Senator Lankford's Fight For Life
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It's Live in the Bream with the host of Fox News Sunday, Shannon Bream. Live in the Bream. As we are recording this for this week's episode, there is a lot going on in Washington. So we've got somebody who is right in the middle of all of it on a number of hot button issues. Senator James Lankford, thank you for joining us this week.

It is absolutely my pleasure. OK, so as you and I are talking, there's actually a lot of wrangling going on. The House has passed this last stopgap spending measure to get the appropriations bills done, the last six of them for the second half of the year. We're halfway through the fiscal year. But as we're talking, this is now playing out in the Senate. So can you give me kind of the lay of the land? Are amendments going to be allowed? Do you guys get this done? Do you think in time before we technically hit a government shutdown?

I think it does pass. There will be amendments, but right now the conversation is about the amendments or can they make sure that they don't pass. It's been very interesting. I have several amendments. In fact, I have an amendment dealing with border security issue. I know a lot of people know I've been working on this a lot, but I have a very tailored amendment saying individuals that are special interest aliens, these are people that have been declared by DHS,

as a potential risk to national security, those folks are being released into the country just like everybody else. Literally, they're designated a national security risk but still being released into the country. I want to make that stop. And I say, if there's anything we should be able to get agreement on, it should be that.

Right now, the debate is how do we actually pass the larger bill and cause every single one of the amendments to fail? So that tells you really where we are as a country right now. It's we're stuck on some things that should be obvious. OK, so do you think your amendment gets to a vote?

I think it gets to a vote and I think it fails. I think they'll do whatever it takes to be able to take that amendment down. What are some of the other amendments that Republicans are pushing for? Because there's been a lot of consternation that they didn't think all of them would get a chance to be vetted. And clearly, you know, on this timeline, you can't be going through hundreds of amendments. But are there some others that are a priority for the GOP?

Yeah, there are several that are out there. Obviously, a lot of them deal with the immigration issues that are ongoing. Some of them will deal with the national defense issues. So there's about 12 amendments now that has been narrowed down to it started with about 40 and then has been slowly narrowed down to get to this final 12 to actually to raise. There's another amendment we're dealing with dealing with the life issues. There's two of the hospitals currently that are getting an earmark.

one in Rhode Island and another one in New Hampshire, those two earmarked hospitals that are getting additional funding above and beyond are both hospitals that advertise that they do late-term abortions.

We're talking abortions past the fifth month, even, that they do abortions for. I'm trying to be able to get that blocked. Several of us are trying to be able to block that to say we have a lot of disagreements about abortion. But this is even past the Roe deadline. Even if you're a person that says, hey, I want to go back to Roe v. Wade standard, this is past viability even. These are true late-term abortions. Then why in the world are we using federal tax dollars to be able to go to these hospitals? Right.

Well, and how does that run up against the Hyde Amendment? Is it one of the very narrow exceptions, the reason that the hospitals are performing the abortions, or is this just a straight-up violation of Hyde? They're not saying that at all, that this is on the narrow exceptions at all. All they're saying is that they frequently do these later-term abortions. So our push is pretty simple to say, if you send money to a facility like

that, they can say, well, we won't use these dollars exactly for abortions. We'll use them for the building. We'll use them for maintenance. We'll use them for everything. You're still supporting the act itself. Those are still federal dollars going to support it. So while it becomes the famous money is fungible conversation, this is really all about where are we going to target federal tax dollars? If tax dollars are limited,

And they should be. We're not unlimited in the dollars. Then we need to be able to make sure they're going to what the vast majority of Americans support. Yeah, because we know the polling, wherever people are on the issue of abortion, pro-choice, pro-life, whatever label they want to use. We know that still a majority of people in this country agree that they don't think tax dollars should be going to abortion. So like you rightly said, I'm sure these hospitals are saying that this money would not go there. And again, then you get into the conversation, the argument about fungibility.

But back to this bill, we think voting on before you get to the midnight deadline. Is it the presumption that all of these GOP amendments are going to fail? And it's it's more of a messaging issue that you want everybody to have to take a vote publicly on these various positions, whether it's right now, it is a presumption. Right now, it is a presumption that all these will fail. But quite frankly, for instance, the amendment that I have on special interest aliens is

I want Department of Homeland Security to do something about this. I've been on the phone with Homeland Security leadership this week to say this has got to stop. And bringing it up for an amendment is another way to be able to raise it to the American people to say, were you aware this is what's happening on the border, that there are some individuals that are literally traveling through areas of known terrorism or they're from areas of known terrorism. We don't know their names, so they're not on the terror watch list.

because we don't know their name and their specific identity, but they come from that family. They come from that region. It has every appearance that they would be a terror threat. Those folks are being released into the country, the same as a person that's walking in from Guatemala. That's a major problem that I want to try to make it stop right now.

