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Lankford cites 'election year' for waning GOP support on border bill: 'Not about letting 5000 people in a day'

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Lankford cites 'election year' for waning GOP support on border bill: 'Not about letting 5000 people in a day'

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Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., cited the “presidential election year” in explaining on Sunday why Republicans are backing away from the border bill he is negotiating with Senate Democrats, arguing that the supplemental package, contrary to the assertion by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, is “not about letting 5,000 people in a day.” 

Lankford, under fire from the Oklahoma GOP as well over the border bill, appeared on “Fox News Sunday,” where he defended the package said to have something akin to a Title 42 power that would allow everyone at the border to be turned away. Last week, Cruz blasted the Republican compromise, however, saying it still afforded about 6 million people – or two-thirds of the 9.6 million illegal border crossings under President Biden – to illegally enter and stay. He further argued the actual text language of the legislation was being kept a secret. 

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“The challenge that Sen. Cruz has and a bunch of other folks is they’re still waiting to be able to read the bill on this. And this has been our great challenge of being able to fight through the final words, to be able to get the bill text out so people can hear it. Right now there’s internet rumors is all that people are running on. It would be absolutely absurd for me to agree to 5,000 people a day,” Lankford told “Fox News Sunday” host Shannon Bream. “This bill focuses on getting us to zero illegal crossings a day. There’s no amnesty.”

Lankford argued the bill increases the number of Border Patrol agents, increases asylum officers, and increases detention beds “so we can quickly detain and then deport individuals.”

SENATE BORDER BILL TO ALLOW 5,000 MIGRANTS A DAY BEFORE TITLE 42-TYPE LIMIT STARTS; SPARKING CONSERVATIVE FURY

Sen. James Lankford outside the Senate Chamber at the U.S. Capitol on Thursday, Jan. 25, 2024. (Kent Nishimura/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

“It ends catch and release. It focuses on additional deportation flights out. It changes our asylum process so that people get a fast asylum screening at a higher standard and then get returned back to their home country. This is not about letting 5,000 people in a day,” he said. “This is the most misunderstood section of this proposal.”

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In the past four months, Lankford said, there’s only been seven days when less than 5,000 people have crossed the border in one day. “This is set up for if you have a rush of people coming at the border, the border closes down. No one gets in,” he said of the bill. “This is not someone standing at the border with a little clicker saying, I’m going to let one more. And we’re at 4,999, and then it has to stop. It is a shutdown of the border and everyone actually gets turned around.” 

Despite President Biden claiming at a campaign rally this weekend that the border supplemental would allow him to secure the border, Lankford stressed the Democrat incumbent could already secure the border now if he wanted to. Some Republicans are criticizing Lankford for pursuing the bill anyhow, essentially handing Biden a win to claim he’s made progress on the border crisis. But the senator from Oklahoma urged that the timing of the election shouldn’t affect progress. 

“Republicans four months ago would not give funding for Ukraine, for Israel and for our southern border because we demanded changes in policy. So we actually locked arms together and said, we’re not going to give you money for this. We want a change in law. And now it’s interesting, a few months later, when we’re finally going to the end, they’re like, ‘Oh, just kidding. I actually don’t want a change in law,’” Lankford said. “We all have an oath to the Constitution, and we have a commitment to say we’re going to do whatever we can to be able to secure the border.”

The Republican senator noted that over the last four months, 50 people on the terror watch list were detected crossing the border. 

Sen. Ted Cruz, joined by Sens. John Cornyn and Lindsey Graham, speaks on Title 42 immigration policy on May 3, 2023, in Washington, D.C. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

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BORDER DEAL PRICE TAG LIKELY TO COST MORE THAN $14 BILLION, BUT GOP LAWMAKERS GROW RESTLESS TO SEE BILL TEXT

Tens of thousands more declared national security risks were detected crossing the border. 

“This puts in mandatory pieces that haven’t been there in the past to make this administration actually enforce the law. I would tell you that I don’t – I don’t know of anyone that believes that if President Trump was elected, he was president right now, this border would not have this problem. So the thought that somehow President Biden can suddenly be the pro-national security president in the final months of this is not believable,” Lankford continued. “We’ve had millions of people illegally cross because he opened up our border. He literally invited the world to be able to come, and they came. That’s why we have this chaos. We’ve got to do something now to be able to stop it, and then to be able to put new tools that even the Trump administration was looking for when they were president, put those tools in place for every president from here on out.” 

Later in the program, Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., noted mounting criticism from his own party against Lankford. 

Sen. James Lankford speaks to reporters as he arrives for a vote in the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2024. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

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“He’s on a suicide mission. The Democrats do not want to secure the border,” Scott said. “This border could be secure, but we know we have a lawless administration, a completely lawless Biden administration. So the only way this is going to happen is if we have accountability that forces Biden to enforce the law. We could change all these laws. There’s laws now. Trump secured the border. Biden decided open the border on the exact same laws. We don’t need a new bill. We need something to enforce to force Biden to comply with the law.” 

Scott said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told Lankford he cannot add accountability measures to the bill to require Biden to secure the border immediately. 

