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Democrats are using Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky for their domestic political goals, said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC).
“They’re dragging him into a domestic political debate” over immigration, Graham told NBC News on Monday. “If they had asked me, I would have said you shouldn’t do this,” he added.
Democrats are pushing hard to pass a $14 billion package of additional funding to hide their vast inflow of migrants during the 2024 election year. They added their $14 billion migration package to a bill providing $61 billion in military aid to Ukraine, forcing the GOP to choose between security for Ukraine or Americans. The Democrats’ plan did not work, and on Wednesday, all 49 GOP senators voted against the Democrats’ Ukraine and migration spending bill.
GOP representatives and senators say Biden’s $14 billion plan is just a “magnet” for more illegal migration. “I will not go back to South Carolina and try to explain why I helped Ukraine, Taiwan, and Israel and did nothing to secure our own border,” Graham said on Thursday. “I will help all of our allies, but we’ve got to help ourselves first,” he added.
Graham’s stance is important because he is one of the GOP’s strongest advocates for more migration and for the U.S. proxy war with Russia.
But Democrats are using Zelensky to pressure the GOP to negotiate and draft a bill that includes funding for Ukraine and more migration.
“We need Congress to act by the end of December to prevent any interruption to funding from Ukraine,” an administration official told Politico Playbook.
On Tuesday, Zelensky is slated to meet with President Joe Biden and members of Congress, including Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who has the political power to ensure a narrow passage of the Democrats’ combined migration and aid bill. “The Ukrainian president will make a direct plea for more aid to Republicans in Congress, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., the biggest obstacle to Biden’s aid request,” NBC reported.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has just arrived on Capitol Hill. Flanked on both sides by Senators Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell pic.twitter.com/dsWXEzqKO9
— Robert Jimison (@RobertJimison) December 12, 2023
Zelensky has repeatedly suggested that the GOP’s opposition to illegal migration means support for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.
Politico’s Playbook interviewed a person in Zelensky’s office:
“He has, over the last two years, gotten quite a good sense of American politics,” a person familiar with the president’s thinking, said late last night, speaking anonymously in order to preview the visiting president’s thinking.
Zelenskyy knows enough, the person added, not to take any particular position on U.S. border policy. What he can do is remind lawmakers that Ukraine is possibly the last thing standing between a direct clash between NATO and Russia — a message he previewed yesterday at the National Defense University.…
The adviser added: “He does have empathy towards Republicans because he understands that many Republicans who support Ukraine aid are in a difficult position politically due to populist sentiments in their home districts. But he firmly believes that by helping Ukraine fight back against Russian aggression, the U.S. is saving lots of American lives and treasure in the long run.”
On Monday, Zelensky gave a speech in Washington, DC. “If there’s anyone inspired by unresolved issues on Capitol Hill, it is Putin and his sick clique,” he said, Breitbart News reported.
Biden’s Pentagon chief, Lloyd Austin, also pushed the policy at the Zelensky event. “If we do not stand up to the Kremlin’s aggression today … we will only invite more aggression, more bloodshed and more chaos,” he said, according to Politico.
Some GOP legislators are urging Zelensky to better understand Americans’ defense needs.
Senator @JDVance1: “Republicans have said you’re not getting another dime for Ukraine unless you do something serious about the border…Zelensky is here to badger…Senate Republicans into foregoing our negotiations on border security in order to write him another blank check.” pic.twitter.com/4FlfI0o4QB
— Senator Vance Press Office (@SenVancePress) December 11, 2023
But Democrats really need the immigration funding to help avoid an election disaster in November 2024.
Many Democrat politicians are already complaining as Biden’s migrants flood into shelters, hotels, neighborhoods, and soup kitchens.
The flood is already driving down poll numbers for Democrat mayors in New York City, Boston, and Chicago and for Democrat governors in New Mexico, Illinois, and New York. A recent poll shows a majority of the Jewish community in New York said migration is more of a burden than a benefit.
More Democrats are ringing the alarm bells as Biden’s deputies usher millions of illegal migrants into Americans’ workplaces, schools, and communities. Veteran Democrat consultant Doug Sosnik recently wrote:
Immigration: Democrats underestimate the potency of the immigration issue. And this is no longer a problem that is confined to red states and Republican voters. It has now spilled out to Democratic states across the country. In the November NBC poll, immigration and border security ranked as the third most important issue (14%) for single-issue voters. In the same poll 74% supported more funding for border security (including 58% of Democrats) compared to only 22% who opposed more funding.
The Democrat Party has not “demonstrated that it recognizes the political risks, much less come up with a viable plan to mitigate its vulnerabilities,” he said.
“The [migration] debate has already shifted substantially in [the GOP’s] direction,” admitted Aaron Blake, a pro-migration reporter at the Washington Post. He added:
Polls show that the Democratic base, too, is increasingly concerned about the border and asking for more to secure it. In a recent poll, three-quarters of Democrats described the situation at the border as either an “emergency” or a “major problem.” That’s double the number in 2019. Recent polls show that Democrats want more border funding by nearly 2 to 1. (Overall support is north of 70 percent.)
So far, few Democrat politicians have asked Biden to reduce illegal migration even as they demand other American taxpayers bail out their cities and states.
Biden’s economic policy of extraction migration has pulled at least four million extra foreign workers, renters, and consumers into the nation’s communities, alongside the massive legal inflow of immigrants and visa workers.
That illegal flood is urged and welcomed by business groups because it cuts Americans’ blue-collar wages and white-collar salaries. It also boosts profits by reducing marketplace pressure to invest in productivity-boosting technology, heartland states, and overseas markets.
The inflow also reduces economic pressure on the federal government to deal with Americans’ problems — homelessness, low wages, a shrinking middle class, slowing innovation, declining blue-collar life expectancy, spreading poverty, the rising death toll from drugs, and the spreading alienation among young people.
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