Dave Brat: GOP ‘Going to Lose the American People’ on Exec Amnesty

Representative Dave Brat (R-VA) argued that “Republicans are going to lose the American people” “if we don’t draw some stark red lines” on the president’s executive action on immigration and at least force the Senate to vote against defunding the order on Thursday’s “Laura Ingraham Show.”

Brat first talked about an amendment that he and other representatives pushed to defund the president’s immigration action, about which he said “we were told that we timed that too late,” even though the cromnibus itself was released very late, thus not giving Brat and others much time to get an amendment in. He added “we had 75 members on board yesterday on that amendment, and so the will of the people was not heard on that important amendment.”

He argued that the GOP’s willingness to fund the executive action on immigration “doesn’t pass the basic smell test” and was “pretty bad” logic if the GOP believes that such action is unconstitutional. 

Brat did not foist all the blame on the GOP, pointing out Senate Democrats prevented the House GOP from passing individual appropriations bills. 

He did concede that while GOP defunding measures would be blocked in the Senate, the GOP should still try because it would force Democrats to vote for the president’s executive action on immigration and “Republicans are going to lose the American people if we don’t draw some stark red lines and stick to them, because they’re going to think we’re playing the same old game.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett