A day before the election a report in Axios claimed the Biden administration is making a final push for a scaled-back defense agreement with Saudi Arabia, which would include new security ties without sealing the long-sought normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

The report followed a visit to Washington by Saudi National Security Advisor Mosaad bin Mohammad al-Aiban where he met with National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, Special Envoy Amos Hochstein and Special Coordinator for the Middle East Brett McGurk, according to Axios.

While it’s unclear if such an effort is still in play after the reelection of former President Donald Trump, the prospect of such a deal is being met with a chilly reception from some leaders on Capitol Hill. 

A more comprehensive deal also seems difficult to achieve in the few months remaining in the Biden administration, particularly with no resolution yet to the wars in the Middle East, though some lawmakers continue to believe that reaching a normalization deal during this time remains critical.

Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), a co-chair of the Abraham Accords Caucus, rejected the reported effort to reach a more limited deal with Saudi Arabia that excludes Israel.

“The Biden administration’s push for a security agreement with Saudi Arabia, excluding Israel, overlooks the essential role of our strongest ally in the region,” Lankford said in a statement to Jewish Insider. “Lasting peace requires active efforts to integrate Israel into regional partnerships. A true path to peace must prioritize relations between Israel and its neighbors.”

Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL), a co-chair of the Abraham Accords Caucus in the House, told JI before the election that his focus and priority is on building on the Abraham Accords and finding a path to normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Pressed on whether a bilateral U.S.-Saudi deal could gain congressional support, he said his preference is for a broader regional agreement.

“Without seeing it — and I’ve seen the headlines — we’ll cross that bridge when they get there,” Schneider said. “My hope is that we can get to a comprehensive or broader agreement that brings security and peace to all the people in the region.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who has been one of the most aggressive proponents of a regional normalization deal in the Senate, has argued that it must happen before the end of the Biden administration in order to receive sufficient Democratic support in the Senate to ratify elements of the agreement with Saudi Arabia necessitating Congressional approval.

Graham told JI a week before the election that he still believes that a deal is both possible and must happen in the few remaining months before inauguration day.

“There’s no substitute for it,” Graham said, arguing that the deal unlocks the only viable path to stability in Gaza and the West Bank, through Arab leadership. ”All the interests [of the regional players] are aligned.”

In spite of the short time remaining, Graham said he thinks there’s a “growing likelihood” that a deal will happen before the end of the year “because the alternatives are increasingly real, which is perpetual conflict.”

Pressed on the short time-frame remaining for the Senate to consider and ratify such a deal, Graham responded that “all it takes its a few days to say, ‘Do you want to change the Mideast or not?’”

“If Saudi Arabia and Israel can find a plan for the Palestinians that Israel can live with that gives Palestinians dignity and sovereignty and Israel’s security, and Saudi Arabia is willing to make sure Hamas doesn’t come back, and they’ll rebuild Gaza and change the education system, I think you’ll get 67 votes,” Graham said.

At least some others seem to agree: Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) posted on X on Thursday, “Now is the time to get Saudi Arabia into the Abraham Accords.”

A sizable contingent of Democratic senators had, pre-Oct. 7, expressed skepticism about the reported terms of the Saudi deal, presenting concerns about enhanced military ties to Saudi Arabia and demanding significant Israeli guarantees regarding the Palestinians.

Aaron White, a spokesperson for Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT), one of the leaders of that effort, said in a statement, “Senator Welch supports normalization between Israel and its neighbors and believes strongly that any such agreements must also ensure a viable Palestinian state.”

William Wechsler, the senior director of the N7 Initiative at the Atlantic Council, noted to JI that “lame duck periods are not often marked by diplomatic initiatives.”

“Count me skeptical,” Weschler said, of progress on either a major or more limited deal in the final months of President Joe Biden’s term. “There’s a large number of dominoes that need to fall in order for the circumstances to be right for this, and some of those dominoes involve the war.”

He added that regional governments — many of which “were secretly, or not so secretly, welcoming a Trump administration return” — may be “reluctant to give a diplomatic victory to the outgoing Biden administration if they think that there’s any risk of it backfiring with the incoming Trump administration.”

Jonathan Schanzer, the senior vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told JI that a limited Saudi security deal could be a “modest win that the administration would like to notch” during its remaining time, but the Saudis “have to be wondering whether they [would] get more from Trump” and there are questions “of whether the Saudis want to give the Biden team the win,” given Biden’s sometimes-rocky relationship with Riyadh.

Both Saudi Arabia and Israel might also be interested in finding ways to curry favor with the Trump team, rather than the outgoing Biden government, he said. 

But Schanzer also said he doesn’t think there’s “anything particularly controversial” domestically — outside of “certain segments of the Democratic Party” —  about a limited deal with Saudi Arabia, which could designate it a major non-NATO ally and provide additional advanced weaponry.

Schanzer added that, given recent Israeli victories in the war against Hamas and Hezbollah, and the possibility of an end to the war in the coming weeks, “full normalization appears to be back on the table.” 

He said that Trump’s reelection could facilitate a return to more enthusiastic negotiations with Saudi Arabia, and argued that both Saudi Arabia and Israel have a higher level of trust with the Trump team.

Weschler said that obtaining congressional support — if required for a more limited deal — would be difficult in the lame duck. 

The administration might be able to finalize some elements of a more limited pact without congressional approval, Wechsler said, but Saudi Arabia’s key demands would require Senate ratification, which could be difficult if not accompanied by normalization with Israel.

He said there is “obviously a reality to [Graham’s] logic” about reaching a deal before the end of Biden’s term, but cautioned that the other parties may not be prepared to move with the same urgency. Wechsler said that the U.S. has often seemed more eager for a deal than Israel and Saudi Arabia themselves, and that a deal has only gotten more difficult since Oct. 7.

Weschler acknowledged that it would be more difficult to muster sufficient Democratic votes under a Trump presidency to ratify the normalization deal, but said some Democrats could support it depending on its terms, “so I don’t think it’s completely dismissible at the outset.”

Schanzer said that it is “feasible” to finalize and ratify a normalization deal before the end of the year but it would “require significant political will [and] concessions to Republicans who are already probably feeling like they don’t need to compromise.”

It also depends on whether the Saudis “want to get a deal done.”

Under a Trump administration, Schanzer said that he could envision a scenario where enough Democrats vote to ratify a normalization deal. “The devil will be in the details. If it’s a good deal for Saudi Arabia, a good deal for Israel, then I can imagine a yes vote on this” from Democrats, if there are “concessions in there for Democrats, whatever they might be,” Schanzer said.

He also suggested that, after Tuesday’s electoral drubbing, Democrats might engage in “stock taking” about their “staunch anti-Israel” and “anti-Saudi sentiment.”

“I do think that this election might have been a wake-up call of sorts on certain policies, and digging in against a regional peace deal strikes me as not the wisest of policies,” Schanzer said.