A Senate vote on an already once-failed bipartisan border security package has failed again 43-50 after Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer pushed the final vote on Thursday.
The vote had been widely expected to fail even though Sen. Schumer rallied lawmakers on its passage.
Lawmakers have passed blame across the aisle on the failure to find a solution to the influx of migration on the southern U.S. border with Mexico.
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Sen. Schumer said, "People want us to get things done, people want us to come together — and when they hear that the only reason Republicans are backing away from this bill is not that it wasn't strong enough, but that Donald Trump said he wanted chaos at the border — they don't like that."
He added, "What made them change, when they had such conviction, that we had to get something done in a strong bipartisan way? One thing Donald Trump said: Turn around, reverse yourself, 180-degree reversal, and they did."
There just wasn't enough support among Republicans to move the legislation forward for a debate in an election year.
House Speaker Mike Johnson remarked this week that he believed the bill in its current form would be dead on arrival.
Speaker Johnson accused Sen. Schumer of attempting to give his "vulnerable members cover," accusing Democrats of creating the "catastrophe," highlighting how the bill had already failed in the Senate. Speaker Johnson called the bill "bad" and said it was a "phony messaging exercise."
