Congress has no clear path to approve aid to Ukraine and Israel amid intense GOP opposition to a Senate border security deal and few apparent fallback options,
The Hill reports.
The upper chamber this week unveiled legislation combining tougher border security measures with military aid for Ukraine and Israel, among broader foreign assistance. But before the ink was dry on the long-anticipated Senate bill text released Sunday night, House Republican leadership stuck a knife in it, declaring that it would not get a House vote — even if it can clear the upper chamber.
Instead, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said the House will vote only on billions of dollars for Israel — considered by some to be a less urgent component of the Senate package, but also the most politically popular within Johnson’s divided GOP conference.
But on Monday the White House said President Biden would veto the stand-alone Israel aid bill. And separating out portions of the package, or attempting some long-shot move to force a vote, is far from straightforward due to internal disagreement in both parties.
Republicans, for instance, are divided over Ukraine aid. Democrats are at odds over new assistance for Israel. And both parties are split over the border changes, with liberals griping that they’re too tough on migrants and conservatives protesting that they’re not tough enough.
The complex web of opposition from various factions to different provisions, combined with cross-chamber disagreements over a package or piecemeal approach, have diminished the chances that Congress can pass Ukraine and Israel aid in their current form.
And there’s no obvious Plan B that might fare better.
“I’m not sure … this is going to get out of the Senate, and at the same time, the Speaker has said it’s dead on arrival,” Rep. Mike McCaul (R-Texas), chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, told Fox News on Monday.
“I applaud him for trying to get something done,” McCaul added, referring to Sen. James Lankford (Okla.), the lead GOP negotiator. “But at the same time, I don’t think this is going to be a fix.”
In addition to $60 billion for aid to Ukraine and $14.1 billion in aid to Israel, the deal includes $2.4 billion to respond to conflict in the Red Sea, $10 billion in humanitarian assistance for those in conflict zones to include Gaza and Ukraine, $4.8 billion to support Indo-Pacific partners such as Taiwan and $20.2 billion to enhance security measures at the U.S.-Mexico border.
While Republicans once suggested border and migration policy changes were a condition of approving the supplemental foreign aid, the compromises reached in the Senate now face intense pushback from Republicans — and from former President Trump. The former president said Monday that border changes “should not be tied to foreign aid in any way, shape, or form,” urging Republicans: “Don’t be STUPID!!!”
The top four House GOP leaders said in a joint statement Monday that the Senate bill would be “dead on arrival in the House.”
Johnson, a stalwart Trump ally, said over the weekend that he would bring up an alternative plan to approve aid to Israel this week, changing course from his insistence that the Senate take up a bill the House passed in November that paired $14.3 billion in Israel aid with cuts to IRS funding. Instead, he said the House will take up a $17.6 billion Israel aid bill with no funding offsets this week.
Johnson denied on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that the new Israel bill was a move to try to kill the Senate border deal, saying that he changed course because Democrats will not consider the version with IRS offsets and that “the time is urgent.”
However, that plan is facing pushback from within the House GOP, endangering the legislation.
