On Friday’s broadcast of MS NOW’s “The Briefing,” Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chair Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY) responded to criticism of his past votes to fund DHS and ICE by saying that “those bills had millions of dollars for SNAP” and WIC and “these are Joe Biden bills that proved to be very helpful right in the middle of the pandemic, many of them, with funding for many important programs that we had to fund to keep the American people moving forward during the pandemic and during very difficult years.”
Host Jen Psaki asked, “Your opponent often criticizes the fact that you voted to fund DHS and ICE in past funding bills and that you have received donations from ICE contractors. What is your response to all of that? What do you want people to know?”
Espaillat answered, “Well, first and foremost, those bills had millions of dollars for SNAP for people that are hungry. It had millions of dollars for WIC…for pregnant women, these are Joe Biden bills that proved to be very helpful right in the middle of the pandemic, many of them, with funding for many important programs that we had to fund to keep the American people moving forward during the pandemic and during very difficult years. So, obviously, she doesn’t know about her tweets. She doesn’t know about the fact that she got $1.5 million from a rich millionaire in Texas that bankrolled Greg Abbott. And she doesn’t know much about legislation, either.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
