Senate Democrats say that President Donald Trump’s new travel ban list won’t play a central role in their messaging, a departure from how the party responded to Trump’s travel ban in his first term.
Trump aimed to fulfill a campaign promise by signing an order putting travel restrictions on 19 countries on Wednesday, citing national security and public safety concerns and a “disregard for U.S. immigration laws.” Democrats say Trump is trying to draw eyes away from his policies his party is trying to put in place, like Medicaid cuts, in the reconciliation bill. And they say that’s what they’ll prioritize.
“I think it’s not a coincidence he announced it last night as a means to try to distract us from their efforts to kick 15 million people off of healthcare,” Sen. Chris Murphy told reporters Thursday. “They are about to engineer this most massive wealth transfer from the poor, the middle class, to the rich in the history of the country. That’s the story.”