Senate Republicans demanded that President Biden’s national security funding package for Ukraine be tied to policy changes to address the crisis at the southwest border. But now that negotiators say they are ready to release details of a bipartisan plan to reduce the surge of migrants at the border, Republican divisions could scuttle the plan.
Months of negotiations among Republicans, Democrats and Biden administration officials are now threatened by politics. Former President Donald Trump, the Republican Party’s likely 2024 presidential nominee, has been publicly slamming the deal and urging lawmakers to oppose it.
Negotiators started the week promising to release a bill in the coming days. But by Wednesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., appeared to signal he’s ready to move on and focus on getting money to two key allies of the U.S. at war.
“It’s time for us to move something, hopefully including the border agreement, but we need to get help to Israel and Ukraine quickly,” McConnell told reporters.
McConnell has consistently argued that divided government is the moment to extract demands on border policy from Democrats.
Pressed about what voters would think of Republican lawmakers who sink a bill because Trump directed them to, McConnell sidestepped the question. He said, “I still favor trying to make law when you can,” and said what the bipartisan group is working on is better than current immigration law, adding, “You’re asking me a question I can’t answer right now, which is the fate of it.”
