General Political Fúckery Thread: Elon Musk blows up stopgap spending bill, Government Shutdown looming on 12/21/24
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Roger Marshall’s finally taking COVID seriously. Is that just because it got personal? | Opinion
BY JOEL MATHIS REGULAR OPINION CORRESPONDENT
JANUARY 24, 2024 5:08 AM
JANUARY 24, 2024 5:08 AM
Kansas’ junior senator — a doctor — pushed junk science and downplayed vaccines. But now, a member of his family is suffering. JACK GRUBER USA Today Network file photo
Sometimes, Roger Marshall seems so close to getting it.
The junior senator from Kansas — a medical doctor, don’t forget — hasn’t always seemed to take COVID-19 seriously. He went maskless on the campaign trail in 2020 and touted his use of hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial drug that has done more harm than good against the coronavirus.
Marshall has also allied with anti-vaxxers too often, positioning himself against COVID vaccine mandates for military service members and — astonishingly — health care workers.
Those mandates, he charged in 2022, weren’t enacted with public health in mind but instead were “ about Joe Biden fulfilling his desire to control every aspect of our lives.”
It was a very silly comment about attempts to battle a virus that has killed more than a million Americans.
But Marshall wasn’t being silly last week.
At a committee hearing, he announced that his family had been affected by the scourge of “long COVID,” a condition that can persist for months or years after contracting the virus.
“This is personal for me,” he said. “One of my loved ones is one of those 16 million people who suffer from Long COVID, incapacitated for some two years.”
The condition, Marshall said, is like mononucleosis “that never goes away.”
Before we go much further, let’s get something straight: I am not here to mock Marshall’s unnamed family member. It’s a miserable thing to live with chronic illness. Nobody should make light of it, no matter what you think of a man’s politics or medical advice.
If you think any of this is funny, you’re a jerk. Period.
Still, one might hope that Marshall would take that awful personal experience and use it to — perhaps — reconsider his benighted efforts to cast COVID vaccines as tools of tyranny. Maybe see an opportunity to urge his fellow conservatives to get the jab.
Nope.
“I am frustrated that our CDC (and NIH) seems to be more focused on just vaccines than they are treatment for long COVID,” Marshall told the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, later adding: “I couldn’t be more frustrated that it’s vaccines, vaccines, vaccines, rather than focused on diagnosis and treatment.”
So close. Yet so far.
EXISTING VACCINES OFFER PROTECTION FROM SYMPTOMS
Now, Marshall is right about one thing: The medical establishment really has moved too slowly to begin to solve the mysteries of long COVID.There has been no Operation Warp Speed of the kind that produced COVID vaccines within a year. It was only in August — three-and-a-half years after the virus first appeared in the United States — that the Biden administration launched its Office on Long COVID Research and Practice.
So if you’re suffering from long COVID, the wait for answers, for any treatments that might alleviate the condition, has already taken too long. The senator is absolutely correct to nudge the nation’s medical authorities into action.
In the meantime, though, the best way to avoid or minimize long COVID probably is to go get a vaccine shot.
That’s what the research seems to say. One study released last March revealed that people who had received one dose of vaccine had a 35% lower chance of developing long COVID than their unvaccinated brethren. Another study — this one from Mayo Clinic, in August — found long COVID patients who had been vaccinated “were less likely to experience symptoms such as abdominal pain, chest pain, dizziness, and shortness of breath.” Yet another journal article this month found “that COVID-19 vaccination consistently reduced the risk of long COVID symptoms.”
None of that helps people who already have long COVID of course. For now, though, “vaccines, vaccines, vaccines” really do offer a pathway to prevent more people from suffering.
Marshall surely knows this. He is a doctor after all. It would be nice if he could say it in public. As he knows from experience, a lot of suffering could be saved.
Joel Mathis is a regular Wichita Eagle and Kansas City Star Opinion correspondent. He lives in Lawrence with his wife and son. Formerly a writer and editor at Kansas newspapers, he served nine years as a syndicated columnist.
GOP senators seethe as Trump blows up delicate immigration compromise
By Manu Raju, Melanie Zanona, Lauren Fox and Ted Barrett, CNN
7 minute read
Updated 8:52 PM EST, Thu January 25, 2024
Senior Senate Republicans are furious that Donald Trump may have killed an emerging bipartisan deal over the southern border, depriving them of a key legislative achievement on a pressing national priority and offering a preview of what’s to come with Trump as their likely presidential nominee.
