Senate Abandons Trump’s ICE, Border Funding Bill for Early Vacation
The Senate is heading home until June without completing a reconciliation bill, after Republican tensions over the package coincided with President Donald Trump’s endorsement of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R-TX) over incumbent Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX).
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“It’s hard to separate what’s happening here from what’s happening in the political atmosphere around us,” Thune said. “You can’t disconnect these things. »
While Republican senators publicly assert that substantive problems with the bill were the cause of the early recess, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) acknowledged that President Donald Trump’s support Tuesday for Ken Paxton over incumbent Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) weighed heavily on the minds of Republican senators as they skipped town instead of advancing a top Trump priority as planned.
The comments came after Trump endorsed Paxton in the Texas Senate Republican primary runoff against Cornyn, a move that sharply ramped up pressure within the Senate Republican Party ahead of the May 26 runoff.
Vice President JD Vance said Breitbart News White House correspondent Nick Gilbertson said Tuesday (May 19) that President Donald Trump’s endorsement of Paxton “sends a message” that lawmakers “must serve the people” who elected them.
“Today we saw the president endorse Ken Paxton over John Cornyn in the Texas Senate race. Do you think that sends a message for the next cycle to senators who are considering running for office, or to any potential MAGA-aligned candidates who are considering challenging them?'” Gilbertson asked.
“I’ve known John Cornyn for a long time, but unfortunately, you know, when it really mattered, Ken Paxton was there for the country, was there for the president, and that’s why he ultimately got the president’s endorsement,” Vance said.
Vance said Trump saw Paxton as someone who would be a “better senator” and framed his support as part of Trump’s broader campaign for Republicans who will fight for the voters who elected them.
“I think the message that people should take from this is, fundamentally, you have to serve those who sent you. If you don’t do that, you’re going to find yourself out of step with the voters, or out of step with the president of the United States, and that’s not a good place to be politically,” Vance said.
Andrew Desiderio, senior congressional reporter at Punchbowl News, job on Cornyn served as GOP whip for the first two years of Trump’s first admin – names SCOTUS, TCJA, etc.
Asset announcement his “complete and total support” for Paxton on May 19, calling him a “well-respected Attorney General of Texas,” “an America First patriot” and “someone who has always been extremely loyal” to Trump and the MAGA movement, while emphasizing Paxton’s support for “END THE FILIBUSTER” and “THE SAVE AMERICA ACT” and saying he would fight to “keep our border secure” and “stop migrant crime “. Trump also called Cornyn a “good man” who he “worked well with” but said the senator “didn’t have my back when times were tough” and was “very late” to supporting him during what Trump described as a historic run for the Republican nomination and presidency.
Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-TX), who finished third in the March 3 primary and did not advance to the runoff, backed Paxton after Trump and urged his nearly 300,000 supporters to unite behind him, saying Trump “fully supports Attorney General Ken Paxton, and so do I,” asking his supporters to support “the next U.S. senator from Texas, @KenPaxtonTX,” and adding that “NOW is the time to come together, fight TOGETHER and win a strong victory of America first for Texas and for our nation.”
The move came after Alex Latcham, executive director of the Cornyn-Thune-aligned Senate Leadership Fund, criticized Hunt on primary night, calling his third-place finish “appalling” and calling his campaign a “career-ending vanity tour.”
During an appearance on Fox News on May 20, Paxton declared“The MAGA agenda is dead under John Cornyn. He’s killing it every time, just like the Republican Senate he’s a part of. That’s what they’re doing. They’re killing it.”
The Senate’s decision to leave the bill unfinished also follows a May 18 decision. report that Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) told his colleagues “in unequivocal terms” that he would not support passage of the package that week. Tillis also reportedly warned that passing the bill would hurt Cornyn in the Texas runoffs, as Cornyn would have to be “free to campaign in Texas this week instead of being in Washington to vote.”
