McConnell calls Ukraine-border deal ‘practically impossible’ before 2024

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) cast doubt on a Christmas miracle Tuesday, signaling a grand bargain on Ukraine aid and border reform is nowhere near done despite a personal impassioned plea from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

“All I’ve said is it is practically impossible even if we reach an agreement to craft it and get it through the Senate and get it through the House before Christmas,” McConnell said, speaking to reporters at his weekly media availability. “It doesn’t mean it’s not important, even though we have been emphasizing the border, I want to remind everyone on the importance of Ukraine.”

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McConnell’s warning comes as senators and top Biden administration officials continue to negotiate behind closed doors on Tuesday to come to an agreement about providing aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, a deal that is contingent on lawmakers striking a compromise on border security.

It also comes after Zelensky personally visited with top United States lawmakers, including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), and attended an all-senators meeting earlier Tuesday.

A bipartisan working group of senators has made next to no progress on reaching a border security deal, which would be added to defense spending legislation that includes assistance for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. Negotiators on both sides have acknowledged that the border measure is critical for the bill to be able to pass both chambers in a divided government.

“It’s not going to be easy,” McConnell added. “We’ve got plenty of work to do in January. And if it were possible to pass this sooner, I’d be for that. But we can’t do that without full engagement from the White House, and ultimately the person who can sign something into law.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said he has urged both Johnson and McConnell to stay in session to allow time for an agreement before the end of the year.

“If it is an emergency as so many Republicans have said on the border and have said about Ukraine, you don’t go home for three weeks,” Schumer said Tuesday. “It’ll be much harder to do in January, everyone admits that.”

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and White House officials made their way to Capitol Hill on Tuesday afternoon to meet with top negotiators Sens. James Lankford (R-OK), Chris Murphy (D-CT), and Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) and aides with Schumer and McConnell’s offices. That comes after Republicans urged President Joe Biden to get involved last week after they said they were no longer having productive negotiations with Senate Democrats on a border deal.

Lankford said he did not have any substantive conversations with the White House over the weekend.

“Any time I’d try to connect and talk, they’d say, ‘Hey we are trying to work out what we can do on it,'” Lankford said. “‘We’ll catch you next week on what we can actually do.’ That was a long 72-hour wait this weekend.”

The Oklahoma senator said he is willing to keep working until an agreement is reached.

“I’m going to keep working on this until it’s done,” Lankford said. “For me, it’s going to be really driven based on when we’re actually going to have votes, when it actually happens, when we can actually get a proposal finalized and everybody can agree to it and say that’s it, and then it’s also on the House schedule,” he said.

Some Republican senators, including Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), continue to raise concerns about linking aid for Israel with a larger supplemental package.

“Senator Cruz has consistently worried that linking all the parts of the supplemental would lead to Israel aid getting punted, because it was likely that Ukraine and border would get punted,” Cruz spokeswoman Bethany Stephens said. “That’s why he supported and fought for clean Israel aid bills. Democrats refused and, once again, are refusing to put Israel aid on the floor.”

The House passed a stand-alone bill, but Democrats in the Senate have said they will not support it after Johnson added a provision in the bill that would cut $14.3 billion in funding from the Internal Revenue Service to offset the cost of the aid to Israel.

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“I wish we weren’t at this point,” Murphy said. “I wish Republicans thought that funding for Ukraine was as important as they have said it is. Now is the time for Republicans to get in closing mode.”

If lawmakers do not strike a deal before the holidays, any effort to pass supplemental aid will likely run into looming deadlines to fund the federal government.