The headline over at Newsmax was this:
Over at Breitbart were these:
Border Betrayal Bill: It’s *Worse* than Expected!
‘Would get millions of Biden Migrants into voting booths by 2030’
On his radio show yesterday, Sean Hannity observed of the GOP negotiators in the Senate:
They didn’t need to do it.
And he pointed out that it would be a “magnet” for illegals.
And former President Donald Trump? He spoke up to say this:
This Bill is a great gift to the Democrats, and a Death Wish for The Republican Party. It takes the HORRIBLE JOB the Democrats have done on Immigration and the Border, absolves them, and puts it all squarely on the shoulders of Republicans. Don’t be STUPID!!!
Then there was Utah conservative GOP Sen. Mike Lee, saying this on X and elsewhere of the Senate GOP leadership and their negotiators:
Even while refusing to let us see the bill they claimed to be negotiating on our behalf—for MONTHS—they were never in doubt, insisting we’d be dumb and even unpatriotic NOT to support it. This is a disqualifying betrayal….
If you had a lawyer, agent, or employee who (while negotiating on your behalf) botched a deal as badly as Senate GOP leadership botched this border / supplemental aid package, would you immediately fire that person?
Lee added:
This is worse than bad negotiation. It’s betrayal….
Senate GOP leadership screwed this up—and screwed us.
Strong statements to follow?
This is nothing short of amazing. The reaction to this border bill as negotiated was nothing if not predictable.
One of the central questions — as Lee’s sharp words highlight — is that GOP Senate leadership did in fact negotiate this bill. But somehow, in some mysterious way, they didn’t see these reactions coming from their GOP colleagues when the results would be announced?
READ MORE: The Marxism Behind the Open Border
Which is to say that the Senate GOP leadership didn’t anticipate.
So now what?
Now, there will be a two-pronged fight — one over the substance of the bill, and the other over the Senate GOP leadership itself.
On one side will be Trump, the soon to be 2024 GOP nominee, accompanied by what Fox News describes as the “more than a dozen GOP senators” who staunchly oppose the bill. That being even before one gets to the House Republicans, where GOP Speaker Mike Johnson has made crystal clear that the bill will be “dead on arrival.” Which is to say that the chances for opposition to this bill being written into the 2024 GOP platform on which Trump runs are high.
And then, as Lee’s remarks make crystal clear, there will be serious internal turmoil in the Senate GOP caucus over just who should be in the GOP Senate leadership — not to mention a fight over which direction the leadership will take the GOP caucus.
In short?
Eons ago, the classic comedy duo of the era was Laurel and Hardy, with the dopey Stan Laurel always creating a problem for pal Oliver Hardy. And when it happened, Hardy would glare at Laurel and fume:
That’s another fine mess you’ve gotten me into.
It seems clear that a version of this sentiment is growing inside the Senate GOP caucus — with Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell in the role of the hapless Stan Laurel creating “another fine mess” for the GOP.
Not good. Not good at all.
Stay tuned.
