RNC Chair: Obama Executive Action On Immigration Is ‘A Nuclear Threat’

FILE - In this Jan. 24, 2014 file photo, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus is seen at the RNC winter meeting in Washington. Preibus acknowledges the GOP is “a tale of two parties,” in an inter... FILE - In this Jan. 24, 2014 file photo, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus is seen at the RNC winter meeting in Washington. Preibus acknowledges the GOP is “a tale of two parties,” in an interview with the Associated Press. “We’ve got a midterm party that doesn’t lose, and a presidential party that’s having a hard time winning,” he said. But he declined to blame the split on policy, be it immigration or budget gridlock that House Republicans have helped bring about. Instead, he said the party has largely conceded minority and younger voters by not engaging them directly in their communities. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File) MORE LESS
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Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus said Friday that the GOP views President Barack Obama’s pledged executive actions on immigration as “a nuclear threat.”

He described the upcoming orders, which Obama earlier this week reasserted his intention to issue, as “executive amnesty, which is in our mind a nuclear threat that would reject the basis of the separation of powers doctrine.”

“The President is just throwing a barrel of kerosene on a fire if he signs an executive amnesty order,” Priebus told reporters during the Christian Science Monitor breakfast in Washington, D.C.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) have sounded similarly dire warnings in the days after the election.

“I don’t think most people are interested in immigration reform unless they believe the border is secure,” he said. Of the new Republican Congress, he also said a border crisis “will not allow the legislature to move forward unless people are convinced that the border is secure.”

If Obama does issue an order granting legal status to some undocumented immigrants, Priebus pointed to the courts or legislation in the new Congress as possible responses from Republicans.

“I think those options have to be explored,” he said.

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  1. Avatar for numpty numpty says:

    If Obama doesnt enact an exec order on this he will simply play into Republican hands. He needs to smoke them out and reveal them. He didnt have to in 2012 the primaries did it for him, this time he needs to light the fuse.

  2. So the question is my fellow liberals…when Obama does issue this order are you going to stand up and fight with him, or are you going to sit back and let the republicans create the narrative, like you have done for the past 2 years???

  3. Go President Obama! Take Executive Action on Immigration Reform! Do it now, and do it right! The hypocritical obstructionists call you an obstructionist?? They will never stop being obstructionists. They don’t want bipartisanship. You’ve got this!

    Mitch McConnell: “When you hang the ‘bipartisan’ tag on something, the perception is that differences have been worked out, and there’s a broad agreement that that’s the way forward.”

  4. Avatar for chammy chammy says:

    I agree. The dems pussied out

    My my Rinsed Penius and the republicans are feeling mighty emboldened?

  5. They’re right, a promise to govern is a huge threat to them.

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