House Speaker Mike Johnson is considering seeking direct talks with President Joe Biden on Ukraine aid and border policy as negotiations on a bipartisan compromise drag in the Senate, a person familiar with the matter said.

A bipartisan group of senators has been working for weeks on possible changes to US immigration policy that Republicans have demanded as a condition for approving Biden’s $61 billion emergency Ukraine aid request. That group has not yet reached a deal, top Senate Democratic negotiator Chris Murphy, a Connecticut senator, said this week.

Johnson has been insisting that Biden accept a litany of conservative immigration changes, including new limits on the ability of the president to exempt migrants from deportation and changes to the criteria under which asylum can be granted. The Senate talks have centered on more limited concessions than House Republicans are seeking and as such any Senate deal may not be able to pass the House.

White House Budget Director Shalanda Young was cool to the idea of direct talks with Johnson when asked at a breakfast event Friday morning. She said the House Republican leader should get more involved in the Senate talks instead.

“We have got to get to a deal, not start from scratch with new talks,” she said.

At this point, Johnson is still hoping the Senate comes up with an acceptable solution, the person familiar said. Punchbowl reported earlier that Johnson was considering seeking direct talks with the White House.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer this week said his talks with Johnson on avoiding a Jan. 20 government shutdown have been going well, but said the border talks remain stalled.

The looming shutdown, Ukraine aid and border issues are becoming intertwined given the limited time for Congress to act before the shutdown deadline and conservative demands that Johnson use a shutdown to force Biden to accept immigration changes.

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On government shutdown talks, both sides have been at odds on the overall level of federal spending in the current fiscal year. An agreement on overall spending is needed in order to write and pass funding legislation.

Democrats have sought to use $70 billion in budget moves to raise domestic spending. Johnson in the talks is looking to make deeper cuts to unspent Covid funds and to accelerate cuts to funding for Internal Revenue Service tax enforcement that Congress previously approved in Biden’s signature Inflation Reduction Act, the person familiar said.

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