Several Republican senators have begun a mutiny against Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) over his pro-illegal immigration border bill.
McConnell is now backing away from his betrayal of the conservative voter base in response to the mutiny, reportedly telling a closed-door meeting of Senate Republicans on Wednesday afternoon that the “politics on [the border crisis] have changed” for the GOP, while casting doubt on linking Ukraine funding to border security funding, according to Punchbowl News.
NEWS from me & @bresreports in @PunchbowlNews PM:
MCCONNELL told a closed meeting of Senate Republicans Wed that the politics of the border has flipped for Rs and cast doubt on linking Ukraine and border.
“When we started this, the border united us and Ukraine divided us.”…
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) January 24, 2024
It is unclear what McConnell meant with his claim that the politics of the border have flipped, considering actual Republicans have always been against open borders. However, the RINO senator reportedly explained in the closed-door meeting that “we don’t want to do anything to undermine” former president and current GOP primary frontrunner Donald Trump’s campaign — which is centered on the border crisis — while referring to Trump as “the nominee” during the conversation.
“I think the border portion is dead,” one Republican senator told The Hill, citing McConnell’s remarks to the GOP conference during the meeting. The unnamed senator also explained that McConnell had told Republican senators that “this has gotten to be a lot more politically difficult than he thought it would be.”
The Senate Minority Leader’s sudden flip-flopping on the issue came in response to a Wednesday press conference from seven Republican senators — where they called McConnell out for prioritizing Ukraine’s borders over the United States border, along with his support for the counterproductive border deal and his exclusion of conservative senators from the negotiations.
WATCH LIVE: Sen. Rick Scott leads Republicans in demanding border security https://t.co/7Obojkuluz
— Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) January 24, 2024
“This bill cannot move if 41 of us say we’re not going to take that,” said Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), adding that he is “asking my colleagues to hold 41 votes” to ensure the border deal is blocked.
Meanwhile, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) explained that the “problem is our leader, Leader McConnell, is really the stage manager of this negotiation.”
Sen. Eric Schmidt (R-MO) pointed out that McConnell’s goal is to put Ukraine before the American people, calling on the Senate to hold separate votes for Ukraine war funding and border security.
House Republicans have reportedly already begun planning to block McConnell’s border bill, which has prompted Democrats to use the opportunity to blame Republicans for President Joe Biden’s border crisis.
“For Democrats, the only purpose of taking this up is giving Democrats political cover [in the 2024 campaign] to say ‘Gosh, we would have secured the border, but those pesky House Republicans didn’t let us do,’” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) explained.
“This bill represents Senate Republican leadership waging war on House Republican leadership,” he added. “It’s not designed to secure the border and it won’t secure the border. And that’s why leadership wants it kept in secret.”
The Republican senators also explained in the press conference that McConnell has been hiding the text of the bill to prevent them from speaking openly in opposition to its contents.
“We’ve been told we can’t see the text of this because it’s so complicated because you change one word here and it affects everything else,” Schmidt said. “Yet we’re going to be given a day or two days or … three weeks [time to study the bill — this is nuts.”
