Several senators who support authorizing new U.S. military aid to Ukraine during its war against Russia told the Daily Caller News Foundation that it is as important to them as border security.
The Senate on Wednesday failed to advance a bipartisan national security appropriations bill that would have spent $118 billion on aiding Ukraine and Israel during its conflict with Hamas as well as on new border security measures.
After a cloture vote to limit debate on that bill failed due to Republican opposition, the Senate on Friday night moved to proceed to a new bill including Ukraine aid provisions without border security measures, though senators claimed that the two issues were equally important.
“They’re both important. It’s amazing. We’re able to walk and talk and chew gum and read. We can do all those things. We don’t have to just do one. We can do many things,” Republican Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah told the DCNF. He also sought to dispel the notion that, by supporting aid to Ukraine, he was apparently more concerned with Ukraine’s border than the U.S. international border with Mexico, which has seen a large increase in the number of illegal crossings by foreign nationals.
“One of the things that frustrates me is when I hear people say, ‘Well, they’re both border issues.’ No, when you attack Kyiv, with hundreds of tanks, that’s not a border issue that’s trying to take over a country. It’s a brutal invasion,” Romney emphasized.
Romney is one of the few Republican senators who voted to invoke cloture on the bill. He was joined by Democrats on Friday who told the DCNF that both issues were of equal importance.
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“Well, it’s all it’s all important and we should have all of it,” said Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania. “You know, and I think really, the biggest story is we’re all here tonight at eight o’clock on Friday night because of just one peckerhead, you know,” he added, apparently referring to Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky who, to frustrate the passage of the bill, refused to yield floor time that required the Senate to unusually sit on Friday to advance the measure.
“I mean, everything’s important. You can’t can’t say we can do this or not this. Border security is critically important. Ukraine’s security is critically important,” said Democratic Sen. John Hickenlooper of Colorado. He was joined by Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware, who claimed that the issues were “both important.”
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One Democrat, Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, blamed Republicans for the absence of border security in the Senate’s current measure. “Well, we should do both. But the Republicans want the latter. So we need to do Ukraine security. We can keep talking but the Republicans have killed it three times in the last 10 years and they’re gonna keep killing it,” he said.
“That’s a false choice,” said Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia, as he left the Senate for the night.
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