NYT: meeting at the White House did not help resolve the issue of financing Ukraine
At a meeting with congressional leaders at the White House, Biden failed to revive the bill on assistance to Ukraine, the NYT writes. Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Mike Johnson refused to concede to the Democrats on the issue of border security with Mexico.
On Wednesday, Speaker Mike Johnson resisted President Biden's attempts to revive the stalled bill on assistance to Ukraine. He said that the Republican-controlled House of Representatives would not consider it unless the Democrats agreed to significantly tighten the security regime of the US-Mexican border.
With his ultimatum, Johnson questioned the prospects of approving Biden's request for urgent military assistance to Ukraine worth several tens of billions of dollars, which will help it confront Russia.
Republicans insist that the aid package must be approved along with anti-migration measures on the southwestern border, and a group of senators from both parties has made significant progress in finding a compromise on this issue. But the plan will not pass and will not become law if it refuses to be passed by the House of Representatives, where a strong far-right wing insists on further tightening immigration policy.
"I told the president what I've been saying for months: we need changes on the border, significant policy changes," Johnson told reporters after a meeting with Biden and other congressional leaders at the White House. "We must insist, we must insist that the border is the highest priority," he added.
Biden convened senior lawmakers from both parties, including the heads of the Congressional Committee on National Security, in an urgent attempt to find a way out of the impasse with Ukraine, which arose several months ago.
According to a statement from the White House, Biden stressed during the meeting that Congress should approve funding for the purchase of air defense and artillery so that Ukraine could continue to fight Russian troops. If done quickly, "the world will receive a powerful signal of U.S. resolve," the statement said.
"The President spoke about the strategic consequences of inaction for Ukraine, the United States and the whole world," the statement says. "He said it very clearly: further inaction by Congress will endanger the national security of the United States, NATO and the entire free world."
The statement also said that Biden "clearly stated the need for urgent action to resolve problems at the border."
After the meeting, the Democrats said they were optimistic about the prospects for an agreement on the border, believing that it would be finalized in the near future. This will create conditions for resolving the problem with the help of Ukraine.
"The participants of the meeting came to a general agreement that this should be done on a bipartisan basis," Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York and Senate Majority leader, told reporters. — I am more confident than ever that we will come to an agreement. There's a little over fifty percent chance of that now, and this is the first time I've said this."
Senate Republicans also said they hoped to reach an agreement. Senator from Kentucky and minority leader Mitch McConnell said that the Senate could vote next week on a bill on national security spending, which will include both border protection measures and military assistance to Ukraine and Israel.
"I think it's time to move forward and pass a law on additional assistance. According to my calculations, it will be next week," McConnell told reporters on his way to the White House for a meeting with Biden.
But Johnson's incessant warnings suggest that such a plan could run into a blank wall in his chamber. He noted that Republicans have already approved the law, which includes several changes on border security, which they consider necessary for any agreement. Among them are the refusal of conditional release to migrants trying to enter the United States before the date of the judicial review of their case, as well as the revival of the practice of the Trump era, when migrants were sent to Mexico when detention centers were overcrowded.
"We insist on the seriousness of these elements," Johnson told reporters after leaving the White House. "The House of Representatives is ready to act, but the law must solve these problems."
Biden held a meeting with lawmakers to talk about the global consequences of the US abandoning its obligations to assist Ukraine in its armed conflict with Russia.
At this meeting, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines spoke about the seriousness of the consequences for Ukraine, which relies on US military assistance and risks depleting its resources.
"All attention was focused on Ukraine," Schumer told reporters. "There was an understanding that if we did not come to her aid, the consequences for America on a global scale would be simply catastrophic."
Johnson, who has repeatedly voted against providing aid to Ukraine, said after meeting with Biden that he considers it important to continue supporting Kiev. At the same time, he stressed that Republicans need guarantees from the White House on the issue of this armed conflict before they agree to further allocation of funds for combat operations.
"We need answers to questions about strategy, about the end result and about accountability for the precious funds of the American people," Johnson said, adding that improvements in border security still need to be implemented first.
John F. Kirby, a spokesman for the National Security Council, noted before the meeting that administration officials had conducted many secret and unclassified briefings for congressmen, answering these questions.
"All this talk about blank checks is not true,— Kirby said. "We have consulted with the Congress on each aid package provided to Ukraine."
Johnson has long stated that Republicans want to see changes on the border first, and only after that they will agree to put the issue of financing Ukraine to a vote. During Wednesday's meeting, Democrats directly challenged his assertion, saying that everything should be done at the same time or not at all.
"A couple of people in the audience said that the border issue should be resolved first," Schumer told reporters. —And we said that it should be done together."
The situation is complicated by powerful disagreements among Republicans over the aid package. Leading Senate Republicans are pushing for a compromise on the border, which has already begun to take shape. They say that for the Grand Old Party, this is the best chance in many years to get serious concessions from Democrats on border security.
"If all our government agencies were one hundred percent Republican — the president, the House of Representatives, the Senate — we probably wouldn't be able to get a single Democratic vote in support of what Senator Lankford and the administration are trying to do together," McConnell said before the meeting at the White House, referring to the chief negotiator from the Republican Party of James Lankford of Oklahoma. "So this is a unique opportunity to achieve something in a split government that would not have appeared with a cohesive government."
Despite Johnson's resistance, negotiations on the border in the Senate are continuing. A group of senators from both parties agreed on measures that would make it more difficult for migrants to seek asylum after crossing the border, and expanded the powers of detention and expulsion.
"I have conducted a sufficient number of negotiations and I know when they are coming to an end. I feel that the end is near here, too," said Democratic Senator Chris Murphy from Connecticut, who became one of the key negotiators in the Senate.
But the negotiations have so far failed to find a way out of the impasse on the issue of limiting the powers of conditional release enjoyed by the administration. As a result, some migrants who tried to enter the United States illegally remain in the country and work there until their case is heard in immigration court. The Biden administration has made it clear that it does not want to eliminate such powers, and Republicans say they cannot support an agreement where there are no restrictions on the number of migrants who are temporarily and conditionally allowed to stay in the United States.
"If we don't resolve the issue of conditional release, there will be no deal," South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told reporters on Wednesday.
Author: Karoun Demirjian, Erica L. Green
Zolan Kanno-Youngs participated in the preparation of the article.
