Senate Republicans, getting everything they wanted out of a bipartisan compromise deal that would address southern border security and provide military aid for Ukraine in its war with Russia, punted, blocking a simple procedural vote to allow the legislation to move forward.
That is, effectively, a vote for allowing the border chaos that Republicans and their PR friends at Fox News and the rest of the conservative ecosystem have been hyping for months, and a vote for Vladimir Putin to be able to successful in his war of aggression that has already killed hundreds of thousands of innocents on both sides.
America First, these people.
“Today’s vote begs the question: are there any serious Republican legislators left?” U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., said in a statement on the GOP move. “It is preposterous that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would vote against bipartisan legislation to address the situation at the southern border – the very issue they’ve obsessed over for months. Congress must find a way to come back to this important issue, to repair our deeply broken immigration system and address the dysfunction at the border.”
In the aftermath of the failed procedural vote, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer signaled that he will move forward with standalone national security legislation.
If Republicans block the standalone measure, they’re saying, in effect, f— off, Ukraine, y’all fight Putin on your own; we’ll jump in later when he decides he needs more security at his border by rolling his tanks back through Eastern Europe.
“As Ukraine presses forward with its fight against Russian authoritarianism, I implore my colleagues to look beyond one election cycle, to consider the decades-long ramifications of allowing Vladimir Putin to prevail in his annexation of Ukraine and his goal of exporting his ruthless authoritarian ideology beyond Russia,” Warner said.
“Ukraine has demonstrated that it is willing and able to fight – it has done so without a single drop of American blood. As chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, I will be voting to move forward with this national security legislation to renew our commitment to Ukraine, deliver humanitarian aid for Gaza, support Israel, and show our allies abroad that the U.S. stands by its promises.”
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Chris Graham
