2 months ago
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For months, congressional Republicans have insisted that they won’t allow aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan to pass unless they also get big concessions on immigration. That was a purely political demand, egged on by Donald Trump, allowing them to change the subject to the border. Now that that demand is close to being met with a bipartisan deal in the Senate, Republicans have changed their tune, blatantly trying to keep this election-year issue alive. That’s made them look bad and left the critical aid package stranded, and now Republican leadership is reversing course and talking about splitting the two issues apart.
“It’s time for us to move something, hopefully including the border agreement,” Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell told reporters, “but we need to get help to Israel and Ukraine quickly.”
Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, a close ally of McConnell, agreed. “It would be nice to change the status quo on the border, but if there is not the political support to do that, then I think we should proceed with the rest of the supplemental,” he said.
