“Some of [the bill’s opponents] may have policy differences. Some of them have been very clear with me they have political differences with the bill,” Republican Oklahoma Senator James Lankford said in a floor speech before the Senate voted down the border security bill he negotiated. “They say it’s the wrong time to solve the problem; we’ll let the presidential election solve the problem. In fact, I had a popular commentator four weeks ago that I talked to that told me flat out, before they knew any of the contents of the bill…if you try to move a bill that solves the border crisis during this presidential year, I will do whatever I can to destroy you because I do not want you to solve this during the presidential election. By the way, they have been faithful to this promise and have done everything they can to destroy me.”
Lankford admits that he is being blackmailed by a conservative media personality to change legislation. (A syndicated AM radio program host claims to be the one extorting the Senator; Lankford left the blackmailer unnamed.) Imagine if a Republican Senator stood up to claim that a popular network anchor or a newspaper columnist was blackmailing a member of the US Senate to drop legislation; the Right Wing spin machine would be outraged. But blackmail and extortion are de rigueur in intraparty Republican tactics.