Democrats have put a lot of blame on former President Donald Trump for the failure of the border security bill, which a bipartisan group of senators unveiled last weekend.
Even Trump himself said it was OK to blame him, as he was working heavily behind the scenes to encourage GOP members of Congress to stop the bill in its tracks.
Yet, one Republican senator said this week that it’s not Trump’s fault that the border bill failed. It’s that constituents simply didn’t want to see it passed.
During an appearance on Newsmax this week, Republican Senator Mike Braun of Indiana said his constituents have consistently expressed their alarm about the crisis going on at the U.S. southern border with Mexico.
As he said while appearing on the “Rob Schmitt Tonight” show:
“Millions of people across the country are telling us what to do. The idea that [Trump] has been leaning in on senators and representatives, you don’t need to do that. It is clear that if you’re reading the pulse politically of your own constituents, you do exactly what Trump did say, don’t vote for it.
“This is typical, and you can relate it to what happened with the ‘sugar high’ economy that they created, borrowed and spent all that money and then bragged about bringing debt down.”
The Indiana senator isn’t seeking reelection to Congress later this year, as he’s campaigning for the governorship in his state.
The proposed border security bill was supposed to protect the southern border, but many people criticized it for doing anything but its intended purpose.
While the bill contained triggers that, if tripped, would automatically close the border, the levels for doing so were quite high. As many as 8,500 encounters between illegal immigrants and Border Patrol agents would have to happen in one day for the border to shut, or there would need to be an average of 5,000 per day over one week.
That’s quite a lot, and only one reason why critics didn’t like the bill. Many people also said that a bill like this is not really necessary, as the president already possesses the power to shut the border if he wants to.
Braun isn’t the only Republican senator who was against the bill, of course. .He explained that in this case, “The Rule of 41” came into play. All it takes is for 41 senators to agree to kill a bill, since there needs to be 60 approval votes in the Senate for any legislation to avoid the filibuster.
He explained
“It fell apart literally in this last day because we have 41 Republicans that will say, ‘we’re not going to advance the bill.’ We need to do that more often.”
The bill also included $14 billion in aid for Israel, $60 billion for Ukraine and billions more for the Indo-Pacific region, including Taiwan.
