Senator Schmitt Blasts Democrats for Opposing Commonsense Voter ID Law, DHS Funding on Fox News
‘Voter ID is Common Sense, ICE Operations Will Continue’
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator Eric Schmitt (R-MO) joined Fox News’ Faulkner Focus to discuss his support of the SAVE America Act, the importance of passing voter ID laws to secure our federal elections, his Protect America Act, and blast Democrats for blocking Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding.
Watch the full interview HERE
Senator Schmitt on SAVE America Act, Election Integrity:
“Because the Democrats want to have people who are here illegally vote for them. That’s the God’s honest truth. I think if 2024 represented anything, Harris, it was a return of common sense. There couldn’t be more of a common sense proposal than saying you have to provide voter ID to vote, just like when you check into a hotel or you buy an airline ticket just to prove who you are. But I think it’s really interesting and telling that two issues are converging at the same time — this issue of illegal immigration and this issue of voter ID. The Democrats aren’t quiet about it anymore, they’re saying the quiet part out loud, which is they want to bring in 15 to 20 million people into [the U.S.] illegally, and they want them to vote for them because they know their ideas are terrible, and they can’t win elections otherwise. What Republicans are saying is ‘no’. Look, we want the return of common sense. We want to make sure people are who they say they are. We want to make sure our elections are secure and that people aren’t disenfranchised — the people who actually are supposed to vote, [not] by allowing people who aren’t supposed to vote actually vote.”
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“[…] If you actually have people who are voting, and you require them to show ID that over 80 percent of Americans support it. You would think in this country, we have a lot of things we can argue about that are not 80/20 [percent] issues. This is an 80/20 issue. This is the kind of thing that we should get done here. The SAVE America Act is common sense. The Democrats don’t like it because it threatens their power. That’s the electrical board that runs through all these positions — they want to kneecap ICE’s ability to do their jobs, because they don’t want deportations and they want illegal immigrants to vote.”
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“[Voter ID] is a common sense position. I applaud [Senator] John Fetterman for having the courage to say it to the face of the other Democrats. I hope more come along. I actually think it would be good for them. It would be good in this country to have a party that’s not so radical — a second party that’s not so radical as the Democrats have become. But calling everything Jim Crow 2.0 and trying to fear monger over an issue that everybody knows makes common sense. You have to present your ID to do all kinds of things — to buy beer, to check into a hotel. It’s perfectly reasonable for people to show an ID. By the way, a government issued that would be paid for by the government, no one’s going to be out of pocket for this. That’s how easy this thing would be. But they don’t like it because they know that they want people who shouldn’t be voting in order to win elections.”
Senator Schmitt Blasts Democrats for Blocking DHS Funding:
“Let me just lay out the landscape for this week, because for the viewers, it may get confusing, because there’s so many threatened shutdowns. We passed 11 of the 12 appropriations bills a couple of weeks ago. There’s a very temporary spending measure for the [Department of Homeland Security], which includes FEMA, ICE, TSA — a lot of things. The Democrats thought that they were going to make [immigration] their issue, but this is a home game for us. The American people are tired of the 15 to 20 million people who came here illegally. They don’t want to kneecap ICE’s ability to do their jobs. We need to say we’re not doing that. I have a proposal here called the Protect America Act that says we’re going to end sanctuary cities. We’re going to increase penalties for illegal entry and illegal re-entry. We’re going to increase penalties for assaulting ICE officers, and we’re going to go after these [non-governmental organizations] fueling the discontent and violence on our streets. That’s our counter proposal. We’re not going to see to their demands that are totally unreasonable. Let’s fund this last piece of [the government]. And if [Democrats’] think this is something that [they] can run on, [they’re] wrong, because [they] are on the wrong side of this issue. Bring it on.”
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“We’ll get this done. Look, the Democrats, if they wanted to defund [DHS], it’s going to affect TSA and FEMA. ICE money is already [allocated] from the Working Families Tax Cut Act last summer. We’ve already front-loaded all that money. ICE operations will continue, whether Democrats like it or not.”
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