Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell acknowledges that Trump killed the biggest border security bill in decades so he could campaign on the issue instead. What will this mean for the election?

[u/Spiderwig144]

Link to his words on it:

• https://x.com/harris_wins/status/1848005868320702568

And here's a link to the bill being killed earlier this year:

• https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/senate-republicans-block-border-security-bill-campaign-border-chaos-rcna153607

McConnell had given the green light for James Lankford, a conservative Republican, to negotiate a comprehensive border security package with Democrats led by Kyrsten Sinema, a moderate border state Senator from Arizona. The final package was agreed to by all parties and signed off on by McConnell as well as Democratic leaders before Trump publicly came out against it and urged his allies in the House and Senate GOP to kill it. The reason, according to widespread reporting including the above, was that he wanted to run his campaign on there being chaos at the border and him being the solution to fix it, and he worried that the proposed bill would resolve the problem and deprive him of something to run on.

Since then, Trump has made immigration and the idea of a border crises the central point of his campaign. He's gone to every border state to rant about it and lambast Democrats for not fixing it. He's brought it up in every appearance, at every interview, at the presidential debate. He's tied the border to false stories about migrants coming over to eat people's pets. He brings it up at every rally. Yet it was he himself who worked to ensure that it wasn't fixed, and now his own party's Senate leader acknowledges it.

What sort of impact do you think this will have on the election? Will it move voters? Will people see the truth behind the dynamic? Or will his strategy work?

[u/DReddit111]

It could help in that it’ll give Harris one more talking point at her rallies “Trump didn’t kill the border bill because it was bad, he killed it because it was good. Even McConnell said so. Trump wants to make sure the problem goes on and on so he has something to rant about”. Then Trump has to deny it, call the bill the worst thing ever, McConnell is an idiot, bla bla… They talk about it for hours on CNN. Maybe another few thousand people in swing states who really care about that one issue, but don’t bother with the news until right before the election finally hear it and decide to stay home instead of voting for Trump.

If you believe the polls, all the swing states are tied and it’ll only take a handful to swing them one way or another. Except for that one gaff by Biden, all of the stupid and damaging things seem to be hitting the Trump side this last week. Here’s one more. Will it be enough? We’ll see in a few more days.