WASHINGTON (AP) — A bipartisan Senate deal to pair border enforcement measures and Ukraine aid faced potential collapse on 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 U.S. 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 U.S. 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.
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.
For weeks, McConnell has been stressing the need for Congress to approve tens of billions of dollars in aid for Ukraine, Israel and other allies, as well as enact border changes, in almost daily floor speeches, but on Thursday, he made no mention of Ukraine’s fight or the border with Mexico.
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.”
Lankford has been working with a small bipartisan group and White House officials to try and close out the border deal. But release of the legislation has been held up by haggling over the price of the new policies and continued disagreements over limiting the president’s ability to allow people into the country under special circumstances, such as fleeing war and unrest.
“We’re really focused on making sure we get the bill out and that we get it through the Senate,” said Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, an Arizona independent who has been central to the talks.
White House spokeswoman Olivia Dalton told reporters aboard Air Force One on Thursday that the Biden administration has been working with the negotiators “in good faith,” feels that progress has been made, and hopes it will continue.
“We’re at a critical moment, and we’ve got to drive hard to get this done,” said South Dakota Sen. John Thune, the second-ranked Senate Republican. “If we can’t get there, then we’ll go to plan B.”
But congressional leaders have not identified any other way to push wartime funding for Ukraine through the darkening political prospects of the cause. Scores of House Republicans are unwilling to send more money to the fight, even as longtime party stalwarts, like McConnell, have tried to convince them that preventing Putin’s advance in Europe is directly in America’s interest.
Trump has loomed large over the talks, first skewering American support for Ukraine and now potentially upending a political compromise on the border that would hand his likely opponent, Biden, new policies meant to contain the historic numbers of migrants making their way to the country. With Republicans continuously raise the issue on the campaign trail, the border will likely remain central to elections this year.
