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"He doesn’t even want to have a negotiation about it. He wouldn’t bring anybody in here to talk about it,” Senator Kevin Cramer, Republican of North Dakota, told reporters heatedly.
“Clearly the military people in the room don’t want to talk about it.”
Mr. Cramer confronted General Brown on the matter during the briefing, accusing him of never having been to the border, according to a congressional aide familiar with what transpired, who described the confidential meeting on the condition of anonymity.
Mr. Schumer told reporters that Republicans had “hijacked” the briefing, using it to grandstand about measures to clamp down on border crossings that Democrats have rejected. “They are feeling a little bit beleaguered because they’re stuck,” he said. “They’re in a box. They don’t know what to do. But we’re going to keep pursuing this.”
Earlier on Tuesday, Mr. Schumer tried to rally G.O.P. support to move forward with the bill by offering them a vote on a border proposal of their choosing. But Republicans said that was not enough.
“I hope all of our members vote no,” Mr. McConnell told reporters. He has been the most outspoken Republican in favor of continuing to arm Ukraine, but he said his party’s opposition to the bill was “to make the point, hopefully for the final time, that we insist on meaningful changes to the border.” G.O.P. senators have sought to buttress their demands by pointing to a surge in recent border crossings, and a hardening of sentiments in the Republican-led House, where Speaker Mike Johnson has been adamant that a spending measure that does not incorporate major border measures stands no chance of passing.
"Rather than engaging with congressional Republicans to discuss logical reforms, the Biden administration has ignored reality, choosing instead to engage in political posturing,” Mr. Johnson, who has repeatedly voted against Ukraine aid, wrote in a letter on Tuesday to Shalanda D. Young, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget.
He was responding to a letter Ms. Young sent congressional leaders on Monday warning that the U.S. coffers for Ukraine were about to run dry.
“Supplemental Ukraine funding is dependent upon enactment of transformative change to our nation’s border security laws,” Mr. Johnson said, adding that the administration also must provide lawmakers with specifics about how the assistance to Ukraine was being used.
Under pressure from the House, Republicans have twice refused to include military aid for Ukraine in stopgap spending bills to keep the government funded this autumn. That has raised alarms among Ukrainian officials, who swarmed Washington on Tuesday in an attempt to get lawmakers to put aside their political differences.
In remarks at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington, Andriy Yermak, the head of the presidential office of Ukraine, said on Tuesday that if Congress fails to approve military assistance for Ukraine swiftly, there is a “very high possibility” that Ukraine will lose the war. It would be “impossible to continue to liberate, and give the big risk to lose this war,” Mr. Yermak said, addressing the audience in English.
Some Pentagon officials have pushed back against the White House’s claims that military assistance to Ukraine is about to run out, saying that they expected to make the remaining $4.8 billion in aid authority last through the winter. But Ukrainian officials insist that without an influx of more, they are doomed at best to a stalemate.
As weapons shipments have slowed, Ukrainian troops have struggled to advance on the battlefield — and are facing recruitment and training challenges as the loss of soldiers mounts.
Mr. Putin has made it clear he is investing in a long war: Nearly a third of the country’s spending next year, roughly $109 billion, will be devoted to “national defense,” according to a budget he signed into law last week.
