Texas Weekly Online

Texas-trans-white
Menu
Menu

Author:

Dem House candidate pushes tough on fentanyl stance after dismissing it as border issue

Dem House candidate pushes tough on fentanyl stance after dismissing it as border issue

Democratic congressional candidate Monica Tranel appears to be changing her tune on the fentanyl crisis this cycle after previously suggesting that the deadly drug was not coming from the southern border. Tranel, the Democratic candidate running in Montana’s First Congressional District against Republican incumbent Rep. Ryan Zinke, recently released a campaign ad appearing tough on the border. However, during her first congressional bid in 2022, Tranel claimed that the border crisis is unrelated to fentanyl trafficking while debating Zinke at the City Club Missoula. “It is a significant issue where we are, but where it is coming from is not the southern border,” Tranel said of fentanyl during the debate. “It’s being made in China, and how it’s getting here is a complex series of things that are happening, and shutting down the border is not going to reduce the fentanyl crisis.” TOP HANDICAPPER GIVES GOP’S TIM SHEEHY EDGE AGAINST DEMOCRAT JON TESTER IS MONTANA RACE SHIFT Shortly after Tranel’s remarks at the debate, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that 36 million lethal doses of fentanyl had been removed from American communities between May to September 2022, with 35 cases linking directly to Mexican cartels. As she makes another bid for the Republican-held seat in 2024, Tranel is appearing to shift her stance on the issue. NRA BETS BIG ON MONTANA IN GUN RIGHTS PUSH AS TESTER TEETERS IN SENATE RACE “We have a real crisis at the border,” Tranel said in a new campaign ad posted on X in September. “We need to secure the border, hire more border patrol agents, and go after the drug cartels to stop the flow of illegal drugs like fentanyl.” “Trainwreck Tranel is talking tough on the border now that it’s an election year, but Montanans know she will work directly under the Harris-Walz banner to unleash more crime and border chaos on Montanans while also supporting boys to play in girls sports,” Madison Atkinson, Montana GOP spokesperson, told Fox News Digital in a statement. In fiscal year 2023 alone, Border Patrol agents reported seizing enough fentanyl to kill the entire U.S. population. Asked about the previous comment regarding fentanyl, Tranel told Fox News Digital that “we need to secure our border and solve the fentanyl crisis.” “We need to increase resources for border patrol and go after the cartels trafficking fentanyl, both in China and at the border,” she told Fox. “The border bill would have increased resources for detection and stopping fentanyl from coming in. I support that bill and would have voted for it. Stopping the supply side of fentanyl is critical, and keeping it from coming in across any border is also critical. As a member of Congress, I would have voted to get that done. Ryan Zinke could have voted for that bill but did not, in order to play games and campaign on the issue rather than solve it.” “The border isn’t secure, and no one – including Rep. Zinke – has actually gotten the job done to fix it,” Tranel said. “I’ll stand up to any Democrat or Republican who gets in the way. While Zinke cozies up to special interests and China, I’m focused on protecting our communities and stopping the flow of illegal drugs. Keeping Montana safe is more important than politics.” 

House to move on $3B VA funding bill as specter of government shutdown looms

House to move on B VA funding bill as specter of government shutdown looms

The House of Representatives is expected to vote early this week on a roughly $3 billion veterans supplemental funding bill, Fox News Digital has learned. It comes as Congress is barreling toward an Oct. 1 partial government shutdown deadline with no agreement between Republicans and Democrats on federal spending in the next fiscal year.  Rep. Mike Garcia, R-Calif., who is spearheading the veterans bill, is hopeful that his legislation has enough critical support to keep it free from the political quagmire of fiscal year 2025 funding. “In the fray and chaos of all the election drama and all the [funding] drama…there are still members, you know, in a bipartisan fashion, making sure that our veterans are taken care of,” Garcia told Fox News Digital. CLUB FOR GROWTH POURS $5M INTO TIGHT HOUSE RACES AS GOP BRACES FOR TOUGH ELECTION “And we just need the Senate and the president to understand that value as well, and when they do that, we’ll fix the problem.” The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) warned Congress in July that it was about $3 billion short of the funding it needed for the current fiscal year, ending Sept. 30, and about $12 billion short of its projected needs in the following one.  The VA is warning that a failure to pass the added funds by Sept. 20 could mean that 7 million veterans could be left without benefits by Oct. 1. “I would never just write a blank check to a federal agency that’s underperforming and, you know, effectively overrunning their accounts,” Garcia explained. “It is something that affects not just the 7 million veterans, but also the families and everyone around depending on those checks.” And those 7 million veterans, he said, “would lose their pension benefits, they would lose their GI bill benefits, the college tuition assistance.” JOHNSON UNVEILS TRUMP-BACKED HOUSE GOP PLAN TO AVOID GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN, SETS UP BATTLE WITH SCHUMER Garcia’s bill also includes a mandate for the VA to issue a report on the shortfall to Congress, and future accountability reporting guardrails to ensure continuing funds are managed properly. It would also force the VA secretary to report to lawmakers on any future budget estimate changes.  He ascribed the budget shortfall to “mismanagement and bad budgeting from the VA and probably, you know, not managing other accounts correctly that have affected these VA benefits.” For its part, the VA pointed to increased demand for its health care and passage of the PACT Act as reasons for the shortfall. The House vote is expected early this week. Lawmakers return to Washington, D.C., on Tuesday afternoon, when they will have less than 10 working days to solve the broader government funding issue before the partial shutdown deadline. JOHNSON UNVEILS TRUMP-BACKED HOUSE GOP PLAN TO AVOID GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN, SETS UP BATTLE WITH SCHUMER Government funding has been a political lightning rod that has caused some of the largest political upheavals of the 118th Congress. A planned vote on a short-term fiscal year 2024 funding extension, called a continuing resolution (CR), was delayed in the face of intra-GOP strife last week and is expected to possibly get a vote this week as well. Garcia maintained that his veterans supplemental funding bill and the wider federal spending fight were on parallel legislative tracks, but admitted he did worry about the former effort getting sandbagged by the latter. “Because this turns into a pumpkin on Sept. 20, we don’t really have time to tie this to a CR package. And I would suggest to leadership, which I have, that we shouldn’t use our veterans as political leverage for other legislative initiatives,” he said. The House bill is co-led by senior GOP lawmakers House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., and House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Mike Bost, R-Ill. It comes after a similar legislative push was mounted in the Senate in August.