Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) said he was shocked that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) could not get more Senate Republicans to support the newly unveiled border legislation that was struck down on Wednesday.
The Senate killed that $118 billion bipartisan border and foreign aid bill after failing to receive 60 votes to advance, falling short by a 49-50 vote. The failed procedural vote came after Republicans vocally disparaged the border legislation on Monday, at times blasting McConnell and other GOP leaders for the bill’s provisions.
McConnell himself reversed course when he saw no chance of the bill becoming law. Murphy, the lead Democrat on the bill, as well as Sens. James Lankford (R-OK) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) and officials from the White House worked together on the bill for months and unveiled it on Sunday, and it was once championed by the Kentucky Republican.
Now, Murphy said he found McConnell’s change of heart and the complete dismissal from the GOP concerning.
“He didn’t just bless the deal. He wrote the deal,” Murphy said to NBC News. “I have a ton of respect for his commitment to Ukraine. I genuinely enjoyed working with his team. They were in the room every single day. But it’s really worrying that a deal that was written and endorsed by the minority leader gets four votes from his caucus.”
Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) said in the 14 years since he’s been elected to Senate, he has never seen a McConnell-backed deal collapse so fast within the Republican caucus.
“It surprises me,” Coons said to the outlet.
Several GOP senators have mocked McConnell over the last few days. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), who was adamantly against the border bill, posted a cartoon on X making fun of McConnell, depicted as Charlie Brown, getting kicked by Sinema, who was featured as Lucy.
Johnson said on Wednesday that there “may be a few more people questioning” McConnell in addition to the 10 senators who voted against his leadership at the start of Congress.
“I hope a lot of my colleagues are asking themselves: How did we get ourselves in a situation where we’re being blamed for Biden’s open border policy? How could that be possible? The answer is McConnell made that possible,” Johnson said.
Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY) and J.D. Vance (R-OH) have argued that McConnell has drifted away from voters’ wishes.
“On this issue, he is not aligned with the conservatives either at home in Kentucky or across the nation who don’t think we can send unlimited money,” Paul said of McConnell’s unwavering support to Ukraine.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
However, McConnell has rejected claims that he shouldn’t have engaged in negotiations to combine Ukraine and border security in one bill, reminding his colleagues that the pairing was their idea.
“I followed the instructions of my conference, who were insisting that we tackle this in October. It’s actually our side that wanted to tackle the border issue. We started it,” McConnell said via NBC News. “Things have changed over the last four months.”
