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Good morning. I'm Jake Sherman and welcome to The Daily Punch, brought to you by Punch Bowl News.

It is Thursday, January 25th, 2024. Let's get into the mix here. Are your Washington headlines at the day? Number one, what McConnell's border play means? Number two, the Senate deal wants its say on the Smith

Wyden tax deal. And number three, the Biden administration leans into an economic message.

Let's get into it. We broke big news last night on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

As we've reported all along, that the Senate had a meeting yesterday on the

Ukraine aid situation, a special Republican meeting. And McConnell took to the meeting and said that

the time in the political will to pass a border deal had effectively run out, or is quickly running

out. It depends on how you look at it. McConnell told Republican senators the politics on this have changed.

He said at the beginning, the border unites us and Ukraine divides us and no longer effectively.

And he said, we don't want to do anything to undermine Trump, Donald Trump, who's running a campaign based effectively on the border and Ukraine.

This is a big about face for McConnell, who earlier the week said Congress needs to pass the border security bill,

which would have unlocked billion dollars of aid for Ukraine.

This is a cold, hard political calculation similar to how McConnell

said this is a cold hard interest of the United States to fund Ukraine. McConnell is effectively

acknowledging a reality that I've become clear in some of the House leadership suites and in

the Senate leadership over the last

couple weeks, which is that the Ukraine border construct was running a risk of going dry and not

being able to work. In effectively backing away from this construct, McConnell is acknowledging

...