By Steven V. Roberts

Nikki Haley keeps arguing that the country cannot afford the chaos and foolishness that surround Donald Trump. And Trump keeps proving her right.

Last October, President Biden asked Congress to approve $61 billion in new security aid for Ukraine and $14 billion for Israel. Republicans insisted that any deal had to be combined with tough new restrictions along the southern border, and a bipartisan group of senators has been negotiating in good faith to produce a compromise proposal.

This is exactly the way Congress should work and seldom does — coming together across party lines to solve a real problem. But enter Trump, who is demanding that Republicans reject the deal that they themselves were demanding just a few months ago.

Not only that — he’s objecting for clear and crass motives. He wants to use the border issue against Biden next fall and fears a deal would be “another gift” to his opponent. “They need it politically,” he admits.

“It is interesting,” the lead Republican negotiator, Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, told Fox News. “Republicans, four months ago … locked arms together and said, ‘We’re not going to give money for this. We want a change in law. … A few months later, when we’re finally getting to the end, they’re like, ‘Oh, just kidding, I actually don’t want a change in law because it’s a presidential election year.'”

This is chaos compounded, taken to a whole new level, and some reasonable Republicans are willing to say it. Here’s Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina on NBC: “I didn’t come here to have the president as a boss or a candidate as a boss. I came here to pass good, solid policy. It is immoral for me to think you looked the other way because you think this is the linchpin for President Trump to win.”

And here’s Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah: “I think the border is a very important issue for Donald Trump. And the fact that he would communicate to Republican senators and congresspeople that he doesn’t want us to solve the border problem because he wants to blame Biden for it is really appalling.” 

The implications go far beyond Trump’s “appalling” immorality. This whole episode shows that the ex-president and his toadies totally misunderstand — or don’t want to understand — the legislative process. 

Trump states that he would not support any package on immigration “unless we get EVERYTHING.” (The capital letters are his.) Now, no one ever gets everything they want in a legislative compromise, especially when power is divided between the parties. 

But Trumpists don’t care because they’re not interested in passing the “good, solid policy” Tillis describes. They don’t govern, they perform. They focus on ratings, not records. They don’t measure success in problems solved, but in tweets posted, interviews given, attention generated.  

Trumpists argue that by rejecting the compromise, they can get a better deal if and when they retake the White House, but that is a total fallacy. Democrats have a powerful incentive to bargain now — Biden’s vast vulnerability on the border issue — and if Trump wins, that motive disappears. The Senate’s No. 2 Republican, John Thune of South Dakota, says flatly there’s “absolutely no way” for President Trump to get a deal this good. 

Even from a pure political perspective, Trump could be making a major miscalculation. The Wall Street Journal editorial board argues, “giving up on a border security bill would be a self-inflicted GOP wound” and explains: “President Biden would claim, with cause, that Republicans want border chaos as an election issue rather than solving the problem. Voter anger may over time move from Mr. Biden to the GOP, and the public will have a point.”

Lost in all of this political posturing is the fate of the aid package for Ukraine and Israel, which, as Republican leader Mitch McConnell puts it, advances a “cold, hard American interest.” Republicans who are blocking the border bill could pay a second political price: blame for undermining Ukraine’s ability to resist Russia’s invasion.

“This won’t take decades to regret,” warns Tillis. “This will be in a matter of years and so people who choose to ultimately exit Ukraine if they are successful — for as long as I am breathing — I will remind them of the consequences I am convinced we will have to live through.”

Reality-based Republicans like Tillis know that Haley is absolutely right, that more Trump means more tantrums, tirades and trouble. But most of them remain too cowardly to say so.

Steven Roberts teaches politics and journalism at George Washington University. He can be contacted by email at stevecokie@gmail.com.