Biden kept at distance from McConnell on border deal talks

President Biden has kept a distance from Senate negotiations on a border deal critical to securing congressional aid to Ukraine, even as GOP lawmakers repeatedly called for him to enter the talks.

The handling of the talks is now raising eyebrows in Washington, particularly among Republicans who suspect the White House did not want Biden to agree to a deal.

Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) have a long history of cutting major deals on seemingly intractable policy problems.  

They worked together to reach deals to temporarily extend the Bush tax cuts after the 2010 midterm election, to raise the debt limit and avoid a national default in the summer of 2011 and to avoid the fiscal cliff at the end of 2012. During that time, McConnell was the Senate minority leader, as he is now, and Biden was vice president.  

But the two didn’t sit down for talks on the supplemental package that has been the biggest legislative issue of the month. The package was to include border security funds, aid to Ukraine and Israel and money for other priorities, such as Taiwan.

Republicans argue the White House slow-walked the talks, noting it didn’t send Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas and White House staff to negotiate with Republican senators in earnest until Dec. 13, by which time it was — for all practical purposes — too late to pass military aid for Ukraine and Israel before the end of the year.  

McConnell on Monday alluded to Mayorkas “showing up late to the table” and pledged that Senate Republicans would not be pressured to sign off on a deal just because the end of the year is a few days away.  

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a leading Senate GOP expert on immigration and member of McConnell’s leadership team, on Thursday said negotiating with Mayorkas is a “waste of time.”

“Any ‘border deal’ will not be with Mayorkas, who has lost the confidence of Congress by repeated dishonesty: that the ‘border is secure.’ Only POTUS can commit to any ‘border deal.’ Anything else is a waste of time,” Cornyn posted on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, referring to President Biden. 

Senators in both parties have called for Biden and McConnell to engage with each other directly in the negotiations.

The border talks are a sensitive issue for a White House that is under pressure to show action at the border, but does not want to anger progressive Democrats demanding a cease-fire in Gaza who also fear a return of Trump-era asylum and deportation policies. 

And some Democratic senators are worried that if Biden got into a room with McConnell or other Senate GOP negotiators, he might end up cutting a deal on border and asylum policy that will enrage their party’s base.  

“A totally legitimate concern is if you’re not reasonably close [to a deal], there’s no reason to put him in a room … He could be dragged anywhere,” said one Democratic senator who requested anonymity to talk about the leeriness fellow Democrats feel about making Biden the point person in the talks. 

Biden has come under heavy pressure from immigration advocates within his own party who warn there will be a backlash if he agrees to the asylum reforms included in the House-passed Secure the Border Act.  

A CNBC All-America Economic Survey released Tuesday showed that Biden has lost his lead over former President Trump among Latino voters.  

The survey conducted in December showed that only 28 percent of Latino adults approved of Biden’s job as president. It also showed Trump with a 5 point lead over Biden among Latino voters, a reversal from October when Biden led Trump by 7 points among Latinos.  

The idea that Biden might need to engage on the border talks directly with the GOP to get a deal has been percolating for some time.

Senate Republicans notified the White House as early as Oct. 8 that border policy reforms would need to be attached to $61 billion in funding for Ukraine if Biden’s emergency foreign aid package would have any chance of passing Congress.  

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) raised the need for border security with administration officials during a bipartisan briefing on Oct. 8, and GOP staff raised the topic of border policy changes with the White House budget office two days later. 

McConnell delivered the message directly to Secretary of State Antony Blinken during an in-person meeting on Oct. 19, according to a person familiar with the timeline of the talks. 

And McConnell reiterated that message in a phone call with White House chief of staff Jeff Zients on Nov. 3, according to the same source. McConnell tried to call Biden that same day but couldn’t reach the president, who was traveling.  

The Senate GOP leader finally got a chance to speak to Biden directly on Monday, Nov. 6, and warned him that funding for Ukraine wouldn’t pass Congress unless the president and Democrats agreed to border policy reforms to reduce the flow of migrants across the southern border.  

“President Biden and [Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen] called me yesterday,” McConnell told reporters the next day, Nov. 7. “I did make it clear to both of them that we have to have a credible solution to the wide-open border in order to get a bill that includes all of the things I think are important across the Senate floor.” 

Political difficulties swirling around the supplemental package are not limited to the border.

Some progressives, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), are opposed to providing more than $10 billion in military aid to Israel, which they say will allow the Israel Defense Forces to continue its bombardment of civilians in Gaza. Biden requested a total of $14.3 billion for Israel.

A New York Times/Siena College poll conducted this month found that 72 percent of voters ages 18 to 29, who tend to vote overwhelmingly Democratic, disapprove of Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict.  

A Senate Republican aide speculated that Biden has avoided negotiating tougher border security policies with Republicans because he’s already at odds with the Democratic base over the war in Israel and doesn’t want to pour fuel on the fire.  

McConnell acknowledged his long track record of cutting deals with Biden on tough issues but said the White House was reluctant to engage directly in the border security negotiations for much of October and November.  

“Joe Biden and I did do some pretty big [deals]: the fiscal cliff deal, the debt-ceiling deal. What I have said to him is, ‘The only way we’ll get an agreement is for you to be involved. Don’t just punt the ball up to Senate Democrats. They may never get there,’” he told reporters last week.  

“So it’s been difficult to get the kind of support [needed] out of the administration itself,” McConnell lamented.