On Monday’s “PBS NewsHour,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), one of the negotiators of the Senate’s border and foreign policy package, stated that Republicans are saying they’d “rather leave the border open and chaotic because it will help President Trump in his upcoming re-election” by opposing the package.
Murphy said, “Well, let’s just go back and understand why we’re here. Last fall, Democrats tried to pass funding for Ukraine, necessary in order to stop Russia from succeeding in their invasion. And Senate Republicans said to us, we’re not willing to support Ukraine funding without border provisions. We engaged for four months in a good-faith negotiation on the border, in part because we know the president needs new authorities to control the number of people who are crossing. And we achieved that agreement that allows the president to shut down parts of the border when crossings get very high, that dramatically reforms the asylum system so that it doesn’t take ten years any longer to get a claim processed and it will now take six months, and it lets more people into the country legally with an expansion of family and employment visas.”
He continued, “But now, Republicans seem to be getting cold feet because Donald Trump has said, and his allies in the House have said, we don’t want to pass any bipartisan border reform, we’d rather leave the border open and chaotic because it will help President Trump in his upcoming re-election. I still believe that there [are] enough Republicans of good faith in the Senate that we can get this passed. And if we do, then I think that show of bipartisan support for the border — fixing the border and Ukraine, can maybe unlock a pathway forward in the House.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
