Clyburn: We Didn’t Wait to Deal with Immigration Until Recently, I Worked on Bill Before Biden Was in Office

On Wednesday’s broadcast of NewsNation’s “Cuomo,” Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) argued that Democrats aren’t just getting around to dealing with immigration, because he worked with then-Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA) on immigration legislation several years ago.

Host Chris Cuomo asked, “[O]rdinarily, the Democrats have not wanted to work with the Republicans, except for that bill that you did in the last minutes of the game that wasn’t a great bill that Lankford helped out on in the Senate. Do you think that they should embrace it more with immigration than they have in the past in terms of working with Republicans?”

Clyburn responded, “Well, I think we did. I think we did. And let me — just know, we aren’t just getting to this. I worked with Xavier Becerra back when I was the whip the first time to do an immigration bill. It was a great bill, in my opinion. We sat there waiting on the Senate to work on it, and the Senate tanked it then. And we did the same thing this time, a great bill, that they came up with, and thanks to Sen. Lankford (R-OK), we did. We agreed to it on our side, as well as the Democrats in the Senate, and then they got a phone call from Donald Trump saying, no, don’t do this, because I would like to run on this issue. And they refused to do it. So, let’s call it the way it is.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett

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