In recent weeks, Trump has been lobbying Republicans both in private conversations and in public statements on social media to oppose the border compromise being delicately hashed out in the Senate, according to GOP sources familiar with the conversations – in part because he wants to campaign on the issue this November and doesn’t want President Joe Biden to score a victory in an area where he is politically vulnerable.
Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell acknowledged in a private meeting on Wednesday that Trump’s animosity toward the yet-to-be-released border deal puts Republicans in a serious bind as they try to move forward on the already complex issue. For weeks, Republicans have been warning that Trump’s opposition could blow up the bipartisan proposal, but the admission from McConnell was particularly striking, given he has been a chief advocate for a border-Ukraine package.
Now, Republicans on Capitol Hill are grappling with the reality that most in the GOP are loathe to do anything that is seen as potentially undermining the former president. And the prospects of a deal being scuttled before it has even been finalized has sparked tensions and confusion in the Senate GOP as they try to figure out if, and how, to proceed – even as McConnell made clear during party lunches Thursday that he remains firmly behind the effort to strike a deal, according to attendees.
“I think the border is a very important issue for Donald Trump. And the fact that he would communicate to Republican senators and congresspeople that he doesn’t want us to solve the border problem because he wants to blame Biden for it is … really appalling,” said GOP Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, who has been an outspoken critic of Trump.
He added, “But the reality is that, that we have a crisis at the border, the American people are suffering as a result of what’s happening at the border. And someone running for president not to try and get the problem solved. as opposed to saying, ‘hey, save that problem. Don’t solve it. Let me take credit for solving it later.’”
GOP Sen. Todd Young of Indiana called any efforts to disrupt the ongoing negotiations “tragic” and said: “I hope no one is trying to take this away for campaign purposes.”
“I would encourage (chief Senate GOP negotiator) James Lankford and other conservatives to produce a work product with which they will shortly allow conservatives like myself to review it and take heart that there are a number of us who won’t be looking to third parties and assessing the propriety of passing this bipartisan proposal,” Young said.
Sen. Todd Young speaks to reporters before a Republican Senate policy luncheon at the US Capitol Building on September 19, 2023 in Washington, DC.
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
It’s an all-too-familiar dynamic for the Republicans who served while Trump was in office, where he could easily derail legislative action on Capitol Hill with the blast of a single tweet or stir up a new controversy that Republicans were forced to respond to. And with Trump now marching toward the presidential nomination, Republicans are once again bracing for life with him as the nominee.
Underscoring just how damaging Trump’s comments and campaign to kill the border deal have been in the Senate, one GOP senator on condition of background told CNN that without Trump, this deal would have had overwhelming support within the conference.
“This proposal would have had almost unanimous Republican support if it weren’t for Donald Trump,” the Republican senator said.
GOP Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina – who has also been involved in the talks – said he didn’t know if anyone could convince Trump to not kill the deal. But he acknowledged that it would take some “courage” for members to be able to press ahead at this point in defiance of Trump – though Tillis argued it would ultimately be beneficial for Trump for them to pass a border security deal and help address the flow of migrants trying to enter the country.
“I think this is when members of the Senate have to show some courage and do something that at the end of the day will be very helpful for President Trump,” Tillis said.
Asked whether it was a mistake for Trump to be assailing this deal, Tillis said: “I’ll leave it to him to figure out how he needs to get into office. I hope you’ll leave it to some of us who would support that effort to give him the tools he needs to really manage the border and the abuse and the dangerous situation we have today.”
For his part, McConnell – who has had zero relationship with Trump since the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack – downplayed Trump’s opposition saying, “It’s not anything new,” and insisting they were not abandoning the talks.
“We’re still working,” McConnell said. “Trying to get an outcome.”
Sen. John Thune, the no. 2 Senate Republican, said the discussions have reached a critical moment but acknowledged they may need to turn to a “plan B.”
“If we can’t get there, then we’ll go to plan B,” Thune said. “But I think for now at least, there are still attempts being made to try and reach a conclusion that would satisfy a lot of Republicans.”
Sen. Thom Tillis talks to reporters as he heads to the Senate floor for a vote on January 23 in Washington, DC.
