Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and top Senate Democrats on Tuesday expressed intense anger at Republicans for abandoning the bipartisan border deal after demanding that border security be packaged together with Ukraine aid, accusing them of bowing to pressure from Donald Trump.
The New York Democrat accused GOP leader Mitch McConnell and the GOP conference of “a 180-degree reversal” and of “quaking at the knees at the fear of Donald Trump.”
“In our caucus room today, there was a lot of anger, frustration, deep disappointment in our Republican colleagues,” he added.
Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, the top Democratic negotiator for the deal, blasted Republicans. “I know that it’s easy to lose your sense of outrage about politics,” he said, “but what has happened here over the last four months is outrageous,” adding that Republicans ”now oppose the very bill that they begged us to craft.”
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a New Hampshire Democrat, spoke about deaths from fentanyl overdoses in her state, saying, “anything that we can do to cut down on the amount of fentanyl that’s coming into the United States we ought to be doing, by God. If they’re not willing to do that, then shame on them.”
Asked whether the Senate would drop the border provisions and move to pass a package with only the foreign aid if Wednesday’s vote on the package fails as is expected, Schumer said, “Stay tuned.”
Asked if he has a plan for what will happen in the Senate if DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is impeached by the Republican-led House on Tuesday night, Schumer would not specify or say if he would move to dismiss.
“Let’s see what the House first does,” he said.
Source: www.cnn.com