Appearing on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reporting,” Democratic New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez said that Republican’s concerns about President Obama’s executive power grab were “laughable.”
MITCHELL: [Speaker John] Boehner’s statement said, for instance, his spokesman said “if ‘Emperor Obama’ ignores the American people and announces an amnesty plan… that he himself has said over and over again exceeds his constitutional authority, he’ll cement his legacy of lawlessness and ruin the chances for congressional action on this issue and many other.’ Now, I don’t know how you break this down, obviously it’s not amnesty. But ‘Emperor Obama’ there, obviously fighting words.
MENENDEZ: Look, this is laughable. This is the same Republican Party who in 2006, 2007, 2010, 2013 and in the House of Representatives controlled by the Republicans in 2014 refused to act on immigration reform. So they have an antidote to their concern about executive action. It’s called passing legislation. It’s called offering votes on their own form of immigration reform, even if it’s different than the overwhelmingly bipartisan Senate bill. But they failed to do that.