Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY.) criticized her fellow Republicans on Saturday, holding them responsible for the failure to bring a border security bill to the floor of the House.
“I saw a clip earlier that we didn’t get the border security bill,” Tenney said during a Fox News interview on Saturday. “That’s because three Republicans on our side, in our very slim majority in our rules committee, didn’t vote for border security, so we had to send it to the floor on suspension, we couldn’t get the two-thirds vote. So actually those three Republicans and others prevented us from getting border security.”
Tenney went on to commend Speaker Mike Johnson for “his courage, his humility and understanding of the problem that we face.”
The New York representative is one of 311 members of the House that voted to pass a series of bills providing tens of billions of dollars in foreign aid to Ukraine and Israel on Saturday. The measure passed 311-112-1 and also included a measure that could put TikTok in danger.
The House bill now goes to the Senate for approval, and then possibly to President Biden’s desk.
Tenney said she didn’t support the entire bill, but criticized Republicans who she accused of engaging in “tactics without strategy.”
“We are engaging in tactics which many on our side are doing at the expense of strategy you are going to see failure on our side. We have to win the seats back it is so important.”
The passage of the foreign aid bill marked a win for Johnson, who has faced threats of a motion to vacate from members of his own conference for supporting the foreign aid package that needed support from Democrats to pass.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) called Johnson a “traitor” after the package passed, while Sen. Ron Johnson blasted the passage of the bills, arguing Congress is spending money that “we don’t have” and that the U.S. should be focusing on securing its own borders instead.
