Sen. Chris Coons hit back Wednesday at President Donald Trump's "false narrative" that Democrats don't care about border security, pointing out that he and many other Democrats don't care about border security, saying they also have been working hard toward legislation.
"Along with many other Democrats, I co-sponsored a comprehensive immigration reform bill that would invest billions of dollars in border security, in strengthening our visa systems and making sure we know who is coming and who's leaving," the Delaware Democrat told MSNBC's "Morning Joe."
"I utterly reject the false narrative that Democrats don't care about border security," Coons added, "but we also care about American values, about not tearing families apart at the border as a tool in our ongoing immigration fight, and about not accepting a blanket ban on Muslims coming to this president."
Trump, while he was a candidate, said "clearly and repeatedly" he was calling for a "complete and total ban" on Muslims entering the country, said Coons, and "on his third try, he managed to get a travel ban that the Supreme Court, in a narrow 5-4 ruling decided was constitutional."
However, even though the ban has been ruled constitutional, that does not mean it fits in with the United States' core values, insisted Coons.
"I do think there's ways that we can strengthen the Immigration and Nationality Act to make sure that we are complying with our most important fundamental values of nondiscrimination against people for their religion," he said.
Democrats, however, would have "real difficulty" in preventing a Trump nominee from being confirmed for the Supreme Court.
"Under our current rules, the Republican majority would proceed with hearings on the judiciary committee and would likely proceed to a floor vote," he said. "We've had hearing after hearing, week after week on the judiciary committee, where the long-respected rules that have prevented the minority from being run over in terms of who's confirmed for circuit court judges have been changed and we're not following the blue slip the way we did for most of the last century. We're not following long-established traditions."
Meanwhile, Trump tapped in to the fact in his 2016 campaign that millions of Americans felt like they were on the outside, and he made several promises.
"One of the things that's concerning me is he's keeping his bad promises and breaking his good promises," said Coons. "He promised that we'd all get better health care and lower costs. And the opposite is happening. They tried and fail to repeal the Affordable Care Act, so the president is now tearing it down a piece at a time and now going after pre-existing condition protections. He promised he would make America safer, but he's focusing on dividing us from our allies with this tariff fight, with Canada, with Germany. You've got Harley-Davidson threatening to begin manufacturing more of its motorcycles overseas. So he is injecting fear, as you say, Mike, that's the way he's going about campaigning, as he governs."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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