Senate Republicans Kill Border / Ukraine Deal

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell emerged from a GOP luncheon at the Capitol and acknowledged that the deal was dead.

“It looks to me and to most of our members that we have no real chance here to make a law,” the Kentucky Republican told reporters.

The split-screen moments in Washington represented a swift turn of events that showed McConnell’s slipping control of his GOP conference, Trump’s growing influence, and Biden’s ability only to look on as a cornerstone of his foreign policy — halting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s advance into Europe — crumbled in Congress.

But after Republicans backed away from the compromise, the president and Senate leaders are now stranded with no clear way to advance aid for Ukraine through Congress. They have run into a wall of opposition from conservatives — led by Trump — who reject the border proposal as insufficient and criticize the Ukraine funding as wasteful.

Biden laid blame for the bill’s demise squarely on Trump — his likely Republican opponent in the November presidential election.

“For the last 24 hours he’s done nothing, I’m told, but reach out to Republicans in the House and the Senate and threaten them and try to intimidate them to vote against this proposal,” Biden said. “It looks like they’re caving. Frankly, they owe it to the American people to show some spine and do what they know to be right.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer cast Tuesday as a “gloo…  my day here in the United States Senate” during an earlier floor speech in which he scolded Republicans for backing away from the deal. He offered to delay a key test vote on the package until Thursday, but still dared them to vote against border security — an issue they have long championed.

“After months of good faith negotiations, after months of giving Republicans many of the things they asked for, Leader McConnell and the Republican conference are ready to kill the national security supplemental package even with border provisions they so fervently demand,” Schumer said.

The White House has worked for months with senators on the carefully negotiated compromise in hopes that it would unlock Republican votes for the Ukraine aid in the House — where scores of GOP lawmakers have come out against funding Kyiv’s fight against Russia.