Joe Biden offered a terrifying depiction of the future on Wednesday if Congress failed to pass the $111 billion aid package for foreign war efforts. Speaking publicly, Biden accused Congressional Republicans of “playing chicken with our national security” by holding the aid hostage “to their extreme partisan border policies.”
“I support real solutions at the border,” Biden added, speaking one day after Fox News reported that Customs and Border Protection agents encountered 12,000 illegal immigrants along the Southern Border on Tuesday, setting a new record.
The President then went on to suggest a dire consequence if Congress didn’t get on board with his plan. “Then we’ll have something that we don’t seek and that we don’t have today: American troops fighting Russian troops, American troops fighting Russian troops if he moves into other parts of NATO,” Biden said.
Despite his claims of bipartisanship, Democrats are the only ones pushing for a financial bailout while Republican House and Senate members have pushed back against claims of money being “held hostage”.
The Senate defeated an effort to move forward with the bill 49-51, and the House has also rejected efforts to move the package forward. It is clear that Republicans do not plan to kneecap foreign allies or damage national security.
Intertwining foreign border aid felt hypocritical to many Republicans since it is the president’s own party that is stalling on the former. GOP congressional members feel that Biden is completely out of line by linking border issues to aid, creating unnecessary divisiveness and using scare tactics to get everybody in line.
This is “petty, partisan, angry politics and we can’t afford to let it get in the way of our responsibilities as a leading nation in the world,” noted Republican Senator Mike Lee. He added that “in this country, we must respect the constitutional limits on executive power and the authority of the people’s representatives in Congress.”
Given the threat levels that I have been informed of and the growing numbers of threats to our country, it is imperative that we get control over the chaos at the southern border.
President Biden as Commander in Chief has no greater duty than to secure our homeland. That should…
— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) December 6, 2023
Biden’s refusal to accept that Congress has the power to say no to a president when it comes to taxpayer money reveals a disconnect between rationality and reality.
His suggestion that the U.S. and Russia may come to blows underlines just how unstable the concept of foreign aid has become. We cannot allow the president’s aggressive tactics to push us into a war. Instead, we must look for opportunities to cooperate and come to an agreement instead of resorting to fearmongering.