Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) expressed frustration on Tuesday about the debate in the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee last week that added poison-pill amendments to and stymied a vote on the Antisemitism Awareness Act, potentially halting its progress in the Senate.

He also discussed the conversations he’d had with the administration regarding the freeze in reimbursements for Nonprofit Security Grant Program funding for synagogues and other institutions facing security threats.

“In the past week, I watched our committee here break into a battle about, ‘Does this interrupt free speech?’ which just makes me scratch my head and say, ‘Of course it does not,” Lankford said of the AAA at an Orthodox Union event. “This just protects the speech that we all have, and protects the rights of every single individual and clearly puts a definition of what antisemitism looks like.”

He further emphasized that the United States has been part of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance for years and played a role in helping to draft and approve its working definition of antisemitism, which is central to the AAA. 

He contrasted the divisive debate on the Hill with the concurrent deliberation in Oklahoma’s state legislature over similar IHRA legislation, which passed and is set to be signed by the state’s governor.

“So side-by-side for me, where I’m frustrated with what’s happening nationally, I’m pleased with what we’re doing as a state, literally side-by-side on the exact same issue on this,” Lankford continued.

Lankford also said he’d been receiving calls recently from those impacted by the freeze in Nonprofit Security Grant Program reimbursement payments. He said he’d called administration officials to highlight the security grant issue and to press them on when the funding would be released.

“My concern was that there was a movement just to scoop up all grants and set them aside and say, ‘We’re not going to do that anymore,’” Lankford said. “And I said, ‘No, we as a nation are very eager to stand with our citizens and be able to protect our citizens. It’s part of who we are.’”

He said he was ultimately able to get through to the correct officials, who promised that the funding would be provided, “But it’s just one more little thing like that we don’t want people to have to worry about.”

“I want people to be able to say, ‘We as Americans stand side by side with each other, and we continue to be able to work towards ending antisemitism, towards protecting the rights of all individuals, to be able to live free and for friends, to live next to door to each other as friends, and to be able to enjoy our company together, and to be able to worship and to be able to share a meal and peace,’” Lankford said.

He emphasized that many synagogues have used the funding to improve their security, saying, “it’s painful for me to think about the many reasons why.”

Lankford additionally announced that he’s planning to visit Israel in the coming weeks, for what he said would be a “very different experience” than before the Oct. 7 attack.

The Oklahoma senator, who co-chairs the Senate antisemitism task force, was being honored by the OU with its Friend of the Synagogue Award for his work on the task force and his support for the AAA and NSGP funding. Lankford received a commemorative plaque which included a copy of George Washington’s 1790 letter to the Hebrew congregation in Newport, R.I., assuring the Jewish community that the new United States would protect religious liberty.