Biden invites congressional leaders to White House during difficult talks on Ukraine aid

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden has invited the top four congressional leaders and other lawmakers to the White House on Wednesday as members have struggled to reach agreement on U.S. aid for the Ukraine war. Republicans have insisted on pairing it with their own demands for securing the U.S. border.

A bipartisan group of negotiators in the Senate has been working for weeks to find an agreement that would provide wartime money for Ukraine and Israel and also include new border policy that is strong enough to satisfy Republicans in both chambers. The talks appeared to slow last week as senators said significant disagreements remained.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday that the lawmakers — including Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., — were invited to meet with Biden “to discuss the critical importance of his national security supplemental requests.”

Biden’s top budget official warned earlier this month about the rapidly diminishing time that lawmakers have to replenish U.S. aid for Ukraine. Shalanda Young, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, stressed that there is no avenue to help Ukraine aside from Congress approving additional funding to help Kyiv as it fends off Russia in a war that is now nearly two years old.

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