Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell admitted on Tuesday afternoon that the bipartisan "deal" reached in the upper chamber on a supplemental security and border security bill "will not become law."
McConnell's admission came during the Senate GOP leadership press conference in which the Republican leader faced questions amid significant blowback from House Republicans and conservative members of Congress.
"It's been made pretty clear to us, by the Speaker, that it will not become law," McConnell said of the border bill. "It looks to me, and to most of my members, as if we have no real chance here to make a law," he reiterated.
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Asked whether the swift and damning rejection of the package signified that the Senate's Republican leader was out of touch with the GOP conference, McConnell reminded that he "followed the instructions of my conference who were insisting that we tackle this in October. I mean, it's actually our side that wanted to tackle the border issue," McConnell emphasized. "We started it. Obviously, with a Democratic President and a Democratic Senate, our negotiators had to deal with them."
McConnell again praised Senator James Lankford (R-OK) for "doing a remarkable job" negotiating with Democrats on the border legislation and noted the National Border Patrol Council's endorsement of the bill as underscoring "that it was a quality product" that "would make progress toward making things better."
"But as I said earlier, things have changed over the last four months and it's been made perfectly clear by the Speaker that he wouldn't take it up even if we sent it to him, and so I think that's probably why most of our members think we ought to have opposition tomorrow," McConnell explained of the current legislative reality. "We'll see," he added of the planned Senate vote on the legislation.
Even though the border legislation is dead on arrival in the House, McConnell said he still thinks the upper chamber "ought to tackle the rest of" the supplemental security funding "because it's important." Still, with Republicans in the minority in the Senate, McConnell noted that "it's up to Senator Schumer to decide how to repackage this."
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