Yes, it has been a ruse. It hasn't ever really been about the border. It was always about turtles. You see, the turtle lobby fooled the people of Kentucky into electing one of their own to the senate, saying he was a Republican, and he was charged with watching over the affairs of the nation to protect turtle interests and make a lot of money. He is uninterested in finishing Trump's wall because elderly American turtles are big and cannot crawl through the spaces to get to the juvenile Mexican turtles they want to slowly rape on the other side. Sending quazillions of dollars to Ukraine is a perfect solution. Mitch McTurtle (for that is his true name) can truthfully say, "Oops, there's no more money for building a wall," and if some happens to turn up, he quietly sends it with the rest overseas, knowing how much will be funneled back to him after a good wash-up. Thus the elderly American turtles can keep raping the juvenile Mexican turtles, and the Kentucky turtles who hold the tether connected Mitch's tiny, little balls shall be pleased and cease their yanking. Of course, McTurtle doesn't worry about any turtles that might get killed from the war in Ukraine because he applies what he learned from his human colleagues in the Senate, and he silences his conscience the same way they do. Mitch chooses to know that foreign turtles are never good turtles. They are always bad turtles. It doesn't matter if they get their shells blown to bits by someone we paid to blow things to bits because they are bad turtles anyway.

This makes as much sense as whatever excuse Mitch McConnel comes up with for betraying the American people.

Sen. Rand Paul: From the beginning I think this has been a ruse. It hasn’t ever really been about the border. That was a token, that was a bone that was going to be thrown to conservatives. But they were always worried that if conservatives got wind that it was a ruse, that it wasn’t a real border reform, if people like Laura Ingraham or Hannity somehow got wind of this, that you would discuss the bill, look at the bill, and that it would be destroyed. So the game all along long was to keep this in secret from us, but also in the secret from anybody that might look at it and might criticize it. This was an organized plan from the very beginning from our leadership to keep this out of the hands of any conservatives that might criticize it.

https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2024/02/08/congress/senate-gop-gets-on-board-foreign-aid-00140431

“Seventeen Republican senators voted to advance the legislation, and GOP leaders are hoping some hawkish Republicans will flip their votes on final passage. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who caucuses with Democrats, was the only non-Republican to vote against advancing the bill.”

“The Republican senators who supported advancing the legislation were: GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Minority Whip John Thune of South Dakota, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, Joni Ernst of Iowa, John Kennedy of Louisiana, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah, Dan Sullivan of Alaska, Roger Wicker of Mississippi, Todd Young of Indiana, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Mike Rounds of South Dakota, John Cornyn of Texas, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia and Jerry Moran of Kansas.”

17 Republican Senators