Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer was reportedly irate during a Tuesday classified Senate intelligence briefing on Ukraine.
Tuesday's briefing included Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Charles Q. Brown Jr. The Biden administration officials were reportedly questioned by North Dakota Senator Kevin Cramer and Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton about the nation's southern border.
Cramer said he asked Brown for his "best military advice."
"Is supporting Ukraine and Israel important enough that Democrats could at least consider reluctantly supporting some southern border security?" Cramer asked, per The Hill. "He wanted to talk about Ukraine."
Cramer's question reportedly made the Senate Majority Leader "nuts" and claim the Republican senators were disrespectful toward the Biden administration officials.
“One of them started — was disrespectful — and started screaming at one of the generals and challenging him why he didn’t go to the border,” Schumer said, according to the outlet.
Schumer then claimed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell attempted to "hijack" the briefing to focus on border security.
"The first question — instead of asking our panelists — he called on Lankford to give a five-minute talk about the negotiations on the border, and that wasn’t the purpose of the meeting at all,” said Schumer. “And then when I brought up the idea that they could do an amendment and have the ability to get something done on [the] border, [Republican colleagues] got stuck.”
Maine Senator Angus King reportedly defended the Republican senators and agreed their questions on the southern border deserved answers.
“Sen. King said, ‘Hey, this may not have been the time that I want to discuss this, but it’s an important topic. The president put it on the agenda with the supplemental having border funding. This is the only time we’re all together, so it’s totally legitimate for us to have that discussion,’” said one Republican senator familiar with the meeting, The Hill reported.
The briefing followed Speaker of the House Mike Johnson's Tuesday letter, penned to Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young, demanding "transformative" border security in exchange for future Ukraine aid.
"I reiterate that President Biden must satisfy Congressional oversight inquiries about the Administration's failure thus far to present clearly defined objectives, and its failure to provide essential weapons on a timely basis," he wrote. "American taxpayers deserve a full accounting of how prior U.S. military and humanitarian aid has been spent, and an explanation of the president's strategy to ensure an accelerated path to victory."
Johnson said it is Congress' duty to demand answers amid the current state of the U.S. economy and the "massive amount" of national debt. "With regard to the U.S. border, the need to regain operational control has never been more urgent and the American people deserve immediate action," Johnson continued, referencing an Aug. 10 letter from Young requesting "supplemental" appropriations. "In your previous letter ... you acknowledged our country has a 'fundamentally broken [immigration] system,' and you described the existence of child exploitation, an 'influx of illicit drugs' pouring across our borders, and the destructive impact of all this on public health."
"The open U.S. border is an unconscionable and unsustainable catastrophe, and we have a moral responsibility to insist this madness stops immediately," he continued. "Rather than engaging with Congressional Republicans to discuss logical reforms, the Biden Administration has ignored realty, choosing instead to engage in political posturing."