So there are folks on both sides of the aisle in the House claiming victory, saying that there were GDP priorities that got in or Dem say our priorities got in. We were able to block the extremists on the other side. But there are plenty of critics we heard from the House Freedom Caucus early Friday morning saying, you know, we we can't move forward with these things. We can't tell the American people we're going to help secure the border. We're going to do this. We're going to that. Then we're going to actually vote for things that fund democracy.

things that are in opposition to our priorities. What do you make of what the House passed? Yeah, it is a challenge. It passed with a bipartisan support in the House. It's coming over to the Senate right away. As I go through the bill, and it's a thousand pages, but as I go through the bill, there are areas of it that I look at and I like and say that these are some positive things. It has a raise from members of the military. It has some different standards that

that are built into it that I think are really important in some of the acquisition process for the military. It has some other limitations in it for how educations handle. Charter schools are funded in it. So there's some things that I look at and I go, okay, those are things I really like that are in it. And then you find some things that are really toxic in it. Every bill that's like this, you have to be able to look at it and decide, is there enough good in it

to be able to pass this, or is there enough bad in it that I just can't vote for it? I compare it to a glass of really good sweet tea with a little drop of arsenic in it that you just have to make a decision on what you're going to do with that because there is good in it, but there is also bad in it. For me, I look at it and see some of the wasteful spending in it and some of the parts of it. For instance, these...

late-term abortions in some of these hospitals and some of the funding in it and quite a few other items and think this does not have enough good in it to outweigh the bad. Shannon, you and I have talked about this before. I look at bills and negotiation very different than how some people do. Some people look at it and say, well, let's just compromise. You're going to do some things you don't like, and I'm going to do some things I don't like. I actually try to work towards what I call common ground.

I'm not going to ask you to compromise your values, and I'm not going to compromise my values. But as Americans, we do have points of intersection on a lot of these issues. Let's find that point of intersection, settle those, and then keep working on the rest. Common ground is a lot better than compromise. We'll have more Live in the Bream in a moment.

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So I know that you obviously spent months trying to get a border deal package through the Senate. There's got to be some level of frustration in that, you know, we try to just deal in facts. And so critics either on the left or the right that said things about the bill, I find I was often correcting misconceptions based on my understanding of the bill.

Do you feel like it got a fair vetting or do you think that whether it was former President Trump or others who opposed it painted a picture that didn't align with the reality of the bill to the point that it didn't have a chance?

Yeah, it didn't have a chance from the from the very beginning. It was interesting. There were folks that were demanding 72 hours to be able to read the bill that within three minutes of when the bill text was released, they were already putting out a statement saying it's worse than I thought. It's terrible. And I'm opposed to it. Really, the politics is what caught up on this bill more than the actual facts of the bill. And then people would grab different elements of the text and throw it out there and say, gosh, it has this terrible piece in it, except it really didn't.

The bill itself, it increased border wall construction. It doubled the number of deportation flights. It dramatically increased the number of Border Patrol agents, ICE agents for deportation. It increased the number of asylum officers to speed up the hearing. It increased the number of detention beds so that we wouldn't have catch and release.

It changed the process for how we actually process people, that if they come and claim asylum, they had a higher standard. They couldn't just say, "I have fear in my country to be released," they had a much higher standard that they actually had to prove. And then they had three different exclusionary bars, including a criminal record,

If they had those, they would just be excluded entirely. Or if they could have relocated in their own country, or if they could have relocated somewhere along the way and not made a thousand mile journey to be able to get to the United States, they didn't claim it here. They could have done that when they were excluded from actually getting asylum at all. It was a very fast hearing process that was put in place to be able to turn people around quickly. All those things were true in the bill. But the things that I heard back from people is, well, it doesn't do anything until you get to 5,000, unless 5,000 people in a day.

And I just laughed and said, no, it doesn't let a single person in a day. The focus that it has is the very first person that illegally crosses, you detain them, you screen them quickly, and you deport them. But if you get to 5,000 people a day, like yesterday, we had 5,700 people cross just yesterday. If you have a day like yesterday, we don't have time to screen people anymore, and so we just deport them all immediately. If you get those jumbo numbers like yesterday,

There is no more screening. It's just deportation immediately. Right now, the default is everybody gets released in the country. It actually flipped the default the other direction on it. And where people said...

