WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans are flailing over how to proceed with tackling the border crisis — an issue they have been demanding action on — after Donald Trump this week personally directed them to reject any bipartisan border deal because he doesn’t want President Joe Biden to get a win ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
Republicans have been hammering Biden for months over the massive surge of migration at the U.S.-Mexico border. They have insisted that border policy changes be attached to a broader package of aid for Ukraine and Israel. So, for months, a bipartisan group of senators has been attempting to craft legislation that includes all of these pieces.
That package is “extremely close” to being done and will be ready for a Senate floor vote as early as next week, a Senate source familiar with negotiations told HuffPost on Thursday.
All that’s left to do is “tying up the loose ends and finishing the appropriations,” said this Senate source, who requested anonymity due to the extremely delicate nature of talks.
“This is down to a political decision for Republicans as to whether they want to solve this problem, or whether they want to keep it available for Trump to use it as a wedge” in the election, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), the lead Democratic negotiator on the deal, said on Thursday, calling it “95% done.”
But for all their outrage about the need for immediate action at the border, Republicans now appear spooked and scattered over tackling the issue at all, after Trump injected himself into Senate negotiations this week. On Wednesday, the GOP presidential frontrunner directly instructed several Republican senators not to support any bipartisan border bills because doing so would help Biden ahead of the November election.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) acknowledged Wednesday the “quandary” Republicans find themselves in, according to Punchbowl News. He told colleagues in a closed-door meeting that Trump…
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