Graham on Immigration: 'You're Never Going to Just Secure Your Border First'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ow-NiILAb-k

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said he’s “come to conclude the Republican Party and the country as a whole needs to knock off some of this stuff” like shutting down the government while trying to repeal Obamacare.

“You’re not going to get President Obama to repeal Obamacare because we’ve threatened shut down the government. Would President Bush have agreed to repeal tax cuts if the Democrats had threatened to shut down the government?” the 2016 presidential candidate said in a back-and-forth with Sean Hannity last night on Fox.

Hannity wanted to take Graham to task over a “shot” the senator took recently on NBC: “Like the constitution today, I think if you’re a great senator, you have — yes I’m trying to get to it. So you’re at Philadelphia Hall. You’ve got satellite trucks parked outside. Ben Franklin comes outside. I got Rachel Maddow and Sean Hannity jump all over. Don’t give in, Ben,” Graham said then. “Just think how hard it is in today’s 24/7 news cycle, talk radio, cable television, and money. There is a group telling you to say no about everything.”

When Hannity told the senator “I love when you go on with liberal commentators and Chuck Todd and take shots at me,” Graham replied, “You can handle it.”

Graham stressed that realistic GOPs need to drop the demand of fully securing the border before passing immigration reform.

“At the end of the day, you can’t secure your border until you tell the Democrats what’s going to be with the 11 million. I’m not going to legalize 11 million and hope they will give me what I want with border security. So once we do secure our border, then what happens to the 11 million? Somebody needs to address that before you get Democrats on board, I think,” he said.

“…I’m in a different business than you are. I’ve got to find somebody up here who is going to find the way to actually solve immigration. We’ve been yelling about this since 2006. And I have come to conclude whether you agree with me or not, you’re never going to just secure your border first. You’ve got to have a plan that addresses all the moving parts and you have to have a plan that will tell the Democratic Party what happens to the 11 million.”

Hannity quizzed Graham on whether being “polarizing” was a bad thing, and the talk show host then declared victory.

“I’ll apologize if I hurt your feelings, and I think that would be hard for me to do knowing you pretty well,” Graham fired back. “But what I am saying is that your solutions don’t work.”