WASHINGTON Donald Trump on Wednesday privately pressured Senate Republicans to kill a bipartisan deal to secure the U.S. border because he doesnt want President Joe Biden to chalk up a win ahead of the 2024 presidential election, according to a source familiar with the tenuous negotiations on the package.

Trump directly reached out to several GOP senators on Wednesday to tell them to reject any deal, said this source, who requested anonymity to speak freely. The GOP presidential frontrunner also personally reached out to some Senate Republicans over the weekend, the source told HuffPost.

Trump wants them to kill it because he doesnt want Biden to have a victory, said the source. He told them he will fix the border when he is president He said he only wants the perfect deal.

Trumps meddling generated an emotional discussion in a closed door meeting between Senate Republicans on Wednesday, as senators vented their frustrations for hours about the largely secret negotiations over emergency aid for Ukraine, Israel and immigration. The conference is splintering into two camps: those who believe Republicans should take the deal, and those who are opposed at any cost.

The rational Republicans want the deal because they want Ukraine and Israel and an actual border solution, said the source. But the others are afraid of Trump, or theyre the chaos caucus who never wants to pass anything.

Theyre having a little crisis in their conference right now, the source added.

A bipartisan group of senators has been working for months to craft a border deal, and Trump has made it no secret that he opposes it. Last Wednesday, he wrote on Truth Social , his conservative social media site, I do not think we should do a Border Deal, at all, unless we get EVERYTHING needed to shut down the INVASION of Millions and Millions of people.

Whats different now, though, is that Trump, who appears to have the GOP presidential nomination locked up, is now directly telling GOP senators to oppose any deal. His meddling has left their conference in even more disarray than it was already in, and a potential border deal in limbo.