Senate border negotiations are almost certainly going to continue into January, based on comments from several senators involved in those talks.
The lead negotiators — Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), James Lankford (R-Okla.) and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) — consistently asserted that they’d made steady progress in those talks (we followed those all weekend). But they also routinely tossed around words like complex, arcane and byzantine. Reading between the lines, it’s obvious all sides think they still have a ways to go in drafting border security language.
“I think this will go into next year,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Sunday’s NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “The bottom line here is, we feel like we’re being jammed. We’re not anywhere close to a deal.”
Graham’s comments echoed similar sentiments from both Lankford and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
What we’re keeping an eye on today:
Signals from Schumer: Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has promised a vote on a supplemental package — containing aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, as well as border security measures — before the end of the year. But we’ll see if he renews that commitment or scraps it when he offers opening remarks this afternoon.
Attendance: Don’t come in between senators and their holiday breaks. Any significant bloc of absences makes lining up the votes for any agreed-to package all the more complicated. We should get a decent sense of how many lawmakers are back in Washington on Monday night.
Don’t forget the stakes: The Biden administration has made clear it’s out of money it can send to Ukraine as it seeks to defeat Russia. Israel continues to battle Hamas after the Oct. 7 terrorist attack. And an average of more than 10,000 people are crossing the southern border daily.
