About a year ago, Oklahoma Senator James Lankford took a strategic turn to the hard right and started using “Joe Biden’s crisis at the border” as a campaign rallying cry in a desperate attempt to appeal to racist Oklahoma voters and fend off a primary challenge from crazed right-wing Christian nationalist Jackson Lahmayer.
Here was his first tweet on the topic:
President Biden’s executive order to halt border construction threatens national security & safety. Agents along the border have told me physical barriers slow illegal immigration & push people toward points of entry allowing agents to manage immigrants in a safer environment.
— Sen. James Lankford (@SenatorLankford) January 21, 2021
Since then, Lankford has issued hundreds of additional tweets that include the words “Biden” and “border.” He’s also routinely broached the topic in national media appearances and with cameras running on the Senate floor.
As we noted in the past, he's even taken his own trips to the border for convenient photo ops:
I visited the AZ border yesterday. You can see giant gaps in fence- it’s ridiculous it’s 95% done & won’t be completed. This is a problem created by Biden’s administration--stopping construction weakens effectiveness of the fencing structure and the technology. It makes no sense. pic.twitter.com/aiB2bdOx8r
— Sen. James Lankford (@SenatorLankford) March 15, 2021