Mitch McConnell AgreesDonald Trump on Wednesday privately pressured Senate Republicans to “kill” a bipartisan deal to secure the U.S. border because he doesn’t want President Joe Biden to chalk up a win ahead of the 2024 presidential election, according to a source familiar with the tenuous negotiations on the package.
Trump directly reached out to several GOP senators on Wednesday to tell them to reject any deal, said this source, who requested anonymity to speak freely. The GOP presidential frontrunner also personally reached out to some Senate Republicans over the weekend, the source told HuffPost.
“Trump wants them to kill it because he doesn’t want Biden to have a victory,” said the source. “He told them he will fix the border when he is president… He said he only wants the perfect deal.”
Trump’s meddling generated an “emotional” discussion in a closed door meeting between Senate Republicans on Wednesday, as senators vented their frustrations for hours about the largely secret negotiations over emergency aid for Ukraine, Israel and immigration. The conference is splintering into two camps: those who believe Republicans should take the deal, and those who are opposed at any cost.
“The rational Republicans want the deal because they want Ukraine and Israel and an actual border solution,” said the source. “But the others are afraid of Trump, or they’re the chaos caucus who never wants to pass anything.”
“They’re having a little crisis in their conference right now,” the source added.
Do NOTHING on purpose and attempt to blame the Dems...great strategy from an intellectually bankrupt party.Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell laid out the growing hurdles facing a national security package amid deep GOP divisions over immigration and Ukraine – and as former President Donald Trump has encouraged Republicans to sink a bipartisan compromise on new border security legislation.
According to a GOP source familiar with the matter, McConnell told Republicans at a private Wednesday meeting that they are in a “quandary,” given that bipartisan talks over immigration have created intraparty feuding and may have closed off a path to getting a massive package approved this Congress.
The fresh doubts from the Senate GOP leader – one of the leading proponents of more aid to Ukraine – suggest Congress may have to punt on the issues altogether or break up the package into individual pieces, though no decisions have been made. McConnell’s goal at the meeting, sources said, was to lay out to his colleagues that there was no clear path ahead unless members were willing to compromise.
The new doubts come as House Republicans – with the encouragement of Trump, who is railing on immigration as a top election issue – are revolting over the bipartisan talks, even before they’ve concluded. Republicans were already divided over whether to approve any aid to Ukraine, even as they have insisted that the border must be dealt with before Ukraine aid can be approved. On top of that, the House Republican demand to pass their border security bill – HR 2 – is a non-starter with Democrats.
The candid assessment, reported earlier by Punchbowl News, underscores the growing fears that Congress won’t be able to approve aid to Ukraine at a critical moment in its war against Russia – or pass any legislation to clamp down on the surge of migrants at the southern border.
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