Lead Democrat on US Senate border talks hopes Trump does not tank Ukraine aid
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Lead Democrat on US Senate border talks hopes Trump does not tank Ukraine aid
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The day after the U.S. Senate failed to pass a border security deal he spent four months negotiating, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy voiced hope that enough Republicans would vote to pass a military aid package to Ukraine no longer linked to the border measure.
Murphy's biggest worry is that aid to Ukraine will fall victim to the same force that killed the border plan: Donald Trump.
"Once he got loud on the immigration bill, the thing fell apart ... if he turns his flamethrower on Ukraine, I wonder how it survives," Murphy said in a Wednesday interview in his Capitol Hill office.
He spoke shortly after most Senate Republicans voted against allowing debate on a bill that married the two unrelated issues, a marriage that Republican lawmakers had insisted on and then rejected as flawed.
As far back as August, Congress has refused to respond to Democratic President Joe Biden's request for fresh emergency aid for Ukraine. Republicans balked, saying they first needed legislation providing a permanent stop of massive arrivals of immigrants at the southwestern border with Mexico.
Murphy held out hope that the "debacle" over the border security bill would send a message to Republicans to at least vote for passage of $60 billion in Ukraine aid.
Trump, far and away the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, has said he would ask European allies to reimburse the U.S. for around $200 billion worth of munitions sent to Ukraine. That has raised fears that funding for Kyiv in its war against Russia would dry up completely during a potential second Trump administration.
