Hey, good morning. I'm Playbook co-author Rachel Bade. It's Monday, December 18th, and we are one week out from Christmas. So get that holiday shopping done while you can. That is, unless you're a senator or Senate staffer, in which case you will be changed to your desk for a few more days. Thank you, Chuck Schumer.

As you know, the Senate Majority Leader canceled the first week of holiday recess to try to

increase pressure on negotiators to come up with a border deal. But alas, this morning, we can report

that there is still no framework.

And this is despite the fact that negotiators met through the weekend.

Kirsten Sinema said they even closed out portions of their talks and finalized pieces of a potential framework.

But they're just not there. And this all but assures that the White House is going to have to wait until January for a vote on its $100 billion national security supplemental.

That's if they get a vote at all. To be sure, just to try to make a point, Schumer could try to force a vote on the White House supplemental this week before senators go home, but this is not going to pass and everyone knows it.

And it just raises the question, why is the Senate in session at all this week?

We were asking ourselves the same question last night.

Republicans, meanwhile, have been blaring at the top of their lungs all weekend that they are not going to let Schumer jam them into accepting some sort of border

deal that they're uncomfortable with. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell insisted in a letter to his

colleagues that there are, quote, significant issues still under discussion. And that was a

warning that came just a couple hours after John Cornyn and Lindsay Graham took to the Sunday talk

shows to make a similar,

We Won't Get Bullied spiel.

Top GOP negotiator James Langford, meanwhile, told reporters late last night that a vote the

week of January 8th seems more of a, quote, realistic timeline.

That's around the time that conservatives are asking for Republicans to have a special

conference meeting to talk about the border matter writ large. Meanwhile, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis

got some bad news this weekend. Jeff Rowe, the veteran Republican strategist, who has been

leading never back down, Ron DeSantis's super PAC, announced that he's actually resigning.

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