A Republican demand for border security is uniting a party deeply divided over aid for Ukraine.
President Joe Biden has requested $61 billion in military and economic aid to the Eastern European ally, which has spent the last 20 months fending off an invasion by Russia.
SENATE DEMOCRATS EXPRESS WORRY AS HOUSE CONTINUES WITH PARTISAN APPROPRIATIONS BILLS
The aid has strong bipartisan support — more than $100 billion has already sailed through Congress since the conflict began. But this time, Republicans want policy changes at the southern border in exchange for their vote.
At first blush, the two issues are unrelated. But the record influx of migrants under Biden is central to the message of Ukraine skeptics, who say the United States should not spend money defending another country's borders if it cannot secure its own.
Ordinarily, those voices would be marginalized in a city full of defense hawks, but a narrow Republican majority in the House plus shifting public sentiment have forced congressional leadership into a corner.
Democrats remain in favor of unconditional aid to Ukraine, but the issue has fractured the Republican Party, which has embraced the "America First" populism of former President Donald Trump.
Republican leadership in the Senate at least "conceptually" sides with the White House, which is requesting the Ukraine aid as part of a larger $106 billion supplemental. That package would fund the war effort in Ukraine plus provide billions for Israel and Taiwan.
The GOP-led House, however, wants the request broken up. It passed a stand-alone bill for Israel on Thursday, in effect daring the Senate, run by Democrats, to leave the aid in limbo as war rages in the Middle East.
The move has jeopardized money for Ukraine — attaching it to something popular and urgently needed was viewed as its best chance of getting passed. A separate attempt to tie Ukraine aid to disaster relief fell apart last month.
But it has also set the chambers' top Republicans on a collision course. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), perhaps the most vocal defender of Ukraine aid, has spent weeks building the case that Washington should take a "worldwide" approach to confronting America's adversaries, rather than considering each as discrete threats.
By contrast, the new speaker of the House, Mike Johnson (R-LA), has dismissed that approach out of hand, reflecting his own convictions — he recently voted against Ukraine aid — but also the right flank of his conference, which holds outsize sway due to its four-seat majority.
The impasse would seem to spell trouble for defenders of Ukraine, which launched a sputtering counteroffensive in June. But Republicans see a path to further aid if Democrats are willing to accept concessions on the border.
Johnson told Senate Republicans on Wednesday that he would trade Ukraine funding for policy changes. What that looks like for now is unclear. The House will, in all likelihood, demand most or all of H.R. 2, its flagship immigration bill, while Senate Republicans are crafting a border package of their own.
But the idea of linking the two has, at least in principle, bridged Republican divisions on the issue. McConnell blessed the tactic publicly on Tuesday when he warned the supplemental isn't going anywhere without "serious" changes to border policy.
The two may disagree on the process but not on policy.
“I don't think we're in a position where we're going to accept some watered-down proposal that Democrats will readily embrace. I think this is going to test them a little bit,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), an adviser to McConnell who called border reforms the "price" Democrats will have to pay to get Ukraine skeptics on board.
Biden's supplemental does request $14 billion in border funding that would, among other things, go toward hiring 1,300 new Border Patrol agents. But Republicans call that request lip service to border security, noting that much of the money would be for processing migrants, as opposed to policy changes they say would dissuade them from coming in the first place.
“I don't see any meat on the bone in terms of the border," said Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA). "All I see so far is the president saying, 'Give me more money to continue doing what we already know doesn't work.'”
Talk of a border package began in earnest in September when Senate Republicans attempted a last-ditch effort to prevent a government shutdown by crafting language that would serve as a deal sweetener to House conservatives.
Then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy's (R-CA) decision to extend government funding without it, a move that precipitated his ouster, put that plan on the back burner. But the play is the same for Ukraine funding.
Cornyn says the proposal has become "more refined" since then and could be finalized in a matter of days. It would likely include concessions long sought by conservatives, including tighter asylum standards.
“We’ll have clear, concrete requirements," said Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD), a Republican defense hawk. "These are not going to be surprises to even the White House or to our Democrat colleagues.”
There's no guarantee House conservatives will accept the proposal, however, if it does not approximate H.R. 2, which in addition to asylum changes directs the administration to build hundreds of miles of border wall.
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) signaled openness to a compromise on Thursday, but he simultaneously took a shot at H.R. 2.
"We'll look at any bipartisan product that comes out of the Senate in good faith, which is very different than extreme MAGA Republicans putting on the House floor legislation that they know is dead on arrival in the Senate, that they know will be vetoed by President Biden," he told reporters.
Such a compromise would not heal the Republican fissures on Ukraine, assuming Congress can satisfy both hard-line conservatives and the White House. It would merely punt the issue past the 2024 elections.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
But the notion of a "grand bargain" on the border, as Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) calls it, has for now mollified conservatives who, understanding that they remain the minority in Washington, could celebrate the deal as a win only possible because they dug in on the issue.
"I might not like supporting Ukraine indefinitely, but if we get something out of it, that's at least better than just letting it go by itself,” said Vance.
Cami Mondeaux contributed to this report.