As of: February 9, 2024, 4:51 a.m
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Republicans in the US Senate voted against aid to Ukraine.
A Democrat calls the decision a “gift to Vladimir Putin.”
Washington, DC - The Senate rejected a sweeping national security and border reform package on Wednesday after most Senate Republicans joined with a handful of Democrats to reject the bill that their leadership had helped negotiate for months.
The bill included more than $60 billion in aid for Ukraine, which is resisting a Russian invasion, and $14 billion for Israel in its war in Gaza, and has long been one of President Biden's top national security priorities.
Ukraine aid blocked: Republicans still disagree
Senators wanted to hold another vote on national security aid without the border reforms before Republicans emerged from a closed-door session Wednesday afternoon divided over the path forward.
Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) kept the vote open for hours, hoping Republicans could agree on how to proceed.
He ultimately adjourned the meeting after 7 p.m. and said the vote would be rescheduled for Thursday to give Republicans a night to "see for themselves."
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Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) said there was a "very lively" debate in the Republican conference over lunch about whether the vote on the original amendment should happen now or whether it should be postponed until lawmakers would have more information about the change process.
Some lawmakers also argued that they felt they had been led into a political disaster in which they would now be blamed for the chaos at the border, according to Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.).
At one point, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) stood to urge her colleagues during the heated session not to disparage each other, according to a person in the room who spoke on condition of anonymity to reveal internal discussions.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) spent much of the lunch "listening" to his members, Rounds said.
Some Republicans want the opportunity to vote on border-related amendments to the amendment.
“We just hope they can agree on something,” Schumer said Wednesday.
The vote caps an embarrassing week for Senate Republicans after Republicans said they would not help their allies before addressing the influx of migrants at the U.S. border, just hours after it was released of the agreement had questioned the very agreement that they had called for.
Former President Donald Trump, who has made the border a key campaign issue, criticized the bill and misrepresented it by claiming that only his re-election as president could fix the border, helping to fuel support for it the bill quickly collapsed.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) also made it clear that the bill would not come up for a vote in his chamber.
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Blockade in the US Senate: Democratic senator sees rejection as a “gift to Vladimir Putin”
“This whole thing is outrageous,” said Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.).
“It’s really embarrassing for the United States Senate.”
She said the Republican proposal to delay the vote until after the Senate's two-week recess was a "gift to Vladimir Putin."
In an angry speech before the vote, Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), the GOP's chief negotiator, said he was disappointed that some of his colleagues would not try to resolve the border crisis just because it was a presidential election year.
Lankford also said he was threatened by a "popular commentator" who told him: "If you try to introduce a bill to solve the border crisis this presidential year, I will do everything I can to destroy you."
Lankford voted for the bill along with his Republican colleagues Collins, Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Mitt Romney (Utah).
McConnell, whose staff helped draft the legislation, voted against it.
On the Democratic side, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (Massachusetts), Bob Menendez (NJ), Alex Padilla (Calif.) and Edward J. Markey (Massachusetts) voted against it, along with Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
Content of the bill: $118 billion to change the asylum system
The $118 billion bill makes sweeping changes to the nation's asylum system and a mechanism to close the border to most migrants when the influx is particularly high.
It was endorsed by the hardline conservative Border Patrol union and criticized by refugee rights groups such as Amnesty International USA as "the most extreme anti-immigrant proposals this country has seen in 100 years."
But a growing number of Republicans on Capitol Hill called the legislation too soft.
Johnson and his leadership team - who initially called for border reforms passed by the House of Representatives to be tied to funding for Ukraine - laid out their grievances in a joint statement in which they said the legislation "fails" to secure the border and would encourage more illegal immigration.
Proponents of the legislation criticized what they saw as hypocrisy.
“On Sunday morning there was a real crisis at the border.
On Monday morning, this crisis magically disappeared,” said Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), who helped negotiate the deal with Lankford.
“It turns out that border security doesn’t really pose a risk to our national security.
It’s just a talking point for the election.”
Johnson did not comment on how he would handle the additional bill without the border provisions.
“We’ll see what the Senate does,” he told reporters.
Trump speaks on the radio and mocks negotiators
Trump also criticized the bill's lead negotiator as he mocked the final product.
“This is a very bad template for his career,” Trump said of Lankford, who is among the most conservative members of the conference, in an interview with radio host Dan Bongino on Monday.
The incident was embarrassing for McConnell because only four Senate Republicans voted for it.
McConnell, the longest-serving party leader in the Senate, has made support for Ukraine and U.S. involvement in NATO a key issue.
However, given the issue's unpopularity with his party base and Johnson's insistence that the House would not pass the bill without strict border reforms, he had difficulty getting his conference's votes.
“I don’t think the last three months could have been handled any worse from a party leadership perspective,” said Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), a McConnell critic and Ukraine funding skeptic.
“It was just a complete disaster.”
Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (M.) was brought into line by powerful former President Donald Trump.
© Getty Images via AFP
Republicans travel to Munich: the fate of Ukraine becomes an issue
A number of Senate Republicans are heading to the Munich Security Conference next week, where the fate of Ukraine will be a major issue.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and several other Republicans said Tuesday they planned to vote on the original national security amendment after the border bill failed.
“I think we have to now turn to Ukraine and Israel and continue to govern,” he said.
Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) said he believes there is broad support for Ukraine funding in the chamber but that no consensus has emerged on the issue.
To the authors
Liz Goodwin
covers Congress for The Washington Post.
Before joining the Post in 2022, Goodwin covered national politics and was Washington bureau chief for the Boston Globe.
Leigh Ann Caldwell
is a contributing author of The Washington Post's Early 202, focusing on Congress and politics.
She also hosts Washington Post Live and conducts newsworthy interviews.
Before joining The Post in 2022, Caldwell was a correspondent at NBC News, most recently as a member of the Congressional Desk.
Abigail Hauslohner
is a national security reporter at The Washington Post focusing on Congress.
In her decade at the paper, she served as a correspondent, writing on topics ranging from immigration to political extremism, and covered the Middle East as the Post's Cairo bureau chief.
We are currently testing machine translations. This article was automatically translated from English into German.
This article was first published in English on February 8, 2024 at the “Washingtonpost.com” - as part of a cooperation, it is now also available in translation to readers of the IPPEN.MEDIA portals.