Include an open door to nato for countries who can meet the requirements. reporter: the reality, though, is, alex, that these diplomatic talks have really yielded very little of substance in the past few weeks, russia and the u.s. trading papers back and forth outlining their positions. security experts that i talk to say they don t believe russia is trying to get to a good faith agreement with the u.s. about these issues. they believe some of that diplomatic talk, while they re leaving that as a possibility, is really about creating a diversion about what russia is doing with this military buildup. and the fact remains that president biden still insists that he s not going to put u.s. troops on the ground in ukraine, even these 3,000 additional u.s. troops that are now heading to eastern europe, they re going to shore up nato members, not ukraine.
How is the administration feeling about a deal at this point? reporter: jim, interesting point. officials refer to the president as the eternal optimist. even they acknowledge a long road ahead. trading counter offers with a group of republican senators in the last several weeks, are still far apart. the initial deadline was today, memorial day. it was extended because of good faith counteroffer that white house officials thought they could work with. they re making clear, time is short. listen to transportation secretary pete buttigieg. by the time they return june 7th a week from tomorrow, we need a clear direction. certainly encouraging to see healthy conversations that happened in the last days and weeks, but the president keeps saying inaction is not an option, and time is not unlimited. i think we re getting close to a fish or cut bait moment. reporter: the white house is trading papers with senators,