Samuel Corum/Getty Images
Status of border talks remains unclear
In the latest sign that the emerging border deal faces an uphill climb, a senior leadership aide to House GOP Leader Steve Scalise told a group of Senate Republican chiefs of staff on Thursday that it was dead on arrival in the House, according to a source familiar.
Senate Republicans on the fence about the proposal may be less inclined to back it, knowing it’s going nowhere in the House and knowing Trump wants a border deal killed.
Frustration reigned inside the Senate GOP on Thursday amid lingering confusion over the status of a deal.
While McConnell has said the talks are still proceeding, Young warned Republican leadership against pulling the plug before they’ve taken a thorough temperature check inside the conference, where a contingent of Republicans are still fighting for a deal.
“I think leadership needs to count noses before they make any impulsive decisions,” he said.
Pressed on whether it was realistic to pass a border deal with Trump opposing it, Young said: “It may be possible. Listen, I’m very much attuned to the political realities, but I think before you make these consequential decisions on behalf of this conference, you’ve got to consult with the conference.”
Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, who has been openly critical of McConnell, said he was “puzzled” by the leader’s comments during the closed-door meeting on Wednesday, which was supposed to be focused on Ukraine.
“I mean, we were talking about funding for Ukraine and all of the sudden he brings up the border and then, again, lays out what I consider a pretty lame excuse, trying to shift blame to President Trump for, I would say, his failed negotiation, not James Lankford,” Johnson said. “James Lankford has worked his tail off. It’s McConnell that took away the leverage by not tying Ukraine funding to actually securing the border.”
Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who has made no secret of her frustration with Trump over the years, said members need to remember how big this moment is for the border and for Ukraine and put their own politics aside.
“I’m not giving up. This is not about Trump and this is not about me. This is about our country. This is about democracy around the world. This is about security for our own country and so let’s keep pushing to get this border deal,” she said. “Let’s stand by the commitments that we have made for our friends and our allies so that our word actually means something.”
This is the second time in six years Trump killed or was actively trying to kill a bipartisan immigration deal as it emerged. Back in 2018, Murkowski was part of bipartisan talks over the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. The bill got 54 votes in the Senate, but not enough to get it over the finish line.
Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, one of the Democrats involved in the border talks, expressed frustration about Trump seeking to inject chaos into the situation.
“I think over the next 24 to 48 hours, they are going to make a decision as to whether they want to do this, or whether the forces surrounding Donald Trump – who want to keep chaos at the border – win,” Murphy said. “So they have a decision to make. I hope they make that decision very quickly. We have an agreement that is 95% written and is ready to get to the floor if Republicans decide that they actually want to solve the problem.”
This story has been updated with additional developments.
Republican Senator Gives Away the Game on Why They Killed Border Deal
Josh Hawley is admitting point-blank this fight was never about the border at all.
newrepublic.com
January 26, 2024/12:16 p.m. ET
Republican Senator Gives Away the Game on Why They Killed Border Deal
Josh Hawley is admitting point-blank this fight was never about the border at all.
KEVIN DIETSCH/GETTY IMAGES
Senator Josh Hawley said the quiet part out loud on Friday, explicitly tying the GOP’s border security grandstanding to a coordinated effort to hurt President Joe Biden’s reelection chances.
“Senator, is this deal dead, effectively?” Fox News’s Laura Ingraham asked Hawley Thursday evening.
“I hope so,” Hawley said. “It should be. If it’s not dead yet it should be dead. There is absolutely no reason to agree to policies that would further enable Joe Biden.”
The Senate reached a bipartisan border deal this week, which would include additional funding for border security as well as aid for Ukraine. But the minute Donald Trump criticized the deal, Senate Republicans caved and said they probably won’t pass it.
Hawley’s statement is more proof that Republicans aren’t all that interested in the so-called border crisis. They just want to use it as a political tool in the 2024 election.
Republicans have spent months quietly killing any bipartisan packages related to the border and foreign aid in favor of their own proposition. Also, on Friday the House’s highest member rejected the Senate’s bipartisan deal.
“I wanted to provide a brief update regarding the supplemental and the border, since the Senate appears unable to reach any agreement,” House Speaker Mike Johnson wrote in a letter to his colleagues on Friday. “If rumors about the contents of the draft proposal are true, it would have been dead on arrival in the House anyway.”
