House Speaker Mike Johnson on Sunday apparently acceded to Fox News propagandist Laura Ingraham’s commands not to come to a deal with Democrats on new border legislation, telling his conference that they need to wait for fat former President Trump to get elected again – and then take office in a year and five days from now – for anything to happen, Punchbowl News reports.
Except even Mitch McConnell says there’s no chance Trump could ever get anything passed. “After congressional Republicans spent years elevating the border crisis, calling it an invasion and rightfully pushing for immediate action, the House Republican position is now basically ‘Let’s wait for Trump’ – even though he may not get elected and definitely couldn’t pass a border bill,” a “frustrated Senate GOP aide” told Punchbowl of the soon-to-be-scuttled border package that would’ve increase the number of available green cards by 50,000 annually, allow work permits for asylum claimants and adult children of H-1B holders, provide public defenders to unaccompanied alien children and mentally impaired migrants, and cap asylum claims at 5,000 per day, per the Washington Examiner.
Remember that Punchbowl is often the Congressional Republicans’ mouthpiece but that works both ways and when shit goes bad for them too they’ll say it. “It also allows President Joe Biden to say that Republicans blocked Congress’ best shot in years to address the broader problems with border security and immigration reform. To be sure, the migrant crisis has been a political liability for Biden, but this move could effectively throw him a lifeline,” they write, passing the Senate GOP’s note to the House GOP to quit fucking around and actually address this “crisis” instead of campaigning on it.