Earlier this month, Twitter CEO Elon Musk praised Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema after she formally became an independent, but on Thursday he had questions about her “border security” plan.
Is this true, @SenatorSinema and @SenatorTester? https://t.co/QF4kn4RkgH
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 22, 2022
“Is this true, @SenatorSinema and @SenatorTester,” Musk asked in response to Sen. Mike Lee’s criticism of Sinema’s and Montana Sen. John Tester’s amendment to the massive omnibus bill passed by the U.S. Senate on Thursday.
“An amendment by Sens Sinema & Tester is designed to ensure a porous border. A wolf in sheep’s clothing to mislead the American people to believe Dems are doing something to secure our borders. It merely provides them cover to vote against my extension of Title 42 protections,” tweeted Lee.
Later, Lee responded to Musk’s question with a simple, “Yes.”
Tester responded to Musk, “That claim is false. Our amendment was a good-faith effort to take proposals that both Democrats and Republicans claim they support. Both parties have failed to secure our southern border and fix our broken immigration system. We need to get serious about solving this problem.”
To which Musk responded, “But shouldn’t there be some funding in this bill to secure US borders, given that we are spending tens of billions to secure the borders of other countries?”
Sinema did not respond.
Arizona’s other Senator Mark Kelly bragged about his vote for the omnibus that has been derisively dubbed the “$1.7 Trillion Pelosi-Schumer Spending Spree,” by Kentucky Senator Rand Paul.
Kelly claimed the bill will “improve Arizona wildfire recovery, water infrastructure and climate resilience, support Arizona seniors, enhance public safety and border security.” Kelly’s statement was short of details on how the bill accomplishes those things.
While the omnibus is light on funds for the USA’s border security, it does provide another $45 billion to defend Ukraine’s.