Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) condemned former President Trump’s Thursday speech at the southern border as “disgusting” and “racist.”
Murphy, a member of President Biden’s campaign advisory committee, called President Trump’s comments “xenophobic” during a visit to Eagle Pass, Texas, and last month announced his role in blocking a bipartisan bill containing border provisions. He criticized former President Trump for fulfilling his role.
“I think it’s just disgusting,” Murphy said Friday on “CNN News Central” when asked by anchor John Berman about Trump’s speech. “I think that’s racist and xenophobic.”
President Trump visited the southern border on Thursday and toured the area with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R). In his speech, he spoke about the U.S.-Mexico border, saying, “This is Joe Biden’s invasion. This is Biden’s invasion.”
The former president also disparaged immigrants who spoke different languages.
“They are truly a foreign language,” President Trump said. “Nobody can speak them. And they’re coming into our country, and they’re causing tremendous problems.”
Murphy denied Trump’s claims, saying the former president doesn’t really know what an “invasion” is.
“Donald Trump doesn’t know what an invasion looks like,” Murphy said Friday morning. “Go to Ukraine and see what happens when a neighboring country actually invades and kills hundreds of thousands, tens of thousands of its citizens.”
The Connecticut senator then said that Trump is enjoying the situation at the border because he is profiting politically from the “chaotic” situation, and that Murphy has criticized Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) and James He said he helped block the bill along with Sen. Lankford (R). (Oklahoma), spent months negotiating and getting his release, which quickly failed.
“The reality is that Donald Trump wants the southern border to remain chaotic,” Murphy said. “We had a chance to pass a tough, bipartisan border security bill that would allow the president to close portions of the border if border crossings became too crowded. Do you know who stopped the bill from becoming law? Because Donald Trump doesn’t want border controls. He wants chaos because he thinks it’s politically useful.”
In a speech at the National Rifle Association in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, earlier this month, President Trump claimed credit for unfairly introducing the bill.
“I think we killed it. I think it’s dead! But you can never say that, because bad money always comes back, and they’re making a lot of money off of bad money,” Trump said during his speech. . “But they are giving millions and tens of millions of dollars to lawyers to represent illegal immigrants coming into our country. It’s unbelievable.”
Even if the bill passes the Senate, it will have a hard time passing the Republican-led House. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) said the bill was “dead on arrival” in the House.
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