Media outlets were quick to pounce on Senator Marco Rubio over what they thought was another move by Rubio to push for amnesty for illegal aliens. Reports stated that Rubio was pushing to fund the Department of Homeland Security by moving away from the GOP plan of “tying immigration riders” to an appropriations bill for the DHS.
Marco Rubio didn’t actually call for his party to surrender to President Barack Obama’s immigration strategy Wednesday — but the recriminations were quick for the GOP senator anyway.The Politico has this:
“Rubio Folds” blared the headline on the Drudge Report, linking to a newspaper story that suggested the Florida senator was running away from the Republican strategy of tying immigration riders to a bill funding the Department of Homeland Security.
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Except the GOP senator didn’t explicitly say that during a press gaggle Wednesday in Las Vegas, according to a transcript provided by his office.
Like some other Senate Republicans, the likely GOP presidential hopeful admitted that his party’s strategy had little hope of succeeding, and he reiterated GOP leadership’s position that the party cannot blow its first major legislative deadline and let DHS funding lapse on Feb. 27. But he didn’t call for Republicans leaders to pass a clean DHS bill — stripped of immigration language — as Democrats are demanding.
Regardless, a couple of headlines later the story had spread like wildfire, from Las Vegas to Florida to Drudge and The Huffington Post. So Rubio’s chief spokesman, Alex Conant, shot down any notion that Rubio was joining Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) and calling for leadership to proceed to a bill with no riders.The media narrative was wrong, his aides said.
“Senator Rubio does not support a clean DHS funding bill that does not repeal the president’s unconstitutional executive order on immigration,” Conant wrote in an email.
According to the transcript, Rubio told reporters what anyone on Capitol Hill has seen firsthand: The House-passed bill funding DHS and blocking President Barack Obama’s immigration policies can’t pass the Senate due to a Democratic filibuster. And Obama would veto it, anyway.
“We have to fund Homeland Security,” Rubio said. “Look, I’m in favor of any measure that has a chance of succeeding that could stop the new order, but the truth of the matter is the president’s not going to sign it, and we don’t have the votes to pass it in the Senate. We can’t let Homeland Security shut down.”
Rubio didn’t suggest how exactly Congress could try to avert a shutdown next week. But House and Senate Republican leaders haven’t laid out a clear strategy on that front either.Rubio’s remarks echo his party leadership. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has scheduled a fourth doomed vote on the House bill for next week but has conceded that the Senate is “stuck” on it. Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn of Texas has repeatedly said in interviews that there will be no shutdown. And almost every Republican has repeatedly blamed Democrats for the impasse, just as Rubio did on Wednesday.
“Unfortunately, so far the Democrats refuse to give us the votes necessary to go on the bill,” Rubio said. “By the rules of the Senate, you need 60 [votes] to begin debate and without the 60 votes to begin debate, they won’t even give us the 60 votes to begin debate on the topic.”
-(h/t POLITICO)
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