Cruz, Hannity Spar Over Delegates: ‘The Only People Asking This Question Are the Hardcore Donald Trump Supporters

by IAN HANCHETT19 Apr 20166,259

GOP presidential candidate Texas Senator

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)

97%

 and talk radio and Fox News Channel host Sean Hannity engaged in a testy exchange over the delegate process on Hannity’s radio show on Tuesday.

Hannity began the interview by asking, “I think the number one question on the minds of Republicans right now is what is going on with the delegates. For example, if you can explain to people that your campaign, that you have every right, within the rules, to talk to candidates, that are pledged on a first ballot, to candidate A or candidate C, you being candidate B. And that — tell us what that process is.”

Cruz answered that isn’t what people are concerned about, and are instead concerned about policy issues and beating Democratic candidate former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Cruz further stated that “the media loves to obsess about process. This process, and this whining from the Trump campaign is all silly. It’s very, very simple –.”

Hannity then cut in to say, “I’m on social media, with millions of people. I have 550 radio stations. And I have the top-rated cable in my hour, all across the board. And I am telling you, that people are telling me, that they find this whole process confusing.” He further stated that this wasn’t a “process question. It’s an integrity of the election question. And everybody’s asking me this question. So, I want — I’m giving you an opportunity to explain it.”

Cruz responded, “Sean, the only people asking this question, are the hardcore Donald Trump supporters.” Hannity again cut in to ask, “Senator, why do you this? Every single time you…you’ve got to stop. Every time I have you on the air, and I ask a legitimate question, you try to throw this in my face. I’m getting sick of it. I’ve had you on more than any other candidate, on radio and TV. So, if I ask you, Senator, a legitimate question to explain to the audience, why don’t you just answer it?”

Cruz then said, “Sean, can I answer your question without being interrupted?” Cruz then talked about the results in Utah, North Dakota, Wisconsin, Colorado, and Wyoming, all of which Cruz has won. He added, “Over 1.3 million people voted in those 5 states. We won all 5. All of this noise and complaining and whining has come from the Trump campaign, because they don’t like the fact that they’ve 5 elections in a row, that Republicans are uniting behind our campaign. So, they’re screaming, on Drudge, and it’s getting echoed, this notion of voterless election. It is nonsense. They are making it up. Over 1.3 million people voted. We won landslides in all 5.”

Cruz continued, “Now, there is a second component, beyond the elections, which is the individual delegates are elected by the people. Donald Trump’s campaign does not know how to organize on the grassroots. And so, when the delegates are elected, conservative activists, real conservative activists show up, and they elect delegates, and we are winning those elections over and over and over again. The Donald Trump campaign doesn’t know what they’re doing. They don’t show up. In Colorado, the Donald Trump team was handing out flyers asking their supporters to vote for a slate of delegates, they included Cruz delegates on their slate. They just — they didn’t even know how type up a piece of paper without getting it wrong. In Washington state, when Washington state elected their delegates, three days before the election, the Donald Trump campaign, in a panic, realized Washington state was getting ready to elect their delegates. They sent out an emergency email to their Washington supporters, but they screwed up, and sent it to their Washington, DC supporters, instead of their Washington state supporters. I cannot help that the Donald Trump campaign does not seem capable of running a lemonade stand. Elections are won by voters and grassroots activists showing up and voting for the candidate they support.”

He further argued that “[N]obody, as I travel the country, nobody is asking me this, other than the Trumpsters, and people repeating it.”

Hannity again asked Cruz to “explain what happens in these moments” with delegates after their states vote. Hannity added to the end of the question, “It’s a simple question. It’s not a Trump question. It’s a question about what’s going to happen. You’re arguing, Kasich is arguing, that this is going to be settled at the convention. And I think people need to understand it. Because, you know, most people don’t.”

Cruz responded by pointing to his recent victories in Utah, North Dakota, Wisconsin, Colorado, and Wyoming. He further stated that the Trump campaign was panicking because they were losing, and “Every time the people vote against them, they scream the election’s been stolen. No, when people vote against you, it means you’ve lost an election.” He then stated that delegates are elected by the people, “and if you want to elect delegates, your supporters come and vote. Every other presidential candidate knows that, and figured this out. And by the way, every presidential candidate has known how to figure this out in every prior cycle.”

