WASHINGTON (NewsNation) — President Joe Biden is meeting the top four congressional leaders at the White House on Wednesday afternoon to discuss his request for national security funding for Ukraine, Israel and the U.S. border, which has been stalled for weeks on Capitol Hill.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday that the lawmakers — including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and House Majority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., — were invited “to discuss the critical importance of his national security supplemental requests.”
The meeting comes as Congress aims to pass a short-term funding bill before Friday night to prevent a government shutdown.
The White House asserts that U.S. aid for the Ukraine war effort has run out. Republicans demand border changes in exchange for additional foreign assistance.
Speaker Johnson and other Republicans used the face-to-face moment with Biden to push him for tougher border security measures, with the speaker telling the president that GOP lawmakers were demanding “substantive policy change” and insisting that the White House’s executive actions on immigration had weakened the border.
“We understand that there’s concern about the safety, security and sovereignty of Ukraine,” Johnson told reporters after the meeting, which ran for more than an hour. “But the American people have those same concerns about our own domestic sovereignty and our safety and our security.”
Schumer, also speaking to reporters after the meeting, stressed that Biden has repeatedly said he is willing to compromise on certain border measures and that any effort in a divided Congress must be bipartisan. House Republicans have insisted on passage of a hardline border security measure that has no Democratic support on Capitol Hill.
“There was a large amount of agreement around the table that we must do Ukraine, and we must do border,” he said.
Schumer posted about Tuesday’s negotiations, writing, “At stake is the security of our country, the security of our friends abroad, and the future of democracy.”
House Majority Whip Tom Emmert echoed similar comments from Republicans, writing in a post on X, “There IS a crisis at the border, and it’s of Joe Biden’s making. @HouseGOP passed the strongest border security legislation in decades nearly a year ago. He has ignored it.”
House Republicans seek increased border security, advocating for the implementation of the border bill known as H.R. 2. This plan aims to toughen asylum standards, resume border wall construction along the U.S.-Mexico border, and mandate employer verification of workers’ documentation.
While it passed the House, the Senate is unlikely to pass it as written. Democrats have criticized the Republicans’ plan as inhumane.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.