GOP CIVIL WAR DEEPENS AFTER MITCH THROWS VOTERS ‘UNDER THE BUS’ The Daily Caller’s Henry Rodgers dropped a massive report Tuesday which details how Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell voted to spend billions of dollars on Ukraine without reaching a comprehensive deal to bolster security on the southern border. From the report: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and pro-Ukraine hawks within his conference gave away their leverage by voting to send billions more in aid to Ukraine despite not reaching a border security deal, several Republican senators who are increasingly frustrated with party leadership told the Daily Caller. Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee and Florida Republican Sen. Rick Scott all unloaded on McConnell in interviews with the Daily Caller and shared their gratitude for Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, who said any Ukraine aid without border provisions will be “dead on arrival” in the House. Johnson’s comments came just two days after the Caller first published leaked border deal proposals. “I cannot even believe how badly McConnell blew this,” Johnson told the Caller. “McConnell frittered away the leverage we have in the Senate.” Republicans in both chambers of Congress had spoken for months about a push to extract compromise from Democrats — who, led by President Joe Biden, have made a key priority out of aid for Ukraine — by tying further support for Kyiv to concessions on immigration policy to address the ongoing crisis at the southern border. When push came to shove, Republicans didn’t get their end of the deal. The bipartisan Senate border and foreign aid bill negotiated by Republican leadership and Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford didn’t even survive to a full vote after vast public backlash and opposition from former President Donald Trump. Democrats did end up getting their side of the deal passed though, with the help of 22 Republican senators who voted to pass nearly $100 billion in military aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan last week, despite failing to reach a border deal. “The reason so many of us are speaking out the way we are against McConnell was the way he blew this. It’s historic. It was a monumental blunder, debacle. We don’t appreciate it. But again, the good news is, if the house doesn’t pass this, we still have that leverage,” Sen. Johnson said. “Of the many components of this blunder, maybe the most important was not recognizing that your negotiating partner was not negotiating in good faith … [all] Democrats wanted was political cover, and McConnell gave it to them. Again, this is historic in nature. What Senate leader from either party has done so much to give their political opponent the kind of political cover, that McConnell just handed over to the Democrats on a silver platter. It’s just jaw-dropping.” | 
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