He then declared, “The Donald Trump campaign doesn’t know what they’re doing. It’s a Kim Kardashian reality show. And so, in Georgia, they elected their delegates. And conservative grassroots activists showed up, and the conservative grassroots are overwhelmingly with us, so they elected Cruz delegates. That’s the democratic process.”

Hannity then asked, “What if the delegate selection doesn’t represent the will of the people in that particular district or area?” Cruz answered, “Sean, that’s why there’s an election.” Hannity then cut in to say he was asking about the event of a conflict, and “Senator, I don’t know why you’re mad. There’s no reason — I’m asking. I’m just trying to understand it. I’m really having a hard time understanding why you’re getting angry at this.”

Cruz said that he wasn’t mad at all. He then accused Trump’s campaign of trying to distract from real issues, and told Hannity, “And so, when you ask only about the nonsense, how about we ask — you know what people ask me when I travel around? How do we bring jobs back?”

Hannity cut in to say he’s asked Cruz those questions “more than anybody else.” Cruz countered by saying that Trump has refused to debate because he has no concrete proposals. He further stated that he doesn’t care about Trump, and doesn’t want to “talk about the nonsense that he wants to distract us from.”

Hannity again stated that he had talked more about substantive issues with Cruz more than anyone else, and that he’s merely trying to get Cruz to explain how the process him courting delegates in states that have already voted to vote for him on a second ballot, something Hannity said was within the rules, works so the audience can understand it.

Cruz then said, “Sean, it’s not a question of within the rules or not. It’s winning elections. These delegates are elected by the people, and when grassroots conservatives come out, we win. … And every time there’s an election that the conservative grassroots decide, we win.” Cruz further predicted that this dynamic would play out in Cleveland, and that he would get the majority of delegates.

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter@IanHanchett

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NY Times Bombshell Scoop: Fox News Colluded with Rubio to Give Amnesty to Illegal Aliens

Marco Rubio Pushed for Immigration Reform With Conservative Media.

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Senator Marco Rubio, center, with a bipartisan group of senators at a Washington news conference to unveil details of an immigration overhaul bill in April 2013.

STEPHEN CROWLEY / THE NEW YORK TIMES

By JASON HOROWITZ

FEBRUARY 27, 2016

A few weeks after Senator Marco Rubiojoined a bipartisan push for an immigration overhaul in 2013, he arrived alongside Senator Chuck Schumer at the executive dining room of News Corporation’s Manhattan headquarters for dinner.

Their mission was to persuade Rupert Murdoch, the owner of the media empire, and Roger Ailes, the chairman and chief executive of its Fox News division, to keep the network’s on-air personalities from savaging the legislation and give it a fighting chance at survival.

Mr. Murdoch, an advocate of immigration reform, and Mr. Ailes, his top lieutenant and the most powerful man in conservative television, agreed at the Jan. 17, 2013, meeting to give the senators some breathing room.

But the media executives, highly attuned to the intensifying anger in the Republican grass roots, warned that the senators also needed to make their case to Rush Limbaugh, the king of conservative talk radio, who held enormous sway with the party’s largely anti-immigrant base.

So the senators supporting the legislation turned to Mr. Rubio, the Florida Republican, to reach out to Mr. Limbaugh.

The dinner at News Corporation headquarters — which has not been previously reported — and the subsequent outreach to Mr. Limbaugh illustrate the degree to which Mr. Rubio served as the chief envoy to the conservative media for the group supporting the legislation. The bill would have provided a pathway to American citizenship for 11 million illegal immigrants along with measures to secure the borders and ensure that foreigners left the United States upon the expiration of their visas.

It is a history that Mr. Rubio is not eager to highlight as he takes on Donald J. Trump, his rival for the Republican presidential nomination, who has made his vow to crack down on illegal immigration a centerpiece of his campaign.

Those discussions of just a few years ago now seem of a distant era, when, after the re-election of President Obama, momentum was building to overhaul the nation’s immigration system.

The senators embarked on a tour of editorial boards and newsrooms, and Mr. Rubio was even featured as the “Republican savior” on the cover of Time magazine for his efforts to change immigration laws. He already was being mentioned as a 2016 presidential contender.

Now Mr. Trump has become the Republican leader in national polls by picking fights with Mr. Ailes and offending the Latino voters whom Mr. Rubio had hoped to bring into the Republican fold. And while Mr. Rubio ultimately abandoned the bipartisan legislation in the face of growing grass-roots backlash and the collapse of the conservative media truce, he, and to a certain degree Fox News, are still paying for that dinner.

