Senator Cramer Discusses Supplemental Package, Ukraine Aid Negotiations, and Banking Hearing on Mornings with Maria

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WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND) joined Fox Business’ Mornings with Maria to discuss the current status of Senate border security and Ukraine aid negotiations. Additionally, Senator Cramer previewed Wednesday’s Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs hearing which featured testimony from big U.S. bank CEOs. Excerpts and video below.

On Possible Border Policy Changes in Supplemental Funding:

“I think for the first time after yesterday’s briefing, Chuck Schumer knows that there’s no bill. So, he kept telling us we can have an amendment with 60 votes, and I told him, ‘You can’t have a bill without 60 votes. So, you had better put it in. You better agree to it, and if you do, I think there’s a chance that you’ll get a large majority in the Senate to pass the package and probably several hundred votes in the House. But without it, I’m afraid we won’t move forward.’”

“How about getting back to the pre-pandemic numbers? How about Remain in Mexico, if you’re going to apply for asylum, you have to apply in a third country, the first safe country that you’re in, not get into the United States and be turned loose into the interior of the United States? How about a reduction in this very liberal parole policy, which paroles people into the United States? Those numbers that Senator Lankford just gave you earlier in the show, 12,000 […] the previous record was the day before at 10,218, the day before his 10,200. It’s obviously trending the wrong direction. 

“I can’t go home to North Dakota and explain to my northern border constituents that we’re going to take care of Ukraine’s national security needs and their border, but we’re going to neglect ours while drugs and human trafficking come in at the tune of 12,000 a day.”

On Senate Border Security and Ukraine Aid Negotiations:

“The President in his package, which did include some border security, was largely aimed at what you talked about, that is processing the illegals faster, getting them into the middle of the country quicker. We have no interest in that. What we’re talking about is real policy changes, remembering that while we want to codify some things, the things we want to codify are the very things that Donald Trump did when he was president without having to have a law changed.”

“We should be able to get back to where we were just a couple of years ago, and if we can’t do that, I think we should hold firm and not give Democrats nine votes to pass national security for other countries when we’re not willing to pass security for our own.”

“This is the leverage point that we’ve never had as the minority party in the Senate to pass some important provisions on our southern border. I believe that finally yesterday it came to reality with Chuck Schumer, and hopefully Joe Biden, that without southern border security, there is no Ukraine security in this package. As you know, the House passed a separate bill specifically for Israel. We brought it up in the Senate, Republicans voted for it, Democrats killed it. So frankly, I think what my people would prefer in North Dakota is that we take every one of these up separately—that we debate in full transparency Ukraine’s needs and America’s interests. I believe America has an interest in supporting Ukraine, same with Israel, obviously the Pacific, obviously replenishing our own ammunitions and equipment to fight a war should one come to us. But first and foremost is the war that we’re in right now at the southern border, and we need to invest in stopping that.”

On the Federal Regulators’ Restrictive Basel III Endgame Proposal:

“I don’t know how you can require greater capital, make higher capital requirements, without affecting the capital available for lending, and if you do that, clearly, you’re going to push a lot of activity outside of the regulated banking community, which means of course, higher cost of money. All of that’s negative on an economy that can’t afford more negative news and more negative policies.” 

“We have a very strong banking system. Just in May of this year, the Federal Reserve’s regulation and regulatory report said that in the aggregate, we have lots of capital, that our banks are capitally strong. But you know, liberals take every opportunity to make it harder to be successful in our economy. I don’t understand what their goals are except to punish somebody that they’re jealous of.”

On Endorsing Donald Trump for President: 

“My Governor, Doug Burgum, suspended his campaign. I called President Trump a couple of hours later. We had a good visit. We spent about a half hour on a local radio station, Flag Family Radio in North Dakota with our friend Scott Hennen and made the announcement on those radio stations. It’s just time for Republicans not to worry so much about consolidating opposition to Donald Trump, but let’s consolidate opposition to Joe Biden. The world is on fire, America is declining, and we need to get America back, and I think the sooner we consolidate our support for Donald Trump, who is our nominee, while not officially, he is going to be our nominee. So, let’s get behind him.”

“Not only does he say he’s going to [close the border], we know he will do it because he has done it, and many of the things that need to be done he can do by executive order because they’ve been undone by executive orders.”