McConnell admits defeat on Senate border bill

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., declared Tuesday the $118 billion bipartisan border security bill that includes $60 billion in aid to Ukraine will never become law.

“We had a very robust discussion about whether this product could ever become law and it’s been made pretty clear to us by House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La. that it will not become law,” McConnell said in a news conference after lunch with GOP Senate colleagues.

The deal was made after four months of negotiations between Sens. James Lankford, R-Okla., Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., and the White House. Aside from the aid to Ukraine, it commits $20 billion for border security, $14 billion in aid to Israel, and billions for the Indo-Pacific region, including Taiwan.

Even though Lankford defended the legislation and McConnell gave it a thumbs-up, since the bill’s text was released Sunday, Republicans in both chambers of Congress have voiced vehement opposition to it, and Johnson said it was “dead on arrival” at the House. It did get backing from the National Border Patrol Council, the union for Border Patrol agents.

“I want to congratulate Sen. Lankford on a remarkable job of negotiating with the other side … but it looks to me and most of our members that we have no real chance here to make a law,” McConnell said.

The biggest obstacle in the legislation is a measure that would block illegal border crossings for asylum seekers once the number of migrant encounters hits a daily average of 8,500 in a week or 5,000 in a day. A daily average of 5,000 would amount to an acceptance of roughly 1.82 million migrants a year. Although that figure would be the lowest since the 2021 fiscal year, when there were 1.73 million encounters at the southern border, according to Customs and Border Protection data, many Republicans have cast the provision as a surrender.

Earlier Tuesday, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said at a news conference that because McConnell supported the legislation, the GOP needs new leadership in the Senate.

“A Republican leader should actually lead this conference and should advance the priorities of Republicans,” Cruz said. “… This is a plan that was designed to lose. This is a plan that Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., is thrilled with, which is why Schumer says I’ve got 98 problems, but Mitch isn’t one of them.”

Said McConnell: “I think we can all agree that Sen. Cruz is not a fan.”

Biden conceded in a statement Tuesday afternoon the legislation might not reach the Senate floor and blamed the Democrats’ favorite boogeyman, former President Donald Trump, his likely opponent in November’s presidential election.

“Donald Trump thinks it’s bad for him politically,” Biden said. “Therefore, he doesn’t — even though it would help the country, he’s not for it. He’d rather weaponize this issue than actually solve it. So, 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. And 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.”

McConnell wouldn’t directly address Biden’s comments on Trump.

“In the end, even though the product was approved by the border council that endorsed President Trump in 2020, most of our members feel we’re not going to be able to make a law here, and if we’re not going to be able to make a law, they’re reluctant to go forward,” he said.