Jamaal Bowman Rips Mike Lawler For ‘Speaking Like an Expert’ on the Border, West Bank Despite Having Never Visited: ‘I’ve Been!’
Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) tore into Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) on Thursday for “speaking like an expert” on the southern border and Palestine’s West Bank despite not having visited either.
During a debate with Bowman on CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip, Lawler criticized President Joe Biden for not doing enough to secure the southern border.
Lawler also accused Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) of doing “nothing on the border” and “nothing on Israel,” claiming, “He’s the highest ranking Jewish official in America, [and] has not passed one thing to provide aid to Israel.”
Bowman replied that “the challenges at the border and how we process the migrants that come into our country was destroyed by Donald Trump, not President Biden,” before arguing:
We are a nation of immigrants, we welcome them when they are coming seeking asylum, and we will continue and should continue to do that, and we must meet them with humanity and care to make sure that they are able to contribute to our economy in the way that they want to.
With regard to the Ukraine, I have supported continuing to support Ukraine. What I’m hearing in my district is tremendous frustration because we seem to always have hundreds of billions of dollars for war, and conflict, and mass murder, and suffering, but we don’t have the same hundreds of billions of dollars for affordable housing, for childcare, for education, for healthcare, and we never, ever, ever, ever, ever have a conversation about reparations for Black Americans.
He continued, “They are very frustrated because we solve every conflict with militarism as opposed to diplomacy. We have to find diplomatic political solutions to war all over the world and we need to invest those hundreds of billions of dollars into uplifting the humanity of people here in our country.”
After Lawler declared that “the border is an immediate crisis,” Bowman asked, “Have you been to the border?”
“Not yet,” replied Lawler.
Bowman then shouted, “The man hasn’t been to the West Bank, he hasn’t been to the border, but you’re speaking like an expert on both. I’ve been to the border! I’ve been to Laredo, Texas. I’ve met with CBP. I’ve met with FEMA down there.”
“And is it going well? Is the border going well?” shot back Lawler. “And what did CBP tell you? They told you that it is not working.”
Bowman concluded, “They told me that 95% of the people they bring in are not criminals.”
Senate Republicans blocked an emergency spending bill to provide aid to both Ukraine and Israel on Wednesday because it did not include measures to protect the United States’ own southern border.
In a speech, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) declared, “Today’s vote is what it takes for the Democratic leader to recognize that Senate Republicans mean what we say.”
Watch above via CNN.
