A classified briefing Tuesday on Ukraine devolved into a shouting match about border security as senators described a tense meeting that did little to break the Senate’s stalemate over whether to include tighter immigration policies in the aid package.
The meeting came as Republican senators have warned they are prepared to vote against advancing a more than $100 billion supplemental national security package unless it includes major border policy changes, casting doubt on whether the aid will pass this year.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer gave his description of what unfolded and said the fight over the border erupted when Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky, asked GOP Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma to present on the border instead of asking a question about Ukraine to the briefers.
“It was immediately hijacked by Leader McConnell. The first question instead of asking our panelists, he called on Lankford to give a five-minute talk about the negotiations on border,” Schumer said. “Then when I brought up the fact that they could do an amendment and have the ability to get something done on border, they got stuck … they didn’t like it.”
Schumer added, “Even one of them was disrespectful and started screaming at one of the generals and challenging him to why they didn’t go to the border.”
A source in the room told CNN that Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton was shouting.
Pressed if he was among those who yelled, Cotton said, “I did not let Chuck Schumer get away with lying that Republicans have ‘injected border security into a debate about the supplemental bill and it was Joe Biden who … sent us the supplemental bill with border provisions in it.’”
“He had the misfortune of spreading those lies right after someone handed me a microphone,” Cotton added of Schumer.
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