Sen. Chris Murphy isn’t buying that President Donald Trump’s brief embrace Wednesday of comprehensive immigration reform was a “misdirection play.”
“That’s a wonderful turn of phrase,” the Connecticut Democrat said after a senior administration official used that term to describe Trump’s momentary and surprising expression of support for an immigration compromise to journalists. “Another way to describe that is a ‘lie.'”
Murphy made the charge to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on “The Situation Room,” a day after Trump told reporters that he backed a bill that could offer legal status to the undocumented immigrants currently in the United States. Trump made those comments Tuesday afternoon as he previewed his address to Congress later that evening. But in the House chamber, he did not come close to using similar language, which would be a sharp departure from his hard-line campaign position.
“Donald Trump once again lied to journalists in order to get good coverage for a couple hours before he returned to his campaign pablum during his speech,” Murphy said. “The fact of the matter is that Donald Trump riled up the Republican base — further radicalized them on the question of immigration — and he is not going to come to Congress to try to do something responsible.”