In Huge Reversal, GOP Poised To Kill The Border-Ukraine Package It Demanded

Republican Sen. James Lankford, who spent months negotiating the border provisions the GOP demanded, said he may vote against his own bill this week.

WASHINGTON ― Senate Republicans on Monday signaled their plan to filibuster bipartisan legislation that paired tougher border policy with more U.S. aid to Ukraine, a stunning reversal less than 24 hours after the legislation had been unveiled.

With ex-president Donald Trump urging them to kill it, and many on the right up in arms about the proposal, top Senate Republicans emerged from a heated closed-door meeting and said they needed more time to review the agreement, suggesting that a scheduled Wednesday vote to advance the bill is all but doomed to fail.

“I think there’s a very real concern that there hasn’t been adequate time, and I think the Wednesday vote is going to be, for most of our members, too early,” Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) told reporters on Monday.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) also recommended to his members in the meeting that they should vote to block the package from moving forward, according to Punchbowl News.

The recommendation is particularly stunning given that McConnell had cheered the negotiations over border policy for months. Just hours earlier on the Senate floor, McConnell touted the legislation, saying its billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan are needed to counter aggression from dictators and terrorists around the globe.