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Good morning, Playbookers. I am Deputy Editor Zach Stanton. It is Friday, December 15th,

and here's what's driving the day. Well, so much for Senate Christmas. As negotiations

plow forward and the vague outlines of a deal linking Ukraine aid with security

on the U.S.-Mexico border comes into view, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced

yesterday afternoon that he is shortening the chamber's planned holiday recess.

There's what Schumer is saying, which is that the upper chamber will vote on President

Biden's supplemental request next week in hopes that there's a framework border agreement in

place.

There's what many Republicans are saying, which is that negotiators are nowhere close on a deal,

and there's what the negotiators themselves are saying, like Kirsten Cinema, the Arizona

Independent, who aligns with the Democratic Caucus, who told our Hill team yesterday that,

quote, I can see the deal. We have a lot to go to get there, but I can see it, end quote.

Whether it will manifest in a real enough form that anyone else will see it remains the million

dollar question, or if you're Ukraine, the $60 billion question, as it were. Meanwhile, as the

status quo seems to reign in the presidential race, with Trump leading Biden in head-to-head

matchups and Trump trouncing the other Republican candidates as we inch ever closer to Iowa and New Hampshire,

political obsessives are getting their fix of campaign news in the rapidly developing special election in New York's third congressional district.

Now, you may not know that seat from its number, but you almost certainly know the man who, until very recently,

represented it in Congress. That would be none other than Mr. George Santos, the Republican who

was expelled from the House recently as he faces a number of federal charges related to alleged fraud

and campaign finance violations.

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