Biden meets with top Hill leaders as partial government shutdown looms

The meeting President Joe Biden held with four top congressional leaders at the White House on Tuesday was “one of the most intense I’ve ever encountered,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters, as leaders in two branches of government attempt to compromise on Ukraine funding and work to avert a partial shutdown.

Schumer said that “the five of us” – himself, the president, Vice President Kamala Harris, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican – “made it clear how vital this was to the United States.”

The dome of the U.S. Capitol is reflected in a window on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., April 20, 2023. REUTERS/Amanda Andrade-Rhoades

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Left unsaid in that statement is the implication that House Speaker Mike Johnson was the lone holdout on providing additional aid to Ukraine as it enters the third year in its war against Russia.

Asked what made the meeting so intense, Schumer said it was “the urgency.” He said he was “shaken” by his recent visit to Ukraine because they were “fighting without arms against a brutal dictator.”

“The intensity in that room was surprising to me,” Schumer said, “because of the passion of the president, the vice president, Leader Jeffries, Leader McConnell and myself.”

Schumer expressed frustration that Johnson was tying the aid package to the US Southern border, saying Democrats had “wanted to do border and have a tough secure border plan.” Johnson, he said, “tried to do border for six months and couldn’t come up with a single Democratic vote.”

Ahead of the meeting, Biden stressed the need for