On Saturday, the House of Representatives passed a series of bills providing aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, as well as a package that would require the Chinese company ByteDance to sell TikTok.
After a morning debate in the House, the four bills will be packaged into a single package and sent to the Senate for approval. It will then be sent to President Joe Biden to be signed.
“I understand this is not a perfect bill,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said Saturday after the vote. “We would rather send bullets into the conflict overseas than send our own guys, our troops. And I think this is an important moment and an important opportunity to make that decision.”
Johnson’s decision to hold the vote came with political risk, as hardliners in his party threatened to oust him. In March, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., filed a motion to remove Johnson from his post, but she has not yet forced a vote on the measure.
“As I have said many times, I am not walking around this building worrying about an eviction,” Johnson said Saturday. “I have to do my job.”
After passing long-delayed foreign aid, Johnson received a flood of public expressions of gratitude.
“I want to thank Speaker Johnson, Leader Jeffries and the bipartisan coalition of lawmakers in the House of Representatives who voted to put our national security first,” Biden said in a statement. “I urge the Senate to quickly send this package to my desk so I can sign it into law.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., signaled Saturday that the Senate could vote on the package on Tuesday.
“I am grateful to the United States House of Representatives, both parties and personally to Speaker Mike Johnson for the decision that sets history on the right track,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a post on X after the vote.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz on Saturday also thanked Johnson and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., for their help in passing the aid.
The bills allocate more than $60 billion for aid to Ukraine, more than $26 billion for Israel, and more than $8 billion for Taiwan and Indo-Pacific security. A fourth bill includes a measure to force Chinese company ByteDance to sell social media platform TikTok within nine months – although the president can offer a 90-day extension – or face a nationwide ban.
“It is unfortunate that the House of Representatives is using the guise of important foreign and humanitarian assistance to once again push through a ban bill,” a TikTok spokesperson said in a statement on Saturday.
The House approval is a crucial next step for foreign aid, which has been in limbo since President Biden first proposed it in October. After the long-awaited vote on Ukraine was over, a crowd of House Democrats waving Ukrainian flags erupted in cheers.
In February, the Senate passed a $95 billion version of the aid to fund Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. Yet the House effectively shelved this bill largely due to political threats from hardline Republicans like Rep. Greene.
Despite this looming political backlash, Speaker Johnson was persuaded to reconsider the foreign aid package after Iran’s attempted attack on Israel last weekend. This escalating move sparked a renewed bipartisan push in the House of Representatives to support Israel.
In response, Johnson put the foreign aid package at the top of the House agenda. He outlined a plan to structure foreign aid in separate bills, which he presented to his Republican colleagues on Monday evening.
After that meeting, Greene expressed her dissatisfaction with Johnson’s proposed foreign aid bills, but reiterated that she had not yet decided whether she would force a vote to oust him.
“I think it’s another wrong direction for Speaker Johnson in our conference,” she said Monday.
Greene’s resignation request was the focus of Saturday’s vote. As Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., entered the House floor, he told NBC News he did not expect Greene to force a vote on the proposal Saturday.
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2024-04-20 19:12:18
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