Fox’s ratings remain strong, but its standing among Republican viewers, influenced by Mr. Trump’s offensive, has dropped to a three-year low, according to YouGov BrandIndex. And Mr. Rubio’s opponents, for whom Mr. Schumer, a Democrat from New York, has become theultimate villain, continue to depict the Florida Republican as a duplicitous establishment insider.

“If you look at the ‘Gang of Eight,’ one individual on this stage broke his promise to the men and women who elected him and wrote the amnesty bill,” Senator Ted Cruz said of Mr. Rubio during Thursday’s Republican debate. And as Mr. Rubio defended himself, Mr. Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, posted “MARCO ‘AMNESTY’ RUBIO” on Twitter.

The so-called Gang of Eight was four Democrats and four Republicans, including Mr. Rubio, who drafted an immigration bill in 2013. It passed the Senate but was stymied by conservative opposition in the House.

Details of the dinner, and a previous one in 2011, were provided to The New York Times by an attendee of one of the meetings and two people with knowledge of what was discussed at both get-togethers.

None of the attendees agreed to be identified for this article because the conversations were supposed to be confidential.

But on Monday, Mr. Limbaugh shed light on his interactions with the senators when he told a caller frustrated with his criticism of Mr. Rubio that the immigration position the senator had advocated “comes right out of the Gang of Eight bill.”

Mr. Limbaugh added, “I’ve had it explained to me by no less than Senator Schumer.”

Mr. Schumer declined to comment for this article. But before Mr. Obama’s re-election and soon afterward, he could hardly stop talking with conservative senators and media power brokers about the chance to pass comprehensive immigration legislation.

As early as March 9, 2011, Mr. Schumer joined Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and another eventual member of the Gang of Eight, at the Palm restaurant in Manhattan, where they made their case to Mr. Murdoch, Mr. Ailes and Mr. Limbaugh in a private room. The senators argued how damaging the word “amnesty” was to their efforts, and walked Mr. Limbaugh through their vision for an immigration overhaul.

The senators were especially eager to try to neutralize conservative media, which proved lethal to a big push for immigration changes in 2007. A study by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism showed that conservative news shows had devoted about a quarter of their time to immigration.

In late 2012, after Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee, lost the presidential election in part because of his dismal performance with Latino voters, Mr. Rubio joined the fight. On one Sunday alone in April 2013, he made an appearance on seven talk shows to advocate the immigration overhaul, including on “Fox News Sunday.”

Mr. Rubio also reached out to other conservative power brokers, including the radio hosts Mark Levin and Laura Ingraham, telling them that the legislation did not amount to amnesty. The Fox anchors Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly became more supportive.

At the time, The Washington Post reportedthat Mr. Rubio’s advisers were monitoring to the minute how much time the hosts devoted to immigration, and that “they are heartened that the volume is much diminished.”

Mr. Rubio publicly and privately worked to assuage the fears of Mr. Limbaugh, who on air called him a “thoroughbred conservative” and assured one wary listener that “Marco Rubio is not out to hurt this country or change it the way the liberals are.”

On Jan. 29, 2013, the same day Mr. Obama highlighted immigration in Las Vegas, Mr. Limbaugh had Mr. Rubio on as a guest to talk about immigration and called him “admirable and noteworthy” during a warm conversation about the bipartisan immigration plan.

“I know for you border security is the first and last — if that doesn’t happen, none of the rest does, right?” Mr. Limbaugh lobbed.

“Well, not just that,” swung Mr. Rubio. “That alone is not enough.”

The conversation concluded with Mr. Rubio saying: “Thank you for the opportunity, Rush. I appreciate it.”

“You bet,” Mr. Limbaugh said

Phyllis Schlafly Issues Rubio Betrayal Memo

Image courtesy of Phyllis Schlafly

by JULIA HAHN5 Feb 2016Washington D.C.2,613

Conservative icon and grassroots heroine Phyllis Schlafly has released a new report extensively detailingSen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)’s efforts to deceive the American people in his determined pursuit to open the nation’s borders.

Schlafly’s 15-page report on Rubio’s“betrayal” provides hyperlinked sources to document Rubio’s “big con.”

