Sen. James Lankford On Paul Manafort Meeting With Russian Lawyer: The Campaign Manager Should Have Known Better
Member of the Select Committee on Intelligence, Senator James Lankford (R-OK), joined The Brian Kilmeade Show today to discuss the latest changes to the Republican healthcare bill, why Democrats are making it nearly impossible for President Trump’s nominees to get in position, and if there really was any Russian collusion.
Sen. Lankford on if some of the new changes to the healthcare bill make him feel good about voting yes:
Yeah better about voting yes, a least a vote to what’s called the motion to proceed. Let’s get on the bill, let’s start debating it and amending it. The previous version I didn’t want to even get on it, debate it, amend it when it was too far from being done. This one makes some significant changes to allow greater options for people so there’s not just a straight “here is the healthcare plan, take it or leave it.” You’re allowed a lot greater variety with it.
Sen. Lankford on Democrats like Sen. Chuck Schumer going out of their way to make it difficult for nominees to get in position:
This has been the key point of the resist movement, that the president cannot move on his agenda if you can’t hire a staff. This has literally never happened before in the history of the country that there’s been a slow walking or a blocking of a president getting his staff. To give you a point of example on that, when President Obama came in by this point 90% of his nominees were put in what’s called by voice vote. Only 10% of President Trump’s nominees have been allowed to go by voice votes. We are far behind where we are. This past week we were we were able to do three votes because democrats did procedural motions every single day to be able to slow it down. They can’t stop the vote, it just takes 51 to be able to get it, but they can slow the process down.
Sen. Lankford on President Trump saying that “most people in politics probably would have” taken a meeting with Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya:
I think most people in politics that are novices absolutely would have taken that meeting. They had a reach out from someone that they knew that was in Russia, saying “Hey, we have information about Hillary Clinton and how she’s working with the Russians and we need to be able to share that with you.” So here’s what should have happened. When Don Jr. contacted Paul Manafort, who was the campaign manager at that point, the campaign manager should have had the experience to say “Hey, well hold on, this is a foreign power. Let’s get a chance to slow down this.” I don’t blame Don Jr. I don’t blame Jared Kushner for taking that meeting because they’re new into politics in it, but the campaign manager should have known better at that point.
Listen to the full interview below:
