Bill Maher puts pressure on Dan Crenshaw over failed border bill

comedian Bill Maher confronted Rep. Daniel Crenshaw (R-TX) via Donald Trump This effectively “killed” a cross-party border bill, effectively bringing down the corresponding legislation earlier this year.

Crenshaw joined the Democratic strategist James Carville for the panel discussion in the Friday edition of Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO and disagreed with the group on the issue of illegal immigration and the border.

Earlier this year, the Senator said: James Lankford (R-OH) and Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT), with bipartisan support, have introduced a bill that purports to address problems at the U.S. southern border, including raising the standards for those seeking asylum in the United States.

However, after the bill was attacked by the former president, leading Republicans in Congress spoke out against it in February.

Maher pressed Crenshaw, saying that “Trump killed this bill” and claiming he did not want the immigration issue resolved before the election. Crenshaw said he never had the opportunity to read the bill and it was “written in a dark room.”

Both Carville and Maher pointed out that Lankford, who introduced the bill, is not a liberal Democrat.

“I mean, they had the law. The guy who wrote it, Lankford, is a conservative Republican,” Maher told Crenshaw. “You yourself have spoken out on it. Trump opposed the law because he didn't want the issue to work against him in the election. That's your friend.”

As the crowd cheered and laughed, Crenshaw simply replied, “Whoa.”

“Well, I mean, you have to defend that,” Maher said. The two then clashed over what the congressman had actually said at the time and whether he was for it before he was against it, but they ultimately moved on without really resolving the issue.

CARVILLE: Honestly, I don't. I like immigrants. I just like them. I think they work hard. I think they make a huge contribution to the American economy. I think they enlist in the armed forces more than others. So I'm very, very pro-immigration. I really am.

CRENSHAW: Yes, we are too. But I would like you to also say that you are against illegal immigration, because if you are for legal immigration, then there are all these hardworking people, and I agree, my stepmother is a legal immigrant. I don't want people jumping the line, because that's what happens when you allow an open border. Eight million illegal encounters under Biden, a quarter of them were released into the country. That is very disproportionately unfair to legal immigrants who are trying to do it right.

CARVILLE: I want to be clear: Border crossings are down. And by the way, Senator Lankford – I barely know him. He's hardly a left-wing Democrat – and Senator Murphy had a bill that was supported by the Border Patrol and Trump vetoed it. Okay. That's fine.

MOWER: Right.

CARVILLE: But that's the point we're at and I think.

MOWER: Which is yourself.

CARVILLE: I love migrants. I'm just telling you that now. If you are in this country and you come here, work hard.

CRENSHAW: I hope you are not offended.

MOWER: But I mean you, yourself.

CARVILLE: I'm not talking about any kind of crime.

MOWER: You yourself were on that side. I mean, you had the bill. The guy who wrote it. Lankford. He's a conservative Republican.

CRENSHAW: Yes.

MOWER: You yourself have commented on this. Trump rejected the law because he did not want the issue to be his downfall in the election. That is your friend. How did you …

CRENSHAW: Wow.

MOWER: Well, I mean, you have to defend that.

CRENSHAW: Yes, well. First, I have to tell you what was actually said about it. For example, even before the bill was published, I said, “Hey, let's read it.” And if someone has an opinion about it without having read it, that's kind of stupid. That's what I said. And I stand by that. What happened with this bill is much more complicated. A very complex bill was written in a dark room. Then they come out, there's this extremely complicated immigration bill, and everyone has their guns pointed at it and fired.

MOWER: This is a revision of your statement.

CRENSHAW: No, that's exactly what I said.

MOWER: No, no, no, you said it was a good bill and you have a lot of cheats in your party who didn't want it.

CRENSHAW: NO.

MOWER: Yes, you did.

CRENSHAW: We can check that. I never had the opportunity to form an opinion on that. That's the problem. And I stick to that – I stick to that, that's the problem.

MOWER: I didn't read it that way. I read your opinion on it.

CRENSHAW: I said it's stupid, it's the height of stupidity – I'll tell you exactly what I said. It was the height of stupidity to have an opinion on something you hadn't read, and none of us had read it yet. Well, this is even more complex. And I think the cynics were rightly cynical and said, “Why are you coming up with this in the last year of your term? You had a peak of 300,000 illegal border crossings a few months ago. Oh, because, you know, it's a campaign issue now. Why don't you start by reinstating all the executive orders that Trump issued that had brought the border under control to 14,000 illegal border crossings a month, which is pretty well within the range.”

MOWER: That's essentially what you put in the law until Trump tried to kill it.

Watch the clip above via HBO.

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