Do Republicans believe in a Border Deal unless We Get What We Need to Shut Down? A Comment on McConnell’s ‘Number Concerns’ with National Security and Border Security’
A bipartisan deal that would pair assistance to Ukraine with measures to improve border security could be at risk of collapse, after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell suggested the politics around the agreement have shifted.
Punchbowl News first reported that McConnell told Republican senators the politics “have changed” because former President Trump wants to build his reelection campaign around immigration. “We don’t want to do anything to undermine him,” McConnell reportedly said.
Still, Senators on both sides of the aisle insisted Thursday that the deal is not dead. Sen. James Lankford, who was the leader of the Republicans involved in the negotiations, said that McConnell was aware of the political realities of the situation, but that he wasn’t suggesting the deal be abandoned.
The border agreement has been explicitly tied to security funding for Israel and Ukraine and any failure could threaten chances of Congress passing that aid. Republicans, including McConnell, wanted the funding request to include border security elements.
The White House is committed to getting deal on border and national security funding, according to the deputy White House Press Secretary.
Last week, the former President wrote an opinion article on his social media site, Truth Social, stating he did not believe in a Border Deal unless we got everything we needed to shut it down.
Lankford, Cornyn and Murphy: “We’re going to have to work together in the next 24 hours,” Rep. Chris Murphy
“We started this in October, and it’s not October anymore,” Lankford said. January is now. The last week of January. In the middle of a presidential election season. that’s just a reality.”
Sen. Chris Murphy, the lead Democrat involved in negotiations, said he has not spoken to McConnell about his comments, but reiterated that “talks are ongoing.”
“I think the Republican conference is going to make a decision in the next 24 hours as to whether they actually want to get something done or whether they want to leave the border a mess for political reasons,” said Murphy, D-CT.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Tx., who supports aid for Ukraine, stressed that Thursday his state “can’t continue to absorb” the number of migrants currently crossing the border, which hit a record high of 2.5 million people last year.
“President Trump, you know, obviously he’s an important voice but we have a job to do. And we intend to do it,” Cornyn said. Some people are saying that they can’t give President Biden a win because he desperately needs this. The problem is so large that it’s not going to be fixed quickly in the next 10 months.