You know, it let all these people in. It actually from the very first person turned them around. But but I get it. It's a political time. It's a time that a lot of folks are saying this is the number one issue in the presidential campaign. We can't solve it right now. It does need to be solved. But we don't want to solve it right now with a piece of legislation. And quite frankly, the other side of it was people would say Biden has all the authority that he needs to be able to solve this. He doesn't need a bill. Well, that's also factually not true.

There are things that Biden can do right now that would make a huge difference. If he enforced the border the same way Trump did, or quite frankly, the same way President Obama did even, it would be dramatically lower than what it is right now. But even President Trump had days of 4,000 people illegally crossing the border, 4,500. In fact, one day, 4,600 people illegally crossing the border in one day. They were asking at that time for additional authorities to

on asylum so they could turn people around faster and have more people to be able to process this bill would have accomplished that so no president would have had a challenge with it so the things the president can do right now he's not doing that's entirely true but there's also things that need to be done in law so congress needs to do its job and the president needs to do their job

Well, there's a lot of work to be done. That's the one thing everybody agrees on when it comes to the border. So I know that there are some things involved in this appropriations, you know, minibus that you're getting ready to vote on that do involve, you know, you've got Congressman Henry Cuellar, who is a Democrat who has been critical of this administration saying, you know, I've tried to tell the White House we desperately need help down here. This is not bipartisan. But one of

of the things that he's celebrating is that there's no new funding for border wall construction. He goes on to talk about the other things that are funded through this new minibus. So based on what you've seen so far, based on what you think will happen with the amendments, are you going to be a no on the overall package of six appropriations bill? Or yes? I am. I am.

I am. I'm a no on this one. I was a yes on the previous six, but I'm a no on this one. There are some things that are very different in this. There is an increase in the number of beds. It's a slight increase of about 2,500 beds. That's something to actually get done, and that's a good thing. But there are a lot of problems that are also built into it as well. So this is that mixture of good and bad that everybody's going to have to make their own judgment call as they walk through it. Okay. We will stay tuned because by the time this airs, we will know what happened with all of these votes.

and which side you ended up being on. We know you're a no, but whether that's the winning or losing side, looks like the numbers are probably there in the Senate, but we'll see. In the meantime, I know one of the issues that you brought up that you're concerned about is the issue of late-term abortions. You have written and spoken quite a bit about the issue of abortion. I wanted to talk to you about next week. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court is going to hear this case dealing with mithopristone, which is one of the pills involved in these medically induced abortions.

And pro-choice folks will say, listen, this is how more than half of people now handle their abortions. It's access for millions of women. And it's critical for them to continue to have access. So people know the Supreme Court case is not about taking away access, but it is about some limits that were lifted on the use of this pill, whether you had to see a doctor in person or not, whether it can go from seven weeks into a pregnancy or going later into 10 weeks into pregnancy. Right.

What message do you want the Supreme Court to get as they hear about this pill and fuller access or lesser access to it next week? Yeah, so you are correct that in the folks that are out there, more than half of the abortions now in the country, these do-it-yourself at-home abortions where you'll have these abortion pills that are actually mailed to someone and then they'll actually do that abortion by themselves at home. There are a lot of complications that are out there that have been proven medically through this process. And what the Supreme Court is going to deal with is

FDA's decision to be able to lighten all the restrictions and to be able to move in several ways. One is you don't have to see a doctor to be able to get this pill. Quite frankly, that's a dangerous thing that all of us agree on. If you have an ectopic pregnancy and then you take this medication, it could actually take your life. You start hemorrhaging regardless. When you take these pills, you start hemorrhaging in the process after you take the two different pill cocktail.

But then if you hemorrhage too much, you actually bleed out and you find out you had an ectopic pregnancy too late. You've got to be able to go in to be able to evaluate that. If you are later term than you thought you were as a woman, you're actually in high risk of major complications on that. So that's why it's always been done with you see a doctor to determine if you have an ectopic pregnancy or if you're later than you thought in your pregnancy so you don't have that risk. There's also a risk if you're RH negative.

If you're that blood type, then there's a major problem there that you could actually during the abortion itself as you're having at your house, the two types of blood actually mix between the baby's blood and yours. And you actually will be infertile after that and not be able to have children. So you've got all these major complications that you need to see a doctor immediately.

And what has happened is the Biden administration has been so focused on trying to increase the number of abortions in America that they are wanting to waive that. And even if you end up in the emergency room, they literally are asking folks not to turn it in. If you end up in the emergency room after taking these drugs, unless the patient actually dies. So if the woman actually dies.

