Negotiations on a deal tightening immigration laws appear to be
in jeopardy this morning.
During a closed door meeting with fellow Republicans on Wednesday,
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell cast doubt on a deal
being reached.
Now. McConnell has been pushing for a bipartisan deal to
pass border legislation and foreign aid together,
but former President Trump is asking GOP members to kill
the immigration deal,
which would leave a deal for Ukraine funding in doubt.
NBC News Homeland Security Correspondent Julia Ainsley joins us now
with the latest developments here.
Julian, good morning. So what can you tell us about
this closed door meeting?
Why do we know that happened?
Well, what it shows is the power of Donald Trump
on the Hill.
He's not. He's a, he's a candidate.
He's a former president. He's not in any of these
meetings.
The boy is his presence felt.
And what we understand is that basically the former president
doesn't want this deal to go through.
He's messaging that to Republicans.
And now you have McConnell who's starting to walk back.
He's the one of the things that we were able
to report,
Hill colleagues were able to report is that he said,
you know, the border used to be what united us
and Ukraine divided us.
But the politics have shifted that they're now dividing,
especially among Republicans, about whether or not there should be
a border deal at all.
They're it's not about brass tacks.
We've talked a lot about the things that the Democrats
were willing to negotiate on.
Some of the things that we're holding this up,
this really just has to do with whether or not
they're going to do a border deal at all.
A lot of criticism about what McConnell had to say,
including from some Republicans like Mitt Romney.
We've since heard from Leader McConnell following that meeting with
Republicans.
So what's he saying? And where do things stand right
now?
Yeah, that's right. So at first we're reporting on a
closed door meeting.
And then the Senate Majority Leader McConnell did come forward
and he talked about a meeting that he had or
things that he said to Janet Yellen and President Biden.
And here's what he had to say.
I did make it clear to both of them
that we have to have a credible
solution to the wide open border
in order to get a bill
that includes all of the things that I think are
important
across the Senate. Floor security needs to be a part
of this package if it's going to move
out of the Senate.
And it's important to know when he's saying that.
There were already a number of provisions that would have
dramatically tightened the border,
including raising the bar on claiming asylum and perhaps increasing
the number of beds and ICE detention to try to
make it so that more migrants are detained as they
await their court hearings. There were a lot of very,
you know, tangible ways that they were going to make
the border more secure.
And now he's saying, look,
we need something bigger on border security.
One thing they could be pointing to in this case,
he's a house builder and his HR 2,
which is basically a Republican wish list of everything they
want done at the border.
Basically, he's raising the bar here and casting a lot
of doubt on whether or not a deal will be
reached at all.
Julie, what level of urgency is going on here with
trying to get this done?
Well, it used to be something we thought could get
done before Christmas,
before people left for the holidays.
Now then we we started to think it was going
to get done last week.
We've been hearing a lot from the negotiators.
OK, text this week, text next week at least trying
to get it done by the end of January.
Now it seems that there are so many Republicans who
are feeling pressure from Trump not to budget at all
on border and to basically not get this done because
he wants to continue to use this as a political
weapon to show that Biden isn't doing anything on the
board of the the borders are open,
keep the numbers high so that he can use that
in a campaign effort against the current president.
And so it seems that the urgency to get anything
done now may be fading.