Sen. John Thune (R-SD) has locked arms with President Joe Biden in calling for a deal to surrender to unlimited migration that would include tens of billions in foreign aid to Ukraine.
The retreat would hand the White House a key election year win and surrender the best leverage Republicans have had in decades to make substantive changes in border policies that could alleviate one of the American people’s greatest concerns potentially for generations.
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Senate negotiators have led efforts for months to pair some sort of border security package with billions of supplemental funding, primarily to advance Ukraine’s floundering war efforts against Russia. The war has been deadlocked for almost a year, with untold hundreds of billions spent and countless lives lost.
Yet hesitancy for more foreign aid and demands for a truly substantive border package from Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) Republican House led to the search for a compromise on the two issues.
Leaded details of the deal, which essentially amount to a surrender at the border, have received widespread condemnation, with Johnson indicating he will not move that bill through the House.
On Wednesday, Biden is hosting Congressional leaders at the White House to flex his muscles and pressure Johnson to surrender.
Thune’s latest position appears supportive of Biden’s tactics, insisting that the leaked deal is worth supporting.
U.S. President Joe Biden (R) welcomes President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky to the White House on December 21, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
“There is absolutely no way that we would get the kind of border policy that’s being talked about right now with a Republican majority in the Senate,” Thune told Punchbowl News leading up to Wednesday’s White House meeting. “This is a unique moment in time. It’s an opportunity to get some really conservative border [policies] that we haven’t been able to get for 40 years.”
According to Punchbowl:
Under a GOP majority and a Republican president, there wouldn’t be enough Democrats willing to give Republicans the necessary 60 votes for a border package, Thune argued. Similar efforts failed under Trump the last time, partially for that reason. Today is different: Democrats are being forced to accept Republicans’ border policy ideas because the foreign aid package, a Biden administration priority, can’t pass without them.
But for months, Thune vacillated between lip service in support of H.R. 2, with the insistence that the White House must make concessions, and concern that the entire exercise would be in vain.
In early November, as negotiations on foreign aid and border security were in their infancy, Thune said Johnson’s plan to link H.R. 2 to foreign aid has ‘a lot’ of support among Republicans in the Senate, adding, “It’d be strong.”
Migrants cross the Rio Grande into the U.S. through Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua State, Mexico, on January 2, 2024. (Herika MARTINEZ/AFP)
But within days, Thune apparently had reversed his position, saying “there isn’t anything that has been settled” when it comes to the idea of tying Ukraine assistance to specific border benchmarks.
“There is a concern — and a valid one — that anything we pass won’t be enforced by this administration,” he said. “And if you don’t have some appropriate metrics and consequences, you can put all the best policy out there but they’ll just ignore it.”
Those comments contradict Thune’s latest position, echoing his ally, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), that progress on the border in a future Trump administration would be impossible.
Despite those concerns in November, Thune appeared supportive of Senate negotiators continuing to work through the Thanksgiving recess on the Ukraine-border package and won’t wait until mid-January — when Congress faces another government funding deadline — to act on Ukraine.
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And he continued his tough talk about border security, telling Fox News after the Thanksgiving break that the White House’s border security is “a complete and utter failure” and “there is no way” a supplemental will make its way out of the House and Senate “if it doesn’t address the national security crisis at our border.”
“We will insist on it,” he said.
Thune also called for the Biden administration to make some concessions in order to get a bill passed. “At some point, the White House, if they really want to get this thing done, particularly if you want to get it done by the holidays, they’re going to have to start making some concessions on some stuff,” he said.
Yet now Thune believes it is Republicans who must make concessions.
The dynamics of the government funding fight contributed to the latest strategy to reach a border-Ukraine deal.
Congress passed a continuing resolution at the end of September to avert a partial government shutdown. That deal eliminated a key opportunity to continue emptying America’s coffers in support of Ukraine, and soon after, the search for a Ukraine and border compromise kicked off.
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The White House / YouTubeFriday, when government funding once again runs out, Congress is expected to pass another continuing resolution, once again robbing pro-Ukraine lawmakers of an opportunity to ramp up funding.
That reality likely led to the current scramble to move forward with a deal on the border and Ukraine.
Some lawmakers, including Thune, are forced to thread the needle between demands of American people — across the ideological spectrum — pleading for action to stem the flow of migrants and the globalist, pro-cheap labor donor class.
The support of those donors is traditionally necessary for one to ascend to the top rung of Senate leadership.
Thune has made clear he aspires to replace McConnell as top Senate Republican.
Bradley Jaye is a Capitol Hill Correspondent for Breitbart News. Follow him on X/Twitter at @BradleyAJaye.
