Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) accused Donald Trump of trying to sink a bipartisan border deal just so he can continue to use the border issue against President Joe Biden in the November election.
In an interview with CNN, Romney said Trump is making the issue worse for political points.
“I think the border is a very important issue for Donald Trump,” Romney told Manu Raju. “And the fact that he would communicate to Republican senators and congresspeople that he doesn’t want us to solve the border problem because he wants to blame Biden for it is really appalling.”
“We have a crisis at the border,” he added. “The American people are suffering as a result of what’s happening at the border. And someone running for president ought to try to get the problem solved as opposed to saying ‘hey, save that problem, don’t solve it. Let me take credit for solving it later.'”
A bipartisan group of senators has been working to craft legislation to fix the problems at the southern border following outrage from Republicans about the urgent need for something to be done.
But that need for urgency evaporated this week after Trump inserted himself in the discussions and privately urged his allies in the Senate to sink any border deal to deny Biden a victory before the 2024 presidential election, according to Huffpost.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) reportedly raised doubts about moving ahead with the deal on Wednesday, noting that Trump wants to run on immigration in November and going against him might hurt their chances of retaking the Senate.
“The politics of this have changed,” McConnell said, according to Punchbowl News. “We are in a quandary.”
