The Schumer-Romney deal was torpedoed by immigration policy. There’s a good reason Biden wanted his Covid request tucked into a $1.5 trillion spending bill. As a stand-alone request, it could easily become the target of election-year mischief.

As the Schumer-Romney talks neared completion, the Biden administration handed Republicans a weapon. On Friday, the CDC announced the end of Title 42, the authority used by DONALD TRUMP at the start of the pandemic to shut down the asylum system. Hundreds of thousands of migrants who would normally be allowed to seek asylum under U.S. law were simply expelled instead.

In the Trump years, when the president sought to downplay the virus and emphasize a return to normalcy, Democrats noted that the policy didn’t apply to Title 42, which Biden left in place.

Now, as Biden points out that the Covid funds are desperately needed because the pandemic is still not over, Republicans insist that Title 42 should stay in place. On Tuesday, they demanded a vote on an amendment to the Schumer-Romney Covid funding deal. Schumer balked and tried to press ahead with the legislation anyway. It was that move that bothered Romney, who didn’t have a heads-up and was supposed to be briefing his fellow Republicans on the deal when he learned about it. (Schumer needed 10 Republicans to join with all 50 Dems; the vote failed.)