Sen. John Kennedy calls out Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: “Her hypocrisy is breathtaking”

BARKSDALE AFB, La. (KSLA) - In the days leading up to Independence Day, the crisis along the US-Mexico border has bounced around the political arena with both Democrats and Republicans voicing their stance on the issue.

U.S. Sen. John Kennedy, R-Louisiana, and 4th District Congressman Mike Johnson, a Republican from Bossier Parish, addressed media representatives shortly after a briefing from the top brass at Barksdale Air Force Base on Tuesday.

KSLA News 12 Reporter Jeff Ferrell asked both about the situation on the border. Here’s Rep. Johnson’s answer:

“The President has made it absolutely clear that we need more emergency resources to go to that crisis on the border, it’s not even a crisis anymore. Now it’s a catastrophe from a humanitarian standpoint, from a national security standpoint. Unfortunately, some people in Congress use that as a political football. They politicize this issue and it shouldn’t be. It’s about sovereignty and security. And of course being the benevolent nation that we are we have to take care of people. But we have to have security on the border. It’s just essential so that we can be the benevolent nation that we are. It goes to our national sovereignty at the end of the day. The President has made it a priority because it has to be. We’re trying to urge that along in Congress everyday.”

Here’s what Sen. Kennedy had to say about the border crisis:

“Let me be frank. Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez...someone needs to tell her that the voices in her head are not real. She says that the men and women of our border patrol and our authorities are intentionally running concentration camps on the southern border. She needs to go to the Holocaust Museum and see what a concentration camp is. The problem we’re having at the border, a problem that Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez has helped create is that we have 5,000 people a day, not a week, not a month, a day coming into this country. And we don’t have a place to put them. The Department of Homeland Security is out of money and the congresswoman knows that. She says the conditions are inhumane. But yet, when we send a bill over to her to vote to improve those conditions, she voted no. Her hypocrisy is breathtaking. This is the bottom line. Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez believes that illegal immigration is a moral good. And she believes that the border is just a nuisance and it should be open; and, I don’t think that’s what America believes.”

According to a report by CBS News, “The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) internal watchdog found squalid conditions in several detention centers for migrant families and children in Texas, including “serious” overcrowding, minors going without hot meals for days and detainees begging not to be returned to their cells.” Those findings were released publicly on Tuesday.

KSLA News 12 has been unable to reach Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-New York, for a response. But, she has posted several tweets about the border situation:

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