DO YOU EVER GET THE NOTION THE U.S. SENATE WILL DO ANYTHING FOR A CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTION BRIBE EXCEPT FOR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE?!?!?!
AMERICAN DEFENSE CONTRACTORS MUST LOVE McCONNELL AS MUCH AS RED CHINA DOES!
Ron Johnson Says McConnell’s ‘Top Priority’ Was Ukraine Aid, Not the Border
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), in an exclusive interview with Sirius XM’s Breitbart News Daily on Tuesday, slammed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) for the recent border bill “debacle,” saying that the leader did not even put on the negotiating table a provision to tie Ukraine aid to border metrics and that his “top priority” was Ukraine aid, not securing the border.
“My suggestion was to tie funding specifically to border metrics…that [Biden] has to continue to get those numbers down as he gets, let’s say $5 billion dollars a month,” Johnson said.
Senator Ron Johnson, a Republican from Wisconsin, speaks during a Senate Homeland and Governmental Affairs and Rules and Administration Committees hearing in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Wednesday, March 3, 2021. The commander of the D.C. National Guard said it took more than three hours for senior military leaders to approve a request to send troops to the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 riots, despite a “frantic” plea from the Capitol Police chief for immediate emergency assistance. (Greg Nash/The Hill/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“Unbeknownst to us, Leader McConnell told his chief negotiator, James Lankford, the border metrics threshold … that enforcement mechanism wasn’t even on the table,” he said.
Johnson said McConnell’s failure to tie Ukraine aid to border metrics “is why a lot of us are really speaking out against Leader McConnell, and his ham handed approach creating this debacle, quite honestly, for the American public in not extracting border security out of this Ukraine deal.”
Johnson said McConnell “just betrayed all of us and didn’t even put that on the table. ”
“Why not? Because top priority was getting funding for Ukraine,” he said.
The Senate on Tuesday passed a $95 billion bill that would give approximately $60 billion to Ukraine, as well as $14 billion to Israel and about $5 billion to Taiwan and other East Asian allies. Previous proposals would have contained some money to secure the border, negotiated by McConnell, Lankford, and Democrats, but Republican opposition in the House and Senate killed that version, prompting Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to put forward a bill without border security.
Johnson noted that the border provisions negotiated by McConnell, Lankford, and Democrats would have weakened existing presidential authority on the border, and allowed thousands of illegal immigrants into the country before Biden could stop processing asylum claims.
Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., the lead GOP negotiator on a border-foreign aid package, speaks with reporters outside the chamber at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 25, 2024. Any bipartisan border deal could be doomed because of resistance from former President Donald Trump. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
“The weakening of the President’s authority that he has under current law is worse than doing nothing,” Johnson said. “Passing that bill would have been worse than doing nothing.”
Johnson added:
All I can say is that his top priority was funding Ukraine. I can’t explain it. It makes no sense to me whatsoever. You’ve got an American public strongly in support of closing the border, because you realize, there’s no border policies, it’s a clear and present danger, it facilitates the multibillion dollar business model so most evil people on the planet — drug, human, sex traffickers. That’s what the American people want to see. They expect us to do that, so I can’t explain it. I’m just telling you what happened.
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Senate Passes Foreign Aid Bill: ‘Only the House Can Stop It Now’
It took all night, but the Senate passed a $95 billion foreign aid package Tuesday morning minutes before the sun rose on Capitol Hill.
Despite the imagery, the bill’s prospects of become law appear dark. But that didn’t stop the bill’s champions from gloating after a decisive 70 to 29 vote.
“History settles every account,” Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said in a statement. “And today, on the value of American leadership and strength, history will record that the Senate did not blink.”
Yet less than half of McConnell’s conference voted with him in another sign that the conference – and the party – are moving away from the long-time Republican leader.
“Most Senate Republicans vote no. McConnell of course votes with the Democrats,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) posted on X after the vote. “He is Biden’s chief foreign policy supporter these days. That position is an island – and the gulf between it and the rest of America is only getting wider.”
Democrats blocked motions to allow amendments, even Democrat amendments, in a sign that the skids were greased for the Schumer-McConnell agreements.
In return, the bill’s opponents refused to yield to a time agreement to expedite the vote, taking turns speaking against the bill and the process on the Senate floor until the clock expired just after 5:00 a.m. EST and the vote began.
Ultimately, the bill’s 29 opponents, which included Democrat Sens. Jeff Berkley (D-OR) and Peter Welch (D-VT), could not prevail.
McConnell wasn’t the only politician taking a victory lap. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked the Senate, singling out Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and McConnell.
Zelensky posted a statement on X claiming “continued U.S. assistance helps to save human lives from Russian terrors. It means that life will continue in our cities and will triumph over war.”
Despite those claims, the war continues draining Ukrainian lives, with the casualties — killed and wounded — approaching 400,000, as well as hundreds of thousands more who have left the country likely never to return.
The war has been at a stalemate for over a year, with no significant lands captured by either side as Russia continues draining Ukrainian – and Western – resources.
Opponents to endless funding of the aid package have asked for the Biden Administration to lay out a path for victory in Ukraine, to no avail. They’ve also asked for increased accountability to ensure the notoriously corrupt Ukrainian government uses the money properly.
Aid supporters insist the need for aid is too timely to slow down with those unnecessary speed bumps.
The Senate vote will do little to change the aid package’s trajectory in the House, where it is unlikely to even receive a vote.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) issued a statement Monday night indicating the House will not bring up the bill, making clear his desire for Congress to first address the southern border.
“In the absence of having received any single border policy change from the Senate, the House will have to continue to work its own will on these important matters,” Johnson said. “America deserves better than the Senate’s status quo.”
After the vote, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), one of the leaders of the opposition to the bill, succinctly captured the bill’s future, saying “only the House can stop it now.”
Barring a turnaround from Johnson, that seems exactly what the House will do.
Bradley Jaye is a Capitol Hill Correspondent for Breitbart News. Follow him on X/Twitter at @BradleyAJaye.
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