D.C. DIGEST

Nowhere, man: U.S. Sen. Markwayne Mullin defended, after a fashion, Sen. James Lankford's border security negotiations last week, even though Mullin ultimately voted to keep the legislation from advancing.

"The public spoke very clear that they didn't want the border bill," Mullin said in a video. "But when we did our tele-townhall … when I asked what the No. 1 issue was, overwhelmingly it was about (the) border."

Mullin said last week's vote was to "begin the conversation to get it to the floor to begin the amendment process" and eventually negotiations with the House of Representatives.

But public opposition, largely fueled by inaccurate information disseminated mostly by former President Donald Trump and his allies, brought all of that to a halt.

"Now we're kind of at Square One, except we're not really anyplace because there's no path forward for the border," he said.

Meanwhile ...: Aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan — originally the Republicans' leverage in the border negotiations — actually moved forward in the Senate.

While some Republicans oppose further assistance to Ukraine in its war with Russia, Mullin sees it as matter of honor as well as strategic necessity.

"We told Ukraine in 1994 (after the breakup of the Soviet Union) that if it would give up its nuclear weapons, which at the time it had the second-largest nuclear arsenal in the world, that the United States, with all of the might behind it, would stand up with them (if) they were invaded, specifically by Russia," Mullin said.

Medicare: First District Congressman Kevin Hern told Breitbart that a clawback of federal funds from Medicare Advantage plans are a prelude to "Medicare for All."

"Biden just cut nearly $5 billion in funding for Medicare Advantage, and this is just his first step," Hern said. "The end goal is to get everyone — not just seniors — onto government-controlled, Medicare-for-All plans."

It's not clear why that would be the case, but in any event the health insurance sector providing Medicare Advantage coverage is not happy with an administration report critical of the option, which is essentially an array of preferred provider networks.

Traditional Medicare, by contrast, operates on the fee-for-service model.

According to The Commonwealth Fund, Medicare Advantage generally costs the federal government more per patient but also covers more. Access and quality vary by location.

"Public-private partnerships like Medicare Advantage provide more choices and better benefits for our seniors; we need to look to the successes of programs like MA and replicate these efforts across other government programs. The private sector has always delivered better results," Hern said.

Oh well: Hern shrugged off two failed attempts to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

"Everything's going to be really tenuous as we go forward here, especially over the next four weeks as we try to fund the government," Hern told Politico.

Dots 'n dashes: His claims to the contrary, Trump did give Lankford his "full and complete endorsement" for re-election in 2022. … Fourth District Congressman Tom Cole backed additional funding for Downs Syndrome research.

— Randy Krehbiel, Tulsa World