Former President Donald Trump's heavy lean on Senate Republicans to tank in-progress talks on a bipartisan package for foreign defense aid and border security, solely for the purpose of keeping the border issue hot for Republicans to campaign on, has started to trigger backlash from within their own party — and is even making some allies of the former president uncomfortable, said MSNBC's Ryan Nobles on Friday.
This comes after some GOP senators, including Sens. Mitt Romney (R-UT) and Thom Tillis (R-NC), raged against their party for trying to destroy the negotiations.
"[Those senators] ... clearly have not been a fan of Donald Trump for some time now," said anchor Katy Tur. "Is what they're saying, though, felt by anyone else in the Republican Party in the Senate?"
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"Yeah, I think there's quite a few Republican members that are very concerned that the opportunity to pass what many would consider to be the most conservative border package in a generation, if they just allow that to go by the wayside because of presidential politics, would be a massive mistake," confirmed Nobles.
Moreover, he continued, "it's not just that group of Republicans who aren't necessarily fans of Donald Trump, who voted to impeach him; even some of his closest supporters and allies have said that this is an opportunity that needs to be seized. Among them, Lindsey Graham, who I spoke to yesterday on this topic, and said that he's talked to Donald Trump about why this package is necessary, and it would be good for him, even if he were to win the presidential election because it would give him a set of tools that the executive branch currently doesn't have."
This "existential crisis," said Nobles, is not just limited to the Senate, but "happening even more on the House side, where there are Republican members who would be inclined under any normal political environment to support a package like this, not just because of the border components, Katy, but also because of the foreign aid to Israel and Ukraine, but just are afraid to do so because of the political backlash that Donald Trump brings and the fact that he is on the record now and very vocal about the idea that unless they get everything, they should just walk away and take nothing."
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Ryan Nobles on GOP division over immigration strategywww.youtube.com
