The Senate will take up the long-awaited defense supplemental spending bill by no later than next Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said.
Schumer revealed the news in a Thursday speech on the Senate floor as Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), a lead negotiator, announced that senators “have a bipartisan deal” that completes the border security portion of the bill.
“I want members to be aware that we plan to post the full text of the national security supplemental as early as tomorrow, no later than Sunday,” Schumer said. “That will give members plenty of time to read the bill before voting on it.”
Murphy posted on X, formerly Twitter, shortly after Schumer delivered his remarks that “we have a bipartisan deal to address the crisis at the border. It should be no surprise that Donald Trump opposes the agreement. He wants chaos at the border because it helps him politically. It’s time to bring this deal to the floor.”
The bipartisan working group has been negotiating with the White House since the fall on a border security deal that would unlock Ukraine funding but also assistance for Israel and Taiwan.
Negotiators on both sides have acknowledged that the border measure is critical to passing the legislation through both chambers. In fact, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Ukraine’s staunchest GOP ally since Russia’s invasion, has demanded “credible” border policy changes for the aid to move forward.
Murphy, Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) have been leading the border negotiations, which have centered on tightening asylum standards and giving the president a new expulsion authority.
Democrats currently control the Senate 51-49, leaving them in need of nine Republican votes to bypass the filibuster and send the supplemental to the House.
The legislation is expected to eventually pass the Senate with bipartisan support. Even if Republicans were to secure concessions from Democrats in the Senate talks, the bill will face considerable opposition from GOP lawmakers who oppose Ukraine aid in both chambers.
While more than half of the 49 GOP senators support some type of continued aid to Ukraine, there is a vocal part of the conference that strongly opposes such measures.
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House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has publicly insisted that the border provision in Biden’s defense legislation be the Senate’s version of H.R. 2, House Republicans’ signature border bill. Senate GOP negotiators, however, have pushed back on the notion that they are demanding Democrats agree to H.R. 2.
On the Democratic side, the bill faces a reckoning from progressives and Hispanic members who have felt left out of negotiations on the border deal and oppose enhanced restrictions on immigrants.
