Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is on the verge of pulling the plug on any hopes for a bipartisan deal that includes funding for border security and aid to Ukraine. The culprit? Donald Trump, who has been urging Republicans to reject any deal, on the apparent theory that any compromise with Democrats will be insufficiently anti-immigrant by definition.
This has been widely seen as evidence that Trump wants border chaos to continue to use against President Biden in the election. But this whole episode reveals something else too: What Trump and the MAGA right really fear above all is a system that might function better without resorting to the maximally cruel and extreme restrictions they see as the only acceptable “solution.”
Punchbowl News reports that McConnell privately told GOP senators that with Trump winning the GOP nomination, the “politics have changed” on immigration, and a deal might “undermine him.” As Punchbowl notes, McConnell is “acknowledging Trump’s continued stranglehold on the GOP.”
Meanwhile, CNN reports that McConnell believes the GOP is in a “quandary” because Senate Republicans are divided on any deal, and anything the Senate passes would be opposed by House Republicans, who only want their own wildly radical border bill.
McConnell insists that talks are still ongoing. But at the very least, he is in the process of surrendering to the idea that Trump is in control of outcomes here.
Either way, the key question is this: What exactly are Trump, most Senate Republicans, and the House GOP rejecting as insufficient in terms of “securing the border”?
At the center of the talks is the $14 billion that Biden has asked for to fund new border enforcement agents, expanded detention, expedited consideration of asylum claims, and other border security measures. Republicans initially said that’s not enough without major policy changes.
So Democrats agreed to many policy concessions. Negotiators have reportedly agreed on provisions such as raising the bar to qualify for asylum, more expedited removal of some migrants from the interior, and a trigger that effectively closes down asylum seeking if border encounters climb too high.
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