Turn that in, but if she has any other complications, don't even submit that. So the challenge that's coming to the Supreme Court from the FDA is, why are you doing this that seems to be putting people at risk? Change the rule, not going to a doctor, not going through the correct process, and not even reporting if there's complications.

which allows the Biden administration to say these drugs are perfectly safe. No one reports that there are any problems because they've actually been told not to report unless there's an actual death.

Well, and I mean, that's what I hear from the pro-choice side. I mean, my email inbox is full of people on both sides of this case. But they say this is overblown, this talk of complications, that ending a pregnancy this way is less dangerous than actually going through a pregnancy as far as threats to a woman's health.

And this one group I've got here, Repro Fight Back, they go around and do what they essentially call report cards on various states. And they say things have gotten drastically worse since Dobbs, which overturned Roe v. Wade. And they are weighing in on this case next week and saying millions of women of reproductive age are going to be in danger.

if the Supreme Court limits their ability to get Mifepristone and that suggesting that there are real health risks, or at least that they're not exceptions, that they are more widespread is just not true.

So it's not certainly there's not 50 percent or more. This is not like every other woman has all these major complications. It is a smaller percentage, but it's actually medically what has been shown from every bit of research I've seen. There are more complications in these chemical abortions than there are in surgical abortions. And the other challenge that you have is if you have this two drug cocktail, you're taking this.

and you're far from a hospital and you have a complication, you're at a much higher risk of major problems. If you're taking this in a rural area or you have great distance or you're by yourself, quite frankly, and you start actually having the hemorrhaging and you can't get yourself to the hospital or can't get a quick response coming to you, there is a greater risk. I mean, we should all at least admit that.

I understand that they're very focused on increasing access to abortion and that's a value for them. A value for me is not only protecting the lives of these moms to be able to make sure we're protecting their lives, but quite frankly, protecting the lives of each child. I understand we have a disagreement in the country. I'm one of those folks that believes every single child is valuable. I don't think some children are disposable and some children are valuable. I think they're all valuable. So we have a disagreement on that across the country.

But I'm going to continue to be able to speak out and say, what can we do to be able to not only protect the lives and values of moms, but also the lives and values of those children as well? How do you think this plays on the campaign trail? You know, because we had this memo on the House side in the last week or so saying, hey, GOP members, you got to get out there. You've got to have better conversations about this because, you know, what you're hearing from Democrats is they're going to continue doing ads. They're going to talk about threats to IVF. All these things we've already seen in a number of different states.

A number of states where folks are trying to get an abortion measure on the ballot because they know it will help turn out Democrats and the left and more progressives. And there's been a lot of criticism of the GOP that there hasn't been good handling of whatever the message is.

Yeah, I think it's because there's not unanimity of really what the opinion is. And you see this across Americans as well. Some Americans believe that life begins at conception. Some will say, no, it's when there's a heartbeat. Others will say, no, it's when they're viable. Others will say a delivery. So there's not a unanimity of opinion about that. And you'll see that across individuals. Quite frankly, that's Republicans and Democrats alike. I've talked to some Democrats who

that they'll say, well, I'm personally opposed to abortion because I believe life begins at conception, but I'm not going to impose my values on someone else. And so there's this fascinating conversation that's just happening among individuals. To me, it's great. Let's have the conversation and the dialogue, but we should be respectful in that dialogue. I'm never flippant when I talk to someone about the issue of abortion because I'm keenly aware that that woman who's had an abortion, that's not just a normal day for her. That's a very traumatic day.

day. That's a very difficult day for her and a difficult set of decisions that she made based on her financial reality or relationship reality or whatever it may be that she's had to make a very, very hard decision. And that for a very long time after that, she's going to see children at a store or

at the mall or wherever it may be and think, is that what my child would have looked like? Those moments just don't go away for her in the days ahead. So I'm careful when I talk about it because I'm keenly aware that this is a really difficult decision that's been made. But I'm also keenly aware that there's always a child that loses their life in every single abortion. And we need to do what we can to be able to respect the value of every single person and to be a culture that actually respects and celebrates life

rather than thinks life is an inconvenience. Well, it is something that we know this conversation will continue on the campaign trail this year and beyond. Senator Lankford, we know you've got to get back to voting on stuff. So thanks for taking a break from the Senate floor for us on Live in the Brain. We'll get it. Glad to be able to do it and good to visit with you again. Listen ad-free with the Fox News Podcast plus subscription on Apple Podcasts and Amazon Prime members can listen to this show ad-free on the Amazon Music app.

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