last week.
The Oklahoma Republican Party on Saturday approved the resolution condemning Lankford for the offense of “working with Democrat Chuck Schumer on an open border deal to allow 5,000 illegal immigrants a day to enter and work in the United States,” a direct contradiction of what Lankford himself has characterized as an attempt to prevent illegal crossings.
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The bill accused him of “jeopardizing the security and liberty of the people of Oklahoma and of these United States,” and of breaking his constitutional oath to protect the country “against Invasion” by immigrants.
When asked by Fox News Sunday why he would negotiate a border deal with President Biden during an election year—an action Fox News Sunday host Shannon Bream characterized as handing Biden a “victory lap”—he instead characterized it as a win for Republicans who have been crowing about the need for changes to U.S. immigration policy for months.
“It is interesting: Republicans, four months ago, would not give funding for Ukraine, for Israel, and for our southern border because we demanded changes in policy. So we actually locked arms together and said, ‘We’re not going to give money for this. We want a change in law,’” Lankford said.
“A few months later, when we’re finally getting to the end, they’re like, ‘Oh, just kidding, I actually don’t want a change in law because of presidential election year.’”
“We all have an oath to the Constitution,” he told Fox News, “and we have a commitment to say we're going to do whatever we can to be able to secure the border.”
The decision to censure Lankford for his ongoing negotiations with Democrats also drew condemnation from a number of Republicans in the state, including former party chairman Anthony Ferate.
“Today an extreme faction of the @officialOKGOP held a meeting without providing an official call to all members of the State Committee, including me, to attack Senator @jameslankford,” he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“Any vote taken by the OKGOP today was not legitimate and definitely does not represent the voice of all Oklahoma Republicans.”
