Trump tries to pretend he didn't kill a bipartisan border billIE 11 is not supported. 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Trump added, “I will take the mantle. I will be the one to shut it down. I’m not going to blame [then-Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer] for it. ... I will take the mantle of shutting down.”When the shutdown actually happened, and it became politically problematic, the then-president briefly tried to shift gears and tell the public that it wasn’t really his fault, but by then, it was too late: Trump had already bragged, with pride and in unambiguous terms, that the shutdown was entirely his creation.All of this came to mind recently when the former president recently said he wasn’t responsible for killing the bipartisan border bill that he killed months earlier. NBC News ran this report a few weeks ago:Trump falsely said in remarks in Walker, Michigan ... that he wasn’t responsible for the collapse in the Senate of the bipartisan border bill earlier this year. The former president said that [Vice President Kamala] Harris went to the border today and said she made up “some lies,” including that Trump stopped the border bill in Congress.“Let me tell you, number one, I didn’t stop it,” Trump said.In case anyone needs a refresher, it was last fall when congressional Republicans said they were so desperate to deal with U.S./Mexico border policies that they took a radical step: GOP officials said that unless Democrats agreed to a series of conservative reforms, Republicans were prepared to cut off military aid to Ukraine and let Russia take part of Eastern Europe by force.Democrats, left with little choice, agreed to pay the GOP’s ransom and endorsed a conservative, bipartisan compromise. At that point, Republicans killed the compromise plan they’d demanded — because Trump told them to.Making matters worse, the calculus was electoral, not substantive: The former president didn’t want Congress to hand President Joe Biden an election-year victory on one of the party’s top priorities. Republicans followed Trump’s lead and concluded that they’d rather have a campaign issue than a solution.The list of GOP policymakers who said that Trump was responsible for killing the bipartisan deal was not short. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, for example, blamed the former president for the legislation’s demise. So did Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, who helped write the bill.The Harris campaign put together a montage of congressional Republicans who explained publicly that the bill died by Trump’s hand.Trump himself said earlier this year, as the legislation struggled to gain GOP support, “I’ll fight it all the way. A lot of the senators are trying to say, respectfully, they’re blaming it on me. I say, that’s okay. Please blame it on me. Please.”Then, when people did blame on him, Trump changed his mind and said he wasn’t responsible.This week, however, the former president pushed a slightly different message, telling an audience that the bill was both a “phony” deal and a “horrible bill.” (How legislation can be both “phony” and “horrible” was unclear.)The GOP candidate went on to say, in reference to the bipartisan deal, “It’s a scam. There’s no bill. I never had a bill.”I’m not altogether sure what that meant, but it’s tough to deny the relevance of the issue: As Trump and his party put border security at the top of the list of 2024 priorities, the fact remains that Democrats agreed many months ago to a conservative bill written in large part by a red-state Republican senator.That legislation could’ve been implemented by now, were it not for Trump calling the shots from the sidelines — whether he’s comfortable admitting it or not.Steve BenenSteve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MSNBC political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."Previous PostTrump’s ugly attitudes toward the military come into sharp focusNext PostWednesday’s Mini-Report, 10.23.24Latest PostYoungkin fails to stand up to Trump as federal cuts threaten thousands in VirginiaAboutContactHelpCareersMSNBC StoreAD ChoicesPrivacy PolicyDo Not Sell My Personal InformationCA NoticeTerms of Service (Updated JULY 7, 2023)MSNBC SitemapClosed CaptioningAdvertiseJoin the MSNBC Community© 2025 MSNBC Cable, L.L.C.NBC News LogoMSNBC LogoToday Logo
He pretends a lot of things