McConnell casts doubt on the border deal and says Trump's opposition could scuttle it
The emerging bipartisan border deal is facing new challenges among Republicans on Capitol Hill over opposition from former President Donald J. Trump, who is closing in on his party's presidential nomination at a crucial time for the deal.
Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, privately told Republicans on Wednesday that the politics of the issue had been complicated by the rise of Trump and his hostility to the deal, leaving the party “in a quandary,” according to the lawmakers who participated. in the meeting and described his comments on the condition of anonymity.
The comments, previously reported by Punchbowl News, were striking and came from a Republican who has labored to distance himself and his party from the former president. Mr. McConnell has vociferously supported the proposed border compromise and has been a leading proponent of a stalled effort to send tens of billions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine, which Republicans have said should be tied to the deal.
Mr. McConnell's abrupt change in tone reflected the increasingly difficult challenge facing Senate negotiators as they rush to finalize immigration legislation that the former president is already actively campaigning against.
Mr. Trump has encouraged Republicans to reject any border deal “unless we get EVERYTHING” the party has asked for, fueling opposition from Republican lawmakers who have argued that the bipartisan proposal, which includes measures to increase deportations and Making it more difficult to apply for asylum does not go far enough.
His opposition has made it harder to win the support of a majority of Senate Republicans for any deal, the threshold that proponents say they must meet to convince the House to accept the agreement. Even if it meets that bar in the Senate, Speaker Mike Johnson has cast doubt on the prospect of bringing it up in the House of Representatives, where hard-right lawmakers strongly oppose it.
Mr. McConnell addressed Senate Republicans on Wednesday at a closed-door meeting at the Capitol to discuss the war in Ukraine, in a session called at the request of Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, who is among those who expressing doubts about the border agreement.
“I literally don't get any acceptable response other than, 'Oh, this is great, you know, we're getting things we never thought we could get,'” Mr Johnson said this week of the border talks. , which questions whether the proposed restrictions would significantly limit the number of migrants attempting to cross the border unlawfully.
Other Republicans have said it would be unwise for their party to offer President Biden a compromise that could help him politically without adequately addressing the issue.
“A 'deal' will allow Biden to pretend he's doing something on the border, but it won't solve the problem,” wrote Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida. on social media on Wednesday.
Republican supporters of the deal have argued that their party members should take advantage of the unique circumstances they find themselves in, with a Democratic president and a Democratic-led Senate persuaded to accept border security measures without requiring significant compromises to expand legal limits expand. improve the status of undocumented immigrants or increase legal routes to immigration.
Mr. McConnell has repeatedly argued that Republicans would have a better chance of a significant crackdown at the borders if they controlled both the chambers of Congress and the White House. On Wednesday, he invoked Trump's own 2018 complaints about the difficulty of getting Democratic votes for border measures to support that point.
Still, senators emerged from the meeting conceding that Trump's opposition may have doomed an agreement that otherwise had a good chance of uniting the two parties.
The border deal would have the support of “probably a majority of Republicans, if they voted their conscience, but there's more to it than that,” Senator Kevin Cramer, Republican of North Dakota, said after the discussion. Mr. Trump’s position is “important; he is both a former president and increasingly likely to be the next president.”
Some Republicans still argued that the emerging deal was worth supporting even if it didn't meet all the latest Republican demands.
“It goes far enough for me, and I think if anyone is intellectually honest with themselves, he or she knows that these would be extraordinary tools for President Trump,” said Senator Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, as he left the meeting. “We will regret it if we miss this opportunity.”