Schlafly’s memo warns the American people that Rubio’s push to deliver globalist immigration policies for his donors is not finished. “There is likely no person in the United States of America in a better position to enact mass immigration legislation than a President Rubio — no one who could deliver more votes in both parties for open borders immigration,” the memo states. “Senator Rubio is not Main Street’s Obama, he is Wall Street’s Obama: President Obama was a hardcore leftist running as a centrist; Senator Rubio is a Wall Street globalist running as a tea party conservative.”

The report is broken up into more than a dozen subsections, including “LYING TO CONSERVATIVE MEDIA,” in which Schlafly details how Rubio made countless false promises to Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, National Review, and others. “Rubio traded shamelessly on the affection and trust conservatives had placed in him,” the memo states. “His deceptions about his immigration bill rivaled and exceeded Obama’s claims about disastrous Obamacare.”

Although in recent months, many of National Review’s writers have sought to boost Rubio’s candidacy, the memo later notes that “National Review has never received an apology for being repeatedly lied to by Rubio.” The memo reports, “To this day, Rubio has not only never retracted one of his false statements — never admitted any wrongdoing — but never even apologized to those he deceived, and their millions of listeners. Instead, he is raising more money and telling the same lies all over again, as he continues his push for mass amnesty and mass immigration.”

Another subsection of the memo entitled “AMERICAN WORKERS CAN’T CUT IT”states: 

In a for-attribution interview with Ryan Lizza, two senior Rubio staffers expressed frustration that they couldn’t get even more foreign workers crammed into the bill for their boss.  They explained:

‘There are American workers who, for lack of a better term, can’t cut it.’

Rubio’s spokesman — now his campaign spokesman — also compared opponents of amnesty to slaveholders. More on that here.

The memo also documents the back-room deals involved in the bill. A subsection entitled, “IMMIGRATION-FOR-PROFIT”reports that “Rubio’s lawyer, who wrote the bill, also enriched his clients through it.”

The “REFUGEES” subsection notes: “Rubio’s bill included language giving the President unprecedented power to expand refugee resettlement.“ 

The “FIANCÉ VISAS” subsection points out that “Rubio’s bill opened the floodgates for fiancé visas — and fiancé children — an unprecedented security risk and another handout to the foreign immigration lobby.”

In a subsection titled, “DECEIVING LAW ENFORCEMENT,” the memo states:

Revealing Rubio’s character, it is also worth recalling that during his introduction press conference, Rubio stood frozen like a statue as ICE officer, council President, and former Marine Chris Crane was removed from the room for trying to ask a question. Shameful. Crane would later testify: ‘Never have I seen such contempt for law enforcement as I’ve seen from the Gang of Eight.’

In a section entitled, “BACK TO HIS OLD WAYS,” the memo notes that “Rubio is also the only candidate in the race still advocating citizenship for all illegal immigrants, and all that necessarily entails in terms of fiscal costs and chain migration.  (Jeb’s book did not call for universal citizenship, as Rubio does.) To this day, Rubio has not backed off a single policy in the Gang of Eight bill (see more here).”

The conclusion of Schlafly’s memo is posted here in full:

There is no single major distinguishing policy difference between Marco Rubio, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) or Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC). They have the same trade policy, immigration policy and foreign policy.  But on immigration most especially — the issue in which all four have invested the most — there is no daylight separating them.

The difference, then, is one of persona, not policy.  And in the arena of immigration, this translates into a vital difference.  The biggest change from McCain-Kennedy, which could not get out of the Senate, and the Gang of Eight — which was nursed along by conservative pundits despite being to the left of Kennedy’s bill — was the presence of Rubio.  Rubio created the conditions necessary to produce a considerably more open borders bill: conservatives who were invested in the Rubio Brand provided no early pushback but accepted Kennedy’s old talking points, and Rubio gave red state Democrats the political space necessary to support it.  This is how it got 68 votes in the Senate.

The stakes of course are raised considerably if Rubio is President or Vice President. Rubio would have a much, much better chance than Obama of getting an open borders bill through Congress — while Boehner could refuse to bring up Obama’s mass immigration/amnesty bill for vote in 2014, Ryan would never refuse Rubio’s bill.  Rubio’s presence, as it did with the Gang of Eight, would create the cover for both certain Republicans and all Democrats to get behind a far more open borders plan.  Given that nearly every House Democrat sponsored the Gang of Eight House version (including Pelosi and Gutierrez), Ryan would not need to gather that many additional votes (House GOP leaders might have refused Obama’s 2014 request for a vote but they would not refuse President Rubio’s).

