Punchbowl News: McConnell backs away from border deal

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told a private meeting of Senate Republicans Wednesday afternoon that the politics of the border has flipped for his party and cast doubt on linking immigration policy with new aid for Ukraine, according to multiple sources present.

McConnell thanked Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) for his work in trying to negotiate a border-and-immigration bill. But the Kentucky Republican also said, “When we started this, the border united us and Ukraine divided us.”

“The politics on this have changed,” McConnell then told his GOP colleagues.

All of this is about former President Donald Trump, who is on a path toward the Republican nomination, as well as complaints from hardline conservatives. McConnell went as far as to quote Trump criticizing the emerging bipartisan proposal, which Lankford has been crafting with Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.).

McConnell referred to Trump as “the nominee” and noted the former president wants to run his 2024 campaign centered on immigration. And the GOP leader said, “We don’t want to do anything to undermine him.”

“We’re in a quandary,” McConnell added.

Now, McConnell didn’t explicitly say that he was pulling the plug on the immigration proposal. But he clearly sees where the politics of the issue are trending and understands that passing a border bill through the House and Senate will be hard – if not impossible. McConnell didn’t become the longest-serving party leader in Senate history without being pragmatic.