House Speaker Johnson is insisting on sweeping border security changes in a deal for Ukraine aid

By STEPHEN GROVES and LISA MASCARO
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Mike Johnson tells fellow Republicans that sweeping changes to U.S. border policy will be their “hill to die on” in negotiations over President Joe Biden’s nearly $106 billion package for the wars in Ukraine and Israel and other security needs. Johnson delivered the hard-line message Tuesday morning before Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s video address to senators in a classified briefing that the Biden administration organized to underscore how desperately the aid is needed. The president is pushing a reluctant Congress to approve the military, economic and humanitarian aid package. But the injection of border security into the negotiations has made progress difficult.