Lead Democrat on US Senate border talks hopes Trump does not tank Ukraine aid

© Reuters. U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) looks on during an interview with Reuters on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., February 7, 2024. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz

By Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The day after the U.S. Senate failed to pass a border security deal he spent four months negotiating, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy voiced hope that enough Republicans would vote to pass a military aid package to Ukraine no longer linked to the border measure.

Murphy’s biggest worry is that aid to Ukraine will fall victim to the same force that killed the border plan: Donald Trump.

“Once he got loud on the immigration bill, the thing fell apart … if he turns his flamethrower on Ukraine, I wonder how it survives,” Murphy said in a Wednesday interview in his Capitol Hill office.

He spoke shortly after most Senate Republicans voted against allowing debate on a bill that married the two unrelated issues, a marriage that Republican lawmakers had insisted on and then rejected as flawed.

As far back as August, Congress has refused to respond to Democratic President Joe Biden’s request for fresh emergency aid for Ukraine. Republicans balked, saying they first needed legislation providing a permanent stop of massive arrivals of immigrants at the southwestern border with Mexico.

Murphy held out hope that the “debacle” over the border security bill would send a message to Republicans to at least vote for passage of $60 billion in Ukraine aid.

Trump, far and away the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, has said he would ask European allies to reimburse the U.S. for around $200 billion worth of munitions sent to Ukraine. That has raised fears that funding for Kyiv in its war against Russia would dry up completely during a potential second Trump administration.

PRIOR VICTORY

In 2022, Murphy scored a major legislative victory, pushing legislation through Congress that became the first new, major gun control bill in decades. It was a particularly poignant moment, because he had worked for gun reform since the 2012 mass shooting that killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook elementary school in his home state of Connecticut.

Murphy, along with Republican Senator James Lankford and independent Senator Krysten Sinema agreed upon a bipartisan border security bill. Unlike the gun legislation it did not make it across the finish line in the Senate and was thought to be doomed as well in the House of Representatives.

Murphy was confident last Sunday that enough Republicans would join with most Senate Democrats to pass the border bill, and the three senators made the rounds with reporters to tout it. But by the next day Republican support cratered.

“I’ve never seen anything like what happened on Sunday and Monday in my legislative career,” said Murphy, 50.

“The very identity of the Republican Party has become intertwined with an unsolved immigration problem and I think that was the existential crisis that they confronted, grappled with and submitted to on Sunday and Monday,” Murphy said.

In a Senate speech, Lankford provided a different reason for the initiative that ultimately failed.

“There are some folks who are voting no today because they have policy differences on the bill … there are some folks who don’t want any immigration of any type,” he said rattling off other reasons as well.

House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson called the Senate’s measure “dead” because of its inadequacies.

Now, Murphy thinks there will never be an agreement with Republicans on border security and immigration.

Instead, Murphy said such a measure, led with protections for “Dreamer” immigrants who came to the United States as children, would have to wait for full Democratic control of Congress and the White House and elimination of the Senate “filibuster” that would allow Democrats to pass major legislation without Republican cooperation.

That does not mean that Murphy thinks the opportunity to work with Republicans on other legislation has dried up.

He speaks fondly of Lankford, saying he spent hours talking on the phone with him during a drive to Connecticut for the Thanksgiving holiday.

Noting that the earnest Oklahoma senator, a devout Baptist minister, does not consume alcohol, Murphy said: “Occasionally during the gun negotiations late at night we could slip a couple bottles of wine into the room. That was not an option in this negotiation.”