By Makini Brice and Ted Hesson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Senate is expected to delay the start of its holiday break as bipartisan talks on border security and providing more aid to Ukraine and Israel continue, multiple senators said on Thursday.
“We’re making progress and the White House is engaged, which is good. Everything’s encouraging,” Senator John Thune, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, told reporters, cautioning that “right now, they’re still talking concepts.”
Lawmakers said the Senate would return on Monday, delaying the start of its holiday break.
Democratic President Joe Biden has been urging lawmakers to pass a supplemental aid package to provide $50 billion in new security to Ukraine as it fights off Russian invasion, as well as $14 billion for Israel as it wages war against Hamas in Gaza.
Republican House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson, as well as Republicans in the Democratic-majority Senate, have repeatedly said they will only vote for that aid if it is paired with new controls for the U.S.-Mexico border.
Any deal reached in the Senate, which Democrats control by a 51-49 majority, would also need to win the approval of the House, which Republicans control 221-213, before passing into law. House lawmakers left Washington as scheduled on Thursday to begin their holiday recess.
“There is too much on the line for Ukraine, for America, for Western democracy to throw in the towel right now. We must keep talking, we must keep working,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, said in a floor speech on Thursday morning.
(Reporting by Makini Brice and Ted Hesson in Washington; writing by Moira Warburton; editing by Scott Malone and Jonathan Oatis)
