'It was painful': GOP senator pins blame on Trump for stymieing border fix

Centrist Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Arizona) has been highly critical of MAGA Republicans in Congress who shot down a bipartisan border security deal that she worked on closely with conservative Sen. James Lankford (R-Oklahoma).

Democrats and independents who supported the bill argued that President Joe Biden was willing to compromise and meet Republicans more than half way on immigration and U.S./Mexico border security — and that pro-Donald Trump MAGA Republicans sank the bill anyway.

Lankford discussed the bill's fate during a Thursday, April 18 appearance on Fox News.

READ MORE:'Damning indictment': Senate Dem says GOP exposed as 'fraudulent' on their biggest issue

When Fox News host Neil Cavuto reminded Lankford that his GOP "colleagues" — and "not Democrats" — "torpedoed" the bill, the GOP senator responded, "Right. It was, and it was painful to be able to watch it. It got stirred up in all the presidential politics, and several of my colleagues started looking for ways after President Trump said, 'Don't fix anything' — like during the presidential election."

Lankford continued, "It's the single biggest issue during the election — don't resolve this, we'll resolve this next year."

The conservative senator noted that "quite a few of my colleagues backed up, looked for a reason to be able to shoot against it — and then walked away."

Lankford said, "I get that…. My issue is: if we're pursuing everything, we very often end up with nothing. If we're pursuing someone coming later to fix it, later never comes."

READ MORE: Sinema slams GOP for voting to keep border 'crisis as a talking point for the election'

Watch the video below or at this link.