Young and Braun are participating in national GOP strategy to attack Joe Biden for saving American lives
Todd Young: “With illegal crossings and fentanyl seizures on our border at all-time highs, it’s disgraceful that President Biden won’t even acknowledge the crisis.”
Mike Braun: “.@CBP seized enough fentanyl to kill the entire U.S. population 7 times over at the border THIS YEAR. When will Biden prioritize the safety of Americans?”
INDIANAPOLIS – The Indiana Democratic Party, the organization that advocates for the future of Indiana and its families, today asked U.S. Senators Todd Young and Mike Braun to clarify why they view President Joe Biden saving American lives – including many Hoosiers – as a failure. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced they have seized dangerous and deadly drugs along the United States’ southern border numerous times this year. In normal times, a bipartisan coalition of political leaders would tout this as success in the nation’s overall fight against the addiction and drug epidemics. However, it appears both Braun and Young are abiding by a national strategy by the Republican Party to criticize every move by the Biden Administration – even if it’s literally saving lives.
Simply put: The Indiana Republican Party appears quite OK with Hoosiers getting access to dangerous and deadly drugs. And, recent receipts show the INGOP is rooting against Indiana’s future.
Here’s what Todd Young and Mike Braun had to say:
Todd Young: “With illegal crossings and fentanyl seizures on our border at all-time highs, it’s disgraceful that President Biden won’t even acknowledge the crisis.”
Mike Braun: “.@CBP seized enough fentanyl to kill the entire U.S. population 7 times over at the border THIS YEAR. When will Biden prioritize the safety of Americans? ”
This is how extreme the Indiana Republican Party’s partisanship has become. Last week, Republicans at the statehouse ignored the Indiana Chamber of Commerce’s “strong opposition” to a bill that would force businesses to pay for COVID-19 testing for workers. Just two weeks ago, Mike Braun vowed to defund the United States military if funding for Donald Trump’s wall was not included in the FY2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Finally, Republicans like Todd Young, Jim Banks, Jim Baird, and Jackie Walorski all described The Jobs Act’s investments in broadband, roads and bridges, and clean water as “socialism” – despite campaigning on these issues themselves. The Indiana Republicans’ extreme partisanship is bad for business, bad for Hoosiers, and bad for Indiana’s future.
Here’s a look at the GOP’s national strategy to attack Joe Biden for saving American lives:
This is a *super* weird way for Republicans to attack Joe Biden
CNN // Chris Cillizza
On Monday, Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York slammed President Joe Biden on Twitter.
“Over 800 pounds of fentanyl were seized at our Southern Border in October,” wrote Stefanik. “This is Biden’s Border Crisis.”
Boom! Roasted!
But, like, kind of a weird flex, right?
After all, Stefanik is talking about 800 pounds of fentanyl that WERE seized at the border, right? Meaning, presumably the border patrol under the Biden administration did the seizing? […]
In May, CNN reported that “so far this fiscal year, which runs October to September, [U.S. Customs and Border Protection] said it seized 6,494 pounds of the synthetic opioid, surpassing the 4,776 pounds seized in fiscal year 2020.”
And last month, the Drug Enforcement Agency announced that it had seized more than 1.8 million pills laced with fentanyl as well as 1,570 pounds of fentanyl powder as part of a two-month sting designed to reduce the amount of the drug in the country. […]
What’s weird is that Stefanik’s attack is not a lone event.
Earlier this month, Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel tweeted this: “899 lbs of fentanyl and 15,631 lbs of methamphetamine were seized at the southern border in October alone.”
And a couple weeks before that, Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley tweeted: “Welcome 2 Pres Biden’s America where 10,000 pounds of fentanyl hv been seized by Customs & Border patrol so far this fiscal yr which is enough to kill over 2 billion ppl or more than 1/4 of the world’s population.” […]
And then there was this from Indiana Sen. Mike Braun on Monday as well:
“.@CBP seized enough fentanyl to kill the entire U.S. population 7 times over at the border THIS YEAR. When will Biden prioritize the safety of Americans? We need to #BuildTheWall That much fentanyl is the equivalent of 204 MILLION lethal doses. We need border security!” […]
If you’re looking for logic here, well, don’t hurt yourself by straining too hard. I suppose the argument is that fentanyl is a crisis in America and one way to judge that is by the amount coming across the border that authorities seize — and, naturally, the idea that they don’t get anywhere close to all of it.
But, it’s a significant logical stretch to cite seizures of drugs as proof that the Biden administration is somehow failing. Because if drug seizures are failures then what does success look like?
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