with the president of ukraine get his wish? meeting on capitol hill and at the white house, making the case that his country is fighting a losing battle with russia and italy delay from congress is a dream come true for vladimir putin. present biden privately telling supporters that benjamin netanyahu needs to change his strategy and his plans for gaza and that netanyahu himself needs to change. will biden's comments impact the relationship with israel? the lead live from des moines, iowa the head of a major event for the 2024 race seen in town hall tonight with 40 governor ron desantis, but did the fort a republican just miss out on a big endorsement? welcome to the lead. i'm jake tapper. we are live from greenview university in des moines, iowa. in a few hours, i'm going to be moderating a town hall with republican florida governor ron desantis as he feels question from voters lesson five weeks before the all-important this. he seeks to distance himself from the front runner former president donald trump while picking up his voters. he's also fending off a challenge from close competitor nikki haley who is about to score a major endorsement in new hampshire the first of the nation primary state. iowans have lots of questions from the governor about domestic and foreign policy, the economy, social security as to what inconsequential wars and united states finds itself in a critical inflation time. right now ukrainian president trenton is at the white house on an 11 hour invite from president biden as u.s. support for the nation hangs in the balance and republicans tie the destiny of $60 billion of new a to ukraine to u.s. border policy. more radical board policy change be on the $14 billion in additional funding in border security already included in the white house is proposed package. we are going to walk you through just what the republicans want in a moment but first today's visit to washington, much more sobering than zelensky's first trip there more than a year ago. a hero's welcome last december and today he was pleading with lawmakers as he grappled with a new stage of war where it is widely accepted that ukraine's spring counteroffensive has not succeeded and even failed. they told cnn that the road is understand ukraine is, quote/unquote, already losing without the usaid and unable to launch defensive operations with just enough ammunition to defend his current positions against russian aggressors. as morale among ukraine's rank tumbles and russia revels and what it sees as desperation, the president will have to enter the hard question, what is ukraine's plan? moments from now, president biden and zelensky will host a joint news conference and we will bring you that live as it happens but first we're covering all of this from the white house to ukraine, russia and back to capitol hill here cleta start right now with cnn's mj lee who live at the white house for us. mj, this is the third visit to washington since the war in ukraine program and both biden and zelinski agreed on the need for additional eight what are they hoping to achieve from this meeting? >> reporter: jay, i think by now it is abundantly clear to both president biden and president zelensky that the ukraine funding to both leaders want is not going to get done before the calendar year and even after president zelensky made the trip to capitol hill to make a personal appeal to lawmakers. lawmakers afterwards make it clear that they are going to leave time for the holidays before the supplemental package gets taken up, but look, i think that white house and u.s. officials would argue that this trip by president zelensky to washington, d.c. is not just narrowly about the issue of u.s. funding for ukraine but it is also about probably sending a message to the world that is watching, including russian president trenton with u.s. officials arguing that it sends an important message to russia at this moment in the war that the u.s. and international coalition that has back ukraine continues to back the countries mission of fighting back russia and they are also saying that this is important for sending a message to the would be aggressors that are taking cues from the visit like this as well. of course not helping president zelensky in the ukrainian people in terms of getting additional funding is a public opinion that has shifted here in the u.s. and even over the last year or so and really just bringing in a contrast with a different washington, d.c. president zelensky is visiting now compared to a year ago , the last time he met with president biden near the white house, jake. >> that's right. mj lee at the white house for us. thank you so much. russia has lost a staggering 87% of the total number of its active-duty troops it had prior to invading ukraine according to newly declassified u.s. intelligence. still, despite these heavy losses, seems determined to push forward and we are in separation in ukraine. jim is at the magic will for us. nick, let me start with you. what are you hearing from ukrainian forces, soldiers and commanders? >> reporter: a palpable sense of concern and anger, even, that the somewhat distant debate on the other side of the planet about whether or not border problems can be solved at the same time as ukraine's were here been funded, actually, potentially, could impact their decision to survive on the battlefield in the weeks or months ahead. remember ukraine's defense of its territory here is taking back a part of it from russian invading forces on western money. that is impacting morale here already, even if funding does magically somehow, forward. there are feelings of my ukrainian troops at that western unity is beginning to crumble, certainly and the other side of the issue here, they are joking that the chief of staff of the military see and to be at odds with zelensky the past couple weeks or so because it has not gone the way that the many had hoped in the west that the chief of the army had, in fact, and fired. the fact that that joke gets made publicly suggest that there a palpable intentions because of the failure of the counter defense. what comes next? a possibility that they may be able to do long-range attacks, but really, what is the broader plan to strike a victory against russia that means ukraine can feel it's happy with the situation and it might resort to diplomacy over. we seen incense attacks against civilian populations there but on the other side of the river, ukraine making a bit of a longshot and russian positions detached from their own supply lines on the other side of the river unclear that's going to go