“Nine months have now passed since we sent our Secure the Border Act (HR 2) to the Senate,” Johnson wrote, referring to an extreme asylum-limiting immigration bill that died in the Senate. “Since the day I became Speaker, I have assured our Senate colleagues the House would not accept any counterproposal if it would not actually solve the problems that have been created by the administration’s subversive policies.”
The wavering deals come part and parcel with a showdown along the U.S.-Mexico border between Texas and the federal government over the placement of concertina wire by Texas’s local authorities along the Rio Grande.
On Wednesday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott declared the influx of immigrants across the border an “ invasion”—a status that Abbott claimed supersedes federal mandates—and issued a statement on the state’s constitutional right to defend itself.
That was just two days after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of President Joe Biden by declaring that Texas went outside its jurisdiction by erecting makeshift concertina wire fences along the Rio Grande section of the U.S.-Mexico border, effectively preventing the U.S. border patrol from doing their job. Texas has continued building new wire barriers since that ruling.
At least 25 Republican governors have issued their support for Abbott, including Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey, and Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon.
More on the border:
Insider information duh
The Senate unveiled its border bill. House Republicans immediately declared it dead. | Semafor
The ambitious effort to reform the U.S. asylum system may face impossible resistance.
www.semafor.com
Updated Feb 4, 2024, 11:41pm EST
POLITICS
The Senate unveiled its border bill. House Republicans immediately declared it dead.
REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz
THE NEWS
Senate negotiators released the long-awaited text of their bipartisan border security deal Sunday night, a months-in-the-making effort that would dramatically reorganize the U.S. asylum system while giving the president new emergency powers to limit the flow of migrants into the country.
“We’re radically changing the way we’re spending dollars on border security and the asylum process,” said Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., who led talks alongside Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla. and Chris Murphy, D-Conn.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced plans for a procedural vote on the new border bill Wednesday as part of a broad national security package wrapping the measure together with aid to Ukraine and Israel. His Republican counterpart, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, called on the Senate to “carefully consider the opportunity in front of us and prepare to act.”
Republicans last year demanded that Democrats agree to stricter border policies in return for unlocking new military support for Kiev. But the deal’s future is already in question thanks to strong opposition from House Republicans, whose leaders immediately slammed the border proposal as an unacceptable sop to liberals shortly after its debut.
Conference Chair Elise Stefanik dubbed it the “Joe Biden/Chuck Schumer Open Border Bill,” while Majority Leader Steve Scalise promised it “ will NOT receive a vote in the House.” Speaker Mike Johnson declared he’d “seen enough” and that the legislation was “dead on arrival.”
Senate conservatives also signaled they intended to slow or stop the deal. “No self-respecting senator should agree to vote on this 370-page bill this week,” Sen. Mike Lee tweeted. “Any 41 senators can prevent the bill from proceeding.”
THE DETAILS
To satisfy immigration hawks, the agreement would create a stricter asylum process while providing the president new emergency powers allowing for the quick expulsion of migrants. Among other measures, it would:- Significantly limit the president’s ability to let migrants temporarily settle in the country temporarily under humanitarian parole while their asylum cases are pending, ending a practice often derided as “catch and release.”
- Raise the standard for initial asylum screenings, which would be heard within 90 days.
- Take asylum cases out of the hands of immigration judges — who currently have a 3-million-case backlog — and place them under Department of Homeland Security officials, who would be required to resolve them within six months.
- Allow the president to halt all new asylum claims by migrants, unless they arrive at an official port of entry, if border crossings pass 4,000 per day over a two-week period. The pause would become mandatory if crossings hit 5,000 per day. Migrants who arrive between ports of entry, such as by crossing the Rio Grande, would be promptly expelled without a hearing.
Of the policy measures, the new emergency powers have arguably garnered the most attention. “We are creating this emergency authority so that when the system is overwhelmed, we can shut it down,” Sinema told reporters. President Biden would exercise that emergency authority “immediately on day one” given current levels, a senior Biden administration official told reporters Sunday night. However, Republicans have attacked it, arguing the president should be able to shut down asylum claims if there are any illegal crossings.
Along with policy changes, the bill would also include billions more in funding for policing the border — including $650 million allocated for further construction of the border wall.
