via politico:
A few days ago, talks to link border security restrictions with Ukraine funding were stalled. By Thursday afternoon, Chuck Schumer felt they’d made enough progress to shorten the chamber’s beloved recess.
The border discussions are still exceedingly complicated and there’s no guarantee that negotiators — including the Biden administration, Senate leaders, Sens. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) and James Lankford (R-Okla.) — can clinch a deal. But Democrats felt leaving for a three-week recess was too dangerous given the uncertainty ahead for Ukraine.
After hours and hours of talks this week, Sinema said things are moving: “I can see the deal. We have a lot to go to get there. But I can see it.”
“There was a time when we were not making progress. It was feeling stalled,” Sinema said in an interview on Thursday. “And what I did at that point was provide my honest assessment to folks about what I believed needed to happen for us to get out of that stall and move forward.”