Dem
51
GOP
49
We presume that most readers know that, in 1968, Richard Nixon believed that "I'm the guy who can end the Vietnam War" was his ticket to the White House. That line of attack would have been rendered moot if the war, you know, ended. So, he pulled some shenanigans behind the scenes so as to derail the peace talks that were, by all accounts, close to a successful conclusion. The American public was none the wiser, at least not when they cast their ballots, and so the former VP was sent to the White House, where he found other, more inventive ways to destroy his career.
Donald Trump is, at the moment, running the same playbook. The former president believes that "I'm the guy who can fix the southern border" is his ticket back to the White House. If there is a bipartisan deal on the matter right now, or anytime before the election, then it takes a lot of the wind out of Trump's xenophobic sails. So, he is now putting on the full-court press in an effort to stop the U.S. Senate from reaching a deal. He realizes that if a bill makes it out of the Senate, there's an excellent chance it gets through the House, since it wouldn't need very many Republican votes. Put another way, he has a better chance of imposing his will on 100% of 49 Senate Republicans than he does of imposing his will on 100% of 219 House Republicans.
Trump's arm-twisting is aggressive enough that it appears to even have gotten to... Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). It has now come out that, at the testy Senate lunch we mentioned yesterday, the Kentuckian told his conference that "The politics on [the border bill] have changed," noted that Trump wants to run on immigration, and said "We don't want to do anything to undermine him." We suppose this leaves open the possibility that McConnell will not interfere with negotiations, but he does not seem likely to do anything to encourage a resolution, nor to whip votes.
Trump's problem here is that, in contrast to Nixon, the cat is already out of the bag. First of all, McConnell's closed-door comments are no longer closed-door, and Democrats can use them against Trump to show that the former president isn't really serious about the border, he's only serious about using the border to drive up his own vote totals. And let us pause here to note that it's at least possible that McConnell's comments leaked out because... McConnell (or an ally) leaked them. News that makes the Minority Leader look like a good soldier, but that undermines Trump sounds just like the sort of 3-D chess that the Kentuckian sometimes plays.
On top of the fact that McConnell's remarks are now public, there are also Republican senators who are carping loudly about Trump's interference (carping that, again, could be at McConnell's instigation). The loudest of the angry red teamers is Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT), who decreed:
I think the border is a very important issue for Donald Trump. And the fact that he would communicate to Republican senators and congresspeople that he doesn't want us to solve the border problem because he wants to blame Biden for it is really appalling. But the reality is that we have a crisis at the border. The American people are suffering as a result of what's happening at the border. And someone running for president ought to try and get the, you know, the problem solved, as opposed to saying, "Hey, save that problem. Don't solve it. Let me take credit for solving it later."
Emphasis is ours; we highlight that portion because that's the soundbite that's showing up in all the headlines. The Senator's comments are already on the record, and on video, but if he keeps hammering on this, then it's all the worse for Trump. And we hardly need to remind readers that Romney not only hates The Donald, he's also not running for reelection. So, he's got nothing to lose.
Truth be told, nobody should need the comments from McConnell, Romney and the other angry Republican senators to know that Trump has no interest in securing the border, or else no ability to secure the border, or both. After all, if he had that interest and/or that ability, we wouldn't have a border crisis right now, since Trump would have solved it when he had 4 years to do so between 2017 and 2021. However, that logic seems to elude many people, so it's helpful that the McConnell/Romney stuff really lays bare Trump's real agenda here.
Trump's base doesn't care about any of this, but there are plenty of undecided/gettable voters who care a lot about the border, and who might well take note that one candidate really wants to do something about the issue while the other just wants to score political points. It is also the case that if Trump's politicking leaves only a few Republican votes (e.g., Romney) available on an immigration bill, that could present an opportunity for the Democrats. They could go to the Utahn and any other like-minded senators (e.g., Thom Tillis, R-NC), and say "Let's find a deal that can get your vote(s)." In that scenario, it would be really clear which party was trying to address the problem, even if a Democrats-plus-a-few-Republicans bill died in the House. (Z)