Pro-immigration groups are already attacking the deal for making major concessions on the border without winning any traditional Democratic priorities, such as protections for Dreamers. To sell the deal to the left, Murphy called it “an important down payment on immigration reform,” emphasizing that it would create “a quicker, fairer asylum process” without the years long waits for decisions, as well as some new legal paths to immigration. It would:
- Provide 50,000 new employment and family reunification visas per year for the next five years.
- Establish a right to legal counsel for asylum-seekers during expedited removal proceedings. In addition, lawyers would be provided to unaccompanied children aged 13 and under.
- Provide a pathway to citizenship for Afghan allies evacuated by the US during the fall of Kabul in August 2021
The bill would also try to address the complaints of Democratic mayors who’ve seen their cities’ social services budgets stretched thin thanks to the arrival of migrants, by issuing quicker work permits to asylum seekers who do make it past their initial screening. Perhaps just as importantly, the new, stricter border measures have a variety of exceptions that could make them more palatable to Democrats.
While it would cut off the use of humanitarian parole at the border, it could still be used in other circumstances, such to aid war refugees or let individuals travel to the U.S. for medical treatment. The president’s new emergency powers also wouldn’t allow the president to entirely shut down the border to asylum seekers since legal ports of entry would still be required to process at least 1,400 claims a day.
“The border never closes, but claims must be processed at the ports,” Murphy tweeted. He also pointed out that the emergency authority would sunset in three years.
Those exceptions have already drawn the ire of conservatives, however. As he pronounced the bill DOA, Speaker Johnson quoted Murphy’s own description: “As the lead Democrat negotiator proclaimed: Under this legislation, ‘the border never closes.’”
THE VIEW FROM JAMES LANKFORD
During a Sunday night press call, Lankford said he intended to get in touch with Johnson to discuss his bill, even though the speaker had just deemed it a dead letter. He also expressed hope for the legislation despite the statements from House GOP leaders, noting he’d been receiving encouraging text messages from some lower chamber Republicans who were supportive of the legislation.“This is a member-driven body...especially right now with how divided the House is and how close the numbers are,” he said.
Reality Check
Keepin' it 100
Why Mike Johnson Is Having a MAGA Meltdown Over the Border Deal
The House speaker is afraid that if the Senate bill passes, the GOP will partially own the border crisis. He—and Trump—also fear the bill will work.
newrepublic.com
Greg Sargent/
February 5, 2024
OWN IT MIKE
Why Mike Johnson Is Having a MAGA Meltdown Over the Border Deal
The House speaker is afraid that if the Senate bill passes, the GOP will partially own the border crisis. He—and Trump—also fear the bill will work.
CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES
House Speaker Mike Johnson
Because Republicans are so profoundly concerned about the border, the House GOP leadership’s first response to the new Senate border security deal was to declare that the House will never even vote on it. Why? Because if it did, the bill would pass the House on a comfortable bipartisan basis, and for Republicans, that is an unacceptable outcome.
House Speaker Mike Johnson’s reaction to the announcement of a deal late Sunday from a bipartisan group of senators was particularly telling. The bill, Johnson said, is “dead on arrival” in the House, because it “won’t come close to ending the border catastrophe the president has created.”
In saying this, Johnson exposed the real GOP calculation: If the bill passes, Biden might no longer fully own what happens at the border. Republicans will have participated in passing a solution, making it harder for them to blame Biden for it. That’s plainly why Donald Trump keeps urging Republicans to kill the bill.
The bill would, in fact, do a great deal that Republicans say they want. It would make it significantly harder to qualify for asylum, and it would channel major new expenditures into border security, expanded detention of migrants, and expedited processing of asylum claims, reducing backlogs in migrant processing—including faster removals of those who don’t qualify.
The Senate bill—negotiated by Republican James Lankford, independent Kyrsten Sinema, and Democrat Chris Murphy—would also create a new authority for the president to effectively shut down asylum seeking entirely once encounters with migrants hit an average of 4,000 per day. At 5,000, it would mandate this.
Trump and his allies are pretend-raging that the deal would “allow” 5,000 migrants to illegally enter daily. In fact, that number refers to encounters with migrants, meaning they’re put into the system where their claims are adjudicated. While many do get released while they await hearings, the law requires that those picked up on U.S. soil receive an asylum hearing if sought. Courts are badly backlogged, and detaining all migrants is logistically impossible, requiring enormous expenditures that the public would never tolerate.
