The Senate passed legislation early Tuesday morning to provide aid to Ukraine and Israel, setting up a showdown in the GOP-controlled House, where more isolationist voices, including Speaker Mike Johnson, have threatened to kill the package.
The bill, which passed 70–29, provides $95.34 billion in new foreign aid, including $61 billion in assistance to Ukraine for its war against Russia, $14 billion to Israel for its war against Hamas, and $4.8 billion to aid regional partners in the Indo-Pacific to counter Chinese aggression.
“Now that the Senate has passed a comprehensive national security supplemental with an overwhelming bipartisan majority, it’s time for the Speaker to schedule a vote on this bipartisan package immediately—because our friends in Ukraine are not just counting how many days it will take for Congress to deliver on this aid, they are literally counting how much ammunition they have left to beat back Putin’s bloody invasion,” said Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Patty Murray (D., Wash.).
A group of Republican Senators led by Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky gave hour-long speeches on the floor in opposition to the bill’s $61 billion in military aid to Ukraine. Critics of the legislation believe it will prolong the war in Ukraine without materially changing the terms or a future peace deal. Paul and his allies have also argued that no new aid should be distributed to Ukraine while the U.S. border crisis continues.
Democratic Senators Jeff Merkley (Ore.) and Peter Welch (Vt.) and independent Senator Bernie Sanders (Vt.) joined the Republican opposition to the foreign-aid package because of concerns surrounding U.S. support for Israel. Nearly two dozen Republicans voted with the bill alongside the overwhelming majority of Democrats.
Speaker Johnson issued a statement Monday indicating the Senate package is dead on arrival, but Republican proponents of the bill and Democrats are reportedly considering a discharge petition to force a vote on the legislation.
“The mandate of national security supplemental legislation was to secure America’s own border before sending additional foreign aid around the world,” Johnson said. “Now, in the absence of having received any single border policy change from the Senate, the House will have to continue to work its own will on these important matters. America deserves better than the Senate’s status quo.”
Senate Republicans blocked a bipartisan deal in February that tied similar foreign-aid provisions to immigration measures intended to combat the crisis at the southern border.
House Republicans led strong conservative opposition to what lawmakers deemed woefully insufficient border provisions and a political giveaway to Democrats.