All of which adds up to: there is likely no person in the United States of America in a better position to enact mass immigration legislation than a President Rubio — no one who could deliver more votes in both parties for open borders immigration.  Senator Rubio is not Main Street’s Obama, he is Wall Street’s Obama: President Obama was a hardcore leftist running as centrist; Senator Rubio is a Wall Street globalist running as a tea party conservative.

Unlike other legislation, the effects of bad immigration policy cannot be repealed. They are forever. The Republican party would never nominate a pro-Obamacare candidate, and it must be an even stronger maxim that it should not nominate any candidate who is committed to a policy of mass immigration. Rubio wrote the Obamacare of immigration policies: a bill that would have eviscerated the middle class, plunged millions into poverty, legalized the most dangerous aliens on the planet, overwhelmed our schools and safety nets, and done irreversible violence to the idea of America as a nation-state. Rubio is the candidate of open borders, Obamatrade and mass immigration, making one last attempt to pull off one big con.

You can read the entire memo here.

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U.S. to Issue Visas to 300,000 Muslim Migrants

Ryan’s Strategy to ‘Keep the American People Safe’ Fails: U.S. to Issue Visas to 300,000 Muslim Migrants

AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

by JULIA HAHN20 Jan 2016Washington D.C.4,258

On Wednesday, Senate Democrats successfully and predictably blocked what many conservatives described as Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)’s “Show Vote'”on refugee admissions.

It has been called a show vote because the Ryan plan, even if the President signed it,would still allow the President to bring in an unlimited number of refugees from an unlimited number of countries.

Democrats’ filibuster on the motion to proceed to Ryan’s show vote comes one month after Speaker Ryan sent President Obama a blank check to fund visa issuancesto nearly 300,000 (temporary and permanent) Muslim migrants in the next 12 months alone. Ryan’s decision to fully-fund Obama’s immigration agenda arguably ceded any leverage he may otherwise have had over Democrats and ensured the large-scale migration into America would continue and grow.

Ryan’s bill, known as the American SAFE Act, was blocked by 55-43.

Ryan’s inability to develop a winning strategy suggests he failed at what he has called the “first duty of the government.”  Ryan declared after the SAFE Act’s initial passage in the House:

The first duty of our government is to keep the American people safe. That’s why, today, the House will vote on a plan to pause our Syrian refugee program… If our law enforcement and intelligence community cannot verify that each and every person coming here is not a security threat, then they shouldn’t be allowed in. Right now, the government can’t certify these standards, so this plan pauses the program. It’s a security test—not a religious test. This reflects our values. This reflects our responsibilities. And this is urgent. We cannot and should not wait to act—not when our national security is at stake.

Ryan informed the press that he had “reached out to our Democratic colleagues” in crafting the plan, and touted his acquisition a “veto-proof majority”—which no longer seems relevant since the Senate blocked further movement on the bill.

While Ryan and House Republicans celebrated their supposed political victory— preparing to fully fund Obama’s refugee plans while offering up a show vote—  Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) never seemed concerned. As The Hill reported at the time: “When asked about the prospect of Obama vetoing the legislation, Reid said, ‘Don’t worry, it won’t get passed. Next question?’”

Although many House Republicans seemed convinced that putting forth a toothless bill was a brilliant strategy, many conservatives were not. For instance, Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC)’s office denounced Ryan’s bill as a “show vote” that would “do nothing to cut off the funding for President Barack Obama’s plan to import tens of thousands of Middle Eastern refugees into the U.S.” Jones explained that, “defunding President Obama’s refugee program is the only way to ensure there is an actual halt to a refugee influx.”

Hot Air’s AllahPundit even observed that Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)’s bill was more substantive than Paul Ryan’s: “Another irony: when you compare the House GOP’s bill to what Senate Dems are pushing, it’s the Democratic bill that’s more substantive.”

Mark Levin slammed Ryan’s entire proposal as a fraud. “You’re not securing the homeland, you’re pretending to secure the homeland,” Levin declared, later tweeting out: “Washington fighting over phony policy and want you to think it is serious.”

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) explained that the legislation Ryan pushed through the House “allows the President to continue to bring in as many refugees as he wants from anywhere in the world.”

In a post entitled, “Uh, the House Bill to Pause the Syrian Refugee Program Doesn’t Really Pause the Syrian Refugee Program,” National Review’s Rich Lowry wrote: “It was nice to see the House get a veto-proof majority for its Syrian refugee bill. The problem is, when you get down to it, it doesn’t do anything.”

