Trump and his GOP allies kneecap a border compromise they should have loved

Choosing governance over grievance rarely works in Donald Trump’s Republican Party.

Oklahoma’s James Lankford, who produced the Senate’s most conservative immigration plan in decades after tortuous talks with Democrats, is learning this lesson with the deal appearing close to collapse Monday a day after it was unveiled.

“This is a very bad bill for his career,” the ex-president said Monday, delivering an ominous warning to a red-state senator who could find himself out in the cold with the White House and his own political base if Trump wins the 2024 election.

Trump’s words, on The Dan Bongino Show, caused a Washington whiplash as GOP senators quickly rationalized their political interests and peeled away. By dinner time, a majority of Senate Republicans were leaning against the measure or were resolved to vote it down, meaning a filibuster-proof majority looked impossible, according to CNN sources.

“I think the proposal is dead,” said Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker after a meeting in Republican leader Mitch McConnell’s office. House Speaker Mike Johnson had already said the deal was dead on arrival in the GOP-controlled House.

The showdown over the southern border crisis reflects Trump’s growing power as he closes in on the Republican nomination and openly seeks to scupper any action by Washington that could ease President Joe Biden’s discomfort on the issue and diminish his own capacity to demagogue immigration as November’s election beckons.

Trump always looks to foster chaos, but immigration is especially vital to his political strategy — it was the polarizing issue that powered his political rise in 2015 and remains a driving force of his political movement. That’s why, despite the GOP-controlled House taking steps to impeach Homeland Security…