On Tuesday’s edition of NBC’s “MTP Now,” Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) acknowledged that gangs “have been smuggling people to the southern border of the United States. That’s overwhelmed the border in some respects.” But “Ukrainian aid should be funded without our getting to a deal on the border.”
Bennet said, “I believe that the Ukrainian aid should be funded without our getting to a deal on the border. I think that the case has been made, the Ukrainians have the receipts because of what they’ve done to push Putin out of half of the territory of Ukraine that he has occupied, to basically render the Black Sea fleet useless without even having a navy to continue this fight, as I say, for all of democracy. But having said all of that, there are some people here who are saying they want to use this to try to lever[age] a deal on the border. And I think that there’s — our border system needs to be improved. We have had a decade or so of transnational gangs that have been smuggling people to the southern border of the United States. That’s overwhelmed the border in some respects. And if we can come together in a bipartisan deal that’s rational, that’s consistent with our commitment to the rule of law and our history as a nation of immigrants, then by all means, we should do that. If we can’t, we should find a way to fulfill to our obligation to Ukraine.”
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