Senate deal on border, Ukraine is in jeopardy
WASHINGTON (AP) — A bipartisan Senate deal to pair border enforcement measures and Ukraine aid faced potential collapse Thursday as Senate Republicans grew increasingly wary of an election-year compromise that Donald Trump, the likely Republican presidential nominee, seems likely to oppose.
Senate negotiators have been striving for weeks to finish a carefully negotiated compromise on border and immigration policy that is meant to tamp down the number of migrants who come to the US border with Mexico. But now that negotiations have dragged for weeks, election-year politics and demands from Trump are weighing it down.
At stake is a plan that both President Joe Biden and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell have worked for months to broker in hopes of cajoling Congress to approve wartime aid for Ukraine. The US has run out of money to supply Ukraine, potentially leaving the country stranded without robust supplies of ammunition and missiles to fend off Russia’s invasion.
In a closed-door Republican meeting on Wednesday, McConnell acknowledged the reality of Trump’s opposition, that he is the party’s likely presidential nominee and discussed other options, including potentially separating Ukraine and the border, according to two people familiar who spoke anonymously to discuss the private meeting. Punchbowl News first reported the remarks.
McConnell’s comments raised fresh doubts in the Senate about his level of commitment to the border deal, though advocates for moving forward countered that the leader’s remarks were being misinterpreted.
“We’re still working on it,” McConnell told reporters on Thursday morning.
He also reassured the conference at a Republican luncheon Thursday that he still personally supports pairing the border and Ukraine, said Sen. Mike Rounds, a South Dakota Republican.
Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford, the head GOP negotiator, said the group is still working on the package. He said that McConnell was advocating for the proposal while simply acknowledging the political reality that the presidential primary season is fully underway.
“I think that’s the shift that has occurred, that he’s just acknowledging,” Lankford said. “That’s just a reality.”