GOP fell into their own 'clever trap' by killing their biggest policy priority: analysis

06 February 2024

By killing the best chance of obtaining what could have been a significant legislative win, Republicans may have doomed their chances to both address the problems at the Southern border and to give their constituents a reason to reelect them, according to a recent analysis.

On Tuesday, New York Times chief Washington correspondent Carl Hulse wrote that Republicans attempted to lay a "clever trap" in which they would tie conservative policy priorities pertaining to the border to a foreign aid package that Democrats were angling to pass in order to resupply US allies like Israel, Taiwan and Ukraine. However, what they failed to account for, according to Hulse, was that Democrats were willing to give them a win on the border in exchange for the foreign aid.

"Democrats tripped them up by offering substantial — almost unheard-of — concessions on immigration policy without insisting on much in return," Hulse wrote. "Now it is Republicans who are rapidly abandoning a compromise that gave them much of what they wanted, leaving aid to Ukraine in deep jeopardy, border policy in turmoil and Congress again flailing as multiple crises at home and abroad go without attention because of a legislative stalemate."

Of course, former President Donald Trump has been consistently attacking the border legislation and lobbying Republicans to oppose it in spite of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) brokering the bipartisan negotiations. Trump has made the border a key part of his 2024 campaign, and even said Republicans can place blame at his feet for the bill's failure to advance. This has angered some Republicans who were hoping to address the flow of migrants at the Southern border, where more than 300,000 encounters were reported in December alone. Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) said fixing the border is something "[Republicans] all ran on doing."

McConnell effectively conceded on Tuesday that the political aspirations of Trump and his supporters in Congress outweighed the will of his caucus to allot more funding toward border security.

"I think in the end, even though the product was approved by the border council that endorsed President Trump, most of our members feel that we’re not going to be able to make a law here, and if we’re not going to be able to make a law, they’re reluctant to go forward," McConnell told CNN congressional reporter Manu Raju. "There are other parts of this supplemental that are extremely important as well: Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan. We still, in my view, ought to tackle the rest of it, because it’s important. Not that the border isn’t important, but we can’t get an outcome. So that’s where I think we ought to head."

Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) tweeted that he was "gobsmacked" about Republicans' decision to not even consider voting on the bill, writing that the GOP "literally demanded specific policy, got it, and then killed it."

Click here to read Hulse's analysis in full.

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