Comedian Bill Maher confronted Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) over Donald Trump effectively “killing” a bipartisan border bill, effectively killing the legislation earlier this year.

Crenshaw joined Democratic strategist James Carville for the panel discussion on Friday’s edition of Real Time With Bill Maher on HBO, and was at odds with the group over the question of illegal immigration and the border.

Earlier this year, Sen. James Lankford (R-OH) and Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) released a bill with bipartisan support purporting to address issues at the U.S. southern border, including raising the standards for seeking asylum to the United States.

However, after the bill was attacked by the former president, top Congressional Republicans came out against it in February.

Maher pressed Crenshaw over the fact “Trump killed that bill,” claiming he did not want the issue of immigration being resolved before the election. Crenshaw said he never had the chance to read the bill and that it was “written in a dark room.”

Both Carville and Maher pointed out that Lankford, who sponsored the bill, is no liberal Democrat.

“I mean, they had the bill. That guy who wrote it, Lankford, he’s a conservative Republican,” said Maher to Crenshaw. “You yourself spoke on this. Trump killed that bill because he didn’t want the issue to work against him in the election. That’s your boyfriend.”

As the audience whooped and laughed, Crenshaw simply replied, “Whoa.”

“Well, I mean, you got to defend that,” said Maher. The two then clashed over what the congressman actually said at the time, and whether he was for it before he was against it, but eventually moved on without really resolving it.

CARVILLE: To tell you the truth, I don’t. I like migrant people. I just I just kind of do. I think they’re kind of hard working. I think they contribute a bucket load to the American economy. I think they tend to enlist in the armed forces at a higher rate than other people. So I’m very, very pro-immigration. I really am.

CRENSHAW: Yeah, so are we. But I would hope you would also say you’re against illegal immigration, because if you’re pro-legal immigration, all these hardworking people, which I agree, my stepmother’s a legal immigrant. I don’t want people cutting in front of them in line, which is what happens when you allow an open border. Eight million illegal encounters under Biden, a quarter of them released into the country. That is very disproportionately unfair to legal immigrants trying to do it the right way.

CARVILLE: I’ll make the point, border crossings are down. And by the way, Senator Lankford – hardly, I know him. He’s hardly a left-wing Democrat – and Senator Murphy had a bill that was endorsed by the Border Patrol and Trump killed it. Okay. That’s fine.

MAHER: Right.

CARVILLE: But that’s just where we are, in, and I think.

MAHER: Which you yourself.

CARVILLE: I love migrant people. I’m just gonna tell you that right now. If you in this country, and you come here and you work hard.

CRENSHAW: Hopefully they’re not offended.

MAHER: But I mean, you, you yourself.

CARVILLE: I’m not talking any kind of criminal.

MAHER: You yourself was on this page. I mean, they had the bill. That guy who wrote it. Lankford. He’s a conservative Republican.

CRENSHAW: Yeah.

MAHER: You yourself spoke on this. Trump killed that bill because he didn’t want the issue to work against him in the election. That’s your boyfriend. How you g-

CRENSHAW: Whoa.

MAHER: Well, I mean, you got to defend that.

CRENSHAW: Yeah, well. First I have to tell you what actually said about it. Like what I said about that bill before it even got released was, hey, let’s read it. And anybody has opinion on it without reading it, you know, it’s kind of stupid. That’s what I said. And I stand by that. What happened with that bill is a lot more complicated. You had a very complex bill written in a dark room. They come out, you’ve got this extremely – immigration law is very complicated, and everyone turned their guns on it and fired.

MAHER: That’s a revision of what you said.

CRENSHAW: No that’s exactly what I said.

MAHER: No no no, you said it was a good bill and you have a lot of grifters in your party who didn’t want it pa–.

CRENSHAW: No.

MAHER: Yeah you did.

CRENSHAW: We can fact check this. I’ve never, I’ve never I never got a chance to have an opinion on it. That’s the problem. And I contin– I stand by that that’s the problem.

MAHER: That’s not how I read it. I read your opinion on it.

CRENSHAW: What I said was it’s foolish, it is the height -I’ll tell you exactly what I said. It was the height of stupidity to have an opinion on something you haven’t read yet, and none of us had read it yet. Now there’s more complexities to that. And I think the cynical people were were rightfully cynical, saying, why are you coming up with this in the last year of your administration? You had a height of 300,000 illegal crossings just a few months ago. Oh, because, you know, it’s a campaign issue, now. Why don’t you first start with with putting back in place all of Trump’s executive orders that had gotten the border down under control, down to 14,000 illegal crossings a month, which is pretty much well within a good range.

MAHER: That’s kind of what they put in the bill that you were for until Trump wanted it killed.

Watch the clip above via HBO.

The post ‘That’s Your Boyfriend!’ Bill Maher Confronts Dan Crenshaw Over Trump Killing Bipartisan Border Bill first appeared on Mediaite.

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