Funding, Ukraine aid talks intensify
Biden, lawmakers gather with shutdown looming
WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden summoned the top four congressional leaders to the White House to discuss efforts to avert a partial government shutdown and pass what the president has described as desperately needed foreign aid to key U.S. allies.
The four party leaders – House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.; House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, DN.Y.; Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.; and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. – met with Biden on Tuesday as government funding expires in just a few days and the fate of Ukraine aid is uncertain.
Speaking with reporters after the meeting, Schumer said the discussion about funding Ukraine’s war effort “was one of the most intense I’ve ever encountered in my many meetings in the Oval Office.”
He said the other four leaders all made it clear to Johnson “how vital” additional aid is and said they agreed Ukraine is likely to lose its war with Russia without additional help from the United States. “We said to the speaker: ‘Get it done.’ ”
Johnson told reporters that he assured the other leaders that the House is “investigating all the various options” on Ukraine aid and that the chamber will address it “in a timely manner.”
“But the first priority of our country is our border and making sure it’s secure,” he said.
This month, the Senate passed $95 billion in foreign aid, including $60 billion to support Ukraine. The package originally included border security policies, but they were stripped once Senate Republicans indicated they wouldn’t vote for them, arguing the measures didn’t go far enough.
Negotiators have also been trying to hash out a long-term spending deal to keep the government’s doors open after Congress has kicked the can down the road with short-term extensions
three times already, but talks have repeatedly hit snags over controversial policy add-ons to the legislation.
Government funding related to energy and water; military construction; transportation, housing and urban development; and agriculture expire Friday. The remaining functions are set to expire March 8.
Johnson and Schumer said that they agreed they did not want a government shutdown and that it would be possible to avoid one. Schumer said Congress will “need some CRs to get that done,” a reference to the government funding extension known as a continuing resolution.
Time is ticking for leaders to announce any sort of deal to fund the government, including a funding extension. If they want to dodge a shutdown by the deadline, House Republican leadership must release text of a deal sometime on Tuesday to abide by a rule for the GOP conference that requires legislation to be available for 72 hours to allow members to read it before it goes to the House floor.
“There is no justification, none, for provoking a government shutdown,” Schumer warned on the Senate floor ahead of the White House meeting. Johnson, who has been pushing to attach conservative policy provisions to spending bills, needs to drop the “poison pills” from negotiations, Schumer said.
Johnson is reckoning with immense pressure from conservative hard-liners to drag out the talks in a bid to secure conservative policy wins. But given the political realities of a Democrat-controlled Senate and White House, any chance of significant victories for the House GOP is unlikely.
“NO PLAN TO FIGHT,” Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, a member of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus, said in a series of posts Monday on X, formerly Twitter, railing against the discussions.
Johnson’s GOP counterpart in the Senate, McConnell, has also warned against “poison pills” that could risk a shutdown, illustrating the little leverage House Republicans have in negotiations. Regardless, Roy insisted that “leverage is actually lost WHEN YOU DEMONSTRATE NO INTENT TO USE IT.”
The Louisiana Republican has contended talks have stalled because of new Democratic demands that were “not previously included” in the Senate’s earlier spending bills.
At the same time, a broad foreign aid package to key U.S. allies such as Ukraine and Israel, including China deterrence measures in the Indo-Pacific, lies in wait in the House after the Senate approved it earlier this month.
Johnson has refused to put the bill on the House floor, arguing the legislation must be paired with policy to address the crisis on the southern border – despite rejecting a bipartisan Senate bill that did exactly that earlier this month. House Republicans argued the last bill would have done little to stem the flow of migrants at the border.
The president has heavily lobbied Congress to pass the foreign aid bill that includes $60 billion in additional assistance for Ukraine, arguing the legislation would also protect U.S. national security interests.
“The consequences of inaction every day in Ukraine are dire,” Biden said before the meeting, also advocating for humanitarian assistance in Gaza to be paired with Israel aid.
Military assistance for Ukraine still enjoys wide bipartisan support from lawmakers, but the path forward is murky given Johnson’s refusal to put the Senate bill on the floor.
“For 10 years our adversary has showed us by his actions that Russia’s appetite for conquest grows with eating,” McConnell, an avid supporter of Ukraine assistance, said on the Senate floor early Tuesday, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin. “We can no longer afford to pretend otherwise.”