As Donald Trump’s veepstakes contenders remain unserious about doing anything to improve border security, DNC Rapid Response Director Alex Floyd released the following statement: 

“While President Biden is taking action to secure our border, Donald Trump’s VP contenders put loyalty to him over supporting the toughest, fairest bipartisan border reforms in decades all because he told them to. Trump puts his own political ambitions ahead of the American people every chance he gets, with the unwavering support of his MAGA minions – but voters will reject his reckless political games on border security along with the rest of his extreme agenda at the ballot box this November.”

Numerous Trump VP contenders backed Trump’s demands to kill the bipartisan border security deal and pushed baseless lies about its provisions.

Annie Karni, New York Times: “Endless loop: Tim Scott says he is opposed to the stand-alone foreign aid bill because ‘we should first secure our southern border.’ He opposed the deal that included efforts to do that, parroting Trump talking points that it didn’t do enough.”

JD Vance: “[The bipartisan border security bill] does nothing to secure the border.” 

CNN: “Rubio: Border Patrol union is wrong on immigration deal”

Politico: “‘The sales pitch was made,’ North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum said [about the bipartisan border security deal] at the National Governors Association’s winter conference. ‘I’m not sure any minds were changed.’”

CNN: “Dana Bash presses Gov. Kristi Noem on opposition to border deal”

Mediaite: “‘Sounds Pretty Good’: Fox News Anchor Challenges Sarah Huckabee Sanders On GOP’s Opposition to Border Deal”

Melanie Zanona, CNN: “Stefanik, a Trump ally & member of the House GOP leadership team, says the Senate’s bipartisan border deal is an ‘absolute non-starter’”

Newsweek: “Fox News Host Confronts [Byron Donalds] on ‘Killing’ Border Deal for Trump”

The Hill: “Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said her Republican colleagues in the upper chamber who are backing bipartisan immigration and funding legislation that is the subject of ongoing negotiations are ‘willing to be traitors to our country.’”

Mediaite: “Fox News’ Martha MacCallum pushed back when Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) claimed she was against the newly released bipartisan Senate border bill.”

Vivek Ramaswamy: “The border bill in Congress is a joke.”

Fox News: “Republicans are adamantly opposed [to the bipartisan border security bill], like Sens. Tom Cotton, Mike Lee… and others.”

WKRN: “Blackburn to vote ‘no’ on bipartisan Senate border bill”

Washington Post: “Though [Katie Britt] helped negotiate a bipartisan border security deal, she ultimately voted against it after Trump signaled to congressional Republicans that no immigration policy should pass during the election year.”

Trump’s MAGA minions fell in line after he directed Republicans to tank the bipartisan border deal and do nothing to improve border security this year.

New York Times: “Republicans Against Border Enforcement”

Axios: “Trump, House Republicans plot to kill border deal”

Vox: “Trump made this clear when he reportedly urged Republicans in Congress to turn against the bipartisan Senate border security bill scheduled for a vote Wednesday so that he could keep the issue alive through the presidential election. His supporters have largely fallen in line.”

CNN: “Trump, who is hoping to make immigration a key plank of his presidential campaign, has suggested on Truth Social that approving additional resources for the border would make Republicans ‘look bad.’”

Rolling Stone: “Border Patrol Supports ‘Strong’ Immigration Deal. Republicans Don’t Care”

Trump: “Please blame it on me.”

Trump: “I think [Republicans] are making a terrible mistake if they vote for the bill.”

CNN: “The border compromise would represent a dramatic change of immigration law on lines many Republicans have long supported.”

Two-thirds of Americans support the bipartisan border security deal that Trump directed MAGA Republicans to reject.

Navigator Research: “Two in Three Americans Support the Bipartisan Immigration Deal”

“Two in three Americans supported the bipartisan immigration deal reached in the Senate, but that will not be taken up for a vote in the House. … On the Republican approach to the recent immigration package, Americans’ greatest concerns are that they are focused on the wrong issues and playing politics.

“The immigration deal earns support across party lines, including among three in four Republicans (net +58; 74 percent support –16 percent oppose), two in three independents (net +48; 64 percent support – 16 percent oppose), and three in five Democrats (net +32; 59 percent support – 27 percent oppose).”

Third Way: “Voters like the deal, both as a whole and individual components. … Across the board, both swing and base voters are remarkably aligned in favor of the big security components of the deal… It’s not just the tough on the border policies that voters like—they also understand that a major piece of restoring order must be providing orderly pathways for people to come to this country in other ways.”