{"id":23130,"date":"2024-01-27T02:23:41","date_gmt":"2024-01-27T08:23:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=23130"},"modified":"2024-01-27T02:23:47","modified_gmt":"2024-01-27T08:23:47","slug":"immoral-some-republicans-decry-efforts-to-kill-immigration-deal-to-help-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=23130","title":{"rendered":"‘Immoral’: Some Republicans decry efforts to kill immigration deal to help Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 Tempers flared Thursday as Republicans battled among themselves over whether to accept or reject a deal for tougher immigration laws<\/a>, with some pushing back on colleagues who want to bow to former President Donald Trump’s wishes and kill it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe border is a very important issue for Donald Trump. And the fact that he would communicate to Republican senators and Congress people that he doesn\u2019t want us to solve the border problem \u2014 because he wants to blame Biden for it \u2014 is really appalling,\u201d Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, told reporters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe American people are suffering as a result of what\u2019s happening at the border,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd someone running for president ought to try and get the problem solved, as opposed to saying, \u2018Hey, save that problem! Don\u2019t solve it! Let me take credit for solving it later.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., urged his colleagues not to make it all about politics at the behest of another candidate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t come here to have the president as a boss or a candidate as a boss. I came here to pass good, solid policy,” Tillis said. \u201cIt is immoral for me to think you looked the other way because you think this is the linchpin for President Trump to win.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their comments came one day after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., in a private GOP meeting, outlined the political difficulties facing the emerging deal on immigration and foreign aid, including opposition from Trump as he cruises to the Republican presidential nomination. The belief among some conservatives is that preventing an agreement will cause voters to blame President Joe Biden for a chaotic situation at the border, even though he has endorsed the negotiations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump’s campaign declined to comment for this article. He has lambasted the deal on his social media platform, writing<\/a> that Republicans should not “do a Border Deal, at all, unless we get EVERYTHING.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While senators said McConnell made clear Thursday he wasn’t withdrawing his support for the pact, some insist the party should reject it because it doesn’t go far enough in sealing the border. The deal has not been finalized as congressional appropriators work through the f<\/a>unding provisions<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI want a negotiation that will actually secure the border, where they can\u2019t weasel out of it, they can\u2019t drive a semi-truck through loopholes that are created in it,\u201d Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., told reporters. \u201cWhat Senate leadership hasn\u2019t been able to describe is how the current negotiation, the elements that have been laid out for us, how that actually would work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Johnson and a group of GOP senators held a press conference Wednesday\u00a0blasting the deal, with Sen. Ted Cruz<\/a>, R-Texas, who faces re-election this fall, calling it \u201cutterly ineffective in fixing the problem\u201d because it would only partially bring down the numbers of asylum-seekers. He called the deal \u201ca fig leaf that pretends to do border security but doesn\u2019t actually do border security.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cruz\u2019s likely Democratic opponent this fall, Rep. Colin Allred, praised the \u201cemerging bipartisan deal,\u201d saying in a statement that \u201cTexans desperately need us to take action\u201d on the border crisis. \u201cBut once again, Ted Cruz is not interested in finding solutions, only partisan politics. Our border communities are overwhelmed, and can\u2019t afford six more years of Ted Cruz and his cynical, partisan games.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sen. Chris Murphy, of Connecticut, the chief Democratic negotiator, said it \u201cshouldn\u2019t be a shock to anybody that Donald Trump doesn\u2019t want to fix the border\u201d because he and \u201ca lot of Republicans\u201d are used to seeing it as \u201ca political issue, not an actual policy problem.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey are making a decision in the next 24 to 48 hours as to whether they want to solve the problem at the border or whether they just want to keep it live as a political issue,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., who faces re-election in a red state seen as crucial to the majority in 2024, had a one-word response when asked to respond to the GOP push to sink the deal: \u201cBull-loney.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s crap,\u201d Tester told NBC News. \u201cWe need to get that deal done to secure the border. If they want to keep it as a campaign issue, I think they need to resign from the damn Senate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, another red-state Democrat facing re-election, said: \u201cThey need to put politics aside and do this. The public wants it. They say they want it. We want it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fate of the deal looms over Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, the Arizona Democrat-turned-independent, who is one of the lead negotiators and hasn\u2019t decided whether she\u2019ll run for re-election this fall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Polls show her trailing against the likely Democratic and Republican nominees in a hypothetical three-way race. Securing a deal could give her a campaign message to voters in a border state as she seeks to cultivate an image as a bridge-builder between the parties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asked about Trump\u2019s attempts to kill the deal, Sinema said: \u201cI don\u2019t really have a comment on that. Look, we\u2019re at a place where this package is almost done. And when the text comes out, senators will be able to review it and make their own decision. Do they want to secure the border? It\u2019s a choice.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., adjourned the chamber on Thursday afternoon, vowing that Democrats remain committed to the deal and that \u201cnegotiators will work all weekend in an effort to get this done.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Democrats control the Senate 51-49, it would require 60 votes to break a guaranteed filibuster. And even then, there are no guarantees it can pass in a Republican-controlled House.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are a good number of people for whom border security is too good an issue to give up,\u201d said Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D. \u201cAnd I do reject that. I\u2019ve always rejected the notion that perfect has to be the standard.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., inveighed against the immigration negotiations and said many Republicans are \u201cjust completely in the dark\u201d about the details. He added that he spoke to Trump recently, but that they didn\u2019t discuss border policy or Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe talks about his election,\u201d Scott said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

nbcnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2014 Tempers flared Thursday as Republicans battled among themselves over whether to accept or reject a deal for tougher immigration laws, with some pushing back on colleagues who want to bow to former President Donald Trump’s wishes and kill it. \u201cThe border is a very important issue for Donald Trump. And the fact that he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":23131,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[23498,2610,26180,25667,1580,26181,1230],"class_list":["post-23130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-condemn","tag-help","tag-immigration-deal","tag-immoral","tag-republicans","tag-strangle","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23130"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23132,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23130\/revisions\/23132"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}