Chuck offers new bill with less aid for Ukraine & Israel
Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer teed up a stripped-down bill providing billions in aid to Ukraine and Israel after Republican allies of former President Trump formally killed a similar measure that included bipartisan border security provisions.
This Senate had blocked a similar bill that would have provided greater border protections against illegal crossings — an issue that’s been felt the last two years in New York
City with the arrivals of tens of thousands of asylum-seeking migrants — by a vote of 4950. Schumer (inset) hoped to quickly corral enough Republican votes in the nearly evenly divided chamber to clear the 60-vote threshold needed to overcome a right-wing filibuster.
The new bill would also include bipartisan measures to stop fentanyl and assistance to Taiwan.
The prospects for the stripped-down bill without the border security bill remained unclear late Wednesday with Republicans haggling for the right to bring amendments to the bill.
It was GOP leaders who insisted on adding border security to the bill. After Democrats negotiated a compromise with them on the border component, they got cold feet after Trump denounced the package, saying it could give President Biden an edge in the coming election.
Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who supported the original $118 billion border security and foreign aid package, expressed support for a vote on the supplemental aid bill without the border provisions Tuesday.
“There are other parts of this supplemental they’re extremely important as well — Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan,” McConnell said. “We still, in my view, ought to tackle the rest of it because it’s important.”
But it’s far from certain that McConnell can deliver any significant number of his GOP colleagues to support the measure, especially if Trump turns up the heat again.
He was 100% on board with the broader package but failed to convince more than a handful of Republicans to support it.
If the new bill were to pass with bipartisan support in the Senate it would then head for the Republican-held House.
Speaker Mike Johnson denounced the border package as “dead on arrival” but has not yet passed judgment on the potential strippeddown plan B bill.
Democrats urged lawmakers to quickly pass the bill to provide desperately needed aid to Ukraine as well as fellow U.S. allies Israel and Taiwan.
House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries warned Republicans to “stop playing political games” and pass aid to key allies.
“It’s time for them to get serious. Or get out of the way,” Jeffries tweeted.
Aid to Ukraine has the support of a wide overall majority in both chambers but Republicans are about evenly split on the issue. A growing number of GOP lawmakers side with Trump in saying the U.S. should leave Ukraine to defend itself against the two year-old Russian invasion.