Sen. Blackburn on the Dem Filibuster Fail, China, the Border

CLAY: From the great state of Tennessee, Senator Marsha Blackburn. Senator Blackburn, thanks for taking time to come chat with us. What’s going on on the Senate floor right now as it pertains to the voting rights bill, the filibuster debate? How much longer is this gonna go on, and what’s the ultimate outcome going to be for people out there who are paying some attention to what’s going on on the Senate floor today?

SEN. BLACKBURN: Yes. What you will see us do is go to the floor at 6:30 to vote cloture on this federalizing-of-elections bill that we’re trying to push forward. That vote will fail, and then they will move to have what they are calling — Schumer is calling — a talking filibuster. And that is going to fail. The point is this: What he’s trying to do is blow up the Senate, blow up the rules of the Senate, blow up the court.

They want to pass this socialist agenda which will federalize elections; it would take control of your kids, control of their education, control of your bank account, and expand the court. It would make D.C. a state. They cannot accomplish this because when they get to the Senate to move forward on these legislative items, they have to have 60 votes. So, we are staying united. We are pushing against this. We’re pointing out what they’re doing. We need to keep the filibuster so we can keep the rules of the Senate, the rule of law, and abide by the Constitution.

BUCK: Senator Blackburn, it’s Buck. I just want to know, so that’s ostensibly what Chuck Schumer and the Senate Democrats want to get. It seems — and Clay and I have been trying to analyze this for a few days now. It seems inevitable it’s going to fail. So what is, then, the second-order effectiveness, if you will? What comes afterwards?

Is this merely to give them a talking point going into the midterms that they wanted to pass voting rights and the Republicans, because they’re so racist and there’s Jim Crow 2.0, to borrow the phrase from Biden? Is that really what this is, to set up, essentially, a smear over voting rights of their political opponents, or is there something else at work?

SEN. BLACKBURN: Yeah. Yeah. Yes. One of the things at work is that Chuck Schumer is fully aware he is facing a primary opponent in Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and so AOC coming against him, he is wanting to protect himself. (laughs) The second, what you are seeing is that they are trying to get everybody on the record so that they can go out and say, “Well, you know, the president went to Georgia and he gave this speech and he told everybody, ‘If you’re not for this, you’re racist,'” and this is the type of thing that they’re trying to set up.

The thing is, the Constitution gives states the ability to set their time, place, and manner of elections. It gives that to the state legislatures, not to the courts, not to election administrators, but to the state legislatures, and the states are looking for ways to make it easier to vote; harder to cheat. That is their goal. That is our goal. We think voter participation is a very good thing, and we want to see that continued.

CLAY: Senator Blackburn, I know you were as disgusted as I was when you saw one of the owners of the Golden State Warriors say he didn’t care at all about genocide in China. The NBA, not surprisingly — despite the fact that they claim to be a social justice league — has said virtually nothing about this — players, coaches, other owners. What do you think should happen as a result of those comments? Was it just saying the quiet part out loud? How outraged were you when you heard and saw those comments?

SEN. BLACKBURN: I could not believe it. I thought it was a mistake. And that the NBA and Adam Silver didn’t come out and say something about it was appalling to me, you know? And you have the Golden State Warriors that have not come out and disavowed these comments. And now, you know, they’re trying to walk ’em back and nuance. But I think they need a good dose of Enes Kanter Freedom when it comes to understanding some of these issues.

We know, the world knows that the Chinese Communist Party is carrying out a genocide on the Uyghur Muslim population in Xinjiang province. They know that they are using them for slave labor to make products that are sold not only in the U.S. but around the globe. But people are so timid when confronting the Chinese Communist Party because they think, “Well, they’re going to come although you with a heavy hammer.”

Well, yeah, they do. They have banned me from China. They’ve sanctioned me. And we continue to say what they’re doing is wrong and we continue to stand against it. And it would be nice to see the NBA say, “You know what? We’re going to move our training facility from Xinjiang province.” It would be nice for the U.S. Olympic Committee to say, “We’re not going to let these athletes be subjected to the whims of the Chinese Communist Party.” But people are just kowtowing to the Chinese Communist Party, and it is frustrating, and it is not good for the cause of freedom.

BUCK: Speaking to Senator Marsha Blackburn. Senator Blackburn, I know you’re not in a border state in Tennessee, but you are somebody who is vocal about the challenges that we have at the southern border which it knew on. It’s amazing to me sometimes how little attention this actually gets. The Biden regime’s approach to the border has resulted in the past year in really an unprecedented amount of illegal immigration into this country. And no one thinks it’s… It certainly hasn’t stopped and no one believes it’s gonna continue, going to cease anytime soon. So do you think that the Democrats are gonna have a reckoning with that issue this year as long as the voters are made aware of just what’s happening?

SEN. BLACKBURN: You know, Buck, every town’s a border town and every state’s a border state right now because of the impact of drugs, sex trafficking, human trafficking, gangs, crime in the streets. I do believe is that this administration would be well advised to do something to secure that southern border. You have people from 160 different countries that came across that border, two million illegal aliens and that thought to be apprehended.

Then you have hundreds of thousands, maybe over a million of the got-aways, people that came across the border that we do not know who they are. And, yes, indeed it is going to be a reckoning because people are seeing the vast amounts of fentanyl that are making it into this country. They are hearing about deaths that are in their communities because of this fentanyl. And what they’re saying is, no, this needs to be dealt with.

They’re looking at crime in the streets and gangs that are coming into their communities. What they are seeing is individuals that are being flown under the cloak of darkness, those that have illegally entered the country and they’re going into their communities, and the communities then are left with addressing the cost of school and health care and social services for these individuals. They are also looking at how this makes these communities less safe when it is the gangs that are entering into these neighborhoods — and one of the top issues with women is security. It is crime in the streets.

CLAY:: Senator Blackburn, I know you’re busy on the Senate floor today and tonight. I appreciate that. And we’ll talk to you again soon.”

SEN. BLACKBURN: You got it. Take care. Bye-bye.

CLAY: No doubt. That is Senator Marsha Blackburn as the drama on the Senate floor — if you want to call it drama — continues to build. We’ll finally get a resolution on voting rights and the filibuster presumably this evening.