Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell took Democratic colleagues to task over their aversion to linking the United States' border security with other national security interests.
McConnell delivered his remarks on the Senate floor Monday afternoon.
The Senate Minority Leader's remarks appeared to be in response to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's Sunday warning to Republican colleagues seeking to combine national security funds with national border security reforms.
“Unfortunately, Senate Democrats have already suggested they want to condition urgent resources for one of our top security priorities on not addressing another one,” McConnell said. “Apparently, our colleagues are considering putting support for Israel on the chopping block unless we promise not to fix the border crisis they helped create.”
The Senate Minority Leader also praised Speaker of the House Mike Johnson for passing legislation to keep the government funded through the new year.
McConnell referred to Schumer's warning as "cynical, short-sighted politics" that has denied Americans "real border security too many times." Last month's southern border encounters were the busiest in decades in United States Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) records, according to McConnell.
"The harsh reality of the Biden Administration’s border crisis continues to impact millions of Americans in cities across the country," he added, citing Republican senators who have been "laser-focused" on border security measures rather than "just pouring more money into a system that’s simply not working.”
“Our Democratic colleagues would do well to take these efforts seriously,” McConnell said. “The bottom line is simple: We don’t have the luxury of addressing glaring threats to our national security one at a time. Crises don’t solve themselves just because Washington can’t muster the political will to address them.”
“The challenges facing America are connected. And the time to address them – each of them – is now," the Minority Leader concluded.
In Schumer's Sunday remarks, delivered in a letter to colleagues in the Senate, the Majority Leader announced he will direct the upper chamber of Congress to consider President Joe Biden's request for about $106 billion in funds for Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan, and border security as soon as the week of Dec. 4.
The announcement follows the Senate's rejection of the House's proposed bill which would have used $14.3 billion allocated to expanding the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for aid to Israel. “One of the most important tasks we must finish is taking up and passing a funding bill to ensure we as well as our friends and partners in Ukraine, Israel, and the Indo-Pacific region have the necessary military capabilities to confront and deter our adversaries and competitors,” wrote the New York Democratic senator. "It’s also critical that we provide humanitarian assistance for innocent Palestinian civilians who have nothing to do with Hamas. These national security priorities are interrelated and demand bipartisan Congressional action." "The biggest holdup to the national security assistance package right now is the insistence by our Republican colleagues on partisan border policy as a condition for vital Ukraine aid," Schumer wrote, warning of injecting "hyper-partisan" issues into "overwhelmingly bipartisan priorities."
