Money was put aside to build the border wall and it still "is there," but President Joe Biden and Democrats will "try to spend it on something else," Sen. John Kennedy said Thursday.
"President Biden refuses to use it, at least on the border wall," the Louisiana Republican said on Fox News' "Fox and Friends." "We have sent him a letter demanding that he use it. I have every expectation that he will ignore us."
Senate Republicans, led by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, have written a letter to the Government Accountability Office to seek an investigation into Biden's actions, claiming he's violating a 1974 act that forbids the executive branch to refuse to spend money that has been appropriated by Congress.
By suspending construction of the border wall and ordering a freeze on the funds that were allocated for the wall, Biden contributed to "this unfortunate, yet entirely avoidable scenario" at the border, while violating federal law and infringing on "Congress' constitutional power of the purse," the letter says.
"They will try to spend it on something else," said Kennedy. "We had 100,000 people stream into our country illegally in February. Annually, that is 1.2 million people. If that's not a crisis, it will do until one gets here. They are now in America and not leaving."
It's happening because Biden, in his 2020 campaign, signaled to Central American countries that the border would be open, said Kennedy. When he took office, he immediately terminated former President Donald Trump's actions on immigration, including the agreements with the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, "and he did that intentionally."
"That is when the surge started," Kennedy added. "You don't have to be MENSA material to figure out President Biden or the people making the decisions believe in open borders. It is part of their extremist, military agenda along with the Green New Deal and free lattes for everybody."
Congress, in December, passed its fiscal 2021 spending bill allocating $1.4 billion for the border wall and related spending.
Kennedy also reacted to reports that the Biden administration is not permitting Border Patrol agents to speak to members of the media or to take people on tours of the border, and complaints that the White House is not meeting its promises of transparency.
"You have to watch what politicians do, not what they say," said Kennedy.
The senator also discussed the push by Senate Democrats and the White House to either make changes to the filibuster rule or to cancel it altogether as several House bills are pending votes to advance to the Senate.
The key, Kennedy said, is to watch what Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., do while they continue to oppose eliminating the Senate's procedural action that delays votes on bills.
"They're being beaten on like they stole Christmas" by Democrats pushing to change their minds, said Kennedy. "They will either stick or they won't. I think they will stick."
If they change their minds, "they will frankly have lost all credibility," he said.
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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