Some Senate Republicans are concerned about the fate of a bipartisan border deal as former President Trump urges against striking any compromise.
From The Hill’s Alexander Bolton: “One Republican senator who attended a Senate GOP discussion on the bill said [Senate Republican Policy Committee Chair Joni Ernst (Iowa)] asked ‘those of you who have endorsed Trump, please ask Trump: Don’t cut off its head before we’ve even seen it.'”
The deal is crucial to a package including aid to Ukraine, although Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), a proponent of keeping those priorities tied together, this week floated the possibility of separating Ukraine funding from border legislation.
Sen. James Lankford (Okla.), the lead Republican negotiator, said, “When [the negotiations] started in October, we were not in a presidential election year. This was a totally different moment on it. Now we are in the heat of a primary in a presidential election year.”
Trump’s vocal opposition to any compromise on Republicans’ border wish list may hold the most sway in the House, where the slim GOP majority passed a border bill last year.
But “Senate Republicans who support a package of Ukraine funding and border security reforms aren’t giving up hope that they can pass a deal through the Senate and convince Trump and Speaker Johnson not to kill it in the House,” Bolton wrote.
Read the full report here.
Related: Romney: ‘Appalling’ Trump wants to kill border bill so he can ‘blame Biden’
