A border deal with Democrats is now a pipe dream.

Why? Because it's an election year.

A source familiar with the comments tells NBC News, McConnell told GOP colleagues in a closed-door

meeting that Trump is a factor.

And when asked directly about that today McConnell didn't deny it

joining us now Connecticut Democrat congressman Jim Himes. Congressman

Congressman, thank you for being here. It seemed like the border deal was getting

close in the Senate and now what would happen to it in the House was another story

But it feels like there's a moment now where Republicans say they really want a border deal.

Democrats are realizing that they need a border deal because politically speaking it's

not so great in a lot of big Democratic cities.

Why can't this be the moment that something happens?

Well, a big part of that is Donald Trump, right?

And if you think about the way this tragedy developed,

and I'm not given up just yet, but I was in the room where the speaker the house all of two days the

speaker said to the national security advisor you must do a border deal in order to

unlock Ukraine the national security advisor said we don't want to do that the

speaker said it's not happening so okay fine we'll do a border deal as you point

out there's actually a lot of enthusiasm for a border deal we have not done border

or immigration in decades and so okay we do a hard border immigration deal that unlocks Ukraine because of the

Republicans binding the two together we may get neither a border deal nor a

Ukraine deal with all the implications that has for global security but it is because

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