Given these reactions, it is unsurprising that there was no public momentum behind Ryan’s bill.

But Ryan further ensured there would be no momentum for his strategy— and no pressure on Democrats— by attacking conservatives’ desire to block Muslim immigration. Ryan went to great lengths to ensure America that, as long as he was in charge, no proposals to restrict mass Muslim migration would be tolerated.

Ryan—who, according to recent reports, is “rapidly emerging as Republicans’ anti-Trump” and as a “counterweight to Trump”—made a concerted effort to frame his refugee plan in this light.

Indeed, in early December, Ryan held a press conference publicly condemning the GOP frontrunner’s proposal to temporarily pause Muslim migration. Ryan declared that Trump’s plan “is not conservatism”—even though 65% of all conservative voters think America should allow zero refugees from the Middle East into America, according to Rasmussen. Ryan also adopted the left’s talking point—insisting that there is no need to curb Muslim migration into the United States because “the vast, vast, vast majority of Muslims are peaceful and believe in pluralism, freedom, democracy and individual rights.”

It was never publicly explained by House Republicans how there would be momentum for their strategy if Speaker Ryan was using his pulpit to ensure America that massive Muslim immigration would make America a more free, peaceful, and democratic nation.

Similarly, in a nationally televised interview with Sean Hannity, Ryan ruled out the possibility of curbing Muslim migration, proclaiming: “That’s not who we are”.

Perhaps most noticeably, Ryan helped recruit Nikki Haley to deliver the Republican’s State of the Union rebuttal, in which Haley criticized Trump’s proposal to curb Muslim migration and made the case for functionally unlimited immigration.

By framing Muslim immigration as a huge positive for America, and by putting up a show vote that did not reduce Muslim immigration in any way, the result was that there was no capacity to put any public pressure on Democrats to change their position. One aide Breitbart News spoke with put it this way:

If we wanted to beat Democrats, we needed to highlight the attacks on women carried out by Muslims, highlight the sinister spread of Female Genital Mutilation, highlight the welfare costs, and cultural dangers, the spread of radical Islam inside our borders. Then, we need a proposal to actually pause Muslim immigration. Instead, Paul Ryan celebrated the idea of unlimited Muslim immigration— with all its transformative effects— while putting forward a bill that did nothing. Democrats never broke a sweat. Having Ryan in charge of refugee strategy is like putting the world’s fattest man in charge of your diet plan.

Indeed, Ryan seemed much more eager to collaborate with Democrats. When pressed about his refugee bill, Ryan expressed his desire to cooperate with Democrats— not dissimilar from his $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill, which was praised by Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Reid, and the White House. Ryan said:

This should not be a partisan issue… This should not be about Republicans and Democrats. This should be about keeping America safe… We’re trying to make this bipartisan because we don’t think this should be a Republican or Democrat issue, it should be an American security issue.

Conservative icon Phyllis Schlafly warned fifty years ago that the donor-class—or Kingmakers, as she calls them—who control the Republican Party prefer lawmakers and candidates “who would sidestep or suppress the key issues” by compromising with Democrats on the issues that matter to Republican voters.

Schlafly explained that in doing so, the Kingmakers are able to create an ostensible consensus between both Party leaders—and, as a result, voters are denied their ability to choose a party that represents their interests, since both parties represent merely an echo of the other side. Thus, Ryan’s declarations that, “We don’t think this should be a Republican or Democrat issue,” and “We’re trying to make this bipartisan,” and “This should be about keeping America safe” bears striking resemblance to what Schlafly warned about in 1964:

The kingmakers and their propaganda apparatus have launched a series of false slogans designed to mask the failure of their candidates to debate the major issues. Some of these are the following: ‘Politics should stop at the water’s edge.’ ‘We must unite behind our President who has sole power in the field of foreign affairs.’ ‘Foreign policy should be bipartisan.’

In response to today’s failure, Ryan issued a tepid five-sentence response reproaching Senate Democrats’ maneuver as “irresponsible.” While Ryan’s strategy turned out to be unsuccessful, the outcome was not perhaps entirely surprising. In his “bold” Republican agenda released last week, Ryan— who has a two-decade long history of pushing mass immigration — did not include a word about an immigration crackdown. But, considering Ryan’s previous claim that migrants from the third world make the “best Americans,” Ryan himself may regard his own strategy as highly successful.

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