That’s why every president releases a lot of migrants—including Trump, who released hundreds of thousands of them. True, the bill would not reinstate his policy of forcing migrants to await hearings in Mexico or basically end asylum seeking entirely, as the House GOP approach would. But this is what makes the deal a compromise.
The bill just would address problems Republicans constantly complain about. By beefing up investments in the asylum process and streamlining it so asylum officers (not judges) hear many cases, it would reduce those backlogs. Expanded detention would mean more migrants are detained, not released.
In short, the Trump-MAGA position is effectively that if the release of migrants into the U.S. is not eliminated entirely, no improvements count for anything. This explains why Republicans are so divided. Many in the Senate admit it would do a lot of what Republicans want. But that’s also why House Republicans are rejecting it.
Johnson gave away the game on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday. He falsely declared that Biden “opened the border” and “did it intentionally.” In this, Johnson hinted at his oft-expressed version of “great replacement theory,” that Democrats are scheming to convert migrants into Democratic voters. Johnson insisted that Biden “doesn’t need” a bill to fix the border; that he “has the authority right now.”
That’s baloney: Even Trump was unable to use executive authority to achieve MAGA’s goals, though he tried extremely hard. That’s why he ended up releasing many migrants too. But that aside, the rub here is that Johnson and Trump must sink the Senate compromise in order to keep arguing that Biden wants the border “open” and is “intentionally” refusing to take executive actions to shut it down. A bipartisan compromise that stabilizes the border wrecks that big lie, not to mention making the dabbling in great replacement theory—which is central to the MAGA worldview—look even crazier.
It should be mentioned that some Democrats are attacking the bill, arguing that it sells out our commitment to international human rights ideals. And yes, the compromise is extremely problematic in many ways. It’s awful to contemplate what Trump might do as president with the authority to shut down asylum seeking if certain migration thresholds are reached. This, plus the more stringent bar to getting asylum, do threaten core Democratic values.
However, this is not a simple calculation for Democrats, and it’s clear why some might see reasons to support it. Those investments in asylum processing would give Biden tools to make the system function better (though serious questions remain about how quickly this would happen). Importantly, the bill would also provide immediate work permits to enable migrants who pass the initial asylum screening to get jobs, potentially meaning fewer crowding homeless shelters in urban liberal strongholds.
As I’ve argued, a reasonable compromise could involve conceding restrictions on asylum in exchange for legalizing the “Dreamers” and others here legally and wider pathways for migrants to apply for entry from abroad. The goal should be to shift incentives toward that way of migrating, so fewer show up at the border seeking asylum and straining resources.
In some ways the deal enshrines that set of tradeoffs. Though it scandalously neglects the Dreamers yet again, it preserves Biden’s parole programs, which allow tens of thousands to arrive monthly from abroad, and it creates 250,000 new green card slots over five years. It also beefs up due process for migrants in certain critical respects.
None of this makes the bill’s serious downsides more acceptable. But the combination of making the asylum system function—plus preserving legal channels for application from abroad—could have political benefits over time. If this balance works, it could persuade swing voters that migration and asylum seeking can be managed in ways benefiting the country, making the ground less fertile for MAGA’s natalist appeals.
Admittedly, the best political outcome for Dems may be that House Republicans kill the compromise, turning voters against Republicans and sparing Democrats from supporting something that alienates their base and threatens terrible humanitarian outcomes. Yet not doing anything new at the border—maintaining the status quo—while heading into a general election against Trump carries its own risks.
In fact, the latter is exactly the calculation that MAGA Republicans are making. Notably, Trump himself greeted the bill’s release by declaring it a “great gift to Democrats,” laying that obvious truth bare for all to see. As Johnson has helpfully demonstrated, he’s simply operationalizing Trump’s scam.
John Reena
Superstar
Complain on tv for years about doing something about the border, Demand a bipartisan bill, Craft the bill, agree to the bill, then kill the bill. Republicans in 2024.
Reality Check
Keepin' it 100
Republicans just fukked themselves because they're now going to be seen (if Democratic messaging has a clue what they're doing) as the party that don't want to fix the border security issues.
And Fail to Impeach Mayorkis
If Republicans think Trump is their only problem, they fail to see their infighting has plagued them for three years already and this shyt show is going to bite them in the ass.
Already bit them in the ass… they aren’t a functioning party with no platform anymore lmaoo
