Sen. Lankford stops in Stillwater, speaks on Ukraine aid package, TikTok ban, immigration

Apr. 26—United States Senator James Lankford, R-Oklahoma, made a stop in Stillwater Thursday to meet with City leaders and residents and to share recent legislation he helped pass in Washington, D.C.

In addition to a stop at the Stillwater Regional Airport and at Oklahoma State University, Lankford also met with the Stillwater Frontier Rotary Club, which hosted a luncheon at the Best Western on 315 North Husband St.

Lankford discussed topics such as funding foreign wars, foreign and domestic terrorist threats and immigration.

"What our nation needs right now is more folks like the people in this room that are setting the example, that are working to be able to resolve problems, rather than just destroying people that disagree," Lankford said.

As Ranking Member of the Government Operations and Border Management Subcommittee, Lankford has been writing policy and voting on issues such as border security, management and operations, regulatory reform and the federal workforce. In addition, he is a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

During a Q&A time at the luncheon, Lankford spoke on recent legislation he helped write or voted to pass.

On the Israel-Hamas and Ukraine wars

President Joe Biden signed a $95.3 billion aid package Tuesday to support Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan — after a vote of 79-18 in the U.S. Senate.

The bill adds sanctions to the Iranian regime, which Lankford said is "desperately needed."

"Iran is the central problem, and it's not the Iranian people," Lankford said. "The Iranian people desperately want freedom."

He said Israel is being attacked not only by Iran, but also has taken 12,000 missiles from Yemen, Syria, Lebanon and Gaza. The U.S., the United Kingdom, Jordan and Saudi Arabia have helped deflect the missiles, Lankford said.

The legislation includes $26 billion in aid to Israel and humanitarian aid to Gaza.

"When I talk to the senior Israeli leaders, they come back with the same thing each time, 'Is the United States still staying with us?'" Lankford said. "And I said, 'Yes, we are. We want this war to end the same as everybody else.'"

The legislation includes $60 billion in aid to Ukraine.

Lankford said he hears from Oklahomans who say they don't want to give more money to Ukraine. But he said alternatives are also "not good" and that 80% of the support from the U.S. is weapon systems built here and shipped to Ukraine.

Lankford said Putin is trying to revive the old Soviet Union, and the best way to stop the war is not to "allow Putin to just roll through a country" because the next country would be Moldova. After Ukraine won its independence in 1991, it agreed to surrender its nuclear weapons in 1994 — in exchange for the support of the UK and the U.S. in case of attack.

"We can either say, 'Stinks to be you,' or we can say, 'We gave you our word in 1994, we want to keep our blood out of that country, but we want to help you defend yourself,'" Lankford said.

This legislation also includes a measure to force the Chinese company ByteDance to sell TikTok or face a national ban of the app in the U.S.

Lankford said Facebook sends users information based on friends and Instagram sends users information based on who they follow, but TikTok sends users information based on age and demographics.

"Their algorithm is set to be able to deliver the messages that the Communist Chinese want you to be able to see," Lankford said. "It's not just cat videos, it's more and more news and information."

Lankford said 50 to 1 TikTok users are receiving "pro-Hamas, pro-Palestine" messages, which he said is causing a spike in protests on college campuses across the U.S.

TikTok has denied the allegations of spreading anti-semitism, stating in a November 2023 post that, "some misinformed commentators have mischaracterized our work to prevent the spread of hate speech and misinformation surrounding the crisis in Israel and Gaza, especially as it relates to antisemitism."

On immigration and border security

Lankford received criticism for his part in collaborating on an immigration and border bill with Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Arizona, and Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Connecticut.

The bill failed to pass from lack of support from Republican legislators who — although they promised support for the bill — at the last minute, backed down.

Lankford said under former President Barack Obama, illegal crossings reached a high of 2,200 people per day. Under former President Donald Trump, that number rose to 4,700 people per day.

Now, the highest single day of illegal border crossings was 12,000, Lankford said — although he said the Biden administration had planned to handle the border differently.

Lankford said he wanted to take action.

"We've got to sit down with people across the aisle and figure out how to solve this," Lankford said. "It takes one person to do a press conference, but it takes 60 to make law."

Lankford said he worked with Murphy and Sinema from October to January, stopping only for holidays to draft the bill.

He was assured of support from Republicans and from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who said they would put it on the floor if the three could get more senators and representatives on board.

The bill would have overhauled the asylum system at the border with faster and tougher enforcement and given presidents new powers to immediately expel migrants if authorities become overwhelmed with the number of people applying for asylum, among other measures to reduce record numbers of illegal crossings.

It also would have accomplished several conservative goals such as hiring more Border Patrol agents, expanding detention capacity and speeding deportations.

"It's the first time in decades there's been a border security bill negotiated with no amnesty piece in it," Lankford said. " Members of the press came to me and said, 'Republicans will never get that deal again.'"

A month before the bill was presented, conservative media groups contacted Lankford, and some even threatened to destroy him if he didn't back down during an election year, claiming that this was Donald Trump's single biggest issue to leverage.

"My response to them was, 'He has a responsibility to campaign, I have a responsibility to govern,'" Lankford said.

By the time the bill was dropped, misinformation and propaganda about the bill had taken over, he said.

The U.S. Senate also voted April 20 to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which focuses on "foreign nationals in foreign countries who wish harm to our country while ensuring that US citizens' civil liberties are protected."

On national debt

Next to the border issue and immigration, Lankford told the News Press he is also concerned about the national debt.

"Debt is accelerating now faster than most people know," he said. "A lot of the inflation we're experiencing is based on the amount of government debt."

He said borrowing money causes the bond market to respond, which in turn causes Wall Street to respond.

On moving forward

Lankford told the News Press he would encourage people to look at multiple news sources, and not to ever "trust social media as your source for news."

"It'll get harder in the days ahead with AI and with deep fakes to determine fact from fiction," he said.

He said more and more people are just disconnecting from politics because "they don't know what's true" and don't want to listen to anyone. He advocated working together and living out principles, especially "people of faith," in the public or private arena.

"We're very divided as a nation, and we're very angry," Lankford said. "But trying to 'out-anger' somebody doesn't make it better. My fellow American is not my enemy."