further with the disease. pressure on its front foot moving around the city. another sign of the amount of resources and lives they are willing to waste to take a town of minimal strategic importance but put this, very high tolerance of casualties here and great patience and really waiting for this moment of western frailty to finally emerge. here it is and he must be looking forward to this bleak winter ahead. jake. >> indeed. jim, republicans in congress encoding house speaker mike johnson say, they are not convinced that ukraine has a winning strategy going forward. tell us why you think it is thought, this counteroffensive? >> reporter: this is what u.s. military officials tell me. ukrainian forces ran into three really difficult minds of defense that russia had months to dig in and plan tens of thousands of landmines and dig into to repel the oncoming ukrainian advance and i'm told a couple issues emerged. one, a lot of these weapon systems, new weapon systems came to ukraine and they were only able to train up for a few weeks. new german tanks and u.s. tanks and other weapon systems. in addition to that, i'm told there has been some looking back now with 2020 vision think that the u.s. and its partners tried to turn ukrainian forces into something close to a u.s. military force capable of combined arms. that is ground operations, air operations. again, with a few weeks or a few months training him with years of training, this is difficult to break through and, of course, ukrainians have a tremendous advantage in terms of airpower. they just don't have it yet and the f-16s talked about, they are not going to come soon enough or significant enough numbers to change that but where ukrainians have had success is down here in the black sea. they have forced back the russian black sea feet by dozens of miles due to attacks from missiles, including the storm shadow missile, as well as the drones, which has opened up ceilings here which is crucial to the ukrainian economy, so it's not all defeat on the battlefield for ukraine but it is a really difficult time. reported 10 days ago that russia was going to be increasing targeting over these winter months and we seen that in the last several days. all these missiles coming in on ukrainian cities are tying to this moment. russia since its weakness and they want to increase the suffering among civilian populations. >> all right, jim shoot him in washington, d.c. and nick wash in separation, ukraine. house speaker mike johnson says that his conditions of tying any future aid to ukraine to this conservative order security proposal that passed the house. it seemed to have remained unchanged after meeting with ukrainian president zelensky earlier today. what exactly is in the republicans border security bill? >> reporter: it's a combination of measures, including new physical barriers that they want erected along the southern borders and the addition to changes to asylum policies and making it harder for migrants that are fleeing their countries to apply for asylum and receive asylum and changing parole policies and how the president can grant parole to broad groups of people and try to pair that authority back. as well as other measures such as, ensuring that migrants have to stay in mexico while the immigration proceedings are taking place in the united states and some other things that democrats have pushed back against him including detention centers for migrants who are crossing the border illegally. i talked to senate majority leader chuck schumer about some of these ideas and why they are not willing to accept some level of these proposals in order to get a deal to unlock ukraine aid. he indicated that they are willing to meet in the middle but he said that republican policies go too far. >> given what's happening at the border, why not agree to have stricter asylum policies in order to unlock aid to ukraine? >> bottom line is very simple. we are willing to meet in the middle and we have moved far more away from the president's original bill then they have moved and we went to come to a deal to meet people in the middle. everyone knows that hr 2 can't pass. it's a total, total application of everything gets trumps policy and american people don't like trumps policy. >> getting a deal has been incredibly difficult to ask over an issue that has divided the two parties for years and years and right now there is a meeting in the senate with top officials from demonstration, including the homeland security secretary, along with top senators from both parties try to see if there is any sort of agreement that can be reached in principle but even if there is, getting into both chambers and getting it all done wrapped up to the house and the senate by christmastime seems highly unlikely as the house is prepared to recess this week. the senate, potentially as well can get into next year. >> all right. thank you so much. let's bring in the cnn chief correspondent and anchor of the source, caitlin collins, to talk about this and much more. caitlin, president biden moments away from taking questions from reporters alongside president zelensky . what tough questions is the white house preparing for, do you think? >> reporter: one thing that lawmakers have been asking that they say they have not gotten clear answers to behind closed doors is, really, with the end goal here is going to look like and what the end of this is going to be but also, obviously, what this means for immigration. you cannot talk to any republican on capitol hill these days about what's happening in ukraine without them bringing of the u.s.- southern border. something that they feel like it's her moment that they have the leverage and you saw senator schumer there complaining that the democrats he feels has given some confession to move more to the middle is president biden himself said, willing to make significant concessions but not actually seeing something that republicans are ready to accept it and they feel like this is the only moment to get democrats to come and potentially vote for a bill that has those restrictions that they want something that would clampdown on the immigration numbers in exchange for this aid but really, j, what this is is a high stake sale pitch for president zelensky and president biden but so far after president zelensky's visit to where he was standing on capitol hill, it has not swayed a lot of opinions. basically all the republicans who we knew with her positions were going into that closed- door meeting this morning with president zelensky, had the same opinion coming out of it. some of them