Congress leaves for holiday break pushing Ukraine aid, border security talks to January

Amna Nawaz:

After returning to Washington for a day, in hopes of reaching a border deal, the U.S. Senate instead decided last night to close up shop and head home for a holiday break.

This means critical work and tough debates over Ukraine funding, Israel's support, border security and keeping the government itself open will all get jammed into what looks to be a very intense January on Capitol Hill.

Lisa Desjardins is here with me in studio to make sense of it all.

Hi, Lisa. Good to see you.

Lisa Desjardins:

I don't know if I will make sense of it exactly.

(Laughter)

Amna Nawaz:

We're going to do our best here.

Lisa Desjardins:

We will give it a try.

Amna Nawaz:

Well, you have been making sense of and covering all the ins and outs of the border negotiations all week. What does it mean that we have still not had a deal yet?

Lisa Desjardins:

This is a Rorschach test. There are a couple ways to look at this.

You could say they haven't been able to come up with a deal. But you can also say this is, as the negotiators like to say, the most complicated area of U.S. law. The fact that they're still there shows the determination, not just of the negotiators, but the leaders.

Let's look at who was still meeting in the Capitol today. It is DHS Secretary Mayorkas, along with the three senators, Democrat there Senator Murphy, independent Sinema, Republican Lankford. They have decided now not to do in-person for a few days. They're going to continue to meet virtually so they can go home, celebrate the holidays, all of that.

But I think it's clear what they're up against. We're seeing the surge at the border. You have covered it. We have been seeing this coming, now thousands of migrants a day at the border and problems in U.S. policy that was not equipped for this. So they're tackling nothing less than perhaps an incredible rewriting of asylum policy, to name other things.

So it makes sense it's taking this long. However, they are going to be jammed up against the calendar in January. They wanted a deal by now, and they don't have it.

Amna Nawaz:

So what about January? This does kick a deal into January. They have other deadlines that they're facing. What does the timeline look like?

Lisa Desjardins:

I, as you know and our viewers know, have seen many intense months in Congress. I really have not seen this kind of stack of major issues coming together at one time.

It is a basic calendar nightmare. Let's look at what's ahead. So January 8, that's when Congress returns, then, after that, their first deadline for government funding January 19. That is when funding for Ag Department, Housing, Veterans runs out. Then there's a second government funding deadline coming up February 2.

So while they're trying to process this border deal, they also have to figure out how to fund government in two separate deadlines. And oh, Amna, by the way, what else is happening? How about the presidential elections? January 15, Iowa caucuses, and the 23rd, the New Hampshire primary.

So think of it this way. The Senate generally needs a week, a week-and-a-half to do anything because of its calendar. They're going to come back, within two weeks, already have a funding deadline, and they're trying to, oh, accomplish the biggest immigration deal in perhaps 20 years at the same time.

It's really hard to get my head around how they do this, but they say they're going to try.

Amna Nawaz:

Meanwhile, as you know, all of this is unfolding with a fairly new, relatively inexperienced speaker of the House in Representative Mike Johnson. How critical is he to moving all of this forward?

Lisa Desjardins:

He is a linchpin, because, obviously, you need both chambers to agree. And he is the head of not just any Republican Conference, but one of the trickiest Republican Conferences in modern history to navigate.

He has members of his conference that are ardently for parts of Ukraine aid, parts of the border deal, and some who are ardently against it. And underneath all of this, as he also tries to negotiate spending, above him hangs that sword where any single member of the Republican Conference can still move to oust him from his job.

His job is on the line in these major tasks that they are now squeezed into a few weeks to handle. What's more, it's gotten even harder. Why? The former speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, has resigned. He leaves office officially at the end of this year. By leaving, that means their very slim margin is now even smaller.

George Santos, also a Republican now out of office. So, essentially they have got three votes, one way or the other, that they can spare. And all of this is something that this brand-new speaker, who's never been chairman of a House committee, has to figure out in a very short period of time. The stakes are incredibly high.

It's hard to see how he navigates it, but he has to. And there has to be some kind of bipartisan deal, I think, on all of this for it to succeed.

Amna Nawaz:

Busy January for Congress and for you.

Lisa Desjardins…

Lisa Desjardins:

We will be here.

Amna Nawaz:

… we hope you get some sleep. Thank you so much.

Lisa Desjardins:

You're welcome.