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“Biden could do that today. Why doesn’t he do it today? I mean, he doesn’t need any of this to secure the border. Trump secured the border with the exact same laws,” Scott said. “Unless there’s some accountability measure that forces Biden to secure the border – tied to Ukraine aid, tied to something else – unless there’s something like that, Biden is not going to comply with the law. If it was important for him to comply with the law, he would do it right now. If we can’t force Biden to secure the border, we need to shut the border today.” 

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Dem fundraising giant in the hot seat as GOP lawmakers demand answers over dodged subpoena

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Dem fundraising giant in the hot seat as GOP lawmakers demand answers over dodged subpoena

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House Republicans are demanding ActBlue, a top Democratic campaign fundraising apparatus, turn over international communications, probing whether the organization knowingly misled lawmakers and dodged subpoenas to hide weaknesses in its screening process to weed out illegal, overseas donations.

House Administration Committee Chairman Bryan Steil, R-Wis., House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., collectively laid out their demands in a letter published on Tuesday.

“For more than a year, the Committees have conducted oversight regarding ActBlue’s ‘fundamentally unserious approach to fraud prevention,’” the letter reads.

“Recent reporting … strongly suggests that ActBlue deliberately obstructed the Committees’ investigation, including through misleading statements and noncompliance with our subpoenas.”

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BREAKING THE FOURTH WALL: LEFT-WING GROUPS DEFIANT AS GOP SHEDS LIGHT ON GROUPS TIED TO CHINA

Rep. Jim Jordan leaves a House Republican Conference meeting at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 10, 2024. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc)

The letter is addressed to Regina Wallace-Jones, the CEO and president of ActBlue, and is the most recent entry in investigations that began in 2023 when Republicans originally raised concerns about foreign donations possibly influencing American elections.

It also follows New York Times reporting on a memo from Covington & Burling, a law firm, warning that gaps in its screening armor could present “a substantial risk for ActBlue.”

The memo, on its own, does not implicate wrongdoing or indicate that ActBlue accepted international donations. Even so, the reporting caught the eye of Republicans in Congress.

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Steil, Jordan and Comer are collectively asking ActBlue to produce two internal documents to examine the internal understanding ActBlue may have had about its own weaknesses.

The first is a resignation letter from General Counsel Aaron Ting — a document Republicans contend centers on liabilities created by ActBlue’s donation security.

Republicans believe the second, a message from ActBlue’s former legal counsel Zain Ahmad, relates to an ignored whistleblower complaint about those practices.

HOUSE HEARING RAISES RED FLAGS OVER FORMER TECH MOGUL’S ‘CCP NETWORK’ ALLEGEDLY FUNDING OF FAR-LEFT GROUPS

House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer (R-KY) speaks to the media on his Committee’s investigation into former President Joe Biden’s cognitive state, in the Rayburn House Office Building on July 24, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

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Republicans have already requested those documents before, but haven’t received them.

“There is considerable reason to believe that ActBlue may have deliberately withheld this responsive material to impede our investigation,” the letter states.

For its own part, ActBlue has claimed it makes every effort to ensure its fundraising complies with legal requirements.

In ActBlue’s own letter published in Nov. 2023, Wallace-Jones, the CEO, affirmed that the organization maintained the highest standards for scrutiny of its fundraising.

“Our approach is multilayered, with checks and confirmations occurring throughout the donation process to verify donors and donor information,” Wallace-Jones wrote.

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“These measures, which include compliance measures, technological tools, and manual reviews, help to ensure the identity of donors, root out potential foreign contributions, and protect donors from financial fraud.”

OVERSIGHT DEMANDS DOJ ANSWERS ON FOREIGN FUNDING OF AGITATOR GROUPS AS IRAN, ANTI-ICE PROTESTS CONTINUE

Regina Wallace-Jones of Palo Alto soaks up the first evening of the DNC Convention at the United Center in Chicago, IL on Monday, August 19, 2024. (Photo by Yalonda M. James/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)

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Republican lawmakers have given ActBlue two weeks to produce the requested documentation, setting a deadline for April 28, 2026.

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“Absent these steps, the Committees are prepared to use available mechanisms to enforce our subpoenas,” the letter reads.

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Swalwell scandal sparks fears of deeper rot on Capitol Hill

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Swalwell scandal sparks fears of deeper rot on Capitol Hill

Eric Swalwell’s downfall has raised the possibility of a broader reckoning on Capitol Hill as congressional staffers, reporters and opposition researchers race to verify long-standing rumors of a sordid underground culture among the city’s most powerful.

Former lawmakers across the political spectrum have warned for years of a hushed congressional bacchanal marked by inappropriate revelry and sexual misconduct. But a sense of growing momentum gripped Congress on Tuesday, as Democrats grappled with Swalwell’s resignation and Republicans called for other lawmakers to face scrutiny.

The 72-hour collapse of Swalwell’s political career has shifted attention not only to his closest associates in Congress, but also to a larger set of sitting lawmakers from both parties suspected of lurid sexual activity. Several members have claimed that Swalwell’s alleged behavior was an open secret amid a cacophony of rumors on social media of other potential offenders.

