Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Wednesday promised the American people that Republicans will deliver full funding for President Donald Trump’s planned border wall, a move that comes just a day after House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy in a Breitbart News exclusive announced the rollout of a new bill to do just that.
“We are committed to helping the president get wall funding,” McConnell said at an Associated Press event on Wednesday morning, per press reports.
McConnell’s push for the wall comes in the wake of his successful effort alongside Senate Republicans to confirm now Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh over the past several months amid a nasty smear campaign of uncorroborated allegations furthered by Senate Democrats and leftists in media.
For the Kavanaugh effort, McConnell has been lauded by the GOP base–and President Trump has rallied to his side. Now, though, McConnell appears to be going for more–as he sets his sights on the border wall completion as other GOP leaders are doing the same on the other side of Capitol Hill.
McConnell also said that the lame duck session of Congress, when the current Congress meets in November and December after the midterm elections but before the new Congress is seated in January 2019, will likely be “relatively lively.”
MCCONNELL: “We’re committed to helping the President try to get the Wall funding”
Says lame duck will be “relatively lively”
— Alana Abramson (@aabramson) October 10, 2018
McConnell’s pledge on the wall comes just a day after McCarthy broke the news on Breitbart News that the House Majority Leader will be introducing a bill that fully funds the remaining slightly more than $24 billion for the rest of the border wall–along with other enforcement and security measures, with no amnesty or visa matters contained in his forthcoming bill. McCarthy is touring the U.S. border with Mexico on Wednesday, and meeting with Border Patrol agents to receive a threat assessment briefing on the security situation there.
House Speaker Paul Ryan has also hinted at a post-election border wall fight, and all of these signs together suggest that the wall is about to become front and center again walking into the midterm elections as a contentious battle with Democrats brews:
December border wall fight is going to be intense.
McConnell today on AP Newsmakers says it will be “a relatively lively” lame duck
Paul Ryan yesterday said border wall will be a “big fight.”— Jennifer Haberkorn (@jenhab) October 10, 2018
Republicans likely currently have the votes in the House to fully fund the wall, but in the Senate exists a darker picture as the GOP only clings to a slim 51-49 majority–meaning Democrats have 49 votes, and Republicans only have 51, but to clear critical vote hurdles in the Senate the GOP would need to muster 60 votes.
Given the way the midterm elections are shaping up given recent polling and the makeup of the Senate map in November, Republicans could get to as many as 57 or more seats in their majority making it much easier to roll a handful of Senate Democrats and get to the 60 vote threshold without a rules change that McConnell has opposed doing so far. As such, as Breitbart News reported, if Republicans do hold their House majority and add a number of seats to their Senate majority, they will likely be able to deliver the wall in early 2019 if they are not able to clear the 60 vote threshold in late 2018 in the lame duck.
Meanwhile, the White House is likely to back GOP congressional efforts to fund the wall as well. Asked about the forthcoming McCarthy bill on Breitbart News Daily on SiriusXM 125 the Patriot Channel on Wednesday, White House director of strategic communications Mercedes Schlapp signaled that the White House is in favor of efforts to build the wall:
I have not been briefed on it–I know I saw the story last night,” Schlapp said of McCarthy’s bill and the Breitbart News story on it. “But I’ll tell you something: I’m sure we’ll be hearing from Congressman McCarthy on this because this is obviously an issue that the president cares about. He stays very focused on things, ‘what are we able to do to make sure that we get the funding for the wall?’ The limitations really lie in Congress, and until you have more Republicans who are going to really stand by and understand the importance of building the wall, I mean that is what we want. It’s a priority for the president. And it’s incredibly frustrating when you have these very squishy members in Congress and the Democrats who don’t push this forward and don’t make this a priority. It is a priority for the safety of the American people. We have to ensure that we are able to know who is in our country and ensure there is a legal immigration system–a merit-based system–where individuals with the right skills can come to America and work here. It is a privilege to live in America, it is a privilege to work in America, and it’s not a matter of being able to just come in through illegal immigration. As we know, right now, our hands our tied. It’s so much with catch and release and individuals just simply coming in. The numbers are outstanding, there’s illegal aliens coming through our borders every month. It needs to stop and the only way it’s going to stop is basically if we’re going to have individuals who are going to support our policies and support the president’s policies. It is a priority for him, and it’s just tiring when it’s not getting done in Congress.
LISTEN TO WHITE HOUSE’S MERCEDES SCHLAPP ON BREITBART NEWS DAILY:
That’s what makes the midterm elections so important, too: Americans have an opportunity to send Trump reinforcements in a variety of Senate and House races–and if Republicans hold their House majority and add seats in the Senate, a border wall and other immigration enforcement enhancements are likely not too far behind that.
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/breitbart/~3/n4WiOhV4GLs/