Six GOP Senators Who Bucked Trump on Wall Funding Bill

Six Republican senators bucked President Donald Trump and voted for a spending bill that does not contain the president’s increased border wall funding request.

The Senate failed to pass two separate spending bills that would end the historically long government shutdown. First, the Senate failed to pass President Trump’s “compromise” spending bill that contains $5.7 billion in border wall funding in exchange for a three-year extension of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program for illegal aliens.

The Senate also failed to pass a clean continuing resolution (CR) that would fund the government through February 8 and does not contain any increased border wall funding.

Six Republican senators voted against Trump, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), and the Republican majority to back Schumer’s plan.

The six Republican senators who voted with Schumer include:

1. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT)
2. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN)
3. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME)
4. Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO)
5. Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA)
6. Sen. Lisa Murkowksi (R-AK)

Sen. Romney infamously released an op-ed in the Washington Post in which he attacked the president’s character and America First policies. Despite Romney’s many spats with the president, Romney said in an interview with CNN that he will “be with Republicans” on the government shutdown.

“The shutdown is so extraordinarily unfair,” Collins said ahead of the vote this week. “I’ll vote yes and yes” on both bills.

Sen. Collins has bucked Trump and the Republican party in the past when she, Murkowski, and the late Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) tanked Obamacare repeal twice during Trump’s congressional term.

Murkowski also voted against confirming Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court despite historic Democrat opposition to his confirmation.

Sen. Garnder said that voting to re-open the government was the right thing to do.

Alexander contended in a statement after the votes that neither party should use a government shutdown as a bargaining chip.

“I voted twice today to open the government because it should never have been shut down,” Alexander said. “It is always wrong for either side to use shutting down the government as a bargaining chip in budget negotiations – it should be as off-limits as chemical weapons are to warfare.