McConnell faces difficult test leading GOP on Ukraine

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) faces a major test of his ability to marshal GOP support for funding the war in Ukraine as Senate Democrats plan to advance an emergency defense spending bill as soon as next week despite the lack of a deal on border security reforms. 

McConnell has championed U.S. support for Ukraine’s war against Russia as one of his signature issues yet has proceeded cautiously on the issue in recent months, letting Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) take the lead on big strategic spending decisions.  

But Ukrainian forces are close to exhausting their supply of crucial weapons and ammunition. Policy experts warn that if Congress fails to deliver more aid for Ukraine, it would give Russia the opportunity to turn the tide of the war.  

Before the Thanksgiving recess, McConnell broke with Johnson over the new Speaker’s call to split up funding for Israel and Ukraine into separate packages. McConnell argued they should remain tied together, giving the Ukraine funding a better chance of attracting Republican votes. 

Now the question is whether McConnell will lean on fellow Republicans to accept a border security deal that falls short of some of the ambitious immigration policy reforms some GOP colleagues have demanded to get more military aid to Ukraine before the end of the year.  

So far, he’s showing no sign of being ready to do that, which means President Biden’s emergency request to fund Ukraine, Israel, Indo-Pacific security and humanitarian assistance for Gaza and Ukraine remains in limbo.  

On Monday, McConnell played some hardball with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) by accusing Democrats of holding up aid to Israel by dragging their feet in the negotiations over border security. 

“Apparently, our colleagues are considering putting support for Israel on the chopping block unless we promise not to fix the border crisis they helped create,” he said on the Senate floor, punching back at Schumer, who accused Senate Republicans of putting money for Ukraine in jeopardy.  

Schumer accused Republicans in a letter he circulated to colleagues Sunday of holding up the emergency foreign aid package by insisting on unrealistic immigration reforms. 

He repeated that argument Monday on the Senate floor.

“The biggest holdup to the national security supplement is an insistence by some Republicans, just some, on partisan border policy as a condition [for] Ukraine aid. This injected a decades-old, hyperpartisan issue into overwhelmingly bipartisan priorities,” Schumer said.  

McConnell and Schumer previously appeared more aligned on getting a national security package passed.  

The Senate GOP leader recently told reporters that “conceptually, Sen. Schumer and I are in the same place, in the sense that we view all of these problems as connected,” referring to the need to pass military aid for Ukraine and Israel and security aid for the Indo-Pacific, as well as humanitarian assistance and border security in the same package.  

McConnell told Biden in a phone call before Thanksgiving that Democrats must agree to a “credible border solution” before Republicans will support the foreign aid package, but he hasn’t yet defined exactly what reforms would secure his support.  

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who is involved in the Senate border security negotiations, on Monday signaled that McConnell and other GOP leaders aren’t likely to endorse border security reforms that don’t have the support of a majority of Senate Republicans. 

“Our caucus has more than 41 members who are prepared not to [vote] on a supplemental unless it has border security,” he said, referring to the number of senators necessary to block legislation.  

“Twenty-five or more Republicans have to determine what’s acceptable, I mean [that’s] the bottom line. It has to have a majority of our conference,” he added. 

Democratic leaders are warning they cannot accept the policy reforms included in the House-passed Secure the Border Act or the list of border policy reforms unveiled by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and James Lankford (R-Okla.).  

“Democrats stand ready to work on commonsense solutions to address immigration but purely partisan hard right demands, like those in H.R. 2, jeopardize the entire national security package,” Schumer warned Monday, referring to the House-passed border security bill.  

Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) on Monday dismissed the Republican demands heading into the border security talks as a “non-starter” and said Republican colleagues haven’t come up with anything “new” to underpin a potential compromise. 

“H.R. 2 is a non-starter,” he said, pointing out that the policy proposals from Graham, Cotton and Lankford are “largely H.R. 2.” 

“They haven’t given us anything new to work with,” he said.  

Sen. Chris Murphy (Conn.), the lead Democratic negotiator in the border security talks, urged GOP colleagues to rein in their expectations for immigration policy reform.  

“We’re not going to pass H.R. 2. This is going to have to be a true bipartisan deal,” he said. “Republicans are going to have to have realistic expectations about what this package is going to look like.”  

Given the impasse, senators on both sides of the aisle are waiting for McConnell to step in to either endorse a border security deal that Democrats would find acceptable but not go as far as some conservatives want or dig in his heels and demand immigration policy reforms that could delay Ukraine funding past Christmas.  

McConnell’s top deputy, Senate Republican Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) told reporters Monday that the fate of the emergency foreign aid package would depend on how the border security talks turn out.  

And he said whether a package has a chance of passing the House could depend on how many Republicans vote for it in the Senate.  

“I think the bigger number that the minority delivers over here, the more it helps,” Thune said. “If we can move a bill out of here that gets a good, strong Republican vote, then I think it helps significantly get it across the finish line in the House.” 

Opposition to funding Ukraine has shown signs of rising in the lower chamber, though Johnson on Monday voiced confidence in passing aid to Israel and Ukraine. At the same time, he reiterated that Ukraine aid must be dealt with separately from money for Israel and that Ukraine must be paired with border security.

“Ukraine is another priority. Of course, we can’t allow Vladimir Putin to march through Europe,” Johnson said during an event in Florida.

“What we’ve said is that if there is to be additional assistance to Ukraine — which most members of Congress believe is important — we have to also work on changing our own border policy,” Johnson said. “I think most of our Senate colleagues recognize that those two things need to move together because we owe that to the American people.”

This story was updated at 9:01 a.m.