McConnell Says Biden’s Funding Request Needs to Have ‘Border Solution’

Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is trying to act like a Republican again.

McConnell is warning Joe Biden that any funding request he puts forth will not have Republican support unless it contains a “border solution.”

The problem for McConnell is that he and the rest of GOP leadership blew the last election and Democrats hold the power in the Senate.

Get the Message

McConnell told reporters, "It will be difficult to get the package across the floor in the Senate without a credible border solution.”

He went on to say that he had talked to both Joe Biden and the Treasury about this.

McConnell continued, "I did make it clear to both of them that we have to have a credible solution to the wide-open border in order to get a bill ... across the Senate floor. I hope they understood the message.”

McConnell has also stated that he has no problem at all passing a piece of omnibus legislation that would also include aid for Ukraine, Israel, and other top priorities.

But that legislation will never get through the House because Speaker Johnson (R-LA) has been clear that he will only pass single-spending legislation right now.

In fact, Johnson has already passed aid for Israel in the amount of $14.3 billion, which was even funded by money sitting on the sidelines from the Inflation Reduction Act.

It would appear to me that we are once again headed to a stalemate… so we are going to find out what Speaker Johnson is truly made of over the next week or so.

If Johnson folds to Biden and allows a piece of omnibus legislation to get through, he will immediately lose the support of MAGA Republicans in the House, and we have already seen how much havoc that can raise.

Now, he was supposed to introduce new rules that would prevent that from happening again, and I am not sure the caucus wants to go through this election process again, but it would surely mean that he would fail to get support in 2025 if Republicans manage to hold the House, and that is far from a given right now.