Rush Limbaugh said on Wednesday he believes Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) may be the only Republican in the Senate who is not scared of Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and the liberal media narrative that a partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) would be Republicans’ fault.
After promising to roll back President Obama’s executive actions on illegal immigration, Senate Republicans have failed in multiple attempts to pass a bill funding DHS without providing resources to implement the president’s program of granting legal status to several million immigrants who entered the country illegally.
As a result, Republican leadership has proposed passing a bill funding both, then coming behind that with a second bill defunding the President’s “executive amnesty.” Opponents of the plan have pointed out that there would be little chance of passing the second bill after giving up any leverage they currently have.
“Jeff Sessions is the lone voice in the Senate, and I’m not trying to be disrespectful of other Republicans in the Senate, but he has spoken up loudly and consistently, fearlessly about the lawlessness of this Regime, and he continues to be the only one that does,” said Limbaugh. “There may be other Republican senators in there who agree with him to a degree or another, but they haven’t been nearly as up front and present as Sessions.”
To illustrate his point, Limbaugh pulled two soundbites of Sessions speaking on the Senate floor this week.
In the first clip, Sessions criticized some of his Republican colleagues for being scared of being blamed for a partial DHS shutdown, which would happen if a funding bill is not passed by Friday.
Sessions: There are some, even on the Republican side, that say, “Oh, gosh, you know, the president will blame us even if it’s not our fault, and we might as well cave in and give him what he wants.” Well, what he wants is something he can’t be given. What he wants is Congress to capitulate and erode its powers and responsibility. He wants Congress to violate its duty to fund something that is illegal and contrary to Congress’ wishes.
In the second clip, which Rush said contained a “key element” explaining what is happening, Sessions said he believes it is unwise for Republicans to, as Limbaugh put it, “hide behind” a recent federal judge’s ruling that put the president’s executive actions on hold. The Alabama senator contends that it is impossible to know what will happen in the appeals process, and therefore Congress should do its “duty” and defund what they believe to be an illegal use of executive power.
Sessions: We’ve been hearing it said that, well, we can fully fund Homeland Security without any restrictions, allowing the president to do this because the courts stopped (his executive actions). We don’t know what the courts are going to do, and this Congress has its duty, and this Congress has a duty to fund only things that it believes are appropriate and lawful, and so Congress shouldn’t fund it on that basis, period.
Limbaugh closed the segment by bemoaning the fact that more Republicans have not backed Sessions’ approach throughout the immigration fights of the last several months.
“They’re just scared to death of a shutdown,” Limbaugh said. “They’re just scared to death.”
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— Cliff Sims (@Cliff_Sims) December 3, 2014
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