Former President Trump is taking on Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and his leadership team by calling on Republican lawmakers to reject compromises on border security.
The front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination is waging a high-stakes battle over both the party's future and Ukraine, as valuable aid to the country is tied to border deals as well as aid to Israel and the Indo-Pacific. There is.
President Trump has said Republicans should say “no” to any deal that doesn't do “everything necessary” to stop the flow of migrants, a message echoed by new Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana). ) to follow this path. Johnson is under pressure from Senate Republicans and the White House to agree to a new Senate deal.
Members of Mr. McConnell's leadership team immediately pushed back against what they saw as Mr. Trump's attempt to overturn the Senate agreement.
Sen. John Thune (S.D.), the No. 2 Senate Republican leader, called it “useless.”
Thune argued that the Senate's Ukraine package is Republicans' best chance to stop the influx of immigrants, which exceeded 300,000 in December alone, the highest monthly total on record.
“It has a lot of the elements of good conservative border policy that we've been trying to achieve for years,” he said.
President Trump slammed the emerging Senate border deal in a Thursday post on Truth Social.
“I have everything I need to stop the incursion of millions of people, many from unknown regions, into this once-great and soon-to-be-great country. I don't think we should have a border agreement at all unless there is.'' ” he wrote on the social media platform.
President Trump appears to be targeting a pressure campaign against Johnson and House Republicans that could override the Senate-passed deal on Ukraine funding and border security.
Johnson told Fox News on Wednesday that he speaks “frequently” with Trump about the border crisis.
“President Trump is not wrong,” the chairman told Fox News host Laura Ingraham. “He and I have talked about this quite often. I talked to him about the same subject the day before last.”
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), another member of McConnell's leadership team and the Senate's leading expert on immigration, said Trump would hold out “for whatever it takes” against Republicans. He said that the call was out of touch with political reality.
“I certainly hope that's possible,” he said of the prospect of Republicans getting everything they want in a border deal.
“But the reality that we're dealing with is that we need to get enough votes in the House, the Senate, and get the president's signature,” Cornyn said, adding that the border security deal will get Democratic votes. He pointed out that it needed to be a compromise solution.
He argued that if President Trump is elected, the Senate package could “give the next president additional tools to secure the border.”
“I think that's what he wants,” he said.
Republican senators believe President Trump may want to deny President Biden a policy victory on Trump's marquee issue, border security, 10 months before the 2024 election.
But they believe it would be a huge policy and political mistake to pass up the opportunity to reform the country's asylum laws and give the president more expulsion powers to stem the flow of migrants from Central America. .
They also warn that abandoning Ukraine in a war with Russia would be a strategic disaster. They fear that a victory for Russian President Vladimir Putin in Ukraine would pose a serious threat to U.S. allies and European economic interests.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R.N.C.) on Thursday balked at President Trump's calls for Republicans to reject border security deals that don't deliver on everything.
“I humbly disagree with the president's opinion. He had no idea what we were negotiating,” he said.
He said Trump and other Republicans would make a big political mistake if they scrapped the border security deal, given the new tools Biden and future presidents will receive in Senate policies to curb immigration. I warned you.
“I think it would be illegal to lose this opportunity to pass the bill,” he said.
Tillis said failure to support Ukraine in its war against Russia would be a huge mistake that would hurt U.S. interests for years to come.
“We have to raise money for Ukraine or for the same people.” [who oppose it] We need to own this historically,” he said. “I’m going to be the person who will do everything in my power to get Ukraine funded.
“If I fail, I want it all.” [opponent] “I'm going to go on record as owning what I think will be one of the worst strategic decisions a member of Congress will make in his career,” he added.
McConnell has told Senate Republicans that now is their best chance to secure the border. He said even if Republicans control the White House and the Senate in November's elections and keep the House, Democrats will block any efforts to pass border security reform in the Senate after 2025. I'm predicting.
He believes that if Senate Democrats are locked out of power, they will have little incentive to agree to any reforms and will use Senate rules to block legislation.
“One of the things I always tell members of Congress is that if the president, the House, and the Senate were 100% Republican, we probably wouldn't get a single Democratic vote for border security reform,” McConnell said. That's what I mean.''
“This is a unique opportunity to accomplish something in a divided government,” he said.
Thune echoed McConnell's analysis that even if Trump wins the election, Republicans won't be able to pass a border security package next year.
“If you had to get 60 votes in the United States, Democrats wouldn't give you anything close to this.” [Senate] Republicans have a majority. “We have a unique opportunity here,” he declared.
Trump has previously tried to block Biden from winning Congress.
In 2021, a group of Republicans and Democrats tried to block a bipartisan infrastructure bill that ultimately passed the Senate that year, despite President Trump's obstruction.
And in 2022, he denounced a bipartisan bill to address gun violence in the wake of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, calling it “the first step in a movement to take away guns.”
This bill was also passed and became law, marking another major accomplishment for Biden.
Republican lawmakers ignored Mr. Trump's opposition to bipartisan infrastructure and gun violence agreements last Congress, but given his strong relationship with the current House Republican majority, Mr. They have the potential to exert even greater influence over the course of events.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), one of President Trump's closest allies in the Senate, predicted the deal on Ukraine funding and border security would stall in the House.
Tuberville predicted that the deal would need only about 10 Republican votes to pass the Senate, but “it probably won't pass the House anyway.”
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