even left the meeting early and you can see, j, just how much he's trying to make this appeal. he did it in english earlier and he invoked ronald reagan and he certainly trying to get the senators to come around to this. the republican senators have not gotten there yet and there is more opposition in the republican-led house. >> that's just ukraine on biden's list. is also dealing with israel and he told supporters today privately that he thinks global support for israel's war against hamas in gaza is slipping in the prime minister netanyahu needs to change his government in some ways because it's difficult to arrive at any sort of state solution with the current government and he also agreed with netanyahu's plans for gaza after hamas has been destroyed to be at his satisfaction. >> i'm curious to see if he gets asked about this, jake, because this is the most public break that we've seen between president biden and from mr. benjamin netanyahu since october 7th and the thinking at the white house has been, if present biden is very strong with prime minister netanyahu in public that he can use that as leverage behind the scenes to get him to do or to at least listen and be receptive to u.s. pressure. right now what we are seeing is those quotes that you just cited there from present biden warning about what could happen for israel if they continue going down the path they've gone down what's going to happen with the global public opinion but you are seeing netanyahu break with biden and say, their plans and what they want to happen in gaza on day one after this war ends, it's simply not going to happen. he saying that the policy authority is not going to be in charge of gaza, which is something that you've heard president biden, secretary of state and vice president harrison others for this idea but so far, president biden has really left the more direct criticism to come from those other top officials of his and not he himself wasn't get like he is now. it will be fascinating to see what he says publicly here in front of the cameras as he's been quietly building up more and more criticism of what israel is doing. >> back to the ukraine aid, how much has formal president trump writ on the republican party playing into so many of these republicans blocking the aid and i don't know how many of them are doing it because actually want is for the policy to be part of it and how many are are doing it with border policy just as an excuse. they don't support for eight in ukraine. >> jay, how many times have we seen republicans in control on capitol hill and not gotten any significant immigration bill passed? immigration has always been a priority for them. i'm not saying that it is disingenuous that they don't care about the border and we see that it's true. the numbers of the borders and the crossings are skyrocketing in recent weeks and we see that playing out and i don't think anyone in washington would deny that the southern border is a problem and it needs to be fixed but you are seeing them tied directly to do this in a way that we haven't seen and they were already fading on their public support for ukraine. you see was mormon marjorie green same as she does should be tied to the border and that it should not be brought to the for them to vote on it and she said, he said thank speaker got up and bringing it to the floor, giving how high the opposition is for the republican party and certainly in the house and a lot of that stems from president trump and they are watching public opinion slip away and they are taking advantage of that, jake. >> all right, caitlin collins. thank you so much. you see the podiums and the microphones ready to go. we should see president biden soon at the white house, alongside ukrainian president volodymyr zelensky. their joint news conference should begin any moment now and we are going to bring that to you live and this programming no, we are in iowa right now at townhall the florida governor ron desantis for just a few hours away from that and it's live tonight at 9:00 p.m. eastern only here on cnn and desantis will take questions from republican caucus goers and we will squeeze in a quick break and we will be right back. in russia, they said that they are watching the biden- tran11 meeting very closely. cnn matthew chance it's in the russians capital. vladimir putin must be feeling pretty good watching the u.s. debate over whether to send ukraine more military aid and hearing all the skepticism from republicans. >> reporter: yes, i think he probably is very satisfied for the russian leader to since that western resolve and u.s. resolve may be shaking a little bit, but i think there is awareness that this could still go either way. this is being held predominantly, but not exclusively, by the domestic issue and the situation on the southern border and there is still, despite misgiving on some republicans able to support for ukraine, there is a lot of awareness of that. you look at russian-state terrorism and they are pretty calling this visit and they love to radical volodymyr zelensky and paint him as a puppet who has strings being pulled by washington and talking about how he's going cap and hand it, essentially, begging for more money in washington for a way to survive. they are watching this closely and they would be saying that if they didn't attach significance to this meeting because they know all this decisions because the billions of dollars that ukraine has already received in military aid have had a devastating impact on the battlefield when it comes to russian troops and we heard that estimate from that intelligence report that has come to us that 87% of russians armed forces had been destroyed as a result of this conflict and, of course, if there are billions more, in terms of military aid given to ukraine, well, that's going to have a more of an impact as well and that is going to cause a political price in the future. >> all right. matthew channon russian for us., to bring in two cnn conservators, former cnn moscow borough chief jill darty in new york, staff writer evan aust knows. evan has reached. what you think hurts president biden more in 2024? would it be failing to deliver on ukraine aid or would it be conceding to republicans on their desired border policy? >> in some ways, you know, these are issues that it's his responsibility to lay out the stakes. i think that is what you are likely to hear from him and we know from paul's that americans are more inclined to spend money on our own southern border than foreign wars. americans are exhausted by it and it's when of the issues that