President Biden took the border dispute directly to former President Donald J. Trump on Tuesday, accusing his predecessor and presumptive challenger of torpedoing a bipartisan immigration deal out of heavy-handed politics at the expense of national security.
After months of largely staying out of the fray, Mr. Biden weighed in forcefully, calling on Republicans in Congress to “show support” and stand up to Mr. Trump. But he effectively acknowledged that the deal, negotiated over several months, was doomed and vowed to make it a campaign issue against the opposition.
“All indications are that this bill will not even get to the Senate,” Mr. Biden said in a televised speech from the White House. “Why? A simple reason. Donald Trump. Because Donald Trump thinks this is bad for him politically.”
The president said that Mr. Trump would “rather weaponize this problem than actually solve it,” and has leaned on Republicans to block it. “It looks like they are collapsing,” he added. “Frankly, they owe it to the American people to show support and do what they know is right.”
Republicans’ decision to reject a bipartisan border deal they had previously called for not only paralyzed the immigration debate but also jeopardized security aid to Ukraine and Israel associated with the $118 billion measure, blocking what had previously been the best path to aid in a contested area American allies.
The deadlock raised questions about whether and how Congress could salvage the emergency aid package. Speaker Mike Johnson tried to push aid to Israel alone by pushing through a separate $17.6 billion measure, but faced strong opposition from far-right Republicans as well as Democrats and Mr. Biden, who threatened to veto it.
The result was a vivid portrait of dysfunction in Congress. Instead of continuing the border crackdown they once sought, House Republicans spent the day trying — and failing — to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas on charges that he willfully refused to pass border laws to enforce. With even some Republicans calling the move a ploy, Mr. Johnson, in an embarrassing setback, failed to muster a majority for impeachment.
The disarray and discord on Capitol Hill, punctuated by the president’s sharp speech at the White House, highlighted how much this year’s presidential election has shaped the debate in Washington, even nine months before the vote. In fact, two presidents, one current and one former, are feuding over some of the most pressing issues facing the United States, each vying to set the direction for the country even before voters make their choice in November.
Mr. Biden, who has avoided even using Mr. Trump’s name for most of his presidency, referring to him only as “the former man” or other elliptical phrases, has appeared increasingly eager in recent weeks to impeach the former president to confront more directly, which culminated in Tuesday’s speech.
The president complained privately that the original draft of the address did not target Mr. Trump enough and wanted it to be sharpened, according to a senior administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity. He and his aides then tried harder sentences just before he stepped in front of the cameras to deliver the talk, more than an hour after the original deadline.
“I understand that the former president is desperately trying to stop this bill because he has no interest in solving the border problem,” Mr. Biden said. “He wants a political issue to go against me.”
“Republicans have to decide,” he added. “Who do they serve? Donald Trump or the American people?”
He called the bipartisan deal “a victory for America” because it combines the “fairest and most humane reforms” to immigration law and “the toughest reforms to secure the border” at a time of record illegal migration. To bolster his point, he pointed to the support of institutions normally friendly to Republicans, including the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Border Patrol Council, a union that supported Mr. Trump in 2016 and supported in 2020.
“If this bill fails, I want to make something absolutely clear,” Mr. Biden said. “The American people will learn why they failed. I will take this issue to the country.”
The reason, he said, was Republicans’ fear of their leading candidate. “They are afraid of Donald Trump,” Mr. Biden said. “Every day until November, the American people will learn that the only reason the border is not secure is because of Donald Trump and his MAGA Republican friends.”
The President is late for the debate. Although he has supported the bipartisan negotiations, he has largely stayed away from them personally and has not led a high-profile fight for an agreement. Aides said he wanted to avoid complicating the conversations by making them about him. But some Democrats have been frustrated that he hasn’t taken on a more prominent role.
The president’s speech was aimed in part at some Democrats who had already criticized provisions in the border law that would tighten the rules for granting asylum to migrants in the United States. If other Democrats vote against the measure, it could make it harder for Mr. Biden to portray his party as seeking solutions in the face of Republican intransigence.
Mr Trump fired back at Mr Biden after the president’s speech. “America does not need a ‘border’ law that does nothing to deter illegal immigration,” Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for Mr. Trump, said in a statement. “We need a president who will use his executive authority to close the border. Joe Biden clearly refuses to do that, but President Trump will get there on day one.”
Republicans have thrown their weight behind Mr. Trump, including some who originally supported the bill, which includes measures to tighten border security but none of the provisions Democrats have insisted on in the past that would provide a path to citizenship for those already in the country Provide protection to or protect illegal immigrants from the country who were previously brought in as children.
The legislation would make it harder for migrants to apply for asylum and speed up the processing of their cases, which can now take years. It would also expand federal detention centers, allow the hiring of more asylum officers and border agents and require an effective closure of the border when the number of encounters with migrants making illegal border crossings reaches an average of 5,000 per day. Critics on the right complained that it still didn’t go far enough.
“Joe Biden will never pass any new law and refuses to use the tools he already has today to end this crisis,” Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, the third-ranking Republican, said Tuesday. “I cannot vote for this bill. Americans will be counting on the upcoming election to end the border crisis.”
Sen. Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the minority leader who initially supported the deal, told reporters at a news conference that his conference had “a very intense discussion about whether or not this product could ever become law” and was influenced by was Mr Johnson’s declaration that it would be “dead on arrival” in the House of Representatives.
“The speaker has made it pretty clear to us that it will not become law,” McConnell said. Asked whether he had misunderstood his fellow Republicans, Mr. McConnell said: “I followed the instructions of my conference, which insisted that we address this in October.” It is actually our side that wanted to address the border issue. We have started this. Obviously, our negotiators had to deal with this with a Democratic president and a Democratic Senate.”
Mr. Johnson cheered Senate Republicans’ about-face on the border deal. “It may be on life support in the Senate,” he told reporters. “We welcome this development.”
Mr. Biden argued that Republicans were not only sacrificing a border compromise but also abandoning Ukraine during its war against President Vladimir V. Putin’s Russia.
“We can’t leave now,” he said, wearing a striped tie in the blue and yellow colors of the Ukrainian flag. “Putin is counting on that. Supporting this bill means standing up to Putin. Rejecting this bill plays into his hands.”
But the grim reality was that the once strong bipartisan consensus on aid to Ukraine was faltering. In an unusual letter on Monday, a group of U.S. ambassadors stationed in the Indo-Pacific region called on congressional leaders to ensure passage of the bill, which also includes aid to Taiwan, saying America’s credibility with its strategic partners is at stake .
For months, many in the White House and abroad had followed conventional wisdom, assuming that the combined will of a handful of like-minded congressmen, National Security Committee chairs and the president would be enough to get new funding for Ukraine across the finish line.
But a restive Republican voter base is strongly opposed to sending another round of taxpayer money to Ukraine, and rank-and-file Republicans, particularly in the narrowly majority House of Representatives, have flexed their muscles to oppose any real movement.
After Tuesday morning there was reportedly no clear path for Congress to approve aid to Ukraine and Israel, Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican and a Trump ally, cheered on social media. He quoted a line from the movie “Apocalypse Now”: “I love the smell of napalm in the morning!”
Reporting by Katie Rogers, Erica L. Green, Carl Hulse, Karoun Demirjian, Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Michael D. Shear
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2024-02-07 00:03:46
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