Trump weighs in on border security deal, adding new pressure to Republicans in Congress

WASHINGTON – Former President Donald Trump is trying to torpedo a bipartisan border security package, putting new pressure on Republicans to reject a deal that Senate negotiators have been crafting for months.

It’s the latest example of the former president leveraging his popularity within the GOP to influence Republican officeholders – even as he lacks any formal powers to set the political agenda. If Trump openly campaigns against it, Republicans will have a hard time supporting the border security deal that is now favored by many senators in their own party.

The proposal – which has not yet been finalized – would reportedly approve several conservative border priorities. The deal would call for stricter asylum standards and new deportation powers in exchange for a $106 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel, and other domestic and foreign goals that are related to the mission of keeping the country safe.

In an interview with House Speaker Mike Johnson Wednesday night, Fox News host Laura Ingraham said Trump told her he was against the deal, that he’d urged Johnson to reject it, and that he was “extremely adamant” about it.

“He and I have been talking about this pretty frequently,” Johnson said, noting that he would reserve judgment on the deal until the bill text is out. But “it doesn’t sound good at the outset.”

Trump also posted to Truth Social Wednesday that he opposes a border package “unless we get EVERYTHING needed to shut down the INVASION” at the southern border. He added that he has “no doubt” that Johnson will “only make a deal that is PERFECT ON THE BORDER.”

Trump’s comments are “certainly not helpful,” Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., said Thursday. “But in the end, people are going to have to do what they think is right to solve what is a major crisis at our southern border at a time when we have more leverage than we would ever have.”

Senate Republicans make their case on the border deal

Many Senate Republicans, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, have argued it is a unique moment to win conservative border policy, as Democrats won’t want to support new restrictions under Trump and have an incentive to address migration. In a CBS News poll released earlier this month, just 32% of Americans said they supported Biden’s handling of the border.

But that’s the same reason some House Republicans have opposed the package, arguing it would not only open the door to additional Ukraine aid, which several oppose, but that it could help Biden’s reelection prospects and take away a politically salient issue for Trump to campaign on.

That’s left Senate Republicans arguing that the package is a more conservative deal than they’d ever get with Trump in office – and that it wouldn’t hurt his prospects.

“I don’t think it’s going to be like turning off the spigot tomorrow if we were to pass something,” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. “This is going to long be an issue, including through the election. There’s a lot of other stuff to run on too … I don’t think you need to hold a gun to your own head and say ‘don’t make me do this.’”

Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., said Democrats won’t agree to conservative border priorities “without being forced to.”

“It doesn’t surprise me” that Trump is talking to Johnson about the deal, Rounds told USA TODAY. But “I think that the next administration, if it’s different than the Biden administration, will definitely want these tools in their arsenal.”

Johnson has not officially dismissed the bipartisan plan, which Senate leaders are hoping can come to the floor for a vote as early as this week. But he has said he would only support something that hews closely to House Republicans’ hardline border bill, which received no Democratic votes in the House and has no chance of survival in the Democrat-controlled Senate – making successful border policy this year even more out of reach.

Trump's influence in the GOP

Since leaving office at the beginning of 2021, Trump has repeatedly flexed his influence in the party that he reshaped during his first term in office.

In the months following Jan. 6, 2021 – when a mob of Trump supporters attacked the Capitol after he repeatedly claimed he had won the election without evidence – many Republicans distanced themselves from the former president and condemned his lack of action to interrupt the riot.

But even then, only 10 Republican House members voted to impeach him and seven Republican senators voted to convict.

In the years since, those attitudes have softened and Trump’s power in the party has grown. In the 2022 midterm elections, he actively campaigned against those who he felt hadn’t been sufficiently loyal, with mixed success.

He’s weighed in on multiple Congressional fights, including the bid to replace former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy. He has pushed members to take action that would benefit him or punish his opponents, such as impeaching Joe Biden or face being “immediately primaried.” He has fostered relationships with GOP members and personally asked for their endorsements, leading to more than half of the caucus endorsing him before the Iowa Caucuses.

Now, he remains the clear frontrunner to be the party’s nominee for president. He took more than half of the votes in Iowa, which was the first presidential nominating contest of the election season, and is likely to similarly dominate the New Hampshire primary this week.

“He’s the leading candidate to be president coming out of our party,” Rounds told reporters Thursday. “So most certainly, individuals here will give deference to someone who is the leading candidate to be the next president.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: GOP lawmakers likely to face pressure from Trump to reject border deal