The Senate on Tuesday overwhelmingly passed a $95.3 billion aid package for the war-torn nations of Ukraine and Israel as well as the defense of Taiwan, sending the measure to President Biden’s desk for a signature.
The upper chamber voted 79-18 for the foreign aid, which had passed the House on a bipartisan basis Saturday over GOP objections to the $60.8 billion in Ukraine and some Democratic objections to the $17 billion for Israel.
Biden, 81, said in a statement that he will sign it “as soon as it reaches my desk tomorrow so we can begin sending weapons and equipment to Ukraine this week.”
“The need is urgent: for Ukraine, facing unrelenting bombardment from Russia; for Israel, which just faced unprecedented attacks from Iran; for refugees and those impacted by conflicts and natural disasters around the world, including in Gaza, Sudan, and Haiti; and for our partners seeking security and stability in the Indo-Pacific,” he added, thanking Senate leaders for their support.
“This critical legislation will make our nation and world more secure as we support our friends who are defending themselves against terrorists like Hamas and tyrants like [Russian President Vladimir] Putin.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer had sent a similar national security bill to the House more than two months ago, but House Speaker Mike Johnson and Republicans rejected the foreign aid package without further funding for US border security.
“Today, the Senate sends a unified message to the entire world: America will always defend democracy in its hour of need,” Schumer declared on the Senate floor ahead of final passage.
“We tell our allies, ‘We will stand with you’; we tell our adversaries, ‘Don’t mess with us’; we tell the world, ‘We will do everything to defend democracy and our way of life,” he said, adding that “the relentless work of six long months has paid off.”
“History will record that even as allies and partners may have worried about the depth of our resolve, even as Moscow, Beijing and Tehran grew more convinced that our influence had run its course and even as loud voices here at home insisted on abandoning the responsibilities of leadership, America stepped up and the Senate held firm,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) affirmed.
Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee teamed up with left-wing Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to call for amendments to the bill to cut some funding for Ukraine and Israel, respectively, but were voted down by their colleagues. Neither senator voted for final passage of the bill.
The foreign aid also included $9 billion in the form of humanitarian aid for regions ravaged by war like the Gaza Strip and Ukraine.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, a strong proponent of Ukraine aid, had ripped fellow GOP lawmakers like Sen. J.D. Vance for arguing the US assistance would not meaningfully change facts on the ground.
“Ukraine’s challenge is not the G.O.P.; it’s math,” Vance wrote in a New York Times op-ed last week. “Ukraine needs more soldiers than it can field, even with draconian conscription policies. And it needs more matériel than the United States can provide.”
“That is garbage,” Graham (R-SC) responded in a Fox News interview on Sunday. “I just got back from being there two weeks ago. They changed their conscription laws. They have all the manpower they need. They need the weapons.”
In the end, 15 Republicans — including Senate conference chairman John Barrasso (Wyo.) — and three Democrats voted against the foreign aid.
Last October, Biden, 81, called on Congress to pass a $106 billion national security supplemental, with $61.4 billion for Ukraine, $14.3 billion for Israel, $9.15 billion in humanitarian aid and roughly $2 billion for Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific.
The Senate passed a slightly lower $95 billion version of that package in February — but Johnson (R-La.) declared his conference would “work its own will” on the aid funding.
That resulted in a four-bill House package with nearly the same topline amount in April, with some small tweaks that forced $9.5 billion of the Ukraine aid to be given in the form of a loan — a provision suggested by former President Donald Trump.
It also authorized the seizure of $5 billion in Russian central bank assets to help Ukraine rebuild after the end of the war — and mandated the Chinese state-owned tech firm ByteDance to divest its ownership of the social media platform TikTok within a year.
McConnell told reporters on Tuesday that without question the “delay” of two months was “harmful,” before pivoting to a call for increased defense spending in upcoming legislation.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) had threatened to remove the House speaker for bringing the bill to the floor and was later joined by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.).
Johnson with the help of House Democrats stood up to members of his own party, allowing all four bills to advance to the floor and pass by wide margins. Only the Ukraine measure was opposed by a majority of the House Republican Conference.
“Three of our primary adversaries, Russia, Iran, and China are working together … and they’re a global threat to our prosperity and our security,” the speaker told reporters after the vote cleared. “Their advance threatens the free world, and it demands American leadership.”
“If we turn our backs right now the consequences could be devastating,” Johnson said, “It’s an old military adage, but we would rather send bullets to the conflict overseas than our own boys, our troops.”
He added that nearly 80% of the military funding — which comprises the vast majority of the package — would restock US-made weapons and ammunition.
In an interview with Politico, Johnson revealed that high-level intelligence briefings had also convinced him of the stakes of authorizing the US funding for the global conflicts.
“It was the intelligence, it was the Europe generals who are in charge of the freedom of the world and of course it was the developments as well, everything has escalated,” he told the outlet, referencing missiles that Iran launched against Israel earlier this month.
Greene and Massie have called on Johnson to resign for moving the bill through the House — and caving on past legislative fights over government funding and the reauthorization of US intelligence agencies warrantless spy capabilities.
