Fox News "Sunday Futures" - Transcript: Interview with Sen. Lindsey Graham
Interview
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham is with us. He is the ranking member on the Senate Budget Committee. He voted against that. He joins me now.
Senator, it's great to see you. Thanks very much for being here this morning.
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): Thank you, Maria.
BARTIROMO: So, are we -- where are we at this point, Senator? Are the two -- are these two bills tied, the $1 trillion, or less-than-$1 trillion infrastructure plan and the $3.5 trillion spend-and-tax plan?
GRAHAM: No.
I would support a $950 billion infrastructure plan for roads, bridges and ports. President Trump had a $1.5 trillion plan. It's got to be paid for. I'm in the bipartisan group. We're having a hard time paying for the $958 billion, because we're not going to raise taxes. But everybody's trying really hard.
As to $3.5 trillion reconciliation package designed to pass without a single Republican vote, Joe Manchin has said that has to be paid for. And the only way you can do that is through a massive tax increase.
And the reconciliation package is not infrastructure. It's big government, a liberal wish list, paid family leave, all kinds of new social programs unrelated to infrastructure. So, we will see if they can get Democratic support.
But before Republicans beat up on the Democrats in Texas for leaving Texas too much, if, for some reason, they pass reconciliation, a budget resolution to bring that bill to the floor of the United States Senate, the $3.5 trillion bill, you got to have a quorum to pass a bill in the Senate.
I would leave before I would let that happen. So, to my Republican colleagues, we may learn something from our Democratic friends in Texas when it comes to avoiding a $3.5 trillion tax-and-spend package: Leave town.
BARTIROMO: Wow.
So, you just see them leave, and you're saying, fine, they were effective in not giving the Republicans a quorum. You will do the same thing on a $3.5 trillion tax-and-spend?
GRAHAM: Hey, Vice President Harris, if you think these people are heroes, well, then I expect you to show up and pat us on the back.
Hell, yeah, I would leave. I'm not -- I will use everything lawfully in my toolbox to prevent rampant inflation. A $3.5 trillion infrastructure package that's got nothing to do with infrastructure, that is a tax-and- spend dream of the socialist left...
BARTIROMO: Yes.
GRAHAM: ... if it takes me not showing up to stop that, I will do it, because, if we pass that bill, you're going to have inflation through the roof.
And if they put legalizing illegal immigrants in that bill, you're going to have a complete run on the border. It would be throwing jet fuel on a fire called illegal immigration. It would lead to an invasion of illegal immigrants if we put amnesty in the $3.5 trillion bill.
So I'd do anything I could to stop that.
BARTIROMO: Well, this is where we are.
(LAUGHTER)
BARTIROMO: This is what it has come to.
GRAHAM: Yes. Yes.
BARTIROMO: I mean, you all have a responsibility to do the work.
And yet there's so much hatred and upset.
GRAHAM: Yes.
BARTIROMO: Tell me about that amnesty element, because now they're just trying to throw whatever they can, including the kitchen sink, into this $3.5 trillion bill.
They want to actually make illegals legal as part of this. Is that even a legal thing to do? I thought a reconciliation budget package must include federal money-related items. Can they put amnesty in here?
GRAHAM: I don't think so. But they're going to try, because they don't want to work with us.
In 2013, I was part of a bipartisan group that passed a comprehensive immigration bill, and we spent $40 billion to secure the border. Schumer and Durbin voted for a $40 billion border security bill that built walls, did away with catch and release.
To my Democratic colleagues, if you want to provide legal status for the DACA population, I will work with you. Here's what I want. I want you to finish the wall, which needs to be finished, and end catch and release for the asylum seekers, which will shut off a wave of illegal immigration, and I will vote for DACA legalization.
The reason they're not working with us is that the party of reasonable border security, securing the border on the Democratic side is dead and buried and replaced by the party of open borders. AOC and Elizabeth Warren will not allow the Democratic Party to do what they were doing just a few years ago when it comes to border security.
If you voted for Joe Biden thinking he would be a moderate voice and would lead us to a centrist agenda, you have got to be sorely disappointed, because there's nothing moderate about the Biden administration.
BARTIROMO: Well, we have extraordinary new numbers.
Now we understand that already one million people have been apprehended this year at the Southern border.
GRAHAM: Right.
BARTIROMO: You have been to the border. Let's talk about this, because look at these numbers that we have, in June, 188,000 people crossing the border, taking the total number to 1.1 million encounters, apprehensions so far this year, 188,000 in June, on top of 180,000 in May, Senator.
GRAHAM: You will...
BARTIROMO: And this does not include the got-aways.
GRAHAM: Right.
BARTIROMO: We know that there are tens of thousands of others who have been seen on surveillance video. And they have entered this country.
GRAHAM: Yes.
BARTIROMO: They have come, and they have gone into the interior of the country.
GRAHAM: Yes.
BARTIROMO: We don't know what their intentions are.
GRAHAM: Well, we don't know what their intentions are.
We don't know how many of them there are. But I know this, that, if you start legalizing people without first securing the border, you will -- you will incentivize more illegal immigration.
We have never in the past legalized one person until you first secured the border. If they put amnesty in the reconciliation package, then the numbers you're talking about are going to double by the end of the year. And they're also talking about eliminating the ability to deport people who came here illegally based on COVID concerns under Title 42.
BARTIROMO: Yes. And...
GRAHAM: So, if you put amnesty in the reconciliation package, and you do away with Title 42, there's no defenses left, and you will have an invasion of illegal immigrants in this country like you have never seen before.
BARTIROMO: Senator, real quick before you go, President Biden continues to call all of these voting bills Jim Crow.
GRAHAM: Yes.
BARTIROMO: I believe it's now 16 states that have come up with new voting bills, new voting laws...
GRAHAM: Yes.
BARTIROMO: ... trying to clean up what they saw in 2020.
GRAHAM: Yes.
BARTIROMO: Why does he keep spewing out misinformation?
GRAHAM: He's trying to change the subject, because he can't talk about his policies. His policies are failing at the border.
Rampant inflation. You can't walk out in the streets without worrying about getting shot or your child kidnapped. Radical Islam is on the rise. So he can't talk about policy, because he's failed on the policy front. So he's trying to make all of us racists as Republicans.
I have known Joe Biden for 20, 25 years. I have never seen this Joe Biden. This is demagoguery. It's offensive to me and every state trying to shore up their voting laws. What Joe Biden is telling you about what we're doing is a lie. And the reason he's doing it is to change the subject to try to talk about anything but his failed presidency.
We're coming back in 2022.
BARTIROMO: Wow. Senator...
GRAHAM: And I hope to God that President Trump runs in 2024.
BARTIROMO: All right, Senator, good to see you this morning. Thanks very much, Senator Lindsey Graham joining us.
GRAHAM: Thank you.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source