On Tuesday’s edition of NBC’s “MTP Now,” Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) predicted that Democrats will react to Republicans opposing the Senate border bill by having “multiple votes” to “keep the border in the news” and to “accentuate the fact that President Biden has put forward a very large package” that Republicans oppose.
Merkley said, “Well, there are a couple of pathways: One is for us to have multiple votes and keep the border in the news, keep bringing it forward to accentuate the fact that President Biden has put forward a very large package, now accentuated by this deal, now a $20-billion deal for Customs and Border Protection, for asylum officers so there [are] timely asylum hearings, case management programs, all kinds of pieces to essentially completely change the dynamic on the border, and keep bringing that up.”
He continued, “A second piece of this puzzle is that it is absolutely essential that we consider Ukraine. We are at a Munich moment, remember in 1938, Chamberlain goes to Hitler in Munich and says, you can take a big slice of Czechoslovakia and we’ll just declare peace in our time. We are at that very moment now on Ukraine, where failure to fund the armaments that Ukraine needs, breaking the coalition and the unity with Europe means we’re essentially saying to Putin, you go ahead, you run over the top of Ukraine and we’ll just look the other way. … So, I think what’s going to happen is we’re going to attempt to do both in some formulation, that is, get Ukraine to the floor and try to get a positive vote…but then keep bringing up the border as well.”
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