“I think that many people knew about this for a while,” Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Florida Republican, said in an interview with The Times.

Luna, who planned to lead the charge to expel Swalwell before he resigned, alleged that young staffers would talk among one another about Swalwell’s conduct. Lawmakers should have done more to approach him about the rumors, she said.

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Multiple current and former female staffers who spoke with The Times described a broader culture of warning one another about lawmakers with reputations for inappropriate conduct.

But the warnings, passed privately among junior aides, have focused on “sleazy” activity and boundary-crossing behavior, said one former legislative aide, who asked to remain anonymous. Whispers about sleazy behavior generally do not meet the coverage threshold for traditional newsrooms, which are bound by strict ethical standards.

Another former aide said that quiet guidance shared among female staffers focused on behavior that is legal, but nevertheless viewed as unprofessional and unbecoming of members of Congress — a line that has prevented many from speaking out publicly.

Now, a race is on for leverage between two political parties facing comparable strategic risks — each with members facing growing questions over their alleged conduct — and for scoops among news outlets, seeking to break the story first.

The Monday resignations of Swalwell and Texas Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales, who faced his own sex scandal, was also forcing lawmakers to address the issue publicly. Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) — one of Swalwell’s closest friends in Congress — answered questions from reporters at length Tuesday, telling them he should have confronted Swalwell when he heard rumors about his behavior.

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“You let your guard down. I let him into my circle. … I deeply regret it,” Gallego said.

He denied knowing about Swalwell’s alleged misconduct when asked about the behavior.

“Look, we socialized. We went out. But I never saw him engage in any of the predatory behavior, harassment, sexual assault,” Gallego said.

Notably quiet was President Trump, who has faced sexual assault accusations of his own and frequently parried with Swalwell throughout his presidency. Although Trump posted an article reporting Swalwell’s resignation on social media, he has not commented on the matter in his own words.

The unraveling scandal comes at a time when lawmakers have come together across party lines to push for transparency in the case of Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex offender and alleged sex trafficker whose network of powerful associates included Democrats and Republicans alike.

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The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Meanwhile, details of the Swalwell scandal continued to unfold Tuesday, as a Beverly Hills woman accused him of drugging and raping her in 2018. The Times could not immediately reach his attorney; he previously denied allegations of rape and sexual misconduct made by multiple women in published accounts last week.

Sex scandals are not a new phenomenon on Capitol Hill, which has seen over a dozen members embroiled in controversy over the last decade, including Katie Hill of California, Cory Mills and Matt Gaetz of Florida, and Blake Farenthold of Texas, among others.

But several prominent former members — including former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy — have warned of a more widespread cultural problem.

“Every member in Congress knows not to let any young staffer get around Swalwell or Matt Gaetz. It’s not a secret there,” McCarthy said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”

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Luna had pressed lawmakers to address alleged sexual misconduct on Capitol Hill. In February, she called on the “predatory freaks” in Congress to leave office as she complained about the process to get ethical complaints handled.

“It pisses me off because while some of us are actually working and busting our asses, these clowns are sexually harassing their own staff, doing illegal crap, insider trading etc,” Luna wrote at the time.

Luna said Monday that she was encouraged to see bipartisan support for expelling Swalwell and Gonzales.

A longtime staffer who spoke on condition of anonymity said Tuesday that allegations against Swalwell have sparked conversations about how to do more to help staffers report sexual misconduct, such as reforming procedural rules that would allow staffers to report any of their concerns directly to ethics panels, and about the need for ethics investigations to move more quickly.

“Congress has a short-term memory, that is the difficulty here,” the staffer said. “After these guys leave their seats, there needs to be a concerted and consistent effort for reforms to be established and be made permanent.”

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Video: Vance Says Pope Should Stay Out of U.S. Affairs

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Video: Vance Says Pope Should Stay Out of U.S. Affairs

new video loaded: Vance Says Pope Should Stay Out of U.S. Affairs

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Vance Says Pope Should Stay Out of U.S. Affairs

Vice President JD Vance weighed in on the tension between President Trump and Pope Leo XIV as Catholics expressed dismay about Mr. Trump’s attacks.

“I certainly think that in some cases, it would be best for the Vatican to stick to matters of morality, to stick to matters of, you know, what’s going on in the Catholic Church and let the president of the United States stick to dictating American public policy.” “I don’t think that the message of the Gospel is meant to be abused in the way that some people are doing. And I will continue to speak out loudly against war, looking to promote peace.” “Pope Leo said things that are wrong. There’s nothing to apologize for. He’s wrong.” “I’m not a big fan of Pope Leo. He’s a very liberal person. I don’t think he’s doing a very good job.” “I did post it, and I thought it was me as a doctor, and it had to do with the Red Cross. There’s a Red Cross worker there, which we support.” “It’s terrible. It’s gross. It’s blasphemous.” “I stand with the pope. I mean, the pope speaks the Gospel. He speaks for peace.”

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Vice President JD Vance weighed in on the tension between President Trump and Pope Leo XIV as Catholics expressed dismay about Mr. Trump’s attacks.

By Shawn Paik

April 14, 2026

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