West Virginia Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin's announcement Tuesday that he will vote with Republicans against President Barack Obama's immigration executive amnesty has drawn mixed reactions.
Some observers say it shows that Democrats' support for the president is slipping, while conservative critics of Obama's immigration policies said Manchin's willingness to vote for a "clean" Homeland Security Department funding bill is a ruse aimed at paving the way for a funding of Obama amnesty orders favored by Republican Party elites but opposed by grassroots conservatives.
Late Monday, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell placed a new bill on the Senate calendar which separates several controversial riders dealing with Obama's executive orders from legislation funding the Homeland Security Department (DHS),
The Hill reported.
The move came just four days before DHS funding runs out.
"We need to have a clean DHS, Department of Homeland Security, funding bill. I've said that. Don't play politics with it. So now, Mitch McConnell is going to pull that out separately. I appreciate that. I support that wholeheartedly," Manchin told CNN on Tuesday.
A spokesman for the West Virginia Democrat said Tuesday that his boss would only support the defunding measure once DHS was funded.
Chris Stirewalt of
Fox News cited Manchin's move as evidence that "Senate Democrats are starting to splinter." He noted Manchin suggested that five other Democrats were prepared to join him in voting for legislation to "prevent the president from his executive action."
Many conservatives and Republicans however, remain skeptical.
National Review Online wrote that "McConnell’s gambit frustrates some conservative lawmakers who note that Obama can veto any legislation targeting the orders and then implement his programs with funding provided through a clean DHS appropriations package."
" 'Cave, cave, cave,' one Republican lawmaker told NRO. "It would pass with unanimous Dem support and fractured GOP support in each house — not exactly what the base will want to see."
Conservative talk-show host Laura Ingraham blasted McConnell and Manchin's agreement, arguing that it was little more than a ruse for the Republican leadership to get amnesty through while telling the conservative grassroots that they had done their best to stop Obama but failed.
On her radio show and in an appearance on "Fox and Friends,"
Ingraham emphasized that once the House-passed language killing Obama's executive amnesty orders was severed from the DHS bill, Democrats would make sure that separate legislation stopping the orders went nowhere.
"We only have a handful of Republicans who disagree with Obama on amnesty," she said.
"We the people are on to this," Ingraham told Fox.
Manchin "knows this is not going to work. McConnell knows it's not going to work," she said, adding that it will be up to anti-amnesty stalwarts like Sens. Jeff Sessions and Ted Cruz to lead opposition